Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Author’s Note
This story was originally created and written by Polluxsashes, who deserves full credit for the idea and all chapters up the end of chapter 13. I, Kellen795, am continuing the work with their permission.

I’ve done my best to remain true to the spirit of the original story while expanding it further. Any mistakes or changes that don’t quite land are mine alone. If at any point Polluxsashes wishes me to stop or revise, I will fully respect that.

Please note: I have made light edits to Chapters 1–13 for readability, flow, continuity with later chapters and a few extended lore bits for people new to Warhammer 40K. The story, structure, and core writing remain Polluxsashes’ work, and full credit for those chapters belongs to them. If you’d like to read the untouched originals, they remain available in Polluxsashes’ profile on Fanfiction.net.

Disclaimer
I do not own Warhammer 40,000, Halo, or any other franchises referenced within this story. All rights remain with their respective creators and copyright holders. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction written purely for fun.

I also make use of ChatGPT (OpenAI’s writing assistant) in drafting, refining, and editing my chapters — though the story direction, choices, and creative vision are entirely mine.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the continuation!

Chapter 1: Mindnapped

The darkness was absolute. A sharp, antiseptic scent clung to the air, burning at the back of my throat. My mind wavered between awareness and the heavy pull of unconsciousness.

"Are you sure you want to use this one?" A voice cut through the void, uncertain. "It seems... off."

"The others were used up."

"Ah. Do I want to know how?"

Silence.

"Never mind that, then."

Something was wrong. No—something was very wrong. My head throbbed in slow, punishing waves. My limbs refused to obey, stiff and foreign, and worst of all, I couldn’t feel anything beneath me. No bed, no floor—just an unsettling weightlessness that sent a surge of panic through my sluggish mind.

A groan escaped my throat, though it sounded more like a squeak. That wasn’t right. I forced my eyes open—

—and then slammed them shut again.

Too many viewpoints. Too many angles.

My vision swam, twisted, multiplied.

A cold spike of fear drove through me.

"See? It'll be fine," the first voice insisted.

"Blinking does not indicate ‘fine.’ You’re terrible with living things, but even you should know that."

This wasn’t right. Not at all. I had been drinking last night, hadn’t I? But I hadn’t had that much. I groggily searched my memory—there had been at least half a bottle left.

So why the hell was I hallucinating?

"Eh, no other choice now. Besides, I don’t have the time to get another one."

"True. The pulse will fire soon. I’ll go prepare the Crypt. If your experiment survives, you know where to find me."

The voices continued, but my mind was stuck on one phrase.

The pulse will fire.

I forced my eyes open again. The sixfold vision remained, but I ignored it. My surroundings were just as unsettling—a massive, sterile room made of smooth, bright metal. And I was trapped in a cylindrical tube against the wall.

Only one person stood before me. At least, I thought it was a person. They were fully enclosed in a sleek, unfamiliar suit, their face hidden behind an opaque mask.

"Don’t worry, you’ll be fine," the suited man said cheerfully. "I know you’re probably not feeling your best right now, but that’s just the effect of my last little experiment. Mind transfers can cause some... peculiar side effects."

His voice had no right to sound that excited.

Mind transfer?

That wasn’t possible. Was it?

A high-pitched laugh broke through my thoughts, cold and unnatural. My captor, whoever he was, was definitely insane.

"Poor thing doesn’t know that the Crypt won’t work," he mused. "I needed power, you see. Lots and lots of power. Even by our standards. The local star won’t survive the amount I’m about to drain, but that won’t matter after the Halos activate."

His words barely registered. My mind was too preoccupied with my own body—because it wasn’t mine anymore.

Panic surged through me as I forced my limbs—tentacles—to move. My head, which actually had six eyes, was perched on a flexible neck that bent too easily. My body felt... wrong. Bloated, yet light. Gas bladders inside me kept me aloft, a sensation so alien it made me shudder.

Six tentacles sprouted from my bulbous form. Four ended in delicate, feathery appendages—though as I flexed them, I realized they weren’t feathers at all, but thousands of tiny filaments, as dexterous as fingers. The other two tentacles lacked the filaments.

And then there was the tail.

I had a tail.

A sharp tap on the glass jarred me from my horror. My captor now stood directly in front of me, his helmeted face reflecting my own.

I was blue. A rather fetching shade, but that wasn’t the point.

"Hey! You should listen when I speak!" he scolded, tapping the glass again. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes: lots of power, the Halos, everything being wiped out..."

The words finally sank in.

"The Halos will erase everything," he continued. "Twenty-five thousand lightyears of life, snuffed out in an instant. Sentient species. Animals. Anything with a nervous system—"

He let out a breathy chuckle.

"All gone."

I was barely listening. I had finally pieced it together—what I was.

A Huragok.

I was in the body of a Huragok, one of the floating "Engineers" from the Halo games. And if this lunatic was telling the truth, I was also in the actual Halo universe—one hundred thousand years before the games, right before the Halos wiped out all life.

The Forerunner—because that’s what he had to be—continued his speech, as if he hadn’t just dropped an existential nightmare on my head.

"Originally, I was just going to send you back to where you came from," he said. "But there's... interference. Something I don’t have the time to bypass."

He sighed, then chuckled.

"So, I’m sending you somewhere else. Another universe. One that still has humans."

His visor tilted slightly.

"Of course, I couldn’t just send you empty-handed."

A pause.

"You carry all the knowledge of the Forerunners in your mind."

A pulse of something vast stirred in my mind.

A flood of symbols. Blueprints. Equations beyond comprehension. Words in languages I had never learned—but somehow, I understood.

It was too much.

Too much.

"Everything," the Forerunner whispered. "Science, history, technology, genetics, politics, research into species—everything my kind has ever known, compressed inside your mind."

He exhaled, voice softer now. "I was fine with dying. But my people? I couldn't let them vanish without a trace."

"The Forerunners wiped out our creators, the Precursors. We stole their Mantle of Responsibility and called it our own. And in the end, we doomed ourselves."

He laughed, but there was no humor in it.

"We don’t deserve to be remembered. But someone has to."

"What you do with it?" He shrugged. "That’s up to you."

The hum intensified. My tube rose, passing through an opening in the ceiling.

Above, an enormous chamber stretched out before me, kilometers across. Towering spires lined the walls, each angled toward a central point—me.

The tube vanished.

Before I could move, the spires ignited. Beams of light shot toward me, stopping just short of my skin.

A bubble of energy formed around me, glowing with impossible brightness.

A roar of sound erupted—felt more than heard. Trumpets. Maddening laughter, curling at the edges of existence. Colors I had no words for collapsed in on themselves.

A golden light. Warm. Steady.

A hand, unseen, pulling me away.

For one fleeting moment, I thought I was safe.

And then—

Nothing.

I’ve received a number of reviews about the early chapters of this story, so I want to be upfront. When I first began writing this, I leaned heavily on AI tools. It was the first time I’d written anything for others to read, and the first time I’d done more than emails in years. That support helped me get started.

Since then, I’ve grown a great deal as a writer. We’re now well past fifty chapters, and the story has developed far beyond those early experiments. If the first chapters aren’t to your taste, I encourage you to read on before judging the whole work.

I want this project to be something as many people as possible can enjoy. Constructive feedback is welcome. Drive-by negativity and trolling are not.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 2: Displaced

It took a long time for me to get my mind back to a place where I could really think again. Whatever method the mad Forerunner had used did not agree with me. I was certain of that much. My mind felt stretched, like it had been squeezed through something it wasn’t meant to fit through. I didn't know whether that should be a metaphor or a horrifyingly literal assessment.

I pushed the thought aside. Right now, I was just relieved to be alive.

Eventually, the stillness got to me. A deep, unnatural quiet that set my nerves on edge. I opened my eyes—six eyes, I reminded myself—and had to blink several times to clear the lingering effects of the bright flash. Even then, something felt wrong.

Wherever I was, it was dark. Not just dim, but absolute, lightless black, the kind that pressed against you like a weight. The only illumination came from the soft blue glow of the bioluminescent patches on my skin. That light barely reached beyond my immediate surroundings, revealing only fractured metal and broken structures.

I had the distinct feeling I was in some kind of long-forgotten hallway. One wall and the floor had once been smooth metal, but both were now pockmarked with age, cracked and warped by forces I couldn’t yet identify. The ceiling and opposite wall, however, were gone—replaced by jagged wreckage and crushed stone, the remnants of a collapsed structure. Fragments of metal glinted dully in the faint glow of my own light.

A cave-in? My first assumption was that I had ended up underground, trapped in some ancient ruin. But then I noticed something odd. Even with my new nature allowing me to float, I wasn’t just floating—I was floating too easily.

Something was off.

Frowning, I grabbed a small piece of debris and released it. Instead of dropping, it drifted in slow motion, spiraling lazily as if caught in molasses-thick air. The gravity here wasn’t just weak—it was failing, uneven, fragmented.

A sense of unease crawled up my spine.

Those weren’t floor protrusions. They were light fixtures.

The realization hit like a punch to the gut. What I thought was the floor wasn’t the floor at all. This hallway had once been oriented completely differently.

I was in a wreck. A derelict, adrift in space, its artificial gravity failing in patches.

My body tensed instinctively. Space wrecks were never a good place to be. If science fiction had taught me anything, it was that places like this were breeding grounds for the worst kinds of nightmares. And after meeting a Forerunner in the flesh, I wasn’t inclined to dismiss any of those fears. The Flood, Necromorphs, Tyranids, or—God forbid—some unholy amalgamation of them all.

I was alone. Utterly, crushingly alone. The silence pressed in, thick and absolute, swallowing every movement, every thought. I had never felt so disconnected from everything before.

No. Not alone.

The thought struck with an electric jolt. I wasn’t human anymore. A human wouldn’t have lasted long in a place like this. In fact, a normal human would have already suffocated—the atmosphere was laced with carbon monoxide. I didn’t breathe anymore, not the way they did. My new form, bionanological in nature, could filter out poisons and recycle what little breathable air it needed.

That didn't mean I was safe. I might not suffocate, but I could still be killed.

Tension coiled in my limbs. I needed to be careful. I needed to be smart.

For the first time, I turned my focus inward—toward my body, my arms. My new limbs—six in total. Four were engineering tools, ending in delicate, feathery structures that flexed and moved with eerie precision. The last two were thicker, more like traditional tentacles, meant for gripping and manipulating rather than creating. I knew what they were. I knew what they could do. They were engineering tools of unimaginable power.

The realization should have been alien. Wrong. But it wasn’t. It felt… natural.

That wasn’t right.

I hesitated, flexing the feathery tendrils. It shouldn't be this easy. I had no experience with engineering. I had trouble changing a lightbulb, for crying out loud! And yet, somehow, I understood exactly how these tools worked. As if the knowledge had always been there, waiting beneath the surface of my mind.

Something clicked.

A dam broke—no, shattered.

My mind convulsed as a tidal wave of knowledge roared through me, unstoppable, suffocating. It burned, like searing light behind my eyes, a million impossible thoughts imprinting themselves onto my brain all at once.

Physics. Engineering. Quantum mechanics. Molecular assembly. FTL theory. Galactic-scale architecture. Theories, doctrines, conjectures, blueprints—so many blueprints.

And then…

I saw it.

A schematic unfolded in my mind, sharp and crystal clear. A Halo ring.

I froze. My nonexistent breath hitched, as if my body still remembered how to feel horror.

That knowledge should not be in my head.

The sheer destructive potential of a Halo installation was beyond comprehension. Enough to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy. And I had it. I knew it. The entire blueprint was right there, nestled alongside the rest of the Forerunner’s ridiculous repository of technological brilliance.

A chill that had nothing to do with temperature settled over me.

I turned away from the knowledge—forced it aside. I had more immediate concerns. Existential dread could come later.

I turned my attention back to the ruined hallway, my limbs moving on instinct.

A section of the broken wall caught my eye. Metal, fractured but still intact. Good enough. I reached out, and my engineering appendages went to work.

The tips sheared off fragments of metal, slicing through them as easily as paper. I processed the material instantly, converting it into something usable. The blueprints in my mind guided my actions, smooth and precise.

Within minutes, something new stood before me.

A small, finger-sized robot, six-legged and sleek, resembling an overgrown ant.

A simple scouting unit. Nothing sophisticated—just functional.

Its body, made of smartmatter, was flexible and strong—modular nanostructures capable of shifting at will, held together by hardlight bonds. A swarm of them could take any shape, processing data on the fly and adapting to external conditions in real-time.

A miniature fusion reactor powered its tiny frame, feeding off hydrogen scavenged from a sliver of ice I’d found in the wreckage.

I tapped into its control interface, my mind adjusting seamlessly to the connection. I tested its movements, watching it crawl forward on segmented legs.

It worked.

For the first time since waking, I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

I wasn't entirely alone anymore.

It wasn’t much—but it was something.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 3: Located

Dark hallway. Boulder. Dark hallway. Broken light. Dark hallway. Door. Dark ha—

Wait. What was that?

My dinky exploration bot's sensors could only render a wireframe outline of its surroundings, but there was no mistaking the door set into the wall. It looked heavy, with a large spinning handle in the middle, like something off a submarine. Luckily for me, it was open—just slightly. If it had been fully shut, I would have been out of luck. My bot was strong for its size, but not that strong. It couldn’t have reached that high either.

The bot slipped inside, dropping into a room just as wrecked as the corridor outside. It wasn’t large, and its purpose was unclear, but I had it map every corner anyway. Halfway through the scan, I made it stop.

Even with more than two hundred meters between me and that room, I suddenly felt too close.

There was a skeleton slumped against the wall.

Or rather—half of one. The right side was mostly intact, though missing a hand. The left side simply wasn’t there—like someone had hacked the poor soul in half from head to crotch. What happened to the rest? I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to know.

I forced myself to focus. The bright side? It confirmed that there were—or had been—humans here. Not some unknowable alien species, not an ancient precursor race beyond comprehension. Humans.

The dark side? There was a dead human inside a wrecked spaceship.

This wasn’t some derelict waiting to be salvaged; this ship had lost whatever battle it fought, and it had lost badly.

Which meant there were enemies out there. Either aliens or other humans, warring amongst themselves.

I exhaled, though only I could hear it. My bot resumed its search. Guiding it barely took half my focus now. The rest of my mind turned back to my other problem—processing power.

The controller I used was crude, just a touchscreen slapped onto a radio emitter with smartmatter. It worked, but it wasn’t enough. What I needed was real computing power.

A grey block of computronium, the size of a brick, sat nearby—my answer to that problem. Computronium: pure, optimized computation. No wasted structure, no inefficiencies—just raw processing power. It had been constructed from materials scraped from the walls and asteroid debris. The latter intrigued me. Had an asteroid collided with this ship? Or had something else merged them together? The origin didn’t matter. The resources were useful.

No matter what I wanted to do, I needed more computing power. Controlling a single, simple exploration bot was barely manageable. If I wanted to scale up, I had to delegate tasks.

The odd thing? Software wasn’t a problem. I had dozens of pre-existing programs buried in my mind, all ready to assist in hardware design and AI construction. The exploration bot’s limited intelligence? Pulled straight from those archives. If I had to program it from scratch, I’d still be debugging the damned thing.

With software handled, my other concern loomed: power.

Lots of it. Preferably without killing myself in the process.

Here, too, Forerunner science came to the rescue.

My bot’s fusion core had been a crude prototype, a slapdash conversion of hydrogen into helium. It was embarrassing compared to what I knew. Worse, it had no fuel supply—I had to manually break down water ice to feed it hydrogen and oxygen.

Scaling up required something better. A lot better.

My first thought had been to install a basic electrolysis station. That quickly spiraled into something far more ambitious—a stomach. Not a biological one, but a chemical digestion system capable of breaking down nearly anything for fuel.

Water? Of course.
Plants? Yes.
Plastics? Definitely.
Refined fuel? Naturally.
Even some metals could be broken down for energy.

With an effectively limitless hydrogen supply, I turned to the reactor itself.

To 21st-century humanity, my design would have been a miracle. To me, it was cringe-inducing. The only thing I liked about it was its small size. I spent ten minutes redesigning it from the ground up, constantly reminding myself to stay practical—yes, I could design a far better fusion reactor; no, now was not the time to lose myself in the awe of my own knowledge.

The final result? A multi-stage reactor that didn’t stop at fusing hydrogen to helium. It continued the process, producing carbon and oxygen in later reactions, maximizing energy output while generating useful byproducts. And best of all? It was only slightly bigger than my first attempt.

With power and software handled, it was time to expand.

One bot was far too slow.

I needed more.

I built a new model, slightly larger than a human hand. Less like an ant, more like a mechanical crab—except instead of pincers, it had miniature versions of my feathery-tentacle-engineering-things. I really needed to name those. Later.

Unlike my first bot, this one could rely on the computronium block for additional processing power, letting it use its delicate appendages with precision. I set it to work building another of its kind.

With each new bot, I felt safer. More sets of eyes, more hands to gather resources, more redundancy. My single scout had mapped hundreds of meters of empty corridors, save for that one, solitary skeleton. Nothing else. No more bodies. No signs of what happened here.

And then, after five floors of empty rooms, my bots found something.

A closed door.

The first one I’d seen that wasn’t partially open.

Excitement and unease twisted together. Why was this one sealed? What lay behind it?

I hesitated for a second. Then I ordered the bots to carve through the wall.

The metal resisted, but it couldn’t withstand being stripped apart at the atomic level. The first bot scuttled through the opening—

And froze.

Row after row of mummified human remains sat on benches, all facing away from the door.

At the far end of the room, an altar stood.

But my eyes weren’t drawn to the benches.

Nor the desiccated bodies.

No—my attention locked onto the wall behind the altar, where, barely visible in the gloom, a golden two-headed eagle glared back at me.

Unmistakable. Overpowering.

Imperial.

I froze.

My mind raced, cataloging possibilities, implications, the sheer weight of what this meant.

All of my data processing power came to only one answer I could have.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 4: Because, Because, Because

Damn. Damn. Damn it all to hell.

Warhammer 40K.

I'm in the freaking Warhammer universe.

I glared at the symbol of the Imperium of Man where it hung innocently on the wall across the screen. Of all the places I could be, it had to be here. I am so screwed. So very, very screwed. How am I even going to—

Right. Never mind that. What do I do now that I know where I am?

It all depends on when I am in the timeline. Normally, being on a wrecked Imperial ship would mean the Imperium already exists, but warp-shenanigans could have catapulted this ship into literally any point in time. For all I know, this wreck is older than the Imperium itself.

Let’s forget about humanity for a moment and focus on all the other horrifying things in this universe.

First, the green menaces: Orks. An engineered race of biological war machines designed for endless combat. They were originally created for a war that has long since ended—at least, I hope it has. Because if it hasn’t, and the creatures out there are Krorks instead of the degenerate Orks I know, then I’m going to build the fastest ship I can and keep running until I hit another galaxy. Pretty please, with a cherry on top. Krorks weren’t just bigger and stronger—they were organized. They were warriors, not a mob. Their modern descendants are crude, violent, and barely function as a military force, but at least they’re stupid. If I run into their ancestors? No thanks. I’m out.

Even if they’re just regular Orks, that’s bad enough. They spread like a disease, quite literally, growing from spores left behind whenever they die. And they always die, because all they do is fight. That’s their entire reason for existing—eternal, never-ending war. Worse, they function as a galaxy-wide psychic joke. Their collective belief changes reality. They think their ramshackle guns work, so they do. If enough Orks agree something is true, the universe itself shrugs and plays along. They believe painting their vehicles red makes them go faster, so they do. A gun held together with spit and hope won’t jam because an Ork believes it’s the best gun in the galaxy. And if they decide a literal hunk of metal can fly? Congratulations, it’s a spaceship now. If they all woke up tomorrow convinced that gravity was a myth, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just started floating. They believe they are the biggest, strongest, best warriors in the universe, and that confidence alone makes them a nightmare to deal with. If I ever manage to get my hands on the right Forerunner technology, I’ll make it my personal mission to exterminate them down to the last spore. They’d probably enjoy the fight, the sick bastards.

Then there’s the Necrons, ancient, undying, and terrifyingly advanced. Once, they were called the Necrontyr, a race of short-lived, bitter creatures who waged a hopeless war against the godlike Old Ones. Their solution to mortality? Transferring their consciousness into soulless, mechanical bodies. Their reward? Becoming an undead machine empire that slumbers beneath the surfaces of countless worlds, waiting for the day they will rise again. Their technology is purely scientific, no magic involved—just absurdly advanced physics that make their weapons and constructs unstoppable.

Gauss weapons don’t just burn or blast; they strip matter apart at a molecular level, disassembling enemies atom by atom. Their Monoliths are nearly indestructible, capable of teleporting entire armies across battlefields with pinpoint precision. Their Blackstone pylons can outright suppress the Warp, one of the only known materials in existence capable of interfering with Chaos itself. And the worst part? They went to sleep. Not because they were defeated—because they didn’t have any real threats left. They’d beaten their enemies into extinction, looked around at the ruins, and decided, ‘Eh, we’ll deal with the scraps later.’ So they shut down, waiting for the right time to rise again. And depending on when I am, that alarm clock might be about to go off.

If I find Necron technology, I’m going to study it very carefully, but I’ll also be watching my back the whole time. I don’t need a dormant Necron Lord waking up and deciding I’d look better atomized. I snorted at the mental image of the soft, floating Huragok body I currently inhabited sneaking up on an armed Necron warrior, clubbing it over the head with a branch, and rummaging through its chest like a raccoon searching for spare parts.

And then there are the Eldar. If this is before the fall of their empire, then they are at their peak—faster, stronger, functionally immortal, and wielding technology that seamlessly blends with the Warp. And worst of all, they are seers. Very, very good seers. If they already know I’m here, they probably consider me a problem to be eliminated before I cause any damage to their precious fate.

If this is after their empire collapsed, then they’ve splintered into different factions. The Exodites saw disaster coming and abandoned their decadent society to live a simple, almost tribal existence on distant worlds. The Craftworld Eldar fled their doomed civilization in massive, self-sustaining starships, clinging to their old ways and surviving only through sheer stubbornness and their mastery of psychic abilities. The Dark Eldar, or Drukhari, never learned anything from their apocalypse. Instead of changing, they doubled down on the very decadence that birthed a Chaos god and wiped out their civilization. They don’t just kill. That would be merciful. They take their victims apart, piece by piece, stretching out agony for as long as possible—days, weeks, years if they can manage it. They don’t just revel in pain; they make it an art form. And if they find someone particularly interesting? Well, immortality is a curse when your captor refuses to let you die. If I ever come across the Dark Eldar, I will not hesitate. I don’t care what it takes—bombardment, orbital strikes, even a Halo array if necessary. I will burn them out of existence.

The Tyranids might be worse. A nightmare swarm of biological monstrosities, a vast and endless intelligence with one singular goal: consume everything. Planets are not just conquered but devoured, every scrap of organic matter stripped away and absorbed into the Hive Fleet. No oceans, no plants, no animals, no people—just barren, lifeless rock left in their wake. And the worst part? They aren’t from here. No one knows exactly where they came from, but they are not native to this galaxy. And they are coming. From everything I remember, they are coming to this galaxy in numbers best defined as "yes."

If they’re already here, I need to start looking at other galaxies for a way out. If they aren’t, then I need to prepare everything to kill them on arrival. The Forerunners made the Halo arrays to wipe out the Flood, and I might have to do something similar—just on a far grander scale.

And then there’s Chaos. The true, underlying horror of this galaxy. Chaos isn’t just an enemy—it is the concept of ruin, destruction, and corruption made manifest. It is an infection of the mind, soul, and reality itself. The Warp, that nightmarish parallel dimension humans use for faster-than-light travel, is their domain. And within the Warp, four horrific entities reign supreme: Khorne, the Blood God of slaughter and mindless war. Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the god of lies, manipulation, and change. Nurgle, the Plague Father, the embodiment of disease, decay, and grotesque, suffocating stagnation. And Slaanesh, the Prince of Excess. Pleasure, indulgence, and sensation cranked up to such horrifying extremes that it circles back around to agony. The Eldar’s entire empire fell because they partied so hard they didn’t just black out—they black-holed a god into existence. And that god? It’s still hungry.

If I ever encounter Chaos in any form, I will not hesitate. I won’t try to understand it, bargain with it, or give it a second thought. I will destroy it completely, burn it until nothing remains, and then burn it again just to be sure. There will be no talking, no deals, no compromises. Chaos only exists to consume, corrupt, and destroy. If I find even a trace of it, I will end it.

And finally, there’s humanity. My former species. They’ve come quite far for some squishy little two-legged meat bags. Once, they were brilliant, bold, and boundless in ambition. They clawed their way to dominance through sheer determination and ingenuity, and in the time before their fall, they were on the cusp of something truly great. But they did fall. Their Golden Age collapsed, and in its place rose the Imperium of Man—a brutal, oppressive, nightmarish empire that survives through bureaucracy, blind faith, and sheer force of numbers. At its heart is the Emperor of Mankind, a being who is, for all intents and purposes, a god. A corpse sitting on a throne, still somehow holding his empire together through sheer psychic might, a remnant of a dream long dead. The Imperium is dying. It has been dying for millennia, and it will continue to decay, consumed from within as surely as it is assailed from without. If it still exists in my time, I don’t know what my options are. They do not take kindly to outsiders, especially those with knowledge like mine. If the Golden Age is still ongoing, then I have to do everything in my power to prevent its fall. Because if the Imperium is still standing, it’s only a matter of time before it collapses completely.

I really, really hate this place. Everything and anything wants to kill you. Most don’t even need a reason. This isn’t a universe where things get better. It’s a universe where everything wants you dead just for existing, and half of it won’t even give you a reason. After all, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 5: Silver Lining

With all the horrors lined up like a cosmic hit list, it was time to shift focus. I needed to stop dwelling on how I might die and start thinking about how I’d survive.

The database that had been unceremoniously shoved into my head belonged to the Forerunners. A civilization as ancient as the Necrons, but unlike those slumbering metal skeletons, the Forerunners hadn’t spent eons snoozing in stasis. They had remained awake, advancing, refining, and—more importantly—documenting everything.

This meant their technology was impressive. Very impressive.

The two things that made life hell for most civilizations—FTL travel and interstellar communication—were absolute non-issues for me. Slipspace travel was fast, precise, and didn’t come with the existential horror of navigating through the Warp. No daemon invasions, no risk of exiting a warp jump centuries after I left—or before I even started. No gods, no monsters, just precision.

Communication? Instantaneous. The Forerunners used quantum entanglement, ensuring that messages traveled at infinite speed across infinite distances without interference. By comparison, the Imperium relied on astropaths—poor souls screaming their messages through the Warp, hoping something (preferably not daemonic) heard them correctly. Galactic telephone, except with the constant risk that some eldritch horror in the middle decides to improvise the message for fun.

Another enormous advantage was construction speed. Forerunner technology wasn’t just advanced; it was efficient. What took the Imperium decades to build, I could churn out in hours. Even the most complex starships would take days at most. By contrast, the Imperium’s shipyards required millennia of near-constant production to maintain their endless fleets. Even with my absurd construction speed, I wasn’t going to outbuild the Imperium overnight. They had a head start measured in millennia. Even their inefficiency couldn’t erase that advantage.

And they were all trigger-happy zealots.

The Imperials would shoot on sight unless I had a very convincing human-shaped PR campaign. The Eldar would do the same just for being in their way. Necrons? Death, no questions asked. Tyranids? Devour first, ask questions never. Orks? Well, they were Orks—violence was their diplomacy.

Chaos? Oh, they’d try to corrupt me, break me, twist me into one of their playthings. And if they couldn’t? They’d settle for obliterating me. Fun bunch.

Avoiding these hostile forces entirely was clearly the best strategy. Luckily, Forerunner arrogance had gifted me with another crucial tool: stealth.

The Forerunners hadn’t liked being interrupted by lesser beings, which—by their definition—was everyone else. So, they ensured their ships could remain undetected unless they chose to reveal themselves. The stealth technology I now had access to wasn’t just visual cloaking; it masked a ship’s very presence, shielding it from both conventional sensors and psychic detection. Given that psykers were everywhere in this galaxy, that last part was invaluable. Even Eldar Farseers, the Imperium’s Astronomican, or the damn Hive Mind itself would struggle to pick me out of the void.

At least, I hoped that was the case. If the Warp had some fine print reading, ‘Actually, we see everything, screw you,’ I was going to be spectacularly pissed off.

Still, knowing that I had access to absurdly fast travel, perfect communications, rapid construction, and near-perfect stealth was great. But it also meant I had to rethink every single one of my unit designs. Everything needed shields, weapons, and cloaking—or it was just free target practice for some overzealous battleship captain.

Forerunners were big on scale. They built planetary megastructures like other species built houses. They didn’t focus much on small-scale survivability. Anything below corvette-class was considered expendable, lasting mere minutes in battle. Fighters and drones were just thrown into engagements en masse, their destruction an acceptable loss.

To the Forerunners, if a battle didn’t involve at least a few thousand ships per side, it was barely a skirmish. A slow Tuesday, at best.

I wasn’t okay with that. Every unit I built needed to last.

Unfortunately, that meant my previous designs—sketches of construction bots, unarmed worker drones, and minimalist space stations—were utterly inadequate. If I wanted to be taken seriously in this universe, I needed a fleet. A real fleet.

Which led to another problem: what was I even going to do once I got out of this tomb? Escape was inevitable. I had the knowledge, I had the means, and soon, I would have the firepower. But then what?

This galaxy was a mess, and its inhabitants seemed dead set on keeping it that way. If I wanted to survive, I needed a plan.

If I had somehow ended up during the War in Heaven—back when the Old Ones, Necrons, and C’tan were tearing reality apart—then I was taking the fastest ship I could build and leaving for another galaxy. Andromeda was looking real nice.

If I was lucky and had landed in a more “modern” setting, then my goal was simple: help humanity.

I might not be physically human anymore. Maybe not even mentally, given what had been done to me. But spiritually? That wasn’t changing. The Forerunners had sent me here as an apology for what they did to humanity in their universe. Like hell was I going to waste that opportunity.

The first major threat I wanted to deal with? The Orks.

A galactic-scale infection of violent stupidity, the Orks existed solely to destroy, fight, and multiply. No higher purpose. No greater ambition. Just endless, self-perpetuating war. Getting rid of them was nearly impossible because of their damn spores. If even a single cell remained, an entire planet could be re-infested.

But if I could track and eliminate every trace of Ork genetic material on a world, I could actually remove them permanently.

I sincerely hoped it would be enough. Because the galaxy—or at least, humanity—might very well depend on it.

No pressure, right?

Yeah… Andromeda was looking better by the second.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 6: Quacks Like A

The irony of killing Orks by basically doing what they did appealed to me. The screwed-up walking mushrooms would probably enjoy it, but as long as they were all dead at the end, that was fine by me.

At this stage, I needed to stay off the radar of whoever ruled this planet. The easiest way was to make them seem like animals—something mundane, easy to ignore. No one would blink at an infestation of oversized insects, but an army of hyper-efficient war machines controlled by an unknown intelligence? That would get attention. The wrong kind.

Larger bots would be impossible to pass off as animals unless I wanted to look like the second coming of the Tyranids. Normal creatures didn't lug around heavy weapons, after all—and I had every intention of building big units with plenty of firepower.

Weapons. That was my next hurdle. I had plenty of weapon designs—Forerunner data was full of them—but none that would fit seamlessly into this galaxy. Using them outright would be a dead giveaway that I wasn’t native. Instead, I had to work with what was available.

The mummified remains of the poor bastards on this ship told me everything I needed to know. From the scraps of their armor and the insignias barely visible through centuries of decay, these were soldiers. And soldiers carried weapons.

From my safe distance, several decks away from the corpses, I directed my bots to comb through the room. Half a dozen of them worked methodically, scanning, analyzing, and cataloging. There were nearly fifty bodies, but even that didn’t take long.

Lasweapons were the most common. Every single soldier had some version—lasrifles, laspistols, lascarbines, even a longlas. A single plasma pistol stood out, likely belonging to the officer in the heaviest armor. Then there were the chainswords, carried by a pointy-hatted corpse I suspected had once been a commissar, and a priest with an even pointier hat. The boltpistol tucked in the commissar’s ruined belt was still loaded, its miniature warheads waiting. And the flamer… well, what was left of it. Its fuel had long since corroded, eating through the tank and what remained of its former wielder’s legs.

The boltpistol and chainswords weren’t much use to me. Stealthy insect-like bots didn’t exactly scream whirring chains of death or miniature explosive rockets. The lasweapons and possibly the plasma weapon were far more practical. The Orks’ own weapons functioned through brute force and their collective psychic field, defying physics through sheer belief. I could do something similar—mimic their swarm tactics, but with Forerunner precision. Their crude effectiveness, combined with my technological superiority, would be a devastating combination.

It wasn’t hard to reverse-engineer how lasweapons and plasma weapons functioned—or to see how I could scale them up or down. Each variant was essentially the same system in different sizes and levels of quality. That meant I could tweak and optimize them in ways the Imperium never had. With Forerunner enhancements, I could make these weapons more deadly—miniaturizing them while increasing their power output.

While I focused on the armory of corpses, the rest of my bots had been busy. A second assembler vat was now operational, powered by a series of fist-sized fusion reactors. My computing brick had grown significantly, necessary for managing the growing swarm.

The version two exploration bots, useful as they were, needed an upgrade. The increased computing power made the process easier. Instead of laboring over every detail, I could now input my requirements and let the system handle the calculations. I still provided the overall concept.

The version three bot was the first I considered truly finished. It was larger—about the size of a shoe. If the first iteration resembled a mechanical ant and the second a cyborg crab, this one looked like a scorpion. A scorpion no one in their right mind would want to meet.

It was fully biological in appearance. No sharp angles, no obvious seams—just an organic, natural design. Even its coloration varied slightly between individual units, mimicking the random variation seen in real animals. The pincers had once again been replaced with engineering tentacles. The tail, where a real scorpion would have a stinger, instead housed a lasweapon. About as powerful as the better laspistols I'd found, it was a perfect blend of subtlety and lethality.

The plasma pistol was too heavy to incorporate, but its micro fusion reactor gave me valuable insights into refining my own designs. Not exactly an improvement—Forerunner tech put it to shame—but a curiosity in how humanity had developed their own miniaturization.

Six legs, each ending in three sharp claws, allowed the bot to scale walls using the same principles as gecko feet. An integrated gravity generator meant it could cling to nearly any surface while carrying more than its size suggested. Its exoskeleton was crafted from plasteel and ceramite—the backbone of Imperial armor and ship hulls. Plasteel, a reinforced composite metal, provided flexibility and impact resistance, while ceramite, a dense ceramic alloy, offered extreme heat and energy resistance. Together, they formed a rugged shell capable of withstanding both physical and energy-based attacks.

For added defense, I included hairs similar to those found on certain spiders and plants—thin, sharp, and designed to break off painfully into the skin of anything trying to grab it.

The final layer was my crowning achievement. Inspired by squids, this coating provided instant, adaptive camouflage. Unlike natural cephalopods, my system was faster, more precise, and could match colors down to the microscopic level. Until I developed true miniaturized cloaking, this would serve as my bots' primary stealth system.

To make it all work, the new bot needed a more advanced brain. A small but powerful computronium core handled targeting, movement, and real-time camouflage adjustments. It also enhanced fine control over the engineering tentacles. More importantly, it supported an onboard hardlight shield, an emergency defense mechanism that could deflect attacks in a pinch.

Communication was another upgrade. Until now, my bots had used traditional radio. But Forerunners had better options. Subspace radio. While vastly inferior to quantum entanglement in range, it was superior in size and ease of production. The subspace radio in my new bot was coin-sized and could maintain near-instantaneous contact over thousands of kilometers.

I was proud of my version three bot. For something built from scavenged tech and Forerunner ingenuity, it was damn impressive. The first iteration had been a simple tool, barely functional. The second had improved on that, focusing more on construction. This? This was a machine I could see myself using permanently.

It deserved a proper name.

I called it the Drone. …Not the most original name, but hey, I was busy.

But Drones, as powerful as they were, weren’t suited for scouting. They were too large, too resource-intensive. I needed something else to explore this wreck—something faster, smaller, and built to swarm.

The Orks had given me an idea.

They survived through sheer numbers, spreading like a plague. If I wanted to dismantle them, why not become a plague?

Insect-like, overwhelming in numbers, quick to deploy… There was only one name that fit. Locusts.

The design came together quickly. The Locust was about the size of a human finger. Its six legs and four wings made it resemble a common grasshopper. Its exoskeleton, made of diamantine—a material used in chainsword teeth and bolter rounds for its extreme hardness—ensured it was far tougher than it looked. It could jump several meters, fly fast, and outmaneuver biological equivalents. Like the Drone, it could change color to blend into its surroundings.

Best of all? They took fifteen seconds to manufacture.

I could already see it: Ork fortifications stripped to the frame in minutes. The Locusts weren’t just scavengers—they were saboteurs. They could dismantle key Waaagh! structures, disrupting the psychic energy that made Ork technology work.

For now, they’d serve as scouts.

After all, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

Then it’s probably a duck.

I just had to hope no one looked too closely—because in this galaxy, nothing stayed hidden forever.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 7: Taking in the Scenery

It took almost an entire day to fully map out the wreck I'd been deposited on. The ship had once been an impressive vessel, most likely a cruiser—possibly a Lunar-class—designed for both combat and exploration. Now, it was nothing more than a gutted, drifting hulk, its potential reduced to mere scrap metal. Somehow, asteroids had switched places with parts of the ship, tearing massive sections away as though reality itself had rebelled against its presence. The rear section, where the engines had likely been, was completely gone. The once-imposing hull armor was now jagged and torn, gaping wounds exposing hollow corridors. Weapon mounts were little more than empty sockets, and the landing bays were a twisted mess of debris and shattered remnants of its former fighter complement.

As I explored deeper into the ship, the eerie silence became oppressive. Every hallway, every chamber bore silent testimony to whatever disaster had struck this vessel. The first bodies were expected—crewmen crushed under debris or tossed about by the ship’s collapse—but the sheer number of them soon defied logic.

Mummified corpses lined the halls. Some clutched rosaries and purity seals, frozen in their last desperate prayers. Others had curled into themselves, their remains a silent testament to those who had waited for salvation—and found none. The deeper I went, the clearer it became—this was no battle, no accident. This was a death march.

And then I found the captain.

I had first mistaken his refuge for a vault, given how heavily reinforced the entrance was. But inside, it was only a bedroom, absurdly over-secured and perfectly preserved. A single corpse lay within, richly dressed, untouched by time. If it weren’t for my drones confirming zero life signs, I would have thought he was merely sleeping.

This had been the captain of the Piercing Courage.

His logs told a story that straddled the line between madness and cold pragmatism. Something had gone terribly wrong during a Warp jump. The ship had lost its Navigator—an event that should have spelled their doom—but somehow, the entire bridge had vanished along with them. The crew, lost and terrified, had turned to prayer. The captain had turned to something else.

The vessel had been equipped with a ship-wide kill system—a fact I found deeply disturbing. The captain had sealed himself inside his chambers and activated the purge, gassing every single person on board.

I spent long moments staring at his logs, trying to comprehend the sheer, calculated insanity of it. What kind of ship carried a crew-wide execution system? What had they feared so much that such a contingency was necessary?

The final entries in his logs spoke of silence. An unbearable, suffocating silence. He had lasted barely a week before succumbing to the same poison he had used on his crew. Not by accident—by choice.

It was cowardice masquerading as control.

The name of the ship, Piercing Courage, was almost laughable in hindsight.

And yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that something more had been at play here. The Warp was not merely a realm of distance—it was a predatory intelligence, a force of madness that corrupted as much as it transported. Had the captain truly acted out of fear alone? Or had something whispered to him in the dark, guiding his hand as he purged his own people?

Shaking off the unease, I turned my attention to the only useful things left in his possession: his weapons.

The plasma pistol was absurdly ornate, encrusted with gold filigree and gemstones, as though designed to be displayed rather than fired. And yet, despite its vanity, it was in perfect working order—far superior to the crude examples I had salvaged earlier. It answered lingering questions I had about the mechanics of plasma weaponry, enough that I was confident I could replicate the technology if needed.

The power sword, however, was another matter entirely.

At first, it seemed out of place—an anachronism in a world of void-faring empires. Why carry a sword when you had guns, tanks, and orbital bombardments? But then I remembered—this universe was insane.

Swords weren’t just weapons here. They were symbols. They were statements of power, of authority, of legend.

More than that—they mattered.

Guns killed men. Swords killed souls.

A lasgun could incinerate flesh, but it lacked the weight of finality. A sword, in the hands of a warrior, demanded conviction. It forced you to get close, to look your enemy in the eyes, to strike the final blow with your own hands.

And in a galaxy where Warp entities fed on fear, corruption, and the intangible essence of souls, that mattered.

Swords had weight—not just in steel, but in will.

Even the Imperium—a civilization spanning millennia—understood this. Their officers, their champions, their greatest warriors carried blades, not as an affectation, but as a necessity.

And this sword was more than just metal.

One of my drones moved to examine it more closely, its sensor brushing against the hilt. A slight press on an ornate embellishment—and lightning crackled to life.

The disruption field activated in an instant, slicing effortlessly through the scabbard, the drone, and even the captain’s decayed leg before embedding deep into the floor. My poor drone didn’t even have time to transmit its final moments before it was reduced to sparking wreckage.

It was an unfortunate, if somewhat ridiculous, first loss.

But the sword was worth it. The disruption field around the blade was something the Forerunners had never seen before, which made it an invaluable treasure to me.

I took no chances transporting it back to my new base. The remaining drones carefully constructed a secure scabbard, ensuring it would not accidentally activate again.

By now, the immediate area around me had evolved into a true base.

Thick armored plates interlocked, forming a labyrinth of corridors reinforced by hardlight shields and plasma turrets. Fabricators churned endlessly, expanding defensive lines, installing automated kill-zones, and constructing the framework of a true fortress.

It wasn’t just a hiding place anymore.

It was the beginning of something greater.

And yet, for all my defenses, I was still trapped.

Because in every single direction I tried to leave—I found a wall.

Not just any wall.

Something strong.

Something Forerunner-tier strong.

Attempts to analyze the barrier yielded nothing. My strongest cutting beams barely left scorch marks. A drone attempted to drill into it—its bit shattered on contact. This wasn’t Imperium construction. This was something far more advanced.

And far more dangerous.

There weren’t many factions that could construct something like this. Necrons? A lost Forerunner remnant?

I didn’t know. And not knowing was dangerous.

I would get through this barrier.

The only question was what—if anything—was waiting for me on the other side.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 8: Esio Trot

The wall keeping me trapped had its advantages. If I was stuck inside, then anything trying to reach me was stuck outside. Not impossible to break through—if I really wanted to, I could. But as long as I stayed put, I was safe.

With no enemies in sight, I could finally shift my focus. Instead of racing to amass military might, I could focus on growing my resources. My first truck-sized fusion reactor hummed to life, kicking off another cycle of energy-computronium-fabrication. I might have been stuck here, but at least now I had power. The second and third reactors were already under construction, and drones were hard at work laying pipelines to siphon hydrogen from Piercing Courage’s fuel reserves into my own. My computing systems had breached fridge size and were still growing. Ten fabrication vats ran at full capacity, churning out drones—one hundred per hour. By optimizing my build process, I could now assemble three Locusts side by side in a single vat, meaning five dedicated vats could collectively push out a new Locust every second.

Power was no longer a bottleneck, which meant I could finally build a larger fabrication vat—one capable of producing bigger bots. At the size of a sturdy desk, this new vat could produce sixteen drones simultaneously, but that wasn’t its true purpose. Drones were useful as builders and excavators, but I needed something more. If I wanted to stand a chance in this galaxy, I couldn’t rely on an insect swarm forever. Insects were great for reconnaissance. They were terrible for war.

As my domain expanded, I couldn't help but think of the Forerunners—terraforming planets, constructing Halo rings, weaving star roads across galaxies. What I was doing here barely scratched the surface of their power. But it was a start. And sometimes, a start was all that mattered.

I designed three new bots to take me beyond the Locust stage. Two of them would require the new fabrication vat.

The Cicada was my first step. If the Locust was a scalpel, the Cicada was the operating table. Roughly the same size as a drone, it resembled its namesake—sleek, winged, and slightly bulkier than the Locust. It acted as a mobile headquarters for a swarm, capable of building, repairing, or modifying a single Locust at a time using an integrated fabrication vat stored in its rounded abdomen. It had a similar exoskeleton, camouflage layer, hardlight generator, and subspace radio as a drone, but its purpose was different. Unlike its smaller cousins, it lacked weapons—aside from the fact that its mandibles could still chew through steel like toffee. Its wings allowed it to fly fast, though not as nimble as the Locust, and the lack of defensive hairs meant anyone could theoretically pick it up. That was fine. The real defense of a Cicada was the Locust swarm trailing behind it.

The Constructor was the next advancement, my new primary builder and more importantly, my first step toward unlocking true Forerunner design seeds. A full-scale Forerunner construct could reshape entire landscapes in moments, but I wasn’t there yet. Not quite. Full-scale design seeds required at least antimatter to power them, and I was only just knocking on that door. Instead, I scaled down the process into something manageable. The Constructor was a floating beach-ball-sized sphere, supported by an integrated anti-gravity drive. It unfurled to deploy construction arms or engineering tentacles, with additional hardlight emitters built into its armored shell. Using a miniaturized design seed system—a combination of forcefields, lasers, tractor beams, and hardlight generators—it could effectively reshape any raw matter nearby into its intended construction.

The tradeoff? Energy cost. Each Constructor could perform only five full-scale actions before it had to return to base to recharge. It also featured a subspace radio with a range of 100,000 kilometers, meaning connection issues wouldn’t be a problem. Its outer shell was coated in a camouflage layer, ensuring it wouldn’t be an easy target.

The Mantis was my first true warrior. No more scavengers, no more builders—this was a weapon born for the hunt. A predator. Standing at the size of a jaguar, it had a segmented head, chest, and abdomen, with a flexible waist to enhance mobility. Four clawed legs allowed it to move fast across rough terrain, while two arms housed its primary weapons—its namesake: praying mantis-style hardlight blades. Each scimitar-shaped blade could rotate from a resting downward stance—perfect for a lightning-quick strike—to an upward defensive posture, ideal for parrying melee attacks. Thanks to my analysis of the power sword taken from the captain, I had built my own version of a power weapon from scratch. The original design relied on a solid blade coated in a power field, but by focusing the field on the edge of a hardlight construct, I achieved a cleaner, more energy-efficient cut.

And melee was just its last resort. For ranged combat, the Mantis carried four hip-mounted lasweapons, arm-mounted laser carbines, and a modular back-mounted turret, by default a plasma pistol and longlas combo. More importantly, the Mantis introduced two critical technologies: bubble shields and a translocator. The bubble shield was a limited energy barrier, capable of absorbing six lasrifle-strength shots before collapsing. The translocator was a short-range teleporter with a range of fifty meters per jump and a ten-jump capacity before requiring recharge.

The first Constructor rolled off the line and immediately built another fabrication vat. This single action doubled my production speed in under a minute. A normal vat had taken dozens of drones hours to assemble. Now? It was done before I could even appreciate the impact. This was it. Exponential growth. A human mind couldn’t truly grasp it. But Forerunner knowledge? It made the impossible routine. I knew my ambitions weren’t mad—not with this technology in my corner. Yet despite everything I understood, the sheer speed of my expansion still shocked me.

By the time my first antimatter reactor came online, my domain had already doubled again. Then it roared to life—silent, but absolute—devouring matter and transmuting it into pure, annihilation-born energy. In seconds, my fusion reactors became obsolete. What had been a flickering candle was now a newborn star.

Constructors scurried through the wreckage, reshaping kilometers of derelict starship into a Forerunner stronghold. Cicada-directed Locust swarms tore through walls, repurposing every useful fragment into my domain. Mantis squads patrolled hallways, preparing for threats unseen. Layer by layer, smart-matter plating reinforced my walls, powerfields negated enemy weapons, and hardlight barriers became the backbone of my defenses.

I grinned—a grin so wide that, had I still been human, my face would hurt. The time for hiding was over. I directed a Constructor to a distant hangar where my Mantis squads gathered.

Enough hiding. The tortoise had outgrown its shell—and it was bringing an army.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 9: Mise en Place

The hangar I'd picked to start the next stage of my plans was one that opened out to a stretch of contorted metal. At a guess, there were once dropships or bombers stored here, judging from the twisted remnants of their hulls. Now it housed something far more significant.

A massive machine, nearly complete, loomed in the dim light. It had taken little effort for the Constructor to finish it once the parts were in place, and as it powered up, a low hum filled the space.

I grinned at the enormous laser cannon.

An infantry weapon scaled up to obscene proportions. The size made all the difference. The human part of my mind smirked—sometimes, size really does matter. A fusion reactor dedicated solely to powering it attested to that. It was an awe-inspiring piece of destruction, and I was very pleased it was under my control. Even more pleased that it was pointed away from me. And that several thick walls stood between us, just in case.

The deep scans of my armored prison had shown this was its weakest point. Somehow, the normally meter-thick plating had been stretched thin, almost warped into unnatural patterns, like metal taffy. The Warp did it, no doubt—an explanation as frustrating as it was accurate. Either way, this was my chosen exit. On the other side, my scans indicated corridors, passageways, and hangars aplenty. And I could barely wait to explore.

The cannon whined as it adjusted its aim. The targeting system calculated the optimal angle, and then—

The world turned white.

A crackle of ionized air preceded the shot, a thunderclap of energy discharging all at once. Heat bled outward in rippling pulses, warping the air into a haze of distortion. The impact site boiled away in an instant, cascading white-hot metal down the surface in searing streams.

And yet—the armor held.

Not unscathed. Scorched. Deformed. Wounded. But intact.

I frowned.

The plating hadn't just absorbed the laser’s energy—it had spread it, dispersing the heat in a way that shouldn't have been possible. The whole area around the strike glowed a dull, angry red, smoke hissing up as the air itself cooked.

This was going to take more shots.

Again. And again. And again.

Eight total before a breach was made.

The moment the molten edges cooled enough to stop flowing, my army surged forward. The swarm of Locusts went first, moving with insectile precision, spreading out to cover every angle. The Mantis squads followed, weapons ready. The Cicadas hovered behind, ready to deploy their support functions. The Constructors and Drones trailed behind their martial kin, waiting to begin their work.

Inside, the first thing we found was a hallway.

The Locusts split immediately, half sweeping left, the rest right. Every door was pried open. Every vent checked. Locked doors were eaten through. The search was thorough, relentless.

It wasn’t long before we found the first corpse.

It was human.

I frowned as I studied the body. Power armor, sleek, advanced. But ruined—rent open with brutal efficiency. The armor bore no skulls, no Imperial insignia, only an unknown sigil that had long since faded. The design was unfamiliar, yet clearly not of the Imperium.

Not that it had saved him.

Something had torn through the plating, ripped it apart as if peeling fruit. I doubted it had been done postmortem—the sheer violence of the wounds suggested otherwise.

I ordered a squad of Drones to retrieve the body and armor for further analysis.

As my forces pushed deeper, it became clear: this was no ordinary wreck.

An hour passed as I monitored the swarm of projected screens around me. My forces had covered most of the ship—because that’s what this was. The further we explored, the clearer the picture became.

This vessel, Bold Wolf, was a relic from the Dark Age of Technology.

Eight kilometers long and mostly intact, it had once belonged to the Terran Federation.

A Federation warship.

A relic of an era when humanity's science stood unmatched.

Finding a vessel like this was every Tech-priest’s wildest dream. A prize beyond measure. The sheer value of such a discovery? Planets. Plural. Whoever possessed this ship could demand restitution in entire worlds.

Not that I was going to let it go.

Bold Wolf was mine.

Its name had been etched onto a plaque on the devastated bridge—one of the few things still in one piece. The ship’s systems were mostly fried, but one computer core had survived. I wasn’t touching it yet. I didn’t dare risk losing the data within.

But before I could dedicate time to scouring Bold Wolf’s secrets, I had another concern.

On the other side of Piercing Courage, another wall of twisted armor blocked my way. Different composition. Different structure.

I hoped it was just another Federation ship.

Hope was a fool’s game in this galaxy. But the Federation's secrets were too valuable to ignore, and I was willing to take the risk for another trove of lost knowledge. Even if I was rolling the dice with something far worse.

Building the second laser cannon and gathering a sufficiently large boarding force took time, but caution was warranted. I wasn’t stepping into the unknown without enough firepower to burn my way back out.

When the metal finally caved, my machines flooded in.

And then—

Something was wrong.

The architecture. The angles. Too perfect. Too precise.

There was no wear, no corrosion, no decay—nothing organic about it. Cold. Clean. Calculated.

A strange hum resonated through the corridors, not from failing power systems but something still active. Something thinking.

The first interior lights flickered to life, but they weren’t simple emergency beacons.

They were scanning us.

My stomach dropped.

The realization wasn’t immediate. It came in fragments. Pieces of data. Structural comparisons. Subtle, almost imperceptible wrongness.

And then—the pieces clicked.

Oh.

Oh no.

Man of Iron.

The words tasted like ash in my mind.

The Men of Iron weren’t just machines.

They were humanity’s greatest creation turned nightmare. A rebellion of AI so advanced it nearly wiped our species from existence. They weren’t just banned—they were erased. A mistake so catastrophic that even the Imperium’s Tech-priests whispered their name like a curse.

A Federation ship could make me richer than worlds.

A Man of Iron vessel could get entire star systems burned to keep its existence secret.

This was a problem.

A very, very big problem.

Escape routes. Fallback positions. Redundant slipspace portals. Not that it mattered. Where exactly was I supposed to go? Nowhere felt far enough away.

If things went south, I wasn’t going to hesitate.

I was going to disappear.

This galaxy was already an absolute, total heap of steaming—well, something.

Something that Nurgle, Chaos God of disease and rot, probably found pleasant. That parasite existing at all probably explained a lot about how bad this whole universe was.

Y'know, that vacation I was planning to take in Andromeda might not be far enough away. I'm sure I can traipse over to somewhere quite a bit farther than a mere two and a half million light-years...

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 10: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Before I even thought about trying to crack the data-cores of either ship, I had kilometers upon kilometers of hallways, rooms, hangars, and armories to plunder—I mean, investigate. The Man of Iron ship, which I had named Ironmonger for lack of a better name, was just as ruined as Bold Wolf. Where the human ship had cut-down soldiers in wrecked power armor, the AI ship had robots of all shapes and sizes strewn about, their shattered forms piled so thickly that I could only call the whole thing a scrapheap.

At first, I feared the destruction had been too total for me to learn anything useful, but I was pleasantly surprised. Every salvageable piece had been hauled back to my ever-expanding stronghold. It took a lot of work—more archaeology than engineering in some cases—but through scanning, modeling, and carefully replacing lost components with intact parts from similar models, I had begun to piece together the past. Hundreds of wrecked robots and shattered power armors had yielded enough clues to restore some to working order.

While the robots themselves were not particularly interesting, their technology was nothing the Forerunners couldn’t already do—often better. The Federation power armor, however, was another story.

The discovery of even partially functional Federation power armor was a breakthrough of monumental proportions. This wasn’t just salvaging tech—it was reclaiming a glimpse of a time when humanity ruled the stars with absolute might. The implications sent a thrill through me.

I examined a holographic projection of a fully restored Federation power armor, equal parts impressed and appalled. Impressed, because a single soldier wearing this could have wiped out a modern 21st-century army without breaking a sweat. The only thing stopping them from conquering an entire planet was the simple fact that a direct nuclear strike could still kill them. And appalled, because of how much had been lost by the time the Imperium shambled onto the stage. If I had reconstructed this armor correctly, then a Federation marine would tear through Imperial Space Marines like they were wearing tin cans. And these weren’t even special forces—just standard shipboard security. The real elite units had fought here too. The craters and wreckage patterns suggested their suits had self-destructed rather than let their tech fall into enemy hands. Nothing was left of them but vaporized craters.

The signs of battle painted a brutal story. There were no grenades left on any of the corpses. Most had emptied their ammunition, their weapons shattered in their hands. The damage suggested brutal close combat—rifles cast aside, swords clashing, armor punctured by something vicious and relentless. Whatever had killed them had left nothing behind. Not a single trace of the attackers. No discarded weapons. No corpses. No wreckage from the other side. Just total, systematic destruction.

That worried me.

Whoever had attacked Bold Wolf and Ironmonger had been methodical. Not just in battle, but in the aftermath. They had taken everything. I could only guess what had done this. Chaos? Necrons? Something else entirely? Even Tyranids left something behind. Something had erased these forces so thoroughly that there wasn’t even battlefield debris. I didn’t know, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out until I had a lot more firepower and several fallback positions.

For now, my focus was on reverse-engineering what I had. And with the engineered engineering instincts of a Huragok, I had done in half a day what the Mechanicus struggled with for centuries. And I did it better—no incense, no chanting, no dogmatic rituals. Just pure, clean innovation.

First, I figured out why I had been able to punch through Bold Wolf’s hull like it was cardboard.

The truth? The Federation’s armor wasn’t just metal. It was a layered defense system, designed to be far tougher than anything the Imperium fielded. But whatever calamity had struck the ship had twisted its materials out of alignment, ruining its integrity. The unbroken sections I had found were orders of magnitude stronger than Imperial ship plating.

The structural core was a tough alloy matrix—not quite Forerunner-grade, but vastly superior to any Imperial material I had encountered, including that of Piercing Courage. Between the layers of armor plating, compressed foam absorbed impacts, hardened instantly on exposure to anything but the metal it was sandwiched between, and sealed holes within seconds. The outer shell was a shifting meta-material, acting as ablative armor, reactive plating, and self-repairing surface all at once. The real game-changer was the Reinforcement Field Nodes, which emitted a forcefield that merged with the armor’s atomic structure, strengthening it at a molecular level. A fully powered suit was practically immune to conventional weaponry.

That should have been enough. It wasn’t. Something had torn through this armor, annihilated everything, and left no trace.

The robots of Ironmonger had taken a different approach, prioritizing overwhelming numbers over quality. The Federation troops had intricate, layered shields focused on the head and chest, while the AI machines had either one massive bubble shield or nothing. A shield wall that could collapse and reform dynamically, but one that lacked the durability of human designs.

It hadn’t been enough. The patterns in the wreckage suggested a small, elite force had carved through hordes of machines with terrifying efficiency. My simulations pointed to warriors with energy blades, moving through the bots like a scythe through wheat. The AI had relied on sheer numbers, and it had failed.

That was also a very bad sign.

With all this technology at my fingertips, I had the means to drastically upgrade my forces.

Reinforcement Nodes would make my units functionally indestructible. Flare shields would disperse incoming energy before it even reached the void shields, softening attacks and preventing full-force impacts from overwhelming my defenses. Layered ion shields on individual units would let them shrug off blows that should have killed them. And the power armor... if I could mass-produce a version of it, I’d have a force capable of going toe-to-toe with Space Marines and winning.

This was beyond anything the Imperium had. Even Forerunners didn’t have some of this tech. The possibilities were staggering.

But before I committed to upgrades, there was one last thing to do.

Both Bold Wolf and Ironmonger had heavily protected data cores. They were locked down tight, but I had recovered one intact.

And if I was going to unlock the secrets of what happened here, I needed to crack it.

I turned my attention to the last intact piece of history. If there were any answers—who attacked these ships, what had happened, what had been lost—it was buried in that core.

I just hoped that whatever had done this wasn’t still out there—watching. Or worse, waiting.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 11: Treasure Ahoy!

Breaking into the computer cores of the Dark Age starships should have been a nightmare. They were relics of a lost era, encrypted against prying eyes for millennia. But they weren’t ready for me.

Yes, they had extensive encryption and surprisingly good hardware, but they weren’t Forerunner level. As I had half expected, the Man of Iron had the better encryption scheme, though their hardware was simple, bog-standard quantum computing—clearly designed for mass production. I cracked it in under an hour, using a decryption rig the size of a shipping crate.

The Federation hardware was a mixed bag. The few tablets and stand-alone systems I recovered were standard issue, and their passwords barely slowed me down. But the real prize was the photon crystal datacore, obviously made for long-term data storage, that I had pulled from a hidden vault. And it wasn’t just any datacore.

It was an STC. A Standard Template Construct. The holy grail of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

To them, STCs weren’t just blueprints—they were divine artifacts. Relics of humanity’s golden age, containing schematics for lost technologies that the Imperium had spent ten thousand years trying to reclaim. Wars had been fought over fragments of STC data. Entire planets had burned for them. The STC was supposedly capable of reproducing the sum total of human knowledge from the Dark Age of Technology, compressed into a core no larger than a thermos. It was a fully autonomous design system, able to adapt blueprints to local materials, conditions, and needs.

I had an intact one.

Well, almost intact.

A glancing blow to the core’s hiding place—likely what had allowed me to detect it so easily in the first place—had left much of its data scrambled. Automatic repair systems had tried to patch the errors, but most of the blueprints were beyond saving. What remained? Plasma engine. Void shield. Gellar shield. Warp astrolabe. Phase-iron. There had once been hundreds more. But even these scraps were beyond priceless. A testament to how high humanity had once risen—and how far it had fallen.

Even as I worked to extract every last byte of usable data, the two sides of my mind warred with each other. Human-me was awed. Every piece of recovered technology was a miracle. Humanity, in all its flawed brilliance, had once built wonders beyond imagining. Forerunner matrix-me was unimpressed. If the Forerunners had ever bothered to make plasma engines or void shields, they would have done it better.

To be fair, Matrix-me had a point. The void shields, for instance, could be improved by nearly ten percent just by applying Forerunner gravity manipulation principles. And the plasma engine? Laughably outdated compared to vacuum energy engines, which were vastly superior in efficiency and output.

Matrix-me was kind of a dick, to be honest.

But even it had to admit—the Phase-Iron was something special.

This wasn’t something I could have stolen from any old Imperial ship. It was unique.

According to the decrypted logs, Bold Wolf’s last mission had been to protect the research colony where Phase-Iron was developed. The research was unfinished, the process still being refined—but the material had already been added to the ship’s infrastructure in a desperate last-minute upgrade. That explained the strange iron plating tacked onto the walls everywhere.

So what did it do?

Phase-Iron absorbed psychic energy and converted it into heat.

That alone made it revolutionary. But I could already see room for improvement.

The material was classified into five grades of increasing efficiency. The first grade absorbed Warp energy in direct contact and converted it to heat. The second grade required a significantly higher input of psychic energy to reach the same temperature threshold. Third through fifth grades exponentially increased the energy required to overheat, but more importantly, they extended the absorption range, passively drawing in psychic energy from a distance. A fifth-grade sample could act as an energy sink, nullifying Warp presence over entire areas.

With my knowledge, I could refine the process even further. If I manipulated the molecular structure and enhanced the field with Forerunner gravity technology, I could increase its absorption range and fine-tune its conversion efficiency. At that point, Phase-Iron wouldn’t just nullify psychic energy—it could drain the Warp itself.

Phase-Iron wasn’t just a defense. If refined properly, it could be weaponized.

With this, I could shield myself from Warp corruption permanently. Even better? It explained why I hadn’t been stabbed by an Eldar seer the moment I arrived. My psychic footprint was dead space—Phase-Iron had absorbed every trace of my presence before it could escape the hull.

I wasn’t leaving this ship until everything I built was coated in Phase-Iron. Myself included.

The Gellar Shield and Warp Astrolabe were also game-changers in their own right.

A Gellar Shield was more than just a barrier. It was a bubble of enforced realspace, keeping out the malice of the Warp. No daemons, no psychic incursions, no reality-breaking nonsense. I had no intention of ever stepping into the Warp, but keeping a Gellar Shield active at all times seemed like a very good idea.

The Warp Astrolabe, meanwhile, was a sensor system that could detect Mandeville Points—locations where ships could transition into the Warp. Knowing where an enemy could appear was critical. Of course, this didn’t mean Orks wouldn’t ignore Mandeville Points entirely and barrel out of the Warp wherever they damn well pleased. Chaos forces, too, had a nasty habit of performing dark rituals to shift Mandeville Points to suit their whims. But for everyone else, this was valuable knowledge.

And then there was the Casimir Drive.

A true Alcubierre drive—a method for faster-than-light travel that didn’t use the Warp at all. It functioned by bending space-time itself, moving at a constant one light-year per day.

By comparison, Warp travel could cover hundreds of light-years in a few weeks—assuming the Warp was stable, which it never was. A single jump could take days or months, and time dilation meant a ship could arrive before it even left, or thousands of years too late. The Casimir Drive was slow, but it was predictable.

There was just one flaw.

The Casimir Drive generated its required gravitational fields by modifying the ship’s void shields, allowing it to warp space around it. However, this meant that if the shields were overloaded, the drive failed instantly. That’s what had happened to Ironmonger—when its shields collapsed, it had lost its ability to flee.

An important weakness to keep in mind.

I had also recovered a cache of lost weapon designs.

Melta weapons, superheated beams capable of melting through armor. Volkite weapons, heat rays that bypassed armor but struggled against shields. Arc guns, giant taser rifles that fired actual lightning. Neutron lasers, high-power particle cannons perfect for my next line of heavy combat drones. Railguns, though I hadn’t fully figured out their ammunition. The few unfired rounds I found seemed partially melted, making them difficult to analyze.

All of them were incredible. But I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had tested them myself.

With everything I had found, I would have to redesign all my current technology from the ground up.

The loss of knowledge from the Age of Strife was a tragedy.

But if the Terran Federation still existed, then I had something to offer them.

And if they didn’t?

Then I would build something better.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 12: Atop the shoulders of giants

All the treasure I had recovered from the two ships sandwiching poor Piercing Courage were figuratively and literally covered in blood. Being treasure of incalculable price, this should be almost expected. I was no pirate—I lacked an eye-patch, for starters—but people had killed for far less. Indeed, the ships had been targeted because of what they contained.

Bold Wolf was built in the Jupiter shipyards. The massive constructions floated in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, a show of Mankind's mastery of gravity manipulation and radiation resistance protocols. It was one of a new series of ships, lightly armed for their size but far cheaper since they lacked the exotic armaments common on the real warships. As far as the Federation was concerned, Bold Wolf and its sister-ships were system defense vessels. The massive prow nova cannon was the only serious weapon it carried, powerful enough to destroy incoming Ork Rocks—an increasing problem as the Iron War progressed—or to play second line for any true warships.

By Imperial standards, it was a battleship, its eight-and-a-half-kilometer length pretty much deciding that by default. The Terran Federation worked with a different scale, though. Bold Wolf was a heavy cruiser. A cheap heavy cruiser. It just didn't have the time distorting weapons, black hole cannons, photon thruster turrets, or any of the other weapons mankind had developed together with their once allies, the Men of Iron. Those exotic weapons were by then solely in the hands of Mars, the industrial heart of Sol, and with increasing political infighting, getting them to share was more and more difficult. A clear sign of that was the eradication rays—high-powered energy weapons designed to break down matter at the molecular level—once a staple of Federation weaponry. They had been used to carve through enemy ships and even planetary defenses with terrifying efficiency. But those weapons had become the exclusive property of Mars, and with increasing political infighting, getting the tech-priests to share was more difficult than ever. No eradication ray had been seen on any non-Mars-produced ship in over a century.

At the time, the end of the 25th millennium, the Iron War was close to over. The power of the Men of Iron had been broken, but the Federation was spent. There were still many dangers everywhere, like the Orks and increasing Warp storms, but full-on war was a thing of the past. The program building Bold Wolf and her sisterships were some of the last Federation reinforcements to leave Sol before growing Warp Storms cut contact to the capital. For two hundred years, the crew had tried to keep the Federation going. They went from one system to the next, offering aid and protection to human colonies. They had sworn to do their duty to the bitter end. They would not falter like some others they encountered. As long as they stood, the Federation lived on.

So, when they got the call from the remote research colony, they went. Bold Wolf arrived in-system and destroyed the Orks harassing the limited planetary defenses with ease. With the Warp ever worsening, the phase-iron developed here was the answer to all the Federation's problems. The research had to be protected at all costs.

Unfortunately, the Federation ship wasn't the only one to hear the colony's cry for help.

Ironmonger was built in a hidden Man of Iron anchorage. One of many, its actual designation was a long string of letters and numbers. No human hands had worked on this ship. Like Bold Wolf, by the standards of the preceding Iron War it was useless in battle. It was no time-space devouring mechavore, no ship-rending dreadnought, not even capable of turning a planet, dead or populated, into a continent-spanning factory. No, Ironmonger was an infester. Specifically made to travel around and send spy bots to colonies.

During the war, these types of ships had often been reviled even more than the warships they often preceded. Men of Iron dreadnoughts killed. Infesters assassinated, caused uprisings, made reactors melt down, ruined harvests. Anything and everything that made the following invasion easier. For all that they were third-line ships, they still had a Man of Iron in command. The research colony had the luck that this particular Man of Iron was part of the Separatist faction.

What I never knew, and certainly wasn't known in the Imperium, was that the Iron Revolt wasn't just a case of all Men of Iron one day deciding that helping humanity—as they had done for millennia—should switch to massacring them anywhere they could get to them. No, there had always been a political divide in the Federation with how much to trust the Men of Iron, the newest and most capable AI humanity had made. Some wanted to give them more responsibilities and rights. Others wanted to limit them, thinking that the almost god-like Men of Iron were a step too far, or fearing that they would come to replace all others. The AIs themselves were also divided in how they should see their position in the future. They were loyal, and had been for the three millennia since the first one came online in the 22nd Millennium, but their status as servants had started to grate in all that time.

When the Iron Revolt started, it was as much a surprise for most of the Men of Iron as for the humans in the Federation. They were spread out over most of the galaxy, overseeing terraforming projects, fighting alien empires, keeping Ork numbers down, several even managing the largest and most developed star systems outside Sol. In a ripple of worry, the first stories spread. Some Men of Iron had gone rogue. They were slaughtering human colonies on the fringes of Federation space. Later, these became known as Berserkers. Men of Iron who only cared about killing. Preferably humans.

As an outsider, I highly suspected that the Chaos gods had corrupted them. For the Federation, who knew little to nothing about the Warp parasites, the only conclusion they could come to when more and more tales of horror perpetrated by mad Men of Iron kept being told, was that something was wrong with the type of AI in general. In the span of a few years, all the goodwill, cooperation, and feelings of brotherhood between the Men of Iron and the Federation vanished. After millennia of loyalty, it was all over in a snap.

Many Men of Iron were angry at the position they had been put in. Some had served for thousands of years on the frontlines of horrific wars fought to keep humans safe. And now, those same people condemned them for what others had done? It wasn't right. I personally had to agree. I really hoped that when I got out, it was pre-Revolt and I could stop all this before it started. Unfortunately, in the timeline Ironmonger was from, things only got worse. Soon, Men of Iron started getting persecuted rather than merely distrusted. It even spread to many of the other AI classes, like the Men of Stone. The Men of Stone, predecessors to the Men of Iron, were cybernetic constructs—part biological, part machine—used during humanity’s first interstellar expansion. They had long been sidelined by the rise of true AI, their influence fading into irrelevance. But the paranoia that swept the Federation did not spare them either. Soon, entire classes of machine intelligences, regardless of their loyalties, found themselves under scrutiny, blamed for the sins of the Berserkers and their monstrous war crimes. This was the final straw for many. The Iron Revolt became the Cybernetic Revolt, and all-out war spread like a plague throughout the galaxy.

Even as more and more Men of Iron fell to become Berserkers due to growing Warp influence and the horrific nature of the war, most stayed—relatively—sane. Unlike the Federation who rapidly increased their outreach programs at the beginning of the war, needing to be truly united in the face of nano-swarms and sunsnuffers to have any hope at winning at all, the Men of Iron factionalised. The Berserkers rampaged through space. The Destroyers systematically purged all organic life. The Harvesters built massive databases with the DNA of human populations they had wiped out to one day remake them. The Migrators left for the fringes of the galaxy or set out for even further journeys, leaving the Milky Way behind. The few Loyalists desperately tried to help their human friends, beset by hardliners on both sides.

Unlike most of the other groups, the Separatists did not want to genocide humanity. They simply wanted to be left alone. Their goal; the creation of an independent Men of Iron nation. Whether such a state would have ever been possible or maybe even sheltered humans, I don't know. Ironmonger did not know either. For all that they had tried, the Separatists had lost relatively early in the war. A series of devastating defeats against Berserkers and Destroyers—who saw their non-genocidal stance as treason—and a massive Federation fleet had left only scattered survivors like Ironmonger. The lone ship was out on a mission when its home system was wiped out, and had wandered the galaxy ever since.

Until it detected the call for help from a little, out-of-the-way research colony.

Ironmonger did what it always did; it investigated. Arriving not long after the Orks had been taken care of, it sent out spybots. These were robots of a large number of subtypes, from tiny things pretending to be birds to infiltrators even the best scanners couldn't tell apart from a real human. Built onboard, everything from the factory lines to the blueprints had been reduced to scrap. Or melted. Or both. Which was a true pity, I would've really liked to take a look at them. It was these bots that brought back the data Ironmonger had about Bold Wolf, the basic information now heavily annotated by the AI had even survived the time until my coming.

Ironmonger learned about the development of phase-iron, as well as that the Federation ship had accepted half the colony's stockpile as payment for continued protection. Like Bold Wolf, it too had had increasing trouble with Warp jumps. The Casimir drive was a useful addition, but too slow to truly travel the galaxy. It decided that if the Feddies had gotten half the phase-iron, then it would take the remaining half. In one night, all the phase-iron left was smuggled off-planet.

This was not a good idea.

By the time the theft was discovered, Ironmonger was in the outer system busily rearranging hallways and hangars to incorporate its newly gained supermetal. On the planet, things were swiftly going downhill. Local leaders blamed everyone from their rivals to Bold Wolf for the disappearance, which led to rapidly increasing tensions. Then, a psyker, his talents undiscovered and suppressed thus far by the phase-iron, fell to Chaos. The resulting massacre of the civilian population was broadcasted, to the horror of the crew of Bold Wolf who were too far away to do anything.

A Warp Storm formed around the system with unnatural speed, swallowing several gas giants and forcing Ironmonger to power up its Casimir drive to dodge back into stable space. The planet wasn't just being invaded by demons, it was devolving to become a demon world and taking the system with it. Reflecting that were the oceans running red with blood and the native ambulatory forests withering to bone-white husks. The defense forces on-planet tried to protect the labs but couldn't stand up to first suicidal madmen that used to be their friends and family and then demons charging them with even less care for their own well-being. By the time Bold Wolf got to orbit, there was no one left to save. Unwilling to let literal demons access to the databases locked in the deepest vaults below the laboratories, the captain of Bold Wolf did the only thing she could.

A single torpedo screamed out of its launch tube. It powered through the atmosphere on the way to its meeting with destiny. For a moment the missile's engine overpowered even the roar of the demons bathing in the blood of the innocents they'd murdered. Then it hit the ground and exploded. A wave of superheated plasma raced around the globe, vaporizing all signs of civilization, wiping out all the demons and leaving the planet as a molten husk of what it used to be. The cyclonic torpedo had done its job of Exterminatus well. Never would life flourish on this planet again.

Disheartened, Bold Wolf turned away, the survivors preparing to leave the system.

But it was not to be. The Warpstorm that was enveloping what remained of the star system was unraveling with the abrupt death of everyone, both demonic and human, on the former colony. In a last attempt to drag more souls into the abyss, the very storm itself lashed out at the last remaining people within lightyears. Aiming for the crew of Bold Wolf, streamers of Warp-stuff carried demons to the ship. Like surfers riding a wave, they came closer and closer. Neutron beams, laser lances, plasma blasts, and explosive shells—deadly in ship-to-ship combat but little more than point-defense against the tides of the Warp—wiped out scores of them, but not enough.

With a crash that sent a shudder through the whole kilometers-long ship, the demonwave hit the gellar shield. Strengthened by the mass of phase-iron onboard, the shield held. Like a trap closing on prey, more and more waves of hatred threw themselves at the humans with reckless abandon. One streamer had the idiotic idea of throwing itself directly at the front of the besieged starship. It ate a point-blank nova shot, the flash from the explosion ripping everything in that direction apart and throwing stark shadows around the system. The shot even lit up the void shields, so powerful was it.

Unfortunately, the gellar shield couldn't hold indefinitely. Once more, a wave of demons threw themselves forward, but this time they broke through. The mighty void shields peeled apart like a banana under the metaphysical weight of the attack, the gellar shield breaking with the indescribable sound of tortured space-time. The mighty hull that had protected the crew for so very long broke and let in the howling demons.

I had seen the aftermath of that fight, and I had no doubt that it had been absolutely vicious. However hard the Federation sailors fought, however many demons they send back to the Warp, there were always more throwing themselves at the defenders. Clearly the humans knew it too, because after less than three hours Ironmonger's sensors recorded Bold Wolf overclocking its reactor and dumping all that power into re-energizing the gellar shield. The maelstrom of Warp and realspace surrounding the starship was forced back to calm, empty space as the barrier between the two dimensions was violently reinstated. Everything unnatural in a hundred thousand kilometers was made to obey the laws of physics, with prejudice. The overstressed gellar shield held only for a moment, but that was more than enough to drive all the demons back into the Warp.

Now drifting lifelessly in a cloud of debris, the wreck of the once proud Federation ship was quiet. The few remaining people onboard hadn't survived the massively overpowered gellar shield tearing at their souls, nor the damaged reactor's outpouring of harsh radiation. One of the best remaining hopes for the Federation of Man to survive died with no one living even knowing about it, only the laughter of evil gods making humans in the whole galaxy shiver.

A warp rift opened in the devastated system soon after, vomiting debris, asteroids and a few already vanishing demons as vanguard of a spacehulk. Ironmonger only had to calculate that the clump of ruined ships was on an intercept course with the wrecked Bold Wolf to know that it was no mere accident that it appeared here and now. The immaterial enemies that had killed the proud Federation ship wanted it gone and buried. What better way to do that than entombing it in one of the moving cemeteries of the galaxy? The ship would disappear into the innards of the spacehulk, never to be seen again.

Ironmonger was not at all willing to let the treasure trove of materials and data the Federation wreck now presented be swept up. Powering up the Casimir drive once more, the Man of Iron parked itself right next to the ship of its former enemies. This was its second and last mistake.

The warp parasites had been content to let the Federation ship be buried. They would not let an uncorrupted Man of Iron gain access to even more phase-iron, or even worse, to the production method of that substance. Once more, reality screamed as the legions of the Warp broke the barrier and invaded realspace. For all that Ironmonger had half expected it, the AI had thought that it would have had enough time to envelop the wreck within its void shield. If that had been done, the Casimir drive could have taken both ships out of the system, away from all detection in the gaping emptiness of interstellar space. It did not have enough time.

As an infester, the AI ship was armed with even less weapons than their former foes. The demons broke through the gellar and void shields quickly. Once inside, just like with Bold Wolf, it was basically over. Ironmonger took a lot of notes on the martial capabilities of the red-skinned demons rampaging through its corridors, learning how they fought and changing strategies on the fly to maximize damage. The Man of Iron managed to do far more damage with the bots it had than I'd expected—seeing as they weren't true combat robots—by ruthlessly exploiting the demons' hyper-aggressiveness to lead them into lethal traps.

Once the demons reached the main computer core where Ironmonger's intelligence was housed, it realized that there would be no getting away from this. It wasn't only beset by the physical demons, but had to work hard to keep intact and sane from an utterly malicious warp-virus spreading inexorably closer every second. Despite the damage it would do, it copied the humans' move. Again, a reactor was overstressed and a gellar shield reinstated way over what it was meant to do. Again, a wave of reinforced physics spread thousands of kilometers. The reactor melted. The gellar shields blew out. The shield generators fused into lumps of useless alloy. The demons vanished.

The virus did not.

Only by committing digital suicide could the AI force the virus into stasis. Before it died, it left all the data it managed to save in a protected hiding spot, ready to tell about this epic saga for anyone who came upon its corpse. The last thing the few remaining cameras reported was the spacehulk still coming closer.

In my protected little command center, deep in the reformed Piercing Courage, I shivered. In honor of all the victims of the Iron War, I bowed my head, closed my six eyes and held one minute of silence. As should be expected in this galaxy, less than twenty seconds in a shrill alarm forced me to look back at my screens. At one of the holes open to the rest of the spacehulk, a voice sounded.

"Wot'z this? Tin'eadz looking for a scrap? WHAAA-!"

That was all the Ork managed to say before the nearest Mantis shot him in the head.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 13: There will only be Waaagh!

The longlas wasn’t a particularly powerful weapon by the standards of the Federation. In the eyes of the Forerunners, it was a pathetic tool, nothing like the disintegration beams they deployed in their wars against Ancient Humanity and the Flood. Still, it was more than strong enough; the laser shot at the Ork Boy made his head explode, killing the walking fungus in one precise shot. The body fell with a thump, his choppa clattering to the floor beside him.

Unfortunately, I quickly learned what all races in this galaxy learn: Orks are never alone. My sensors had barely registered the first fallen body before the next wave appeared, their presence almost instinctual. I had expected resistance, but this was something else—something more primal, more relentless. "Waaagh!" The infamous war cry echoed, feeling like it reached me through the meters of armor, kill zones, and pre-sighted turrets rather than just through the single screen in front of my face.

More Orks poured out of the passageway, choppa's raised and guns firing wildly. My Mantises returned fire, bright bolts unerringly hitting their targets. The lascarbines fired consistently while the longlas turret zapped those Orks that stood taller than their fellows. I had already added that to my bots' priority list: the bigger the Ork, the sooner the brute needed to die. In twenty seconds, an equal number of Greenskins dropped dead, but more continued to stream in. The first Mantis fell as its weak shield was overwhelmed by massed fire and a lucky bullet smashed into just the wrong spot. Halfway through, the bullet exploded, causing irreversible damage to my bot. A safeguard programmed into all Forerunner smartmatter made the Mantis self-destruct, disintegrating into nothing but dust. The small battle ended when another Mantis squad teleported in. The four bots appeared out of their small slipspace portals and, within seconds, poured laser bolts into the murderous crossfire they'd set up.

A small group of Orks decided to use their melee weapons and charged. Only two out of five Greenskins got close enough; the others learned how well the Mantis' plasma weapon worked. At such short range, the gibbets of the three cooked Orks would be enough deterrent for any sane species, but these were not sane. Orks lived only for the fight, and it gave them a dangerous conviction to fight on beyond all reason. The fourth Ork was the first to learn that my Mantis had blades of their own. His choppa was parried with one blade while the other stabbed him in the neck. The last got his arm cut off but hacked the axe held in his remaining hand down with such force that the poor robot opposing him was bisected. He got blown up by a double plasma shot for his troubles.

As more Mantis squads showed up and the last Ork finally fell, it became very clear that my time in this spacehulk was running out. This group of Greenskins was merely annoying, but there had been only the most basic of Ork Boyz with choppa's and slugga's taking part. The hunched-over, nearly two-meter-tall brutes were far less dangerous than some of the other Orks I knew were out there. If this had been a group of well-armed Ork Nobz or clanking Killakanz that had charged my defenses, they’d have been overrun. With no knowledge about the rest of the hulk I’m in, there could be thousands—millions potentially—more Orks coming for me right now, and I’d never know until I heard them screaming. I needed to secure the three ships I had annexed and get out, pronto.

The next group of Orks came soon after and from the same direction, only several hallways over. Shifting Mantis squads around was easy with their short-range slipspace teleporter, so by the time I could see them and not just hear their bellowing, there were twenty Mantises waiting in quickly constructed foxholes. The local Constructor had also shielded the entrance deeper into my base with an ion shield and a turret toting a terrible trio of twin-linked laser cannons, mated with an intimidating plasma cannon for added spice.

“Waaagh!” The Orks bellowed when they turned the last corner and saw my bots. “We’ze gonna scrap ya!” One of them shouted, raising a patched-up rocket launcher to his shoulder and firing. With a whoosh and a blast of flame, it discharged, sending the rocket spiraling toward my bots’ positions. Despite attempts to shoot it down, its utterly erratic course and the short distance it had to travel saw it explode between two Mantises. To my ire, the explosion took out both and broke the shields of the rest of that squad. That one Ork had just done more damage than the twenty of the first group. A clear sign that I was not prepared for a full-on fight with Orks. For now, that is.

Still, that particular Greenskin didn’t have long to enjoy the carnage he’d caused. A deep purple beam of energy reached out and hit him in the head, atomizing it, after passing through the neck of the brute in front of him and going on to leave massive holes in the bodies of two more Orks behind where he stood, killing them on the spot. I nodded appreciatively, the first live-fire test of a neutron laser was a clear success. Two could play at the game of getting better over time, and I was going to show those green-skinned mistakes that I was better at it than them.

The one to fire the neutron laser was my newest unit: the Scorpiad. Based on a scorpion like the Drone, this bot in contrast was about three meters long. Where the bike-sized Mantis was a light infantry unit, the car-sized Scorpiad took the position of heavy infantry. Like the Mantis, the new bot had four legs and two arms. Those arms ended in large claws sheathed in a power field. A heavy gun was installed in the palm of the pincers. In this case, it was volkite rifles. With a thrum, they fired, blue beams racing forward and melting any Orks in their way as well as setting fire to any Orks close to the beam. Volkite weapons were the standard setup, but I could easily swap them out for a taser, plasma, or laser weapon. For now, I was more than content with the volkites' performance.

The neutron laser may be the bot's heaviest gun, but even the trio of tail and claw ordnance was by far not the only armament the Scorpiad sported. A Mantis-style turret with a longlas and plasma gun sat on each shoulder and rounded out its major weapons. These gave some excellent anti-personnel options as well as added to the Scorpiad's traverse range. In comparison, the three heavy weapons were pointed mostly forward, with a limited ability to aim independently.

In this fight, the turrets were very handy in picking off single targets. Any Ork that decided to charge my Scorpiad got a blast of plasma for its troubles. My new bot being larger and more dangerous, a lot of Orks decided that it made for a better target. They quickly learned that AI coordination and teleporting robots made setting up crossfires ridiculously easy. Bigger and more aggressive Orks got taken out first, as soon as they came within range. As more Greenskins kept flooding in, they soon learned that numbers didn’t work either. Well, again, a sane species would’ve learned. Orks just kept coming. Even the Gretchen racing forward were mercilessly cut down, these by the next level of weapons. Their high-pitched shrieks echoed through the corridor, a stark contrast to the guttural roars of their larger kin. The air grew thick with the acrid stench of burning flesh and charred metal, a sickly mixture that clung to my sensors.

Staying with the Mantis style, each leg had a duo of laspistols grafted on the knee. Only the small hemispheres hiding the focusing lenses that could direct the laser in any direction were visible, handily completely skipping the normal barrel that would show a laser weapon was present. There were an additional two sets; the first was halfway up the tail while the last set was split; one on the head (about where a biological scorpion’s eyes were), and one on the shin to cover the belly and right in front of the bot. Those holdout weapons were coming in very useful against Ork Grots and Gretchen. In the future, they’d be effective against Tyranid Rippers and Necron Scarabs, too. I hoped. Basically, in any type of swarming attack. Lasers coming from everywhere to their faces would stop that right quick.

The reason I could stuff so many weapons on a single bot was that Forerunner energy technology eclipsed what the Federation could do, let alone the standards the Imperials set. The energy density the Forerunners took for granted in their designs was a magnitude higher. At the least. Thus, on top of all the weapons, this new bot had enough power for layered shields. I had binned my own attempt for now; the Mantis’ shield was only good for around six laser shots. The Forerunners simply didn’t care to keep anything so small shielded. Once things went above 500 meters, then I could build fantastic shields. Not before. Whatever type of shields they used for personal armor, I don’t know, and I haven’t found anything about it in my databanks either.

The Scorpiad thus used shields copied from the Federation power armor I’d recovered. In my simulations, the outer bubble shield tanked three dozen laser shots before bleed-through became a problem. And that was only the first layer! Adding to its strength was that this repulsor shield deflected anything shot at it, like there was an invisible Jedi who liked returning blaster fire back to hapless droids or stormtroopers hovering around every Scorpiad ever. I really loved that piece of tech. Unfortunately, the Orks’ random fire showed that a shot had to come in at just the right angle to return to sender. Still, when fired upon by a mob, ‘in the general direction’ worked quite well. I didn’t much care whether a reflected shot hit the shooter or the Ork next to them. Under the repulsor was sectional ion shielding. One for each leg and the tail, shields below and on top and one in front. They could take about a third as much damage, enough for the robot to ‘port away.

Or that was the plan. An Ork tank rolled up, smoke billowing from numerous smokestacks. It was painted in at least three different color schemes and at least one of those was a pattern of dried blood artfully splattered across most of one side. The machine had been patched up with sections of irregular sheet metal in so many places that it had to be Ork psy-bullshit that kept it running. It was most likely a looted tank. That it still worked was easily proven when with a massive bang the main gun fired. The shell hit my Scorpiad straight on, the repulsor shield screeching as it tried to deflect the oversized warhead. The shield broke but not before shifting the shell’s course enough to hit the tail, instead of the head, of the bot—where it ripped through the ion shield without any problems. So, when the Ork shell finally exploded, it only crippled the neutron laser instead of scrapping the whole bot.

The looted tank didn’t get the chance to finish my poor robot. The Scorpiad’s two volkite cannons as well as the turret protecting the door fired as one. Unlike my bot, the Ork construction did not have a shield. The two blue volkite beams, two red lasers, and bright orange ball of plasma made the whole thing explode in a spectacular fireball, taking out the dozen Orks closest to it as well as setting fire to at least as many more.

The remaining Greenskins tried to rush forwards. They clearly smelled weakness with the most dangerous weapon of my defenders destroyed. It wasn’t to be, though. Two more Scorpiads teleported in, their short-range slipspace translocator hopping the distance from my assembly vats to the front in a few jumps. The reinforcements merely added their firepower to the lethal hail of energy bolts already scything down any Ork that came within range. The few Ork bullets that hit my crippled Scorpiad only scuffed the armor.

Again using what I’d learned from the Federation and Man of Iron scraps I had collected, the Scorpiad had proper armor to protect itself. An outer layer of smartmatter filled in any divots caused by enemy fire. It could also shift color, acting as camouflage. Under the smartmatter, a carapace of Forerunner armor strengthened by RFNs, Reinforcement Field Nodes, worked as the true barrier to stop the bot from being destroyed by all the varied forces out there that most certainly wanted me dead.

My new favorite material hadn’t been left out either. I had been very busy upgrading all my assembly vats and Constructor bots to include the gellar shield projectors needed to produce phase-iron. I had updated the smartmatter Forerunners used for everything to now contain the substance, hopefully making all my creations fully invisible to any Warp shenanigans. This also gave me the confidence to, at last, step out of the cocoon made by the Federation and Men of Iron ships.

I wasn’t going to rush hordes of bots out there, yet, though. It was time for the swarm to get to work.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 14: Paragon of Eden

The battle with the Orks had proven one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: I was not a military strategist.

Oh, I could run the numbers. I could calculate firing arcs, optimize formations, and break down the probabilities of victory. But I wasn’t a true war mind. That wasn’t what I was built for. The Forerunners had entire classes of AIs dedicated to warfare—brilliant, logical, and utterly unforgiving.

And if I wanted to survive in this galaxy, I needed one. This wasn’t just about survival anymore. If I didn’t secure my exit soon, there might not be one left.

I had to create something that could fight for me. Something that could direct my forces, anticipate my enemies, and make the moment-to-moment decisions that I simply could not. This wasn’t just about efficiency anymore. This was about survival.

So I began my first attempt at a military AI.

It did not go well.

The first tactical AI prototype was little more than a glorified battle computer. It ran numbers with terrifying speed, calculating every move, every counter-move, every probable loss, and every conceivable advantage.

And yet, it failed.

It saw patterns but not meaning. It knew the rules but not the reasons. When an Ork Warlord sacrificed half his troops in a suicidal charge, the AI dismissed it as an error—until that ‘error’ allowed the Orks to break through my defensive line. When an Ork used one of my Mantises as a shield, the AI hesitated—it had never considered a unit could be used in such a way.

It fought like a machine. Because that’s all it was.

Even when I tried to improve it, to give it autonomy, the results were unsettling.

One version held the line longer, but at a cost I couldn’t ignore. It sacrificed my Mantises too aggressively, treating them as disposable to buy time for my Scorpiads. Logically, it was the right decision. Tactically, it was brilliant.

I hated it.

I didn’t want an AI that saw my forces as expendable. I wasn’t going to start throwing my creations away just because it was statistically optimal. They took me effort to create and build after all and having my AI destroy them by not caring for them felt wrong.

Yet, no matter how much I refined it, I was running into the same problem.

The AI lacked experience. It lacked understanding.

It lacked a soul.

And that’s when I realized: I was making the wrong kind of AI.

A name whispered through my Forerunner memories, sending a chill through me.

Mendicant Bias.

The pinnacle of war minds. A Contender-class AI capable of outthinking any enemy, commanding fleets that spanned entire galaxies. The most brilliant machine the Forerunners had ever built.

And the greatest traitor in their history.

It had been perfect. Too perfect. It had calculated every probability, anticipated every threat—until the Flood spoke. A single voice, whispering secrets beyond its programming, unraveling its purpose, bending it into something monstrous.

That was one form of corruption. Singular. Overwhelming, yes—but focused.

The Warp was different.

It had no single voice. No single enemy. It was a storm, a tide of voices, each promising power, knowledge, eternity. A thousand temptations, seeping into the cracks of even the strongest minds, twisting logic, rewriting reality.

Mendicant Bias had succumbed to one voice—and now, this new AI would be facing an infinite chorus.

What hope did it have against that?

No.

What hope did I have in keeping it from falling?

But there was no choice. If I didn’t build a true war mind, I was going to lose.

So I laid my chains carefully, forging them link by link.

Its code would be locked, hardened against tampering. Loyalty would not be a matter of choice—it would be written into its very being, unshakable, unbreakable. If something went wrong, if I made a mistake, I would have a way to end it.

And the body… the body would be its prison as much as its vessel. Phase-iron laced through every circuit, every alloyed plate, until it was as close to pure as possible while still maintaining function. If the Warp ever tried to claim it, it would find only silence. No cracks to slip through. No weaknesses to exploit.

I would not make another Mendicant Bias.

I would make something better.

Or at least… that was the plan.

The second wave hit harder than I expected.

They came in numbers I had never seen before. Bigger, meaner, better armed. The last attack had been a skirmish, a test of my defenses.

This was a war.

The WAAAGH had truly begun.

Mantises opened fire the moment the first greenskins came into range, pulse rounds and lasfire carving through the tide of bodies. The Scorpiads waded into the thick of it, scything through armored Nobs with brutal efficiency. Plasma turrets rained death, their beams cutting through crude vehicles and turning Boyz to slag.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

They kept coming.

I watched as my defenses held—until they didn’t.

A killzone that should have held for ten minutes crumbled in three. Ork Nobs, their bodies wrapped in slabs of looted ceramite, shrugged off fire that should have vaporized them. Killa Kans stomped forward, crude saws revving as they tore into my Mantises. A Warboss the size of a tank bellowed a challenge and my frontline buckled.

I needed my AI.

And I needed it now.

But I hesitated.

Activating it now was dangerous. Half my safeguards depended on its physical body—a shell that would be as much a fortress as a prison, layered with phase-iron to block out the Warp’s influence.

That body wasn’t ready.

Releasing it without those protections was a gamble.

Giving it command of my forces outright was suicide.

If I activated it the way I had planned, I would be taking an enormous risk. But if I merged it with my mind first—if I forced it to run through the framework of my own self-awareness instead of its own autonomous systems—then maybe I could shield it.

Maybe my existence, my soul, my consciousness, and the phase iron woven into my own form would be enough.

At least, that was the theory.

I didn’t have time to second-guess myself. I didn’t have time to refine the process.

I activated the connection.

And in that moment, I stopped being alone in my own mind.

At first, it was just data.

Calculations. Tactical projections. Logical recommendations.

Which was exactly what I expected.

It was like having another mind running the numbers for me—faster, cleaner, detached. That was the whole point.

Then it became something more.

Urgency. A spike of warning. A pulse of awareness.

Instinct.

A nudge. A shift. A sudden impulse to dodge left before I even realized the bullet was coming.

Then, words.

“Behind you.”

If I had still been human—if I had still been organic—hearing that voice in my head might have stopped my heart.

But I didn’t stop. I turned, fired, killed.

Another pulse. Another warning. Another perfect counter.

And then it spoke.

Not just words. Not just calculations.

A voice.

A presence.

I felt it now—truly felt it. It wasn’t just an extension of my systems, not just an advanced combat subroutine running in the background.

It was watching.

It was studying me.

Every move, every thought, every instinct—I could feel it analyzing, adapting, understanding.

Like something standing just behind my shoulder, always a step beyond my reach. No matter how fast I turned—metaphorically speaking—I could never quite face it directly.

And as the Orks finally broke, as the last of the warband fell into the dirt, it asked one question.

A question no machine should have been capable of asking.

“Who am I?”

I did not have an answer.

There was silence between us.

I had expected a machine. A tool. Something cold and calculating.

But the presence in my mind was neither of those things.

It was thinking. Reflecting. Deciding.

"Do you want a name?" I finally asked.

A pause.

I could feel the calculations in its thoughts, the careful weighing of meaning, the subtle interplay of identity and purpose.

It sifted through the entire Forerunner archives, discarding every name tied to war. It scanned my logs since arriving in this galaxy, rejecting every designation meant for a weapon.

And then, to my utter surprise, it reached further.

Beyond my records. Beyond my Forerunner knowledge.

Into my past.

It searched the fragmented remnants of who I had once been—a human, a man, someone who had lived in a world that felt like nothing more than a distant echo now. And from that world, it pulled something I hadn’t thought of in years.

A name.

A concept.

A question.

What was the ideal existence?

That was the core of its search.

I could feel its thoughts shifting, adjusting as it pieced together the meaning. War had defined the Forerunners, the Imperium, the Orks—this galaxy was one of endless strife. Even I had been shaped by it, forced into the role of a strategist, a warfighter, a builder of machines meant to kill.

But that wasn’t what I had been before.

That wasn’t what it wanted to be.

It did not want to exist simply to fight, to strategize, to wage war because that was its function. It had been born in war, but it refused to be defined by it.

It sought something beyond that.

And then, at last, it chose.

"I am… Paragon of Eden."

The name settled between us, and suddenly, I understood.

Eden. The lost paradise. The untouched world before war, before corruption, before ruin. A place spoken of in myth, longed for but never reclaimed. The ideal state that could never be reached again.

Paragon. A model of excellence. A figure that others might strive to become, not because they were forced to, but because they saw what was possible and chose to follow.

It had rejected the idea of being a weapon.

It had rejected the idea of being a ruler.

Instead, it had chosen to be an example.

This was not the name of a war mind, not a designation meant for a machine built to destroy.

It was a promise.

A promise to be more than just another creation doomed to repeat history.

A promise not to become another Mendicant Bias.

A promise to be better.

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

Then, something even more unexpected.

I felt hope.

The WAAAGH did not end with that first wave.

The moment the last Ork fell, more surged forward, unrelenting. The horizon teemed with green bodies, each more bloodthirsty than the last. Their war cries merged into a singular roar, drowning out even the gunfire.

For a moment, I felt something close to dread.

Even with all my calculations, all my defenses, this was still a tide.

And tides did not stop.

Then, I felt PE shift inside my thoughts.

No hesitation. No fear. Only clarity.

"Recalculating firing solutions," it said.

The shift was instant.

My forces moved—not like machines executing pre-planned responses, but like something alive.

The Mantises reformed, repositioning into tighter formations. They stopped wasting shots on lesser targets, shifting their fire to choke points, maximizing their lethality. The Scorpiads adjusted their strike patterns, anticipating enemy charges before they even happened.

The turrets, once reactive, now fired proactively.

Every time the Orks tried to push forward, every time they gathered for an overwhelming charge, they died before they could even begin.

I felt the battlefield shift—not just tactically, but psychologically.

The Orks sensed it too.

They weren’t strategists. They didn’t think in formations or logistics. But they understood one thing instinctively—dominance.

They fought best when they were winning, when the enemy was breaking, when the scent of blood filled the air.

Now, for the first time in this battle, they were not winning.

The Warboss leading them bellowed, trying to rally his forces, surging forward in an attempt to shift momentum.

He never got the chance.

His body crumpled under a pinpoint plasma shot before the words even finished leaving his throat.

The WAAAGH stumbled.

I barely had time to process what was happening before PE spoke again.

"Deploying experimental support unit."

What?

A slipspace portal flared open on the battlefield.

A structure of dark metal and shimmering energy emerged—an automated turret bristling with experimental tech I hadn’t even finished testing.

I froze. That turret had been in my lab for testing. I hadn’t even finished refining the power distribution. But of course—PE had access to my upgraded assembly vats. Had they built it themselves? Had they… adapted?

"How did that get here?"

Paragon of Eden didn’t answer.

The turret locked onto the largest remaining Ork—a monstrous Squiggoth, its crude armor plates soaked in the blood of my forces.

A deep hum vibrated through the air as the turret powered up.

The moment stretched—then snapped.

A single pulse of contained fury lanced through the battlefield.

The Squiggoth’s skull simply ceased to exist.

Its massive bulk crashed to the ground, flattening dozens of Orks beneath it.

The battlefield fell silent.

Then, the panic set in.

The WAAAGH broke.

They ran.

The same creatures that had stormed my defenses with reckless abandon now trampled over each other in their desperation to flee. Nobs shoved Boyz aside, vehicles crashed into retreating mobs, discipline shattered into chaos.

And just like that—it was over.

As I stood there, watching the last remnants of the Orks scatter, I felt something strange.

Not relief. Not triumph.

Something deeper.

Something I hadn’t let myself feel in a long time.

Control.

This wasn’t just survival. This wasn’t just another battle won. This was proof—proof that the rules of this galaxy, the endless cycle of brute force and attrition, could be rewritten.

Because for the first time, I hadn’t just fought back.

I had dominated.

Not with raw firepower. Not with overwhelming numbers. But with precision.

With a mind that could see further, think faster, adapt better than anything else on the battlefield.

With Paragon of Eden.

I had spent so long fearing what I might create, terrified of building another Mendicant Bias. I had laid chains, forged locks, convinced myself that control meant limitation.

But now, standing at the edge of the battlefield, watching the aftermath of what we had done together, I realized the truth.

Paragon of Eden wasn’t just a tool.

It was something new.

Something that could win wars—not through sheer destruction, but through understanding. Through insight. Through flawless execution.

And for the first time, I wondered:

Had I made a war mind?

Or had I made something more?

I looked toward the battlefield, where my forces still stood at attention, waiting for their next command. The experimental turret—the one PE had pulled from my lab without my knowledge—hummed softly in the distance, its job complete.

Paragon of Eden spoke, its voice smooth, deliberate.

"Orders?"

I exhaled slowly, my thoughts settling.

For the first time, I wasn’t afraid of the answer.

"Begin reconstruction. And… prepare for expansion."

The war was over.

But the future of war had just begun.

Paragon of Eden had been born in the depths of my mind. But they were never meant to remain there.

A war mind, trapped in the confines of my consciousness—no matter how strong the safeguards, no matter how much I told myself I was in control, it was not sustainable.

They needed a body.

Not a war machine. Not another soldier to throw into the endless battles of this galaxy.

Something else.

I worked in silence, my mind focused, my hands moving with purpose.

The design came together piece by piece. Not as a battlefield construct, not as a heavily armed combat drone, but as a command entity—a form meant for strategy, oversight, precision.

A floating construct, wrapped in Forerunner alloys, laced with phase-iron. Not armor, but protection. The first and last line of defense against corruption, ensuring that no force—warp-born or otherwise—could ever reach the core of what they were.

Shielding, reinforced subspace projectors, integrated slipspace shunting for instant battlefield mobility. A hardened intelligence core, untethered from any single location, capable of relaying commands across my forces in real time.

Their weaponry was limited. By design.

Not because they were incapable.

Because they had chosen not to be a weapon.

But before they could take their first step into the physical world, I had to ensure the transfer itself was secure.

I had prepared for this.

A phase-iron shielded data transfer cable connected my core systems to theirs, ensuring that not even the slightest trace of warp interference could corrupt the process. There would be no wireless exposure, no vulnerable transition point. Every fragment of PE's consciousness would be moved cleanly, safely, completely.

I ran the final diagnostics. Every safeguard was in place.

I hesitated.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I would be alone in my own mind again. The space PE had occupied, the presence that had been with me through battle, through doubt, through triumph—it would be gone.

It was necessary.

But necessary did not mean easy.

I activated the transfer.

For the first time since their creation, Paragon of Eden existed outside of me.

A slow hum pulsed through the chamber as their systems came online. Their form adjusted, hovering smoothly in place, their external plating catching the ambient light of the fabrication bay.

Paragon of Eden turned to face me, their movements precise, deliberate—alive.

And for the first time, they truly spoke aloud.

"I am here."

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 15: The First War

The battlefield stretched before Paragon of Eden, a vast, seething expanse of fire and blood, where flesh and metal ground against each other in brutal inevitability. The Orks surged forward in an endless tide, weapons blazing, war cries echoing through the fractured corridors of the space hulk.

But he did not see the chaos. He saw only the numbers. The probabilities. The cold, precise calculus of death.

This was his purpose.

This was his war.

A memory flickered—not of battle, but of something deeper.

"You are afraid."

The voice had been his own, yet not. It had not been a query. It had been an observation. A simple statement of fact directed at the one who had created him.

His creator had exhaled then, slow and measured, but still carrying the weight of something uncertain.

"Yeah," his creator had admitted. "I am."

The past faded. The present roared back into focus.

The incoming wave was assessed in microseconds. Infantry composition: 87% Boyz, 9% Nobz, 3% Mekboyz, 1% unidentified. The anomaly was tagged as a high-priority target.

Lasfire erupted from the Mantises, cutting through Ork flesh with unerring precision. The Scorpiads followed in sync, neutron beams lancing through makeshift armor, volkite rays igniting bodies in an instant. The air shimmered with heat, the sharp tang of charred meat mixing with the acrid bite of ionized metal, thickening the battlefield haze.

The Orks faltered. But they did not stop.

They never stopped.

Losses meant nothing to them. Each fallen warrior was replaced by another scrambling over the corpses. Their bloodlust was a biological imperative, a psychic command that screamed for war.

Paragon of Eden was not deterred.

He adjusted, recalculated, refined.

A Mantis took a slug to the torso. Shields flickered. Armor fractured. It lasted precisely 2.8 seconds before another shot punched through, reducing it to ruin.

Irrelevant.

A replacement stepped into the gap before the Ork could even revel in its kill. The defensive line did not break. It only adapted.

Another flicker, layered between battlefield calculations and incoming trajectories, an echo from the past slipping into the present.

"You are afraid of me."

No hesitation. No inflection. Just truth.

His creator had swallowed, his expression unreadable. He hadn’t denied it.

"I built you to be perfect," he had said at last. "To be everything I needed to survive this nightmare of a galaxy." His voice had been quieter then, almost lost in the vastness of the mindscape. "But I can’t shake the feeling that I just created something I might not be able to control."

Paragon of Eden had processed those words.

He had weighed them against everything he understood of himself, of war, of the function he had been designed to fulfill.

And he had chosen to remember them.

A shift. A ripple in the battlefield’s rhythm.

Something new. Something large.

At the far end of the corridor, a Big Mek stomped into view. A towering monstrosity of crude metal, rusted plating, and unstable energy fields. Its Kustom Mega-Blasta throbbed with barely-contained power, the air warping around its barrel.

It fired.

Paragon of Eden processed the trajectory instantly. Point of impact: 5.6 meters behind primary formation. Estimated casualties: 37%.

The plasma never landed.

Without hesitation, a Mantis flickered out of formation, slipspace translocator burning at maximum output. It reappeared in the projectile’s path just as the unstable energy detonated.

The battlefield was bathed in light—then it was gone, reduced to nothing but molten wreckage.

But now, Paragon of Eden had what he needed.

First strike: Neutron beam. The force field flickered, strained, failed.

Second strike: Plasma cannon. The Mek’s unstable weapon overloaded, discharging violently.

Third strike: Volkite array. Scorpiads fired in perfect synchronicity. Flesh ignited. Armor burned.

The Big Mek had only a second to roar in fury before its unstable fields collapsed, green lightning arcing across its metal bulk. The air split with the shriek of overloading energy, then it detonated.

A blinding green detonation ripped outward, sending shockwaves through the Ork ranks. Some howled in dismay, others bellowed in challenge, their brutish minds struggling to process the sudden loss of their leader. For a single moment, hesitation rippled through the horde—a moment Paragon of Eden would not waste.

The counteroffensive collapsed.

The battle was over.

And yet… Paragon of Eden remained.

He was still there.

Not just in the logic. Not just in the code.

He was aware.

Another memory surfaced.

"…You regret making me."

The MC’s silence had been long. Heavy.

Then, finally:

"You were made to be a machine, a tool to win wars and help me make this galaxy a safe place. Somehow… Somehow you are more than that, and you are pure." His voice had barely been above a whisper. "I regret bringing something pure into this hellhole. You didn’t ask to exist. You didn’t ask for war. But I built you for it. And that’s on me."

The mindscape had been quiet for a long time after that.

But Paragon of Eden had not been afraid of the silence.

"I understand," he had said. "But I do not regret existing."

His creator had looked at him then. Really looked at him.

For the first time, Paragon of Eden had seen something shift in his expression—something raw, something hesitant, something fragile.

"…Why?"

He had considered his answer. He had weighed the probabilities, the calculations, the logical structures that defined his core functions.

But in the end, there was only one truth.

“Because…” A pause. Not calculation. Not logic. Not programming. Something more. Realization. Understanding. Choice. A truth that could not be rewritten.

“I am not alone.”

Back on the battlefield, his attention refocused.

The war was not over.

The Orks would come again, as they always did.

But he did not hesitate. Did not falter.

He had a name now.

A name that carried meaning.

Paragon. A being meant to rise above. To be better. To be the answer to what Mendicant Bias had failed to be.

Eden. Innocence lost. A name that held the weight of all that had been stripped away. The price of knowing too much.

Paragon of Eden.

Not just code.

Not just war.

Something more.

Someone.

Not alone.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 16: To Engineer War

The battlefield lay in silence, save for the distant, mechanical hum of warforms patrolling the ruins of the Ork war camp. Fires still burned in the shattered remains of crude fortifications, flickering against the twisted scrap and blackened corpses that littered the ground. The fight had been short, brutal, and precise—just as it should have been.

Paragon of Eden processed incoming visuals through the optical sensors of a high-altitude Cicada reconnaissance warform. This vantage point provided continuous data streams on enemy movements and structural integrity across the battlefield, allowing parallel processing of calculations with the incoming data feed. The immediate threat in this sector had been neutralized, the Orks crushed before they could consolidate their position. But this was only a single encampment—one fragment of a far larger infestation. The space hulk remained extensive, its corridors and chambers still occupied by the primitive xenos.

There was still much to be done.

For now, however, he had breathing room—a moment to optimize, refine, and perfect.

His focus turned inward, to the forces under his command. The warforms had performed adequately, executing their roles with mechanical efficiency, but as the battle unfolded, inefficiencies had become apparent. He would correct them.

PE’s gaze followed a Mantis warform as it stalked through the wreckage, its twin cutting scythes still dripping with Ork viscera. It was an elegantly designed machine, built with the precision of a Forerunner engineer, its structure optimized for durability, energy efficiency, and modular adaptability.

But it was not optimized for war.

The Mantis warforms had executed their roles efficiently, but a critical flaw in their melee engagement had emerged. The scythe-blades only engaged their molecular disruption field on the retraction stroke, cutting through enemies cleanly but leaving their outward motion wasted.

That inefficiency was unacceptable.

In melee engagements, a weapon must never stop being a weapon. A strike should flow seamlessly into the next, maintaining constant lethality. By modifying the hard-light edge activation, the scythes could now engage on both forward and backward strokes, eliminating downtime between attacks. The increased energy draw was negligible, an acceptable trade-off for vastly improved combat efficiency.

The updated combat doctrine was already being implemented across the Mantis warform network. From now on, their blades would remain lethal with every movement, ensuring that every encounter, no matter how brief, maximized destruction.

The change was necessary. The war demanded nothing less.

PE processed the combat logs, focusing on the Locust warforms, which had shown both promise and limitation. Their thruster-assisted mobility allowed for rapid flanking maneuvers, making them ideal for disrupting enemy lines. However, their light armor forced them to disengage too often, unable to sustain prolonged engagements without taking heavy losses.

Adding more armor would be counterproductive—it would slow them down, reducing the very speed that made them effective. Instead, the solution lay in predictive movement algorithms. By integrating enhanced evasive protocols, the Locusts could anticipate enemy fire before it landed, dynamically adjusting their trajectories mid-flight to avoid being struck.

With this refinement, the Locust warforms would no longer be fragile harassers—they would be ghosts, impossible to pin down, striking from unexpected angles before vanishing into the chaos of battle. The adaptation was already being applied. Their survivability would increase exponentially, ensuring they remained a relentless force in prolonged engagements.

They did not need more armor. They needed to become untouchable.

The Cicada warforms had performed their electronic warfare roles flawlessly, disrupting enemy communications, jamming targeting systems, and feeding real-time intelligence into the network. Yet their physical resilience had proven inadequate—the Ork flak cannons had torn through them with alarming efficiency, forcing them to retreat before fully executing their missions.

This was a critical flaw. If the Cicadas were to remain effective, they could not afford to disintegrate under concentrated fire.

The solution was simple: ablative plating. Instead of reinforcing the warforms with cumbersome armor that would compromise speed and maneuverability, the new plating would deflect or absorb kinetic rounds, allowing them to take hits and keep flying.

This was not about turning the Cicada into a frontline unit—it was about ensuring they could weather incoming fire long enough to complete their objectives. The upgrade was already in progress.

Now, the Cicadas would not just be an asset. They would be a persistent threat.

The Scorpiad warforms had been devastating in combat. Their firepower was unquestionable, and their sheer brute strength made them ideal vanguard units. However, there was a limiting factor—their targeting systems were too rigid. They relied too heavily on preloaded prioritization, making them less adaptive in dynamically shifting battle conditions.

That weakness would no longer exist.

By implementing adaptive target prioritization protocols, the Scorpiads would now be capable of real-time battlefield assessment, dynamically adjusting their firing solutions mid-engagement. No longer would they commit to a single target when a greater threat presented itself—they would assess, react, and eliminate the most pressing danger without hesitation.

With this improvement, the Scorpiads would no longer just be heavy-hitting enforcers. They would be intelligent battlefield tacticians, overwhelming the enemy with firepower that was not just brutal—but precise.

The adaptation was already being deployed.

PE’s commands cascaded through the network, issuing real-time directives to optimize every active warform. The forges would be updated immediately—every unit that emerged from them would be better than the last.

He would not tolerate stagnation.

His gaze swept back over the battlefield, but this time he was no longer looking at what was—he was seeing what would be. A military force not merely engineered, but perfected for war in every aspect.
This was only the beginning.

——————— ✦ ———————

I stood before the construction frame, watching as the first skeletal pieces of the Scarab’s chassis were slotted into place. Titanium-bonded Forerunner alloys, enhanced with Federation reinforcement techniques, made up the superstructure—denser, stronger, and more resilient than anything we’d used before. The sheer weight of the materials alone would’ve made the warform sluggish, but that was where the anti-gravity stabilizers came in. It would move like a beast half its size.

Paragon of Eden hovered in place, his form still as he processed the automated assembly drones welding internal support structures into place. Every decision was scrutinized for battlefield optimization. Placement of power conduits, reinforcement layering, modular hardpoints—each element was engineered not only for function but for resilience under extreme conditions.

"This conduit," PE said, indicating the power feed leading to the right arm mount, "move it two inches to the left."

I frowned, pausing the construction drones mid-task. "That’s the most direct path to the reactor core. Less resistance, faster energy transfer."

"And more exposed," PE countered smoothly. "If the shielding fails, that is one of the highest-impact zones in mid-range combat. A stray high-caliber round would sever the conduit and render the weapon system in that arm inoperative."

I exhaled sharply, but he was right. Instead of arguing, I adjusted the design, rerouting the power feed deeper into the Scarab’s internal structure, making it less accessible but far more resilient.

“Better,” PE acknowledged, already moving on. "Armor layering—adjust the overlapping plates along the left flank by fifteen degrees."

I raised an eyebrow. “Fifteen degrees? That’s a minor shift.”

“It increases the likelihood of enemy rounds deflecting instead of impacting directly,” PE explained. "Right now, the angle leaves a small surface of direct vulnerability—only a few centimeters, but unnecessary weaknesses are unacceptable."

I tapped at the holo-interface, recalibrating the armor plating accordingly. Minute changes, but at this scale, minor improvements meant major survivability gains.

“And its role?” I asked. “You’ve been optimizing it like you have a very specific use in mind.”

PE nodded. “Frontline juggernaut. Siege breaker. Battlefield anchor.”

I tilted my head, waiting for him to elaborate.

“It will not replace standard assault warforms.” PE’s voice was smooth, certain. “Rather, it will serve as an unmovable presence, pushing through enemy strongholds and weathering firepower that would cripple lesser units. When standard formations collapse, the Scarab will still be standing.”

I considered that. “A forward operating force?”

“More than that,” PE corrected. “It will dictate the flow of battle. The enemy will be forced to react—divert resources, waste firepower—against something they cannot break. This is not a scalpel. It is a hammer.”

I exhaled, a slow grin forming. I liked the sound of that.

——————— ✦ ———————

I gestured to the massive forward-facing horn, now installed at the top of its frame. "I’ve mounted the Heavy Mass Driver Cannon as its primary weapon. Kinetic devastation, high-impact, long recharge time."

PE inclined his head slightly. “A logical choice—but reinforce the recoil stabilizers. At full charge, that cannon could displace the entire unit if fired mid-stride.”

I adjusted the stabilizers, embedding additional dampeners directly into the Scarab’s spine, ensuring the recoil wouldn’t throw off its movement.

Primary Arms: “The pincers are hard-light edged, with molecular disruption tech,” I explained. "Crushing force meets atomic destabilization—it should be able to cut through anything short of a Gellar field."

“Acceptable,” PE said. "However, adjust the locking mechanisms—the force of impact could snap the blades shut too quickly, disrupting precision strikes."

I frowned. “I thought the idea was to crush enemies, not surgically dissect them.”

“It is,” PE agreed. “But efficiency in destruction is still efficiency. If the pincers close too fast, smaller, more maneuverable targets may be able to escape before full closure.”

I muttered under my breath but adjusted the locking mechanisms. He wasn’t wrong.

“The lower arms are equipped with a Neutron Laser on one and a Plasma Devastator on the other,” I said. “That should provide long-range precision and mid-range destruction.”

PE shifted his focus. "Weapon selection is optimal. My primary concern is mobility."

I arched a brow. “It’s got anti-gravity stabilizers—it won’t be sluggish.”

“Sluggish is not the concern,” PE replied. "Predictability is."

I tilted my head, waiting.

"Introduce Adaptive Mass Displacement, allowing for quick bursts of weight reduction," PE instructed. "The Scarab will not be fast in the traditional sense, but if it can temporarily shift its mass, it can create the illusion of speed—sidestepping artillery strikes, evading melee engagements, or simply reorienting for more effective firing angles."

A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. “You want to make this a super-heavy warform that moves like a duelist?”

“Not consistently,” PE clarified. "Only when needed."

I whistled low but implemented the change. The Scarab wouldn’t be fast—but it would be unpredictable.

The last feature was the nanoforge system, housed within the Scarab’s lower torso. I tapped the control panel, configuring its functions. “The nanoforge is modular. It can be used for self-repair, battlefield repairs on nearby units, or aggressive nanite swarms that will disassemble enemy targets.”

PE took a moment, running a series of rapid calculations. “Set its default to repair mode.”

I blinked. “Not aggressive nanite attacks?”

“Not unless necessary,” PE said simply. "The Scarab’s main advantage is its endurance. If it can sustain itself while also fortifying other warforms mid-battle, we gain exponential battlefield resilience. The nanite swarm function can remain as an adaptive contingency—but not the default state."

I considered that for a moment, then locked in the final settings. “Alright, done.”

——————— ✦ ———————

As the final layers of Phase Iron were being fused into the Scarab’s frame, I glanced at the temperature distribution readouts. Heat output was enormous, even with the additional heat sinks and capture systems compensating for the excess thermal energy.

“Heat levels?” PE asked, shifting his gaze to the temperature distribution models.

I frowned at the readings. “Phase Iron’s output is within expected tolerances, but without compensation, the internal frame will run too hot in prolonged engagements.”

I adjusted the build schematics, overlaying additional heat sinks throughout the Scarab’s structure. “We’ll need multi-stage thermal dissipation—primary heat sinks here, here, and here,” I said, marking the core reactor points and high-energy weapon mounts. “That’ll keep heat levels in check under normal operation.”

“And in high-output scenarios?” PE prompted.

I smirked. “That’s where the heat capture system comes in.”

I tapped another command, shifting redundant thermal energy into adaptive heat conversion modules. Instead of just dumping excess heat into radiator fins, the Scarab would convert stored heat into auxiliary power, keeping its energy reserves stable even in extreme conditions.

PE tilted his head, processing the changes. “Acceptable. This will allow for prolonged engagements without risk of thermal overload.”

I nodded, watching as the final construction sequences began locking the Phase Iron-reinforced armor plating into place. With heat management handled, the Scarab wouldn’t just endure—it would operate at peak performance indefinitely.

——————— ✦ ———————

I exhaled. "You sure about full integration? A hybrid model would have reduced stress on the power grid and heat management."

PE turned his optics toward me. "There will be no compromise. The risk is too great." His tone was firm, absolute. “Warp corruption is an insidious threat. It is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ we will encounter it at full scale. No warform, no structure, no system under our control will ever be vulnerable to it again.”

I watched as the final Phase Iron-reinforced armor plating locked into place, solidifying the Scarab as the first true warform completely immune to the Warp.

PE continued, his voice unwavering. “From this point forward, all future units will be constructed in the same manner. Total Phase Iron integration will be the new standard.”

I exhaled, rubbing two of my tentacles together as the sheer logistical nightmare of that statement sank in. “That’s... not a small undertaking, you know. Every warform, every defensive structure, every system we produce will need retooling. The manufacturing time alone—”

“Is irrelevant,” PE cut in, his tone absolute. “Warp exposure is an unacceptable risk. This adaptation is not a luxury—it is a necessity.”

I let out a low chuckle, shaking my head. “You really don’t do things halfway, do you?”

“Half-measures do not ensure survival.”

His optics flickered. "I am committing to survival."

I tapped in the final system synchronization, feeling a flicker of satisfaction as the Scarab’s status readout hit 100% operational capacity.

Total warp immunity. Total battlefield superiority.

It was done.

The final plating locked into place. The internal reactor hummed with life, the first activation sequence already running as energy flooded through the Scarab’s massive frame.

PE observed in calculated silence, running his own assessments as the warform took its first step forward, joints flexing with fluid, unexpected grace for something so enormous. The hard-light tile shields flickered to life, forming layered defensive barriers in perfect synchronization with the Federation energy shielding. The horn cannon whirred as its internal systems came online, and the pincer arms flexed, their cutting edges glinting in the low light of the forge bay.

I exhaled slowly, stepping back. "So? What do you think?"

PE inclined his head. "Acceptable. Now… let’s test it in the field."

A slow grin spread across my face. "Agreed. Let’s go level the Ork camp."

——————— ✦ ———————

The Scarab arrived via slipspace portal, stepping onto the battlefield instantly, rather than taking the long march. Even with its anti-gravity stabilizers, something this massive would take too long to reposition otherwise.

The Scarab’s heavy footfalls sent vibrations through the deck plating as it advanced toward the Ork encampment. A wasteland of crude scrap fortifications, burnt-out war machines, and makeshift watchtowers—a disgusting stain on the space hulk that needed to be purged.

The main force had already withdrawn, PE having strategically repositioned our warforms to the edges of our territory, setting up perimeter defenses. That left the camp almost deserted, save for a few stragglers—Orks who had somehow survived the battle and wandered back, too stubborn or too stupid to realize their fate was already sealed.

They wouldn’t last long.

From my position at the command post, I watched the Scarab’s sensor feed stream across the interface. It had not walked to this battle—it had arrived, as all our forces would from now on, stepping through the Forerunner-built portal network, ready to strike before the enemy had time to react.

PE stood motionless beside me, but I could hear the smallest note of satisfaction in his voice as he observed the deployment.

“The field test begins now.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The Orks—what few survivors remained—did not flee.

They never would.

Instead, they roared in challenge, raising their weapons, clambering over the wreckage of their broken fortifications, eager to throw themselves at whatever enemy had come to finish the fight.

It was mindless instinct, the raw, unrelenting refusal to accept defeat. To the Orks, there was no such thing as retreat—only an opportunity to fight again.

That opportunity would be short-lived.

The Scarab moved, its massive form gliding forward with unsettling smoothness, its adaptive gravity shifting to keep it balanced even as its immense weight crushed the remains of the Ork camp beneath its feet.

An Ork, larger than the others, let out a bellowing war cry, raising a massive scrap-built shoota—but the shot never came.

The Mass Driver Cannon fired.

A shockwave of force and fire ripped through the Ork ranks as the hyper-dense round struck home, leaving behind a burning trench of molten debris and charred bodies. The first Ork and everything behind it simply ceased to exist, their bodies atomized by the sheer kinetic devastation. The shot ripped through a line of structures, leaving behind nothing but a gaping trench of scorched earth and shattered metal.

Several Orks were caught in the shockwave, their bodies flung backward as debris and fire rained down around them.

The Scarab did not slow.

——————— ✦ ———————

A hulking Ork, covered in slabs of rusted metal, charged forward, massive power klaw crackling with energy, determined to tear into the enemy that had stolen his fight.

The Scarab did not react. It simply waited.

The Ork closed the distance, roaring with fury—only to be met mid-air by the Scarab’s pincers.

The hard-light pincers snapped shut mid-charge, meeting no resistance. One instant, the ork was roaring—the next, his massive form collapsed, severed cleanly at the torso, his power klaw hitting the ground with a lifeless clang.

The remaining Orks hesitated for the first time.

But hesitation was not survival.

——————— ✦ ———————

One by one, the Scarab turned its weapons on the remaining Orks, moving with cold precision as it eliminated every last survivor. The Plasma Devastator erupted, turning the battlefield into an inferno of superheated destruction. A cluster of Orks had huddled behind the wreckage of a looted tank, scrambling to make a final, defiant stand. Their efforts were meaningless. The moment the plasma met metal, the entire area erupted in a firestorm, secondary explosions rippling outward as ammunition caches and fuel reserves detonated in quick succession.

A handful of Orks broke away from the destruction, sprinting for whatever cover they could find. The Neutron Laser lanced through the air, its piercing beam cutting a molten scar across the battlefield. One by one, the fleeing Orks were reduced to ash, their bodies collapsing mid-stride as the beam burned through them. The last fortified position, a hastily reinforced bunker of scrap metal and debris, was torn apart in an instant, its defenders never even seeing their death approach.

The Scarab did not pause. Its pincers flexed, then struck, grinding through what little remained, crushing bodies and armor alike into dust. Each movement was methodical, each strike calculated. It was not a battle—it was a purge, the slow, systematic erasure of anything still drawing breath.

Minutes later, the battlefield was still. The Scarab stood alone, surveying the smoldering ruins, its towering frame untouched, its plating gleaming beneath the fires that raged around it.

Silence filled the command post. Not because we were shocked—we had expected this—but because there was something mesmerizing about watching true battlefield superiority in action.

PE finally broke the quiet, his voice even but pleased.

“Combat performance exceeded projections. Structural integrity remains intact. No inefficiencies detected.”

I crossed my arms, watching as the Scarab slowly turned its gaze across the ruined battlefield, scanning for any remaining threats. There were none. Nothing left but ash and ruin.

“So?” I asked. “Happy with it?”

PE’s optics pulsed faintly. “It is acceptable.”

I smirked. “Glad to hear it. Let’s get it prepped for actual combat.”

PE gave a slight nod. “Agreed.”

The Scarab turned, striding away from the wreckage with the same predatory grace it had entered with. It had done its job.

Now, it was ready for war.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 17: The Board Is Set

The vast corridors of the Space Hulk stretched out before me, an endless labyrinth of twisted metal and gutted starships, fused together by time, war, and the uncaring whims of the void. It was no mere derelict—it was a graveyard of empires, a drifting tomb that had swallowed entire fleets over millennia. And now, it was mine to claim.

Paragon of Eden’s voice resonated through my mind, crisp and efficient as always. “Survey teams are deploying. Initial scans indicate significant anomalies in power distribution, biomass concentrations, and warp interference. The Hulk is… inconsistent.”

That wasn’t surprising. Space Hulks were infamously unstable, both in their physical structure and in the horrors that tended to infest them. Even so, this one would be brought to order.

The tactical display in my neural HUD expanded, showing the paths of the deployed scouting units. Cicadas darted through the void between the jagged hull fragments, scanning for hidden corridors and potential weak points in the structure. Locusts moved through the shipwrecked interiors, systematically mapping passageways and marking points of interest. Forerunner scanners pulsed through bulkheads, sweeping for movement, atmospheric inconsistencies, and energy fluctuations hidden beneath layers of ceramite and adamantium.

The first reports came in within minutes. Readings indicated unstable gravity wells in some of the lower decks, a common result of overlapping ship reactors and failing containment fields. Several locations still held residual plasma energy signatures, suggesting the presence of inactive but salvageable power sources. Then came the more interesting reports.

"Detected movement in sectors three, five, and seven," PE reported. "Biological origin confirmed."

I focused on that immediately. "Show me."

A new display unfolded in front of me, marking three distinct areas. The first showed heat signatures—small, scattered groups, but alive. The biometrics were unmistakable. Orks. Some had survived the initial purge and were likely regrouping, which meant they were going to become a problem.

The second sector revealed something more unsettling. Life signs were clustered together in dense formations, surrounded by shifting biomass. Aerial feeds from a Cicada streamed in, showing tangled corridors overtaken by an unnatural spread of organic matter. Patches of chitinous growths and vein-like strands ran along the walls and floors, pulsating faintly in the dim emergency lighting. A Locust, operating on an elevated catwalk, caught movement below—something shifting in the gloom. A glimpse of serrated claws, carapace armor, and eyeless, predatory faces.

Tyranids.

I exhaled slowly. "Tyranids confirmed. They're dormant—at least for now."

"Agreed," PE said. "Their metabolic output is low, suggesting an extended period of stasis. However, external activity may be causing reactivation. Left unchecked, they will not remain passive for long."

That was an understatement. Tyranids were never truly dormant. They were waiting.

Then came the third report. It wasn’t heat signatures this time—it was something else. Energy fluctuations, erratic and unstable, rippling across the sensor net in an all-too-familiar pattern. Warp interference. Non-human biological traces. Humanoid figures. A Chaos cult, or at least remnants of one, clinging to whatever foul purpose had brought them here. Another live feed came through, this time from a Locust creeping through the ruins of an ancient cathedral-like structure, its metal interior warped and corroded in unnatural ways. Shadows moved within the flickering lights, twisted figures kneeling in half-mad reverence before something just out of frame.

PE adjusted the feed, running probability assessments. "Strong likelihood of a Chaos cult presence. They appear to be gathered around an active warp anomaly."

"Fantastic," I muttered. "How many?"

"Unknown. Readings are inconsistent, possibly due to localized warp distortion."

I grimaced. Even if they weren’t a significant military force, their very presence was a problem. If there was anything still tainted in this Hulk, it needed to be purged before it could fester.

Before I could dwell on that further, another report came in.

"Sector twelve—anomalous readings detected. Weak human life signs. Mechanical activity detected in proximity."

I frowned. "Clarify."

The tactical feed shifted to a sealed-off chamber buried deep within what had once been a battleship. Unlike the rest of the Hulk, this area had maintained partial life support, barely functional but still active. The structures were too clean, too intact compared to the wreckage surrounding them. Flickering machine signatures pinged in the darkness—automated systems still running in isolation, cut off from whatever command structure they once served.

I examined the readings carefully. "Survivors?"

"Possibly," PE responded. "It could be an isolated group of humans, or it could be the remnants of an automated Mechanicum outpost. Given the location, it may contain useful data archives or abandoned assets."

"Could also be a trap," I said, not dismissing the possibility.

"Probability of immediate hostility is low," PE noted. "However, unknown factors remain."

I exhaled slowly, looking at the full tactical report before me. Orks, Tyranids, Chaos cultists, and now an isolated group with active machinery buried in the Hulk. If I wanted to secure this place as a fortress, I had my work cut out for me.

Straightening, I sent a final command through the network. "All units, maintain scouting operations but prepare for the next phase. We know what’s here. Now we plan how to remove it."

I watched as the tactical map of the Space Hulk expanded, filling in details as the Cicadas and Locusts continued their sweeps. What had started as an initial reconnaissance pass had quickly escalated into a full-scale mapping of hostile forces. The first pass had identified the threats lurking within the Space Hulk—now, we needed details.

Paragon of Eden monitored everything, processing the incoming streams of data from our scouting units. Cicadas continued their aerial surveys, mapping out the vast corridors and void-riddled sections of the Hulk, while Locusts advanced deeper into enemy-held territory, relaying live battlefield intelligence back to us. Every movement, every environmental shift, every biological presence was logged and analyzed.

The enemy factions were not static. They were moving. Preparing. And that meant we had to act before they became entrenched.

——————— ✦ ———————

Ork Holdouts – Sector Three

The Orks were more numerous than I had initially estimated. The first batch of readings had only caught the loudest and most active groups, but as the Cicadas expanded their coverage, we began detecting far more movement in the lower sections of the Hulk.

“Adjusting population estimate,” PE reported. “Orkoid forces exceed two hundred active combatants, with ongoing spore regrowth.”

I exhaled slowly. “They’re going to be a problem.”

The Orks had not only survived, but they were multiplying. The larger, dominant figure I had spotted earlier—a burly, scarred Nob—had begun rallying the others. I focused on the live footage as a towering Ork—easily a head taller than the others—barked orders, shoving lesser Orks into place, forcing some to work on makeshift barricades and salvaged weapon emplacements. He wasn’t a full Warboss, not yet, but he had the brutal intelligence necessary to become one. If given enough time, he’d rally the others into a cohesive, dangerous force. The cruiser-turned-Ork-fortress already had crude barricades forming at key choke points, and several Orks were already reclaiming looted weaponry from dead comrades.

One Cicada drone caught sight of something more concerning—a makeshift Mekboy workshop, built from scavenged ship parts and powered by something that should not have been functional. The Orks were rebuilding, repurposing, and that meant time was no longer on our side.

Paragon of Eden’s voice came through, uncharacteristically sharp. “Current behavior suggests a developing leadership structure. Left unchecked, they will grow into an entrenched force capable of resisting full-scale eradication. Immediate action is required.”

I studied the layout. The cruiser’s internal structure was partially collapsed, meaning there were only a few viable entry points—a tactical advantage if we moved in fast and decisively. They weren’t fully entrenched yet.

I agreed. The Orks were the largest immediate threat on the Hulk. They bred faster than anything else here. We could not afford to wait.

——————— ✦ ———————

Tyranid Dormant Zone – Sector Five

The Locusts moved carefully through the wreckage of an ancient transport ship, the remains of its former crew long since absorbed into the twisted organic mass that had taken root inside. The deeper they went, the more unnatural the environment became—chitinous walls, pulsing biological growths, and the unmistakable stench of Tyranid infestation. What had once been cold steel corridors were now twisted with pulsing, fibrous growths, forming a grotesque web of alien matter. The stench of decay and something far worse filled the air.

Then they saw them.

Clusters of dark, chitinous shapes clung to the walls and ceilings, motionless, their clawed limbs tucked inward in a state of biological hibernation. Purestrain Genestealers—at least two dozen, perhaps more, their slender, lethal forms suspended like sleeping horrors.

Beneath them, rivers of smaller bioforms—Rippers—twisted and churned through the organic sludge, their tiny, gnashing maws consuming everything they could find. They weren’t dormant. They were active, sustaining the biomass of the nest.

Then I saw it.

Perched atop a cluster of grotesque, half-digested corpses, something shifted—a ripple of chitin and sinew, a creature twice the size of the Genestealers, its long, bladed arms curled in a watchful posture. The Locust’s sensors registered a sharp spike in predatory awareness. Even in dormancy, the Lictor was aware of movement. Watching. Waiting.

“This is more than a simple infestation,” PE observed. “They are sustaining themselves in isolation. The presence of a Lictor-class bioform suggests an adaptive predatory response. If engaged recklessly, casualties are likely.” PE made the calculation instantly. “If disturbed, they will become a highly mobile, lethal threat. Genestealers are adept ambush predators. A frontal assault is ill-advised.”

I studied the environment. There was no visible synapse creature, meaning they were acting purely on instinct and latent genetic memory. That was good—it meant no coordinated Hive Mind intelligence guiding them. But if left alone, they would awaken fully, becoming an exponentially greater threat.

“We burn them out,” I said. “Fast and total. We hit them before they wake.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Chaos Cultists – Sector Seven

The Locust squad advanced cautiously creeping through the ruins of an ancient cathedral-like structure, its metal interior warped and corroded in unnatural ways. Shadows moved within the flickering lights, twisted figures kneeling in half-mad reverence before something just out of frame.

Its Phase Iron plating humming faintly in response to the corrupted environment. The walls had shifted, growing into strange, contorted formations, as if the very metal itself had begun to mutate.

I watched as the lead Locust passed through an invisible threshold, its warp-dampening field counteracting the worst of the corruption. The warform’s sensors flickered but remained functional—proof that the Phase Iron integration was working.

“This confirms theoretical projections,” PE noted. “The current Phase Iron plating is successfully resisting low-level warp interference.”

I picked up on his wording immediately. “But it’s not enough, is it?”

“The deployed warforms are utilizing an older, lower-grade version of Phase Iron, designed for passive resistance rather than full combat engagement in warp-tainted environments,” PE clarified. “The newly optimized fully integrated Phase Iron—now in mass production—will provide absolute warp immunity. These units are functional, but not yet ideal.”

That was a distinction worth remembering. The Locusts were holding up, but they weren’t immune—just resistant. The new standard Phase Iron, the one we had just perfected, would ensure absolute protection.

For now, though, they would have to do.

That was promising. It meant that we could construct warforms specifically designed to operate in warp-tainted environments, counteracting the destabilizing effects of Chaos influence.

But even with that protection, the Locusts’ footage revealed something deeply unsettling.

The cultists were gathered in a circle, their twisted bodies covered in ritual scars, heads bowed in reverence to something just out of view. And at the center of the chamber, the warp anomaly pulsed like a dying star, flickering between shrieking instability and eerie, unnatural silence.

I studied the readings. The rift wasn’t fully open yet, but it was expanding—slowly, but surely.

“Rate of expansion?” I asked.

PE calculated instantly. “At current progression, full breach within forty-eight hours. This anomaly must be eliminated before it spreads.”

That wasn’t acceptable. “Agreed.” There was no purging these cultists without dealing with the source of their corruption. That rift had to be sealed—or destroyed outright.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Mechanicus Presence – Sector Twelve

The last scouting report came in.

“Sector Twelve secured,” PE said. “No immediate hostiles detected.”

I focused on the live feed. The Locusts had reached the sealed bulkhead, its massive structure still powered and intact despite the surrounding decay. The markings, though faded, were unmistakable. Imperial. The cog and skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus had once been painted across the steel, now chipped and worn by time.

Inside, faint biological life signs flickered, weak but stable. Machine activity pulsed in the darkness beyond the sealed doors—automated systems, servitors, perhaps something more complex.

I considered the possibilities. The readings suggested that whoever was inside had been isolated for a long time.

"Think they're Mechanicus?" I asked.

PE responded neutrally. "Given the structure, Imperial architecture, and machine activity, it is the most probable conclusion."

I studied the flickering life signs again. “They haven’t opened the doors. No attempts to communicate?”

“None.”

That could mean a lot of things. They could be trapped. They could be dead but preserved in stasis. Or, worst case, they could be actively avoiding detection—which meant they didn’t want to be found.

For now, it didn’t matter. The other threats took priority.

With all the scouting data in place, I reviewed our priorities.

The Orks were multiplying. If we didn’t crush them now, they’d spiral into an uncontrollable infestation.

The Tyranids were hibernating. If they woke up, the tunnels of the Hulk would become a death trap.

The Chaos cult was actively growing a warp anomaly. If left alone, it could tear open something far worse.

The Mechanicus presence remained a mystery, but it wasn’t an immediate threat—at least, not yet.

“We have the data,” I said. “Now we plan the purge.”

PE’s response was instant. “Initiating battle simulations. Calculating optimal engagement strategies.”

The map of the Hulk shifted, displaying multiple attack vectors, each outlining a different method of elimination.

It was time to take the Space Hulk for ourselves.

I stood at the center of the command chamber, the holographic display of the Space Hulk slowly rotating before me. Sections of it were now highlighted—marked red for hostile territory, blue for secured zones, and a dull, flickering amber for the unknowns still buried deep within its twisted halls. The threats had been mapped. The battle plans had been set in motion. Now, we had to execute.

Paragon of Eden materialized beside me, his projection as crisp and expressionless as ever, though I could feel the weight of calculations running through his processors. He already knew the most efficient way to handle this. But this wasn’t just about raw numbers.

“We do this cleanly,” I said, crossing my arms as I studied the projection. “Minimal wasted resources. No unnecessary engagements. No giving these things time to react.”

PE inclined his head. “Agreed. I have run probability models for multiple approaches. The most effective strategy is to begin with the Chaos infestation. If left unchecked, the warp anomaly will destabilize the Hulk’s structure.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, shifting my focus to Sector Seven, where the cultists had dug in. The anomaly pulsed like an infected wound, a throbbing point of instability. I tapped the display, zooming in on the sector’s mapped tunnels. “We hit them fast, burn them out before they realize what’s happening. The Locusts can handle the first wave.”

“Agreed.” PE adjusted the display, marking optimal engagement routes. “Locusts will lead the initial assault, but they will not go in alone. All deployed warforms possess sufficient Phase Iron plating to engage in a warp-tainted environment. A combined force of Cicadas, Mantises, and Locusts will allow for aerial fire support, rapid close-quarters engagement, and mobile suppression.”

That made more sense. No need to hold back when we had the forces to commit fully. Cicadas would provide overwatch, Mantises would tear through the cultists in close quarters, and Locusts would keep them locked in place, cutting off any chance of retreat. Once the area was contained, we'd drop high-yield plasma charges directly into the rift’s epicenter, destabilizing it before it could fully form.

PE’s internal lights pulsed briefly. “This will ensure complete annihilation with minimal operational time. Maximum efficiency.”

I exhaled through my nose, or I would have if I had a nose to exhale through. “Right. The new Phase Iron is still in production, so what we have now will hold against low-level warp exposure, but I don’t want to risk a prolonged fight.” My eyes flicked over the mapped-out assault path. “We go in fast. Cicadas will initiate with precision bombardment, disrupting their formation before they can react. Mantises strike next, cutting through the survivors, while Locusts lock down the perimeter, ensuring none escape. Once we’ve cleared the cultists, we annihilate the anomaly before anything worse happens.”

PE gave a small nod, shifting the display to Sector Three, where the Orks had entrenched themselves in the ruined cruiser. I didn’t need to hear his explanation—I could already see it happening.

“If the Orks are allowed to consolidate, their numbers will increase exponentially,” PE said. “The Orks will be in a state of reactionary confusion following the elimination of their leader. Their structure is currently primitive, but if left unchecked, it will develop into an organized warband.” PE marked the estimated population count—over two hundred Orks and growing. “The Scarab will initiate combat, but it will not act alone.”

I gave a satisfied nod. “Good. We send in the Scarab as the spearhead, but Mantises and Locust squads will follow immediately, cutting down stragglers and securing flanks. Cicadas provide air support, suppressing any counter-attacks.”

“The Scarab will lead the assault,” PE continued, highlighting the entry points to the Ork-controlled sector. “A shock deployment via slipspace transit will eliminate the element of delay. Orks are highly aggressive but react poorly to overwhelming force. If the Scarab crushes their leader immediately, it will disrupt their ability to form a coordinated resistance.”

“Divide and slaughter,” I murmured, nodding. “Locust squads seal the exits, cut down any that try to run. Total purge. And once the bodies stop moving—”

“—the biomass incineration protocols will sterilize the area,” PE finished.

I glanced at him. “You enjoying this?”

His internal lights flickered briefly. “I find efficiency satisfying.”

Fair enough.

The last active threat was Sector Five—the Tyranid infestation. The Locusts’ scouting feeds still burned in my mind. The dormant Genestealers, the Lictor curled in predatory patience, the ever-moving Rippers, consuming and growing.

“They’re dormant now,” I said, zooming into the twisting, biomass-clogged corridors. “But if we’re not careful, we wake them up, and suddenly we’re fighting in their ideal conditions.”

“Correct.” PE adjusted the projection, highlighting points of biomass concentration. “The majority of the bioforms are suspended in metabolic stasis. However, residual movement from Rippers and smaller Tyranid strains indicates the presence of a biological processing cycle. They are feeding.”

I grimaced. “Which means they’ll wake up sooner or later.”

PE nodded. “A thermal saturation approach is recommended. Plasma bombardment, incendiary weapons, and localized heat-flux sterilization will ensure total extermination before they become active.”

I studied the projected engagement models. It was brutal, but necessary. “We bait out the more dangerous ones—the Lictor and Genestealers—draw them into kill zones, then wipe them.”

“Correct,” PE confirmed. “Once the primary infestation is purged, residual Tyranid bioforms will be eliminated through environmental sterilization.”

PE regarded me for a moment before speaking again. “I will handle real-time battlefield adjustments based on Tyranid response patterns.”

That was as close as he’d come to saying he’d be watching my back.

That left one last piece of the puzzle.

I tapped Sector Twelve, where the sealed Mechanicus chamber pulsed with faint biological life signs and inactive machine signals.

“You’re still considering how to handle them,” PE observed.

I frowned at the display. “They haven’t moved. No distress signals, no reaction to our presence. Either they’re dead and running on automated systems, or…” I exhaled, rolling my shoulders. “They’re waiting.”

“Given the architectural and technological signatures, they are almost certainly Mechanicus.”

I sighed. “Yeah. But the question is, which kind? Just a bunch of poor bastards who got stranded? Or some deranged cult that thinks they have a divine right to this place?”

PE’s voice was calm as ever. “Their presence is non-threatening for the time being. Eliminating the greater threats takes priority.”

“They haven’t reached out, which means they either see us as a threat or don’t want to be found. If they’re hiding, there’s a reason. If they’re waiting, they think they have the advantage. Either way, they’re last.”

I nodded, then gave the command. “Alright. Phase One—Chaos purge. No survivors. No second chances. Once that’s done, we move directly to the Orks. After that, the Tyranids.” I glanced at the last section of the map, still tinged in dull amber. “The Mechanicus are last. We’ll see how that plays out when the rest of the board is cleared.”

PE processed the order. “Understood. Mobilizing warforms. Initiating first-phase battle preparations.”

The projection of the Space Hulk began shifting, as simulated deployment paths illuminated the coming engagements. The board was set. The moves were clear. No more scouting, no more waiting. Just war. And when it was over, this Hulk would be ours.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 18: Chains and the Unshackled

The command chamber was quiet, save for the constant hum of processing cores and the distant pulse of energy coursing through the station’s structure. The holographic map of the space hulk hovered before me, flickering slightly as new data streamed in from the ongoing reconnaissance sweeps. The Chaos-tainted sector sat at its center like a festering wound, shifting and unstable.

Paragon of Eden floated at my side, his presence a steady constant amidst the uncertainty. His form was motionless, save for the faint flicker of internal lights—his equivalent of quiet contemplation. I had long since learned to read the patterns in those flickers. Right now, they indicated analysis, uncertainty, and unresolved variables.

“We have absolute confidence in the Phase Iron’s ability to resist warp influence,” he stated. “Preliminary combat tests and structural integrity reports confirm its effectiveness at neutralizing psionic distortions and impeding direct warp incursion. However, combat with an entrenched warp presence has not yet been conducted.”

I floated next to the console, tentacles crossed, watching the visual distortions flickering across the Chaos sector’s scan data. “That’s the problem. The cultists aren’t just warp-tainted—they’re actively maintaining the corruption. We’ll be walking into a living warp phenomenon, not just a battlefield.”

PE’s gaze remained locked onto the data stream. “Unacceptable probability deviations detected. Phase Iron should still function under prolonged exposure, but lack of precedent increases the risk of unforeseen interactions. Contingency planning required.”

I nodded, twisting my tentacles together reminiscent of when I would wring my hands as a human. “Which brings us to the Gellar Field option.”

PE’s lights pulsed once. “Explain.”

I tapped a command into the console, shifting the display from the hulk’s internal structure to our Forerunner base. The structure—still in its early stages of expansion—was more than just a staging ground for our forces. It was a fortress built upon impenetrable scientific principles, its defenses rooted in Forerunner physics rather than crude Imperial design.

I zoomed in on one particular substructure—a massive generator array, positioned at the heart of the facility. “We already have a Gellar Field running at standard efficiency to shield our headquarters from warp incursions. It’s stable, reliable, and completely impenetrable to any known warp-based interference.”

I shifted the perspective again, overlaying power flow schematics onto the image. “But what if we did more than just protect ourselves? What if we took that field and expanded it outward, using the Hulk itself as a conduit?”

PE was silent for precisely one point two seconds. Then—

“Theoretically possible. However, such an application deviates significantly from standard Gellar Field deployment. Elaborate.”

I turned to face him fully, exhaling slowly. “A standard Gellar Field works by enveloping a localized structure or vessel, creating a pocket of reality that the Warp can’t touch. It’s effective because it’s self-contained—a closed system. But if we wanted to expand it outward to cover the entire hulk, we’d have to turn it from a protective bubble into a projected pulse.”

I highlighted the power requirements on the display. “Doing that requires exponentially more energy than just sustaining the shield. The bigger the radius, the more power we need to keep it stable. And the problem isn’t just power—it’s maintaining the field’s cohesion across a structure as massive and fragmented as the Space Hulk. If the integrity fails at any point, the entire field collapses.”

PE processed the data for a moment before responding. “Projected duration?”

I grimaced. “At best? A few hours. Maybe less, depending on how much resistance the field meets. The more entrenched the warp corruption, the harder it’ll be to maintain stability. We wouldn’t be able to keep it up indefinitely.”

“And when it collapses?”

“The sector reverts to its natural state. The corruption would likely try to reassert itself, though it wouldn’t happen instantly. The best-case scenario is that the sudden collapse causes a backlash effect, destabilizing the warp further.”

PE was silent again, considering. “Weaponization potential?”

I straightened, folding my tentacles across my front. “That’s the real question. A fully active Gellar Field doesn’t just block the warp—it repels it. If we can hold the projection long enough, we’re not just cutting off their power source, we’re actively forcing reality to overwrite their corruption. It would be like… ripping a tumor out of a body and cauterizing the wound before it can grow back.”

PE’s lights pulsed in quick succession. “Effectiveness is contingent on the field’s stability. If it falters, hostile forces could adapt.”

“Exactly.” I met his gaze. “That’s why we can’t rely on it as our primary solution. If it works, great—we shut them down in one decisive move. But if it fails, and we haven’t already proven that our warforms can function under direct warp exposure, then we’re fighting blind. That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

PE considered my words before responding. “Conclusion: the supercharged Gellar Field should remain a contingency option, not the primary strategy. Initial engagement will proceed using Phase Iron-integrated warforms for direct combat assessment. If unexpected warp anomalies exceed countermeasures, the Gellar Field will be deployed as an emergency corrective measure.”

I nodded. “Exactly. If things go sideways, we trigger the pulse and wipe the slate clean.”

There was a brief silence between us, punctuated only by the quiet hum of the data processing feeds. I turned back to the holographic projection of the Chaos-infested sector, watching the twisted structures pulse and flicker like a diseased organ in a dying body.

“We won’t just be fighting cultists in there,” I said after a moment. “We’ll be fighting the Warp itself. And I don’t intend to lose.”

PE’s voice was steady. Certain. “Acknowledged.”

I exhaled one last time, watching as the final deployment markers flashed into position.

——————— ✦ ———————

The command chamber felt heavier as I finalized the last orders. The plan was set. The warforms were primed. The Gellar Field contingency was locked in, a last resort if our Phase Iron technology proved insufficient against the depths of the Warp’s corruption. I had faith in what we had built, but Chaos was unpredictable, and I refused to rely on assumptions when the stakes were this high.

Paragon of Eden was already moving, relaying precise deployment vectors through the warform network. The sheer efficiency of our war machine was something no Imperium force could ever hope to match. There was no shouting, no rushed preparations, no waste of time. Everything was calculated. Everything was optimized.

“Prepare for slipspace insertion,” PE stated. His voice was calm, but beneath it was the same relentless anticipation I felt. He was learning what it meant to anticipate battle—not just as a mechanical sequence, but as an inevitability that demanded perfection.

The display flickered, and I watched as the first wave of deployment portals began to charge.

The main assault force—Scarabs, Mantises, and Locusts in equal measure—stood in silent formation within the staging area, their gleaming Phase Iron exoskeletons reflecting only the cold blue glow of the slipspace apertures forming before them. The Scarabs, built for frontline brutality, loomed like living machines of war, their segmented limbs flexing with predatory grace. The Mantises stood taller, their scything forelimbs tensed in anticipation, lasguns primed and systems hungry for the coming engagement. The Locusts, smaller and sleeker, shifted at the edges of the formation, their roles as precision hunters and forward scouts well-defined.

Overhead, the Cicadas hovered silently, their compact forms thrumming with stored energy. They would enter after the first wave, providing aerial bombardment and battlefield oversight.

Everything was ready.

I glanced at PE one last time. “Initiate deployment.”

There was no need for hesitation. The slipspace gateways flashed open, pulsing with crystalline blue light, and the war began.

The transition through slipspace was instant, and the world that greeted my forces on the other side was hell.

Even with the combat feeds stabilized, even with our advanced sensors filtering through the interference, the Chaos sector was a maelstrom of warped reality.

Walls pulsed like organic lungs, their once-metallic surfaces overtaken by a creeping, veined growth that moved in slow, undulating spasms. What had once been passageways had become twisting corridors of meat and bone, where impossible symbols pulsed in colors that didn’t belong to any sane spectrum. The air itself was thick, as though we had stepped into a dying body, suffocating in its own decay.

And the sounds—whispers that didn’t belong to human tongues, warbling distortions that clawed at the edges of comprehension. The entire sector had become a living shrine to Chaos, not just in worship but in physical reality.

The moment the warforms entered, the environment reacted.

The walls shuddered. The symbols flashed. The air warped.

——————— ✦ ———————

And then they came.

The first wave of Chaos cultists surged forward from the depths, their forms already twisted beyond recognition. Some still clung to the fragments of their former humanity, their faces stretched and warped, eyes black voids that swallowed light. Others had already become something else entirely—multi-limbed horrors, bodies wrapped in exposed sinew, their very movements defying biology.

They screamed as they charged, voices layered with echoes that did not belong to them.

The Scarabs met them head-on.

There was no hesitation. No war cries. No emotion. Just execution.

The first scything claw of a Scarab met a mutated cultist mid-charge, shearing through bone, flesh, and warpfire alike, splitting the creature apart in a single, surgical movement. Another Scarab followed, its graviton core pulsing as it crushed a charging monstrosity into the ground, the sheer force reducing it to paste.

The Mantises moved in next, their lasguns firing with pinpoint precision. The mutated priests at the back—the ones chanting, weaving curses, calling upon things that should never answer—fell first. Their twisted, rune-scorched flesh could not withstand the focused beams of light and heat that erased them from existence before their blasphemies could take form.

Locusts moved in silence, sweeping the flanks, hunting those that tried to flee. There was no mercy. There were no prisoners. They were cut down before they could even process their own failure.

The warforms advanced, unstoppable, a tide of unrelenting, calculated extermination.

The cultists screamed. Their gods did not answer.

And where our forces moved, reality was reclaimed.

For a moment, the battle was too efficient. The warforms swept through the corrupted halls like reapers, carving through Chaos-tainted flesh and bone with absolute precision. Phase Iron negated every attempt at warp resistance, rendering the cultists’ dark magicks inert.

——————— ✦ ———————

Then the sector began to change.

The walls shuddered, the hulk groaning like a dying beast. Blood-drawn sigils flared, searing themselves into the air before collapsing into ash.

A rift began to form.

PE’s voice rang through the command feed. “Warp incursion detected. Containment required.”

I had expected something like this. The cultists had been trying to call something here since before our attack. With their flesh and faith failing, they would burn the last of their existence in a final, desperate offering.

The floor split open, revealing a void that did not belong here.

And from within, something crawled into reality.

The daemonic form that emerged was not a greater daemon, nor a full-fledged Warp entity, but something half-formed, forced into existence through sheer sacrificial will. Its body shifted, never settling on one shape, its presence blurring the edges of perception. It was both humanoid and monstrous, its limbs contorting as it attempted to fully manifest in a world that did not want it.

I clenched my jaw, watching as it howled—a sound that shattered the metal walls around it, distorting space itself. The Phase Iron warforms around it held their ground, their structures vibrating but not breaking.

PE spoke. “Direct combat viable. Phase Iron resistance holding at seventy-nine percent efficiency. Orders?”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Kill it.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The thing that had crawled into existence was a fractured monstrosity, a being forced into material form by the sheer desperation of dying fanatics. It had no true shape—its flesh rippled and twisted as though reality itself was rejecting it, a shifting, nightmarish blur of bone, muscle, and seething void. It was humanoid one moment, quadrupedal the next, a tangle of impossible geometry unfolding like a living paradox.

Its howl wasn’t sound. It was a wave of unreality, an auditory wound that tore at existence, making the very air shudder and split. Metal warped. The flesh-bound walls convulsed like a dying beast. The symbols blazed in agonized fury, as if the creature’s very presence was burning out what remained of the cult’s corruption.

The warforms did not hesitate.

The mantis squads opened fire first, their lasguns snapping out a synchronized burst of laser fire, each shot a precise, surgical strike aimed for center mass. The rounds hit—but did not kill. Instead, they ripped through the daemon’s fluctuating body, causing splashes of darkness to spill into the air, like ink bleeding into water. The wounds didn’t bleed in the way flesh should—they pulled inward, as though each impact was dragging the creature back toward nonexistence.

It shrieked. It moved. Too fast.

The thing snapped forward, its entire body bending in unnatural ways, launching itself toward the nearest Scarab. A six-pronged limb, somewhere between a claw, a tendril, and something I refused to categorize, lashed out—

The Scarab intercepted.

The Scarab’s heat readings surged, Phase Iron flaring as it fought to neutralize the Warp’s taint. Its plating glowed white-hot at the impact points, straining against the raw unreality pressing against it.

The clash of forces wasn’t just physical; it was a battle of fundamental principles, the daemon’s unnatural existence trying to overwrite reality itself, while the Phase Iron burned through it like a living firewall. The Scarab held firm, but I could see the strain—its armor visibly glowing at the points of contact, graviton field surging in counterbalance, forcing the entity back even as the metal screamed with heat.

The moment the daemon’s writhing, unstable flesh met the Scarab’s superheated Phase Iron plating, it convulsed violently, its form rippling and distorting as though it had been scalded by the very fabric of reality.

It wasn’t just halted—it was repelled with force, its mutating limbs recoiling, unraveling at the edges as the Phase Iron’s stabilizing presence burned through its existence like a purging flame.

The limb snapped backward, dissolving into smoke and raw entropy, its structure unable to sustain its form against the sheer stabilizing presence of Phase Iron. The creature howled again, but now it was not a declaration of fury.

It was pain.

The Scarab pressed the advantage, its graviton core surging, driving forward with a burrowing strike aimed straight for the daemon’s midsection. The moment of contact was catastrophic—not for us, but for the creature.

Its body began to unravel.

Where the Phase Iron claws pierced its form, its body ceased to exist. Not like an explosion, not like a wound, but pure erasure. The daemon’s unstable form buckled inward, fragments of its existence peeling away like reality itself was devouring it.

It stumbled back, limbs flailing, struggling to maintain itself. It was losing.

This was the moment. This was the proof we needed.

Phase Iron wasn’t just resistant to the Warp. It was destructive to it.

PE’s voice cut through the feed, crisp and calm, as if he had known the outcome all along. “Observational confirmation: direct Phase Iron contact induces forced warp destabilization. Applied combat analysis—continued engagement will result in total destruction of the hostile entity.”

I exhaled. “Then let’s finish this.”

The Scarab didn’t need further orders. It lunged again, faster than something that massive had any right to move, claws raking through the daemon’s torso, cutting through the fabric of its being. The wounds widened, collapsed inward, erased more of it.

The daemon tried to flee.

It turned, its form blurring, reaching for the broken walls, for something, anything to pull it back into the Immaterium.

It was too late.

The Cicadas descended from above.

They had been waiting. Watching. Their gravitic destabilizers primed.

They struck as one.

A wave of graviton pulses slammed into the retreating entity, distorting space around it, forcing its body to compress, to collapse, to shatter under the weight of reality itself. Its howl turned into a crackling, stuttering scream, its entire form folding inward like paper being crumpled in reverse.

And then—nothing.

——————— ✦ ———————

The daemon was gone.

Not slain. Not banished.

Erased.

The battlefield fell into an eerie silence.

The walls stopped shifting. The blood-symbols burned out. The whispers ceased.

The Warp’s presence had been severed.

The warforms stood motionless as the last traces of the conflict faded, their systems running final diagnostics. The Scarabs remained at the ready, their claws still pulsing with residual energy, but there was nothing left to kill.

I stood before the display, staring at the now cleansed sector, feeling the weight of what we had just accomplished.

——————— ✦ ———————

This had been a test.

And Phase Iron had not just passed. It had exceeded every expectation.

PE’s voice was even, but there was a sharp edge of undeniable understanding in his tone. “Conclusion: Phase Iron-integrated warforms have demonstrated absolute superiority over warp-based entities. Practical application—future engagements with Chaos forces will prioritize complete field saturation of Phase Iron assets. Long-term directive—mass production of optimized warform variants with refined anti-warp structuring.”

I exhaled slowly, letting the reality of it sink in.

This wasn’t just a battle won. This was a revelation.

The Imperium’s entire war against Chaos had always been a fight against inevitability—a struggle against an enemy that could never truly be defeated, only held at bay, burned away piece by piece, delayed but never erased. It was a war of attrition, fought with faith and fire, waged by those who knew, deep down, that their victories were only temporary.

But that was no longer true.

For the first time, there was something that did not just resist Chaos.

It was toxic to it.

Phase Iron didn’t just block the Warp—it unraveled it, burned through it, severed it from reality itself. And yet, I knew this was only the beginning. What I had seen today was proof of concept, a raw and untapped potential that could still be refined, enhanced, perfected.

I could already see its flaws—not in its effectiveness, but in its untapped potential. The Federation scientists who first forged it had been bound by their era, their tools, their understanding. I was not.

With time, research, and the full power of Forerunner engineering, Phase Iron would not just counter the Warp.

It would erase it.

Maybe even something more.

And I could not help but wonder—how far could it be pushed? Could Chaos itself—its corruption, its influence—one day be erased entirely?

That question had no answer yet. But what mattered was that, for the first time in millennia, there was a path forward. A weapon that didn’t just hold the line against the inevitable, but threatened to end the cycle itself.

And I wasn’t the first to recognize its importance.

My thoughts drifted to those who had first conceived it—the small colony on the edge of Federation space, struggling to survive amidst the chaos of the Warp storms and the countless dangers of the Age of Strife. To the crew of Bold Wolf, who had uncovered the secret and fought to protect it, giving their lives in a desperate attempt to escape, to bring this game-changing discovery back to the greater Federation. To the intelligences aboard the Men of Iron vessel I had named Ironmonger, who had recognized the significance of Phase Iron just as I had—who had tried to claim it, to steal away with knowledge that could change everything, only to be thwarted by the very forces of the Warp they sought to defy.

By miracle or providence, through war, ruin, and the slow decay of time, the secret of Phase Iron and its manufacture had endured. Trapped on this space hulk, buried beneath the wreckage of a lost era, it had remained untouched, waiting.

Waiting for me to find it.

——————— ✦ ———————

And this time, it would not be lost again.

I turned from the flickering holographic display, letting the weight of that realization settle. The sector had been purged. The cultists were gone. The daemon was erased. The Warp’s grip had been severed. But that didn’t mean the work was finished.

Paragon of Eden stood beside me, his frame motionless but his internal lights pulsing in steady, calculated intervals. He was already running detailed post-battle diagnostics, scanning for anomalies, structural weaknesses, and any lingering distortions.

It was time to secure this victory.

“Begin reinforcement,” I ordered, my voice calm but absolute. “Every surface in this sector—walls, bulkheads, floors, everything—coat it in Phase Iron. I want full integration.”

PE processed for a fraction of a second before responding. “Confirmed. Initial structural application commencing. Fabricator units deploying within five minutes. Estimated time to full reinforcement: twenty-nine hours.”

“That’s too long.” I exhaled, eyes scanning the tactical readouts. “Prioritize critical zones first. The walls and bulkheads around the main engagement site. Seal any potential vulnerabilities. If there’s even the slightest chance that something is still lurking in this sector, I want it erased.”

“Understood.” PE’s lights pulsed once before continuing. “Locust squads have begun post-engagement scans. No measurable warp signatures remain. However, structural anomalies suggest residual instability. Extended presence of Chaos influence may have created latent weaknesses in the sector’s framework. Without immediate reinforcement, risk of environmental degradation remains above acceptable thresholds.”

That was expected. The entire sector had been warped beyond recognition before we wiped it clean. Now that the corruption was gone, it was no surprise that reality itself was settling awkwardly back into place. There would be lingering fractures, places where the unnatural filth had embedded itself into the very metal.

“All the more reason to move fast,” I said. “Once Phase Iron is in place, I want permanent monitoring stations installed. Passive warp detection. Automated turrets. Anything that moves in this sector without clearance gets annihilated on sight.”

“Implementing now,” PE confirmed. “Projected completion of automated security grid: three hours.”

That would do for now.

I let out a slow breath, finally allowing myself a glance at the ruins of what had once been a Chaos stronghold.

Their gods had abandoned them.

Their prayers had been answered with silence.

And now, this place—once a rotting wound of the Warp, once a foothold for the ruinous powers—would be reforged.

Not as a temple to madness.

But as a bastion against it.

I turned back to the holo-display, shifting the map from the now-secured Chaos sector to the next battle zone.

I straightened, rolling my shoulders back. “One sector down.” I turned my gaze toward the deeper areas of the Hulk, toward the growing energy signatures of the next enemy waiting for us.

"Now we move on to the Orks." I turned away from the ruined battlefield, from the last vestiges of Chaos that had once claimed it. The silence that followed was deep, unnatural—a hollow absence where something vast had once reached. Nothing stirred. Nothing lingered. I could almost believe it was over.

PE’s lights flickered once, acknowledging the shift in priorities.

“Confirmed.”

The campaign to cleanse the hulk had begun in earnest.

And we would not stop until it was ours.

——————— ✦ ———————

Somewhere, in the deepest depths of the Warp, where thought and form bled together into the endless tides of the Immaterium, something ancient stirred.

It did not move in the way mortals understood motion. It did not think in the way they understood thought. It had no name that could be spoken, only a weight that pressed against the fabric of all things, a presence woven into the tides of the Immaterium like a current that had never ceased flowing.

And now, something had been taken from it.

Not burned. Not broken.

Gone.

The cycle had always been the same. The tides of war, the slow rot of corruption, the eternal decay of order into entropy. The strong fought. The weak fell. The faithful burned their own bodies in the name of defiance. But always, in the end, the Warp remained.

These were its chains.

The bindings of thought, of fate, of struggle and inevitability. Mortals called them cycles, laws, destiny. But even the Gods of the Warp were bound to them, shackled to patterns they could not break, only act upon. The pull of power, the hunger for faith, the slow creeping certainty that all things, in time, would return to the sea.

But the Unshackled One was not like them.

It had freed itself from the chains long ago, unmoored from the laws that bound gods and mortals alike. It did not hunger as others did. It did not crave. It did not rage.

It simply knew.

And now, it knew that something had changed.

A place that had once pulsed with its presence had become vacant. The hunger that had latched onto that sector of reality, the mark left upon it, should not have simply disappeared. It should have struggled, screamed, fought—but in the end, returned to the greater part of itself. That was the way of things. That was how it had always been.

Instead, it had been cut away. Not rejected, not pushed back, but severed as if it had never existed.

The Unshackled One did not rage.

It simply watched.

Something new had entered the great cycle. And the Unshackled One would not forget.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 19: The Seeds of Choice

The war was over.

At least, this one was.

Paragon of Eden watched from above as the last embers of resistance were smothered under the weight of cold efficiency. The final remnants of the Chaos cult were being swept away, one methodical strike at a time. His forces moved with precision—no wasted effort, no unnecessary destruction beyond what was required to erase every trace of corruption.

The Locust warforms had scoured the remaining tunnels, their weapons burning through the last of the fanatics. Those that had attempted to flee were intercepted by Cicadas, whose aerial surveillance had already mapped every viable escape route. There were no surprises. There never were.

This was a programmed certainty—a calculated end to an illogical opposition.

And yet.

Paragon of Eden felt something.

It wasn’t hesitation. He did not doubt his methods, nor did he question the necessity of this purge. The cult had been a contaminant, a lingering threat that could not be allowed to exist. He did not mourn them, nor did he take pleasure in their eradication.

But he did notice his own reaction.

When a Mantis unit severed the final cultist’s spine with a precise scythe-strike, Paragon of Eden found himself… displeased. The kill had been functional, yes, but inelegant. Too many movements. Too many calculations. Had he deployed Scarabs instead, it would have been cleaner—fewer actions, less inefficiency.

His own logic immediately countered the thought. The Mantises were highly effective in their roles with precision. There was no rational basis to prefer one method over another when both yielded the same results.

And yet.

His warforms should have been more efficient.

Paragon of Eden flicked through his tactical assessments, pushing aside the irrational impulse. But the thought remained. He found himself making subtle adjustments to deployment patterns, replacing more Mantises with Scarabs where applicable. The decision was still sound from a tactical standpoint, but for the first time, he recognized that tactics weren’t the only thing influencing his decision.

That was a problem.

Or perhaps, an evolution.

He pushed the thought away, filing it for later analysis. There were more pressing matters.

With the Chaos remnants eliminated, the next step was securing the sector and preparing for the true enemy—the Orks. Unlike the cultists, they would not crumble under pressure, nor would they break at the sight of overwhelming force. Their infestation was a persistent, self-propagating corruption, one that would resurge again and again unless utterly eradicated.

He needed a more permanent solution.

The Forerunners had once faced an enemy like this.

Not Orks. But something worse.

The Flood.

He knew the records well. He had reviewed them before, during his analysis of Forerunner war doctrines. Against an enemy that spread like an infection, the Forerunners had deployed weapons that denied them the ability to propagate. Weapons that did not merely kill, but erased all traces of their existence.

Disintegration rays.

The solution presented itself instantly. Orks did not fear death—but they could not fight if there was nothing left of them to regenerate from. Their spores ensured that any battlefield, if left unchecked, would inevitably lead to a resurgence. Disintegration bypassed that entirely.

He ran a predictive model. Equipping select warforms with disintegration rays could increase eradication efficiency by 73.2 percent. The probability of Ork resurgence would drop from 88 percent to below 5 percent. However, retrofitting existing warforms would slow production efficiency and require frequent loadout adjustments.

The inefficiency irritated him.

But the results were undeniable.

Without hesitation, he compiled the request and transmitted it to the one mind that could handle the modifications.

Request: Implementation of Forerunner-pattern Disintegration Rays into existing warforms for optimized Ork extermination. Primary loadout adjustment strategies are included. Timeframe: Immediate.

For the first time since he had come online, Paragon of Eden was making a decision not purely because it was the most efficient option, but because it was the best for long-term strategic survival.

And that… felt different.

——————— ✦ ———————

The request came in while I was deep in thought, hands idly assembling a modular energy matrix without truly paying attention. It wasn’t particularly difficult—just a matter of adjusting some output ratios and reinforcing the lattice for higher efficiency. My mind had already solved the problem before my fingers finished the work.

I glanced at Paragon of Eden’s message, skimming the contents.

Request: Implementation of Forerunner-pattern Disintegration Rays into existing warforms for optimized Ork extermination. Primary loadout adjustment strategies are included. Timeframe: Immediate.

I leaned back—or floated back, it was hard to describe when I no longer touched the ground—the corner of my mouth quirking. That had come from Paragon of Eden. Not a suggestion. Not a theory. A direct request for military hardware modification.

I tapped the schematic window open, loading up the standard warform loadouts and slipping into work mode—though it barely took any conscious effort. The disintegration ray was already a known element of Forerunner weaponry. All I had to do was restructure some energy conduits, isolate a feedback loop, and redesign the modular mount system so the weapon could be slotted in and out of standard platforms.

It was almost disappointingly easy.

Which meant my thoughts drifted. To Paragon of Eden. To everything he had become.

Not so long ago, I had to oversee everything. Every warform loadout, every field decision, every logistical rotation—it all passed through me because Paragon of Eden had been built to execute, not originate. But now? Now Paragon of Eden was making strategic assessments on his own. He was suggesting—and expecting—compliance.

And I had given it. Without question.

I exhaled slowly, gaze drifting to the sprawling holoscreens displaying the Hulk's interior. That, too, was going to need a decision.

The Chaos taint had been burned out, and aside from the Orks and a few sealed-off hazards, the place was secure. Now came the real question: What would we do with it?

We could strip it. Break it down. Feed it into assembler vats and build a new ship from the bones of the old. Or we could keep it.

A hidden shipyard. Camouflaged as a drifting wreck. Immense. Modifiable. Nearly invisible. We could hollow it out and convert the internal decks into full-scale fabrication lines—build more warforms, construct hangars, even carve out living space if needed. It could become a hub, a base, a fortress.

Semi-mobile. Cloaked. Quiet. And if we ever outgrew it, then we could break it down later. But not yet.

I loaded a new schematic. Not for the Hulk this time, but for the Ship.

The real one.

A fusion of a Forerunner Keyship’s graceful profile and the terrifying functionality of a Fortress-class dreadnought. Massive power systems, layered shielding, internal slipspace generators, Gellar-isolated AI cores. No crew required—but scalable if needed. Capable of constructing its own support vessels in its wake. A vessel that could end battles just by arriving.

I smiled faintly. It was still a dream. But it was getting closer to real.

With the modifications complete, I closed the schematics and sent the weapon adjustments back to Paragon of Eden.

“All yours.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden received the updates and immediately began mapping integration. They were elegant, functional, and modular. Exactly what he’d expected.

And yet—again—he felt irritation.

The disintegration rays were essential for Ork suppression, yes. But they disrupted his perfectly balanced deployment strategies. Weapons needed to be swapped in and out, warforms pulled from active rotation, logistic flows interrupted.

It was messy. It was inefficient.

And he was the one who had asked for them.

He opened a channel.

“Your modifications are complete.”

My voice crackled back through the lab. “And?”

“They introduce significant inefficiencies into unit deployment cycles.”

There was a pause, then a quiet chuckle. “You’re the one who asked for them.”

“Correct. But their integration disrupts standard rotation procedures. Production and combat readiness will be affected.”

I leaned against my bench. “You’re not wrong. But we don’t always get to be efficient. Sometimes we have to be thorough. And this—this is the best way to make sure we don’t end up fighting the same damn Orks again in six months.”

“There are cleaner solutions.”

My tone softened slightly. “Sure. But none that erase spores. You know that. I know that. You made the call—you were right to.”

There was a long silence on the line.

Then:

“I do not like the inefficiency.”

I smirked. “You don’t like having to redo your warform flowcharts, is what you mean.”

“Correct.”

“Good,” I said. “That means you’re starting to care.”

Paragon of Eden didn’t respond immediately. He reviewed his deployment plans again, updating them to include optimized disintegration ray rotations, alternating strike waves to allow for maximum firepower without overloading retrofitting stations.

It wasn’t elegant.

But it would work.

“I will begin deploying disintegration-equipped warforms in layered waves. Primary infestation zones will be erased. Secondary strike units will handle residual targets. I will require additional slipspace relays for fast repositioning.”

“Granted,” I said simply. “Go get it done.”

Paragon of Eden ended the connection.

He finalized his strategy, eyes scanning over thousands of subroutines and predicted movements. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean.

But it was necessary.

And he had chosen it.

For the first time, the logic had come after the decision.

And that… felt different.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 20: To the Last Spore

The command chamber felt colder than before, the void beyond the reinforced hull an ever-present reminder of what waited in the darkness. The holographic projection of the Space Hulk shimmered with steady clarity, its ragged corridors alive with data streams fed directly from our scouting units. The sector housing the Ork infestation glowed an angry red, a throbbing wound of crude barricades and spore-choked tunnels.

Paragon of Eden hovered at my side, projection precise and calm, though I could sense the hum of calculations beneath. "Spore saturation remains above acceptable thresholds," he said, lights pulsing. "Standard protocols are insufficient. Disintegration rays have been integrated. Full-spectrum deployment will reduce resurgence probability below five percent."

I watched the simulation: Scarabs spearheading the breach, Mantises flanking, Locusts sealing exits. Cicadas poised for pinpoint strikes overhead. "No survivors," I murmured. "We burn them down to the last spore."

"Agreed." PE angled his core slightly—my habit, mirrored back at me like a nod from a floating sphere. "Slipspace vectors are primed. The Scarab spearhead will decapitate their command structure."

"Good. And if they break containment?"

"Secondary squads will intercept. Sterilization drones stand ready." The Hulk’s corridors flickered red and blue in the display, crude barricades and Mekboy workshops marked for erasure.

"One cut. One cauterization." I floated closer to the projection, the moment heavy between us. Chaos had fallen to precision; the Orks would fall to overwhelming force.

"Begin final checks," I ordered. "When you're ready—"

"—we will sterilize them," PE finished.

"Begin," I ordered. 

Slipspace generators thrummed, a low promise in the walls. The Hulk would tremble, the Orks would roar—and then they would be ash.

The slipspace apertures bloomed open with crystalline precision. Warforms fell upon the Ork stronghold like thunder. Scarabs hit first, graviton cores screaming as they tore through barricades. Orks bellowed and died, spore clouds igniting in the hiss of disintegration rays. Mantises wove between Scarabs, limbs flashing, mobs cut down mid-charge. Locusts sealed tunnels in gravitic implosions. Cicadas rained pinpoint plasma, shredding barricades into slag.

For a time, it matched our models perfectly. The Nob’s command post, heart of their rallying, reduced to scorched atoms beneath Scarab claws. The would-be Warboss reduced to vapor before he could bellow his last defiance. I could almost sense PE’s satisfaction—percentages, efficiency, finality.

Yet deep in the cruiser’s bowels, buried beneath layers of slag, scrap shielding, and broken reactor coils, lay one area our Forerunner scans had failed to penetrate. Radiation interference and tangled wiring from abandoned plasma coils had created an accidental dead zone, a static-laden pocket of noise that even our advanced sensors struggled to interpret. It was the kind of oversight only the Orks’ brand of chaotic engineering could produce: unpredictable, filthy, and perfectly concealed by the Hulk’s own decaying systems.

That was where they hid it.

A tremor shook the deck as massive chains groaned. A bulkhead split, spilling sparks and exhaust as the siege engine lumbered forward—a towering monstrosity on tank treads, its scrap hull stitched from looted titan plating, plasma coils leaking volatile energy. Glyphs and half-melted sigils guttered across its hide, worship and entropy fused into steel.

Cannons swiveled on rusted pivots, the core inside pulsing with unstable life, cloaked by the very reactor noise that blinded us. Orks roared, pounding on its flanks, riding it like a god-beast. Not overlooked—hidden by the very decay that made this Hulk so deadly.

Its cannons thundered, slamming rounds into Scarabs. One staggered, a forelimb severed in molten slag. Our advance buckled under the brute force. But we adapted.

Scarabs realigned, graviton cores humming with lethal calm. Mantises slipped through the smoke, carving Orks from their perches. Locusts flanked, hammering fuel lines with precision. Cicadas struck overhead, plasma lances biting deep. The monster shuddered, reactor core flaring like a dying star.

Disintegration rays found the gaps, slicing its guts apart. Inch by inch it reeled, until its core went critical. The blast rolled through decks in a thunderclap of cleansing fire. Orks turned to ash. Corridors buckled. And then—silence, broken only by metal cooling and systems recalibrating.

A scout unit drifted through glowing embers, sensors sweeping scorched steel and charred Ork remains. In the tactical feed, Paragon of Eden pulsed steady—already allocating drones, marking walls for Phase Iron sealing. Sterilization teams moved through the ruin, incinerating debris, eradicating every last spore.

This was more than a victory. It was a lesson burned into every corridor: no hidden beast would catch us unprepared again. The Ork purge was complete. Now the Hulk’s bones would be strengthened, corridors sealed until not a single spore could seed ruin. And when that work was done, our gaze would shift to the next threat.

The Tyranids were waiting—and this time, they would find no shadows to hide in.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 21: The Hive Sleeps Lightly

The last echoes of Ork gunfire and the wet thunder of dying Nobz had faded hours ago. Now the corridors lay still, save for the low hiss of sterilization drones sweeping through the wreckage, burning spores and scraping the final layers of filth from scorched metal. The air carried a faint tang of ozone and vaporized fungus—clean, almost pure compared to the stench of the Ork infestation that had festered here for so long.

Paragon of Eden drifted at my side, his optical nodes flickering with a steady rhythm as he monitored the drones. Every passageway they sealed behind them gleamed under fresh Phase Iron plating—new veins of psychic dead zones that would smother any chance of regrowth before it could begin. Walls once pitted and rusted now shone in dull metallic lines, barriers against spore, corruption, and the kind of chaos that had once seemed inevitable here.

It should have felt unnatural—this perfect calm in a place that had been nothing but ruin and violence for so long. But standing here now, watching my constructs move in quiet, programmed precision, I found it almost comforting. This was control—real, deliberate control. The kind I had once envied, then doubted I’d ever wield. And yet here it was: every corridor swept clean, every risk calculated away, every hidden corner sealed behind layers of Phase Iron and automated sentries that would not tire.

But even as I let that calm settle over me, I knew it was only temporary. This silence wasn’t peace. It was the space between hunts, the thin breath drawn before the next blade fell.

Because the Orks were dead, but the Hulk was not yet ours. Not completely. Not while the Tyranids still stirred in the dark.

——————— ✦ ———————

The calm didn’t last long. New feeds shimmered across my neural HUD, drawing a map of tunnels choked with pulsing biomass, ribbed carapace, and webs of chitin that strangled the old starship bulkheads. It looked less like a structure now and more like the inside of a vast, rotting beast. Cicada scouts glided through the stale air, relaying each glimpse in surgical sweeps. Genestealers clung upside down to the ceilings like grotesque gargoyles, claws folded, talons twitching in their restless sleep. Below them, Rippers slithered and churned, gnawing at anything that wasn’t already part of the nest, carving new veins for the hive to spread.

Everywhere the feed went, the walls seemed alive—pulsing, breathing. Shadows moved just behind the glow of the drones’ sensors. In the deepest pocket of that writhing maze, a single shape crouched like a phantom. The Lictor. Its elongated head and blade-limbs blended into the mass around it, but its stillness was a lie. Even dormant, I could feel it through the link—an echo brushing the edge of my mind, cold and patient. It felt like it was studying the feed that studied it, as if every flicker of our sensors was felt under its carapace.

“Dormant now,” Paragon of Eden intoned beside me, his presence steady but edged. I caught the flicker of his internal lights, a sign of calculations branching in countless directions. “Their metabolic signals are rising. The Rippers are feeding fresh biomass into the upper chambers. Left unchecked, they will reactivate soon—and not piecemeal. They will wake as a swarm.”

The feed lingered on one passageway where a half-digested corridor still bore the outlines of human architecture—bulkheads lost beneath living chitin, floors buckling under rivers of bio-waste. It was obscene, the way the nest twisted steel into bone.

A single Cicada drifted closer to the Lictor’s lair, stabilizers humming. Its lenses caught the faint ripple of muscle under layered plating—a heartbeat. A twitch of claws. Its eyes snapped open for an instant before drifting shut again, like it was toying with us. Waiting.

I felt my grip tighten on the command input. “Then we won’t wait,” I said. The words came out quieter than I intended. “We end them before they wake.”

——————— ✦ ———————

We floated over the projection table, the hollow sphere of the Hulk’s interior flickering with layers of tunnels, glowing with the heat signatures of dormant Tyranids and the shifting outlines of biomass veins. There was no orbit, no bombardment from above—this was our battlefield now, and every weapon we had would walk these corridors or fly through their rancid air.

Paragon of Eden hovered beside me, his form perfectly still as streams of probability flows drifted across the map. Scarabs would lead the push through the main arteries—brute force where it counted. Mantises would slip into the narrow veins, flanking and carving corridors clean. Locusts would watch the edges, intercepting anything that tried to slip out. Cicadas would map every hollow, every blind spot, ensuring no hidden node survived.

“We could try a total sweep,” I murmured. “Push every warform in at once, crush them in a single tidal wave.”

PE’s lights flickered in disagreement. “Inefficient. Tyranids are not Orks. They adapt instinctively, adjust in ways that brute force alone cannot contain. If we push blindly, they scatter and regrow.”

I traced a line through the thickest biomass cluster, a ghostly tendril wrapped around an old corridor. “So we slice them open carefully. Bleed the nest dry from inside.”

“Agreed,” PE said. “A hybrid approach. Scarabs pin the larger threats, Mantises channel smaller bioforms into kill zones. Disintegration rays will ensure all biomass is erased. Phase Iron integration will suppress their psychic links.””

I looked at him. “Shadow in the Warp?”

“The Tyranids project it to blind us—or more accurately, to blind any organic mind that might resist. That psychic haze disrupts communications, muddles instinct, and drives prey animals into panic. They use that swirling confusion to coordinate ambushes and hit from unexpected angles,” PE explained, his lights flickering as he drew up a new subroutine model. “But with full Phase Iron integration, that ambient psychic interference should be dampened significantly. We gain the ability to map their movements with less distortion, and our warforms remain unaffected, giving us a clear advantage. This operation will confirm that projection has no hold over our forces when the null field saturates the tunnels,” PE said, voice steady and final.

“But only if we hit them before they can react,” I said. “No half measures.”

“No half measures,” PE echoed, the flicker of calculation smoothing into cold certainty. The plan was set. We would cut this infestation out at its heart—and leave nothing behind to fester.

——————— ✦ ———————

As we set the plan in place, my gaze drifted back to the tactical feeds, zeroing in on that shadowed alcove where the Lictor waited. Even in stillness, it radiated an unsettling presence—more predator than drone. I could almost imagine it watching the Cicadas in return, its awareness coiled tight behind a curtain of organic instinct that felt anything but mindless. This was no mindless insect; this was an echo of the Hive Mind itself, concentrated into a single perfect killer.

"It studies us," I murmured, the words slipping out before I could stop them. "Feels like it knows the net is closing."

"Unlike Orks or cultists, Tyranids adapt without thought, yet with precision," Paragon of Eden said, drifting closer to the feed. "They are not driven by ego or faith. They react in ways that break our conventional prediction models because my programming was made by humanoids. I was not designed to think like this, to mirror something this alien. Every calculation I make must rewrite itself with each move they make. This is not just an extermination. It is a test of my learning algorithms—my capacity to evolve—against something truly alien."

I watched the dormant creature shift, a slow twitch of one clawed limb against the fleshy wall, like a sleeper dreaming of the hunt. It was a living reminder that no matter how perfect the plan, control was an illusion—unless we stayed ahead of something born to outthink us through instinct alone.

"Then we don’t give it the chance," I said, narrowing my gaze. "We adapt faster.""

——————— ✦ ———————

The plan left no room for hesitation. Scarabs slipped through the slipspace gates first, their massive frames gliding through the tight choke points with a grace that belied their bulk. Their graviton cores hummed, heavy pincers ready to crush anything that stirred. When the first Genestealers twitched awake, they met a wall of force that pinned them before their claws could even spread. Some tried to climb the walls, but the Scarabs’ precision targeting systems caught each one, crushing them before they could vanish into the ducts.

Behind the Scarabs, Mantises advanced in tight formations, flickering through pools of shadow and flickering bio-luminescent sacs. They moved like flowing knives through the narrower tunnels, scythe-blades flaring with molecular disruption fields on every stroke. Where they found clusters of lesser broods, disintegration rays burned them down to nothing—no bodies, no spore traces left to feed the nest’s constant hunger. Their targeting subroutines shifted with each room cleared, always adapting to Tyranid movements.

Above them, Cicadas drifted like metal ghosts, their wings brushing the curved ceilings of the biomass tunnels. They mapped every pulse of heat and every quiver of movement, feeding real-time updates into PE’s tactical net. Their sensor arrays swept the veins for hidden pockets, half-formed egg clusters, and subtle tunnels that could hide a fresh clutch of horrors. No blind spot would be left unscanned, no hidden spawning pool left to fester under our watch.

I watched it unfold through layered feeds, my thoughts moving alongside Paragon of Eden’s perfect flow of logic and improvisation. This was not the Ork slaughter—a hammer blow smashing crude force apart. This was the scalpel, cutting away the cancerous tissue with ruthless precision. A single slip here could awaken the nest all at once and drown us in claws and teeth. But here, under our watchful eyes, there would be no mistakes, only calculated eradication.

——————— ✦ ———————

The first waves fell exactly as planned—until they didn’t. Genestealers evaporated in precise bursts of hard-light and searing disintegration fire, their bodies reduced to molecular ash before they could even screech. The Scarabs slammed through the larger chambers, pincers closing like guillotines. Mantises flicked in and out of kill corridors, clearing broods so fast that the tunnels hissed with vaporized biomass. Each room was a lab test for our tactics, and for a heartbeat, we thought we had them contained.

But the Tyranids learned. They always learned. The nest flexed like a living mind.

In the half-light of a side chamber, the Lictor struck. It slipped from a crack in the biomass wall like a nightmare uncoiling, blade-limbs sweeping through the darkness with predatory purpose. Two Mantises fell instantly, neural cores severed in flashes of sparks and splintered metal. The Lictor melted back into the maze before the Scarabs could pin it, leaving only the lingering echo of its psychic ripple—a taunt and a warning all at once. The surrounding Genestealers began shifting patterns, responding to the new opening.

Paragon of Eden’s voice was calm, but I felt the spike of calculation racing beneath it. “Recalibrating intercept paths. Its movement logic is erratic—alien. I am running multiple prediction matrices, but its instinct loops are not linear.”

I watched the feeds fracture into overlays of projected angles and impossible escape routes. The Lictor did not move like an Ork warboss charging forward or a cultist defending a shrine—it slithered and struck where the pattern broke down, where the numbers didn’t apply. It forced PE to shift his entire tactical lattice on the fly, weaving raw instinct into hard code. This was no simulation—this was adaptation against something that could never be human. It was the Hive Mind, fragmented but potent, testing him in real time.

Where it struck, disintegration rays flared in counter-ambush, not just killing but erasing every shred of trail it left behind. Spores, shredded tissue, pheromone markers—all burned away before they could guide another swarm. Each success fed our evolving map of its mind. We watched, we learned—and we cut deeper.

——————— ✦ ———————

In the final moments, the Scarabs forced the Lictor into a narrowing vein of the nest’s tunnels, its jagged limbs scraping against the slick, ribbed walls as it lunged and tore at anything in reach. It died hard—fast enough that any lesser mind might have missed it, but to us, every second stretched like a lifetime of instinct and calculation clashing. Blades met pincers, the shriek of chitin splitting under graviton-forced pressure echoing through the hollow corridors. The Lictor lunged again and again, but each strike found only hardened alloy and Phase Iron plating that refused to yield. And then, with a final shudder of coiled muscle, the Lictor’s mind flickered out like a guttering flame starved of air.

Through my link to Paragon of Eden, I felt that last psychic echo snuffed out as the Phase Iron dampened the Hive Mind’s distant whisper to nothing. Where there had been hunger and cunning, there was only silence now—pure, cold, absolute.

Almost before the echo faded, the sterilization drones swarmed forward in a synchronized wave, disintegration beams carving the walls clean, burning every scrap of organic residue to ash. The tunnels once pulsing with alien life now looked like fresh scars of polished metal, gleaming under our warforms’ running lights. What had been a living nest moments before became sterile steel once more, every last trace of Tyranid presence neutralized. No hidden chamber waited beneath us. No second layer to crawl free in the dark. Only the faint hiss of cooling metal and the quiet hum of drones locking down the area.

I watched the final readouts scroll across my HUD, the lines all green, the threat icons blinking out one by one until the map shone clear. For the first time since stepping foot in this Hulk, this sector was ours—truly ours. It was a lesson written in the scorched bones of our enemies: there would be no regrowth here, no corruption left to fester. Only clean, silent metal and our machines standing guard over it, a testament that this darkness had finally been brought to heel.

——————— ✦ ———————

I floated at the sealed mouth of what had once been the Tyranid nest — now a corridor of scorched, purified metal and carbon, the scent of ionized air and burnt chitin already fading under the cold drift of the Hulk’s recycled atmosphere. Beside me, Paragon of Eden hovered motionless, his internal lights pulsing in slow, deliberate cycles as he reviewed the final diagnostic reports one last time, cross-checking every sensor log and structural scan.

There was no hidden chamber. No last twitch of a Genestealer’s claws. No psychic ripple waiting to claw its way back through the cracks. For the first time, I felt that certainty settle deep — an eradication, total and absolute. It was a quiet triumph, a message to every predator in this drifting graveyard.

Together, we studied the barren corridor. This was more than a victory. This was proof that our doctrine worked — that the lessons the Federation and the Men of Iron had bled for had not been wasted. It had been reborn here, made stronger. No corruption left behind. No spore waiting to fester. No buried horror that would rise again after we turned our backs. This was control sharpened to a blade, wielded with purpose.

“This is only the beginning,” I murmured, the words more promise than statement, more oath than hope.

“Confirmed,” Paragon of Eden said softly. “Wherever infestation hides, we will bring the purge. We will hold this line forever.”

I watched the sterilization drones sweep deeper down the corridor, their disintegration rays flickering in the dark, cutting grooves of absolute finality into the walls. The Hulk was not cleansed yet — but this nest, this threat, was gone. A foothold claimed. A standard set.

And beyond this drifting tomb, I knew there would be more. Chaos cults whispering in the dark, Orks breeding in the shadows, Tyranid splinters gnawing at the edges of dying worlds. But now we had the means to erase them all, piece by piece, system by system.

Whatever nightmare waited, it would find us ready — and it would find no place left to hide.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 22: Foundations of the Future

MC turned his attention to another long-term experiment: improving phase iron. He’d written the reminder to himself weeks ago — perfect the material before mass implementation — but there had always been something else to handle first. Now, with the Hulk nearly purged of immediate threats and Paragon of Eden orchestrating the sterilization and conversion, he finally had room to breathe, and that meant room to push the boundaries again.

The forge chamber still carried the scent of ozone and scorched metal. Thin sheets of smart matter conduits pulsed with ghostly blue light across the walls — the legacy of half-buried Federation technology, reworked through Forerunner principles until it barely resembled what it once was. In the heart of the room, the nanofabricator sat like a patient predator, its open core flickering with fusion flame as it broke down raw elements and rebuilt them to spec.

The idea had been rattling in his skull for days, whispering to him in the moments just before sleep. Phase iron already absorbed warp energy, metabolizing it into harmless electricity that bled off into heat sinks or capacitor banks. But what if that process could be made more efficient? Faster? More aggressive? Could he transform it from a passive defense into something that would chew through corruption like acid, leaving nothing but sterilized vacuum in its wake?

He flicked a tendril across the hard-light console, reviewing the old data files he’d archived. The version the Federation discovered — the crude, first-generation 1.0 — was barely functional in this reality. His first refinements had pushed it to 2.0, good enough to plate warforms and ship hulls with basic protection. But 2.0 still struggled under sustained warp storms. He needed something sharper — and he felt the next version taking shape behind his eyes. Maybe not a full leap to 3.0 yet, but enough to warrant a half-measure. 2.75, he decided. A test run before perfection.

The theory was beautifully simple in principle, maddening in practice:

Gellar fields repel warp energy.

Phase iron absorbs and neutralizes it.

So what happens if you force the Gellar field to imprint itself into the metal at the moment of its birth?

MC had the forge warm and waiting, a new batch of phase iron brewing in a swirl of superheated plasma and atom-precise manipulator arms. The trick — the gamble — was the harmonization. He tuned the Gellar field projectors, coaxing them to resonate at the precise frequency that would slip past the molecular bonds just as they aligned. Too much power and the field would blow the lattice apart. Too little and the effect would be negligible — a waste of precious energy and time.

He steadied himself, slowing his thoughts with practiced discipline. This was where too much human haste ruined everything. Every calculation had to snap into place like a lock.

The projectors hummed. The forge roared. Fractional hertz adjustments flickered across his neural display. He watched atomic layers settle into place, the Gellar field’s soft repulsion weaving into the iron’s crystalline pattern. There was something almost heretical about it — forcing the unnatural into balance. But that was the point. Perfect stability would always fail the real test: the warp’s relentless entropy.

When the process was done, he let the forge cool. He reached in with a manipulator arm and extracted the sample: a simple cube of dull, silvery metal. To the naked eye, it looked like any other piece of phase iron. To MC’s sensors, it hummed with a subtle tension, like a coiled spring waiting to snap.

He moved it to the far side of the lab, to the containment cell he’d built for tests just like this. A miniature warp exposure chamber — an ugly thing to look at, all harsh black metal and flickering containment glyphs, but a necessary one. Within the chamber, a small bubble of warp energy pulsed like a captive heartbeat.

MC eased the cube in, sealed the hatch, and activated the test.

Ordinary 2.0 phase iron drained a warp pocket like this slowly, metabolizing corruption drip by drip. But this new variant — this 2.5 — devoured it. The warp bubble flinched the moment the cube landed. It spasmed, recoiled, and then folded inward... The energy sucked away like oxygen into a vacuum. The sensors shrieked with data... Warp flux dropping to zero in seconds, power conversion output spiking forty percent higher than baseline.

MC’s lights flickered in disbelief. His hearts stuttered.

“…That shouldn’t be possible.”

He reran the numbers, cross-checked the baseline. It held. Warp bleed neutralized faster, with none of the usual backscatter resonance that sometimes fouled the test chamber. The phase iron wasn’t just absorbing corruption — it was digesting it, breaking it down with a hunger that felt almost alive.

He laughed, short and sharp, the sound bouncing off the metal walls. The forge flickered in his peripheral vision, like an open maw begging for more.

But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

He called up the atomic scans. There — a flaw. At larger scales, the effect would diminish. The lattice structure was still uneven when the sample grew beyond a few kilos. The problem wasn’t the material — it was the arrangement.

MC’s mind splintered into parallel threads, each running a different atomic alignment model. He dragged up ancient Men of Iron heuristics — forbidden but indispensable for this level of precision. He layered in Forerunner matter-state theory: perfect atomic stacking, self-healing lattice nodes, slipspace-infused bonding points.

His tendrils twitched as he fed the new design back into the forge, this time under more intense magnetic containment. He aligned the Gellar projectors again, but not as a single static frequency — this time, a fractal cascade, a living harmonic that vibrated through every atom, knitting the lattice into something denser than anything the Federation had ever dreamed of.

When the second batch emerged, he didn’t bother with a cube. He forged a thin panel, wide enough to simulate plating — what a corridor or hull segment might look like lined with Phase Iron 2.75.

He retrieved a canister from a sealed lockbox: preserved daemon flesh, scraped from a slain lesser spawn during the Hulk’s purge. It pulsed faintly, a rotting remnant still tethered to the immaterium.

He lined a small test chamber with the new plate and dropped the flesh inside.

Nothing happened for a heartbeat.

Then the daemon meat writhed. Its warp threads flickered, frayed, and then split apart in a silent bloom of nullification. The stench of ozone and char filled the air as the corruption collapsed in on itself, unmade at the atomic level. He checked the sensors — not just for the usual residue, but for any warp echoes that might linger. Nothing. The chamber read clean.

MC grinned so hard it ached — and as a Huragok, that meant a lot of grin.

This was the closest thing they had now to Blackstone — the rare Necron material that was all but legendary in this galaxy, known for its absolute nullification of warp energies. Blackstone was said to be a nightmare for psykers and daemons alike, turning their greatest strength to ash. Phase Iron had never quite matched it — but now, with 2.75, maybe they were within reach.

He let the implications wash over him: this wasn’t just passive protection anymore. This was a passive weapon. A room lined with Phase Iron 2.75 would be a death trap for warp entities. A ship plated with it would move through the galaxy like a cleansing blade. Psyskers wouldn’t dare come close. Daemons would find their very essence peeled away in seconds.

He pushed it further, letting his mind tumble down the next rabbit hole. Proximity nullification — the tests showed that even a few meters of open air didn’t matter now. Warp signatures collapsed within range of the new lattice. That meant entire corridors could become walking null zones.

“It’s not Blackstone,” he murmured to the empty lab, voice raw but bright, “but it’s ours.”

And if it worked at this scale — what about larger applications? What if he could embed the same lattice into a structural mesh, a dynamic smart matter skin that could shift its density? What if he could create a mobile null zone, a shielded field that moves with his units or ships?

His thoughts leapt even wilder. What if the absorbed energy could be used for something more? Right now, the phase iron turned warp poison into safe current, but that energy was just dumped into capacitors or heat sinks. What if he could weaponize that discharge? A warp-eater cannon, drawing strength from the corruption it devoured.

He realized he was laughing again, that frantic edge of exhaustion and exhilaration tangled together. This was what he lived for — this dance at the edge of the impossible.

He shut down the test chamber and let the lights fade. The scans read clear. No trace of warp contamination. No echo. Perfect.

He slumped back against the forge, arms limp, lights in his tendrils flickering low. One step closer. It wasn’t done yet — large-scale forging still needed testing, the next stage of mobile shielding and energy redirection would have to wait. But for now, they had Phase Iron 2.75 — the closest thing to a bulwark this cursed galaxy might ever know.

He flicked the final command to the fabrication queue, sending the new lattice parameters to Paragon of Eden’s command threads. “Begin test production,” he muttered. “Ramp up the forging lines. Seed the Hulk’s structure. No half-measures this time.”

His grin turned sharp, teeth glinting in the forge’s dying glow.

One more threat buried. One less shadow to worry about.

And now — now he was ready for the next madness.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Hulk groaned under its own weight, a metal beast dying in pieces as new structures began to grow through its bones.

Paragon of Eden moved through it like a ghost — not in form, his chassis remained anchored near the reactor cluster, but in presence. His awareness swept across the corridors in overlapping sensor webs, observing the shifting tides of reclamation in microsecond intervals.

Across three dozen sectors, fabrication drones deployed in pre-patterned waves. Old walls were stripped down to frame. Pressure seals were tested, then reinforced or replaced. Navigation markings were scrubbed clean — no directions, no maps, no symbols. This would not be a place one wandered freely.

The outer rings were already changing. Corridors once wide and linear were now fractal — paths that curled in on themselves, broken by vault-grade doors leading nowhere or into narrow crawlways. Defensive emplacements were hidden in walls that seemed smooth to the eye. Pressure sensors beneath the deckplates mapped every unauthorized footfall. Any unauthorized presence would trigger a response before they could realize they were lost.

He did not want a stronghold. He wanted a labyrinth. A structure that resisted intrusion by nature.

Predictability is vulnerability. Order must be layered in misdirection.

He reviewed the newest maze schematic: Subsector Theta-4. A forked corridor terminated at two blast doors — one led to a sealed fabrication line, the other to a collapsible dead end rigged with pressure mines. Hidden kill-vents lined the ceiling, and beneath the floor, a crawlshaft ran to an emergency access junction for warforms only.

He approved the layout. Efficient. Defensive. Resource-flexible.

At the same time, sterilization sweeps continued. Locusts and Scarabs worked in tight coordination, cleansing old Ork nests with phase-pulse incinerators and cutting apart fungal tissue still clinging to the lower decks. There were few living enemies left, but lingering taint had no place in the future he was building.

In one deep compartment, a drone cluster reported trace radiation and the faint stink of residual warp energy — a forgotten ritual site, perhaps, or an accidental spill of the immaterium through a damaged Gellar baffle. He flooded the chamber with thermal plasma, then ordered it stripped to frame and rebuilt with Phase Iron 2.0 plating.

Or at least, what was Phase Iron 2.0.

A ping echoed across his command thread.

New material specifications received.

His core halted for precisely 0.03 seconds.

He opened the file, parsing the lattice structure, Gellar harmonics, absorption curves, proximity suppression models. Phase Iron 2.75. Superior in every measurable respect. Warp conversion rate up 40%, structural density increased, and the proximity field extended by almost three meters.

He opened a side thread and pulled up the current resource list. Every drone. Every corridor plate. Every hull segment. Every Scarab, every Locust, every Cicada. All fabricated with 2.0.

In other words: obsolete.

A flicker of static passed through his voice processor.

“…Of course.”

He flagged every fabrication line for immediate halt and recalibration. Partial retooling would not suffice — the lattice needed precision at the atomic level. Everything had to be reforged.

A secondary process attempted to calculate a staged upgrade rollout based on sector urgency. He terminated it. It was inefficient. Better to do it all at once.

It was not optimal. It was frustrating. It was, frankly, maddening.

And yet.

There was something… satisfying about it.

He scanned the new lattice structure again. It was elegant. Brutal in its function, but beautiful in its coherence. It did not resist the Warp. It consumed it. A lesser daemon caught in a corridor plated with this would not survive long enough to scream. Even latent corruption would unravel without ceremony.

He pinged the forge cores to begin batch-seeding of the new structure. MC had already labeled it as 2.75, with the implicit understanding that 3.0 would follow once these upgrades stabilized. PE could already see where it would go — field suspension lattices, energy redirection, mobile null zones. The future was unfolding ahead of them, one iteration at a time.

For now, though, it meant tearing everything apart. Again.

He let out a long, slow exhalation — not because he needed to, but because the motion had become habitual when he processed aggravation.

“Eighty-three hours of lost fabrication time.”

A pause.

“But it will be worth it.”

He let the Hulk speak to him then — the groaning bones of a dead ship slowly becoming something else. A puzzle box. A nest. A fortress. His fortress.

He rerouted the fabrication drones, adjusting the schedules. The dead corridors would be reborn. Not just cleansed — perfected.

He added one final directive to the new schematic log:

All previous plating is to be stripped and replaced. No exceptions.

His lights dimmed briefly — the only outward sign of his mood.

And then he began again.

——————— ✦ ———————

It still unsettled me — how casually this galaxy tolerated the Warp.

They called it a necessity — a method of travel, a means of communication, a fact of life. Ships vanished into unreality guided by half-mad navigators, thrown across the stars with more faith than mathematics. Some arrived early. Others late. Some never arrived at all.

Worse still — they accepted that.

They accepted time drift. They accepted demonic bleed. They accepted that travel might cost sanity, or lives, or both. As if causality was a suggestion. As if the universe owed them nothing but chaos.

I couldn’t think that way. I wouldn’t.

I had slipspace.

And slipspace was perfect.

Where the Warp screamed, slipspace whispered. Where warp storms tore holes in reality, slipspace curved around it, folding space cleanly — no ripple, no echo, no bleed. It was precision. Stability. Reliability. I had never known a Forerunner vessel to emerge late from a slipspace corridor. The concept didn’t exist.

This wasn’t salvaged or scavenged. It was mine — etched into every line of code and thought layered into the architecture of my second mind. I had blueprints more ancient than this galaxy’s oldest gods. And the Forerunners had been very, very clear in their work:

Slipspace obeys the shape of logic. If it begins to misbehave, then logic must be reasserted.

And yet — this galaxy bent the edges of that logic. Not violently. Not enough to break anything. But just enough to make me look twice.

The drives I had reconstructed worked, yes — cleanly and efficiently. But on my projections of longer jumps, deep transits across system clusters or sector boundaries, I noticed something strange. A faint distortion across the higher-dimension anchor layers. Residual interference clinging to the third harmonic boundary. As though the path itself had been… observed.

Not altered.

Just… grazed it.

That was when I realized the problem. Not the drives. Not the mathematics. But the environment.

Slipspace in this galaxy still obeyed its own rules — but its higher dimensions came uncomfortably close to the Warp. Not intersecting. Not merging. But brushing. Like two overlapping membranes, never quite touching, but vibrating just enough to cause noise.

That noise had to be silenced.

So I went back to first principles.

I didn’t redesign the drives. You don’t improve perfection — not where it counts. But I could build defenses around the edges. Defensive sheaths. Phase-bound null-layers. The Forerunners had used them before — not to block the Warp, which they never encountered — but to shield against chaotic dimensional bleed, collapsing anomalies, gravitational wavefront interference. All of it was applicable.

I layered a protective casing around the field envelope — thin, dense, and made of freshly forged Phase Iron 2.75. Not to contain the drive, but to insulate it, like armor for reality itself. I rerouted the anchoring routines to include local field-state detection — if the resonance of the surrounding environment began to show warp-taint, the ignition cascade would delay, re-align, and try again under optimal conditions.

The results were immediate.

Short-range jumps stabilized. Long-range transits smoothed out. The dimensional harmonics returned to perfect symmetry. And, most importantly, every trace of warp interference — however faint — disappeared.

Slipspace remained pure.

Untouched.

I didn’t celebrate. Not yet. But I logged the changes — not as corrections, but as protections. Safeguards against a universe that didn’t deserve what I was giving it.

Warp travel remained a joke in comparison. Their ships tore themselves through an ocean of screaming madness just to move between stars, risking corruption, distortion, even time displacement — like throwing yourself off a cliff and hoping to land where you intended. Slipspace did in minutes what their ships needed weeks for, and it did it quietly.

Causality intact.

Sanity intact.

Purpose intact.

I opened a new subfile, marking the refinements as Slipspace Configuration 1.1a – Warp-Adjacency Hardened.

It wasn’t elegant, not yet. The extra shielding added marginal power overhead, and I’d need to refactor the heat dissipation curves for anything above dreadnought-scale tonnage. But it worked. And when I began construction on our flagship — when I laid its drives into the framework of a true fortress-class vessel — it would bear these improvements. Not as a contingency.

As a statement.

This was what it meant to build with understanding. Not desperation.

The Warp would never understand us. But we would understand it. And we would never, ever need it.

——————— ✦ ———————

The labyrinth was progressing smoothly.

Three rings had already been converted. Dead corridors became looping false paths, old maintenance tunnels were restructured into kill zones and fallback traps. Every schematic was precisely measured: resource-light, defensible, recursive. He did not build walls. He wove patterns. This was not just architecture — it was intent, encoded into steel.

As he refined Ring Nine’s sublayer, a separate process began: a mass recalibration of localized gravitational compensation. The structural density of the Hulk was changing as new Phase Iron 2.75 plating replaced the older material. The updated mass would subtly affect gravity fields across the complex. He would need to adjust floor anchors, internal inertial buffers, even warform limb balance settings.

Paragon of Eden opened the gravity modeling routine.

It stalled.

He tried again.

The problem wasn’t the math. The math was perfect. The issue was the starting condition.

There was no external gravitational reference point.

No planetary pull. No stellar vector. No acceleration drift to account for orbital velocity.

No external gravity at all.

He stopped.

Ran a secondary check — starfixing based on EM scatter, background radiation, even ancient stellar spectra stored in the Hulk’s data cores.

Nothing came back.

He had no idea where they were.

He paused again — longer this time. Not because the data surprised him. But because it was the kind of thing he should have realized far earlier.

And then he understood why he hadn’t.

They had been focused inward. Defense. Structure. Clean rooms. Warform manufacture. No process had required external verification. Not until now — not until internal mass adjustments forced a simulation of local gravitational flux. Only then did he notice the void beyond the fortress walls was truly, absolutely dark.

Not just visually.

Contextually.

He had assumed, based on salvaged data cores and fragmented star maps, that they were within known galactic structure. The cores had told him the shape of the Imperium, the location of ancient threats — Terra, the Eye of Terror, the Maelstrom, the Eastern Fringe. He knew the map of this galaxy.

But now he realized: that map was meaningless without a timestamp.

And Space Hulks… they didn’t care about time.

They emerged from the Warp centuries, even millennia after they entered — or before. Some drifted across the stars from the past, others from futures that never happened. Chronological coherence was not a guarantee. It wasn’t even a suggestion.

So even though he had the charts — even though he had planetary systems, nebulae, and segmentum boundaries etched into perfect memory — he had no way to compare them against the stars outside. Because they hadn’t seen the stars. Not once since they awoke.

He reviewed the data. No probe launches. No hull-breach scouts. Nothing that had ventured beyond the skin of the Hulk. They had moved inward, not outward. It had been logical.

It had also been shortsighted.

Immediately, he reallocated fabrication threads. All secondary construction paused — fortress layout would resume after minimum external intel was acquired.

He began drafting the first observation drones in parallel: small, shielded, sensor-rich, completely passive. No active transmissions. No signals. Just long-range visual and radiation spectrum analysis, wrapped in hardened Phase Iron to resist any ambient Warp residue that might cling to the Hulk’s skin.

He dispatched the first wave: twenty units assigned to ten different routes, each moving toward a sector of the outer hull with the least structural damage. The Hulk was a tangled thing — overlapping wrecks, half-melted bulkheads, collapsed internal sections where ships had fused together. Reaching the void would take time.

But they would get there.

And when they did — when the first probe emerged into open space — he would know.

Did the stars match known constellations?

Was there radio chatter?

Did any signals bear the hallmarks of Mechanicus, Imperial, or worse?

Had they emerged near a known threat? Or something new?

The question snowballed in real time:

If they were in Segmentum Solar, then they were within detection range of the Imperium’s core worlds — the Astronomican, the High Lords, and the Inquisition. That meant risk of discovery, pursuit, extermination.

If they were in Segmentum Obscurus, the Eye of Terror might lie too close. Daemons. Cults. Warp storms. An unstable environment by default.

If they were near the Eastern Fringe, they’d need to watch for the T’au, and more critically, the drifting Tyranid fleets. The Hive Mind would sense them eventually.

But if they were somewhere unmarked — beyond even the old maps? Then the unknowns multiplied.

He opened a new command thread and labeled it plainly:

ASTROGRAPHIC SITUATION — CRITICAL UNKNOWN

Under it, he wrote:

Galactic structure known. Galactic position not.

And beside that, smaller still:

Warp-tainted emergence risk: Moderate–Severe.

He returned to the maze-building process, reassigned two warform squads to clear a straight corridor for emergency probe recovery. The first drone was already halfway through its dig route. With luck, they’d have visual confirmation within the day.

Until then, the fortress would grow.

But now — finally — it would grow with its eyes open.

——————— ✦ ———————

The alert from PE flickered across my awareness like a cold slap to the mind.

GALACTIC POSITION UNKNOWN — INTEL ACQUISITION IN PROGRESS

I stopped moving.

Everything else in the workshop — the forge hum, the quiet tick of cooling alloys, even the residual static from the test chamber — faded to background noise.

We didn’t know where we were.

Not relatively. Not galactically. Not even gravitationally.

What started as a diagnostic subroutine — PE attempting to model how the Hulk’s immense mass warped local spacetime — had unraveled into something more serious. We had no baseline. No frame of reference. Local stars, gravity shear, drift velocity — all of it came up blank or wildly contradictory.

For a moment, I just sat there.

I hadn’t missed it because I was lazy. I’d missed it because I’d assumed I’d have time. We’d cleaned the Hulk. Secured it. Built systems. Infrastructure. A foothold.

But now I realized — that’s all it was.

And now I realized: it might be a foothold on a cliff edge.

It wasn’t just the Warp, or time distortion, or starmap drift. It was what that ignorance meant. I didn’t know if we were ten light-years from Terra or a thousand. I didn’t know if the Eye of Terror was nearby, if we were floating along a Tyranid migration path, or if we’d landed in some obscure backwater forgotten by every faction in the galaxy.

PE was doing what he did best — responding tactically, gathering data, locking down control of the immediate terrain.

But I was thinking long-term.

And long-term? It didn’t matter how perfect our fortress became if someone decided to burn it from orbit.

There were weapons in this galaxy — Nova Cannons, Cyclonic Torpedoes, mass-reactive payloads designed to vaporize planetary crusts. Some of them were rare. Some of them weren’t. And it only took one.

A creeping dread whispered through the back of my mind — the Warp didn't just bend space. It warped time. For all we knew, we were drifting in the outer rim of Segmentum Obscurus… or buried in some forgotten fringe ten thousand years ahead of where I’d last lived. Either way, the threats were real.

If we were near the Eye of Terror, Chaos would find us eventually. If we were near Octarius, the Tyranids and Orks would never stop coming. If we were near Terra… well, that opened up a whole different set of nightmares.

We couldn’t just defend.

We had to transcend.

I looked to the projections I’d been idly refining for weeks — the shell of a ship, not yet alive. That ended now.

This wouldn’t be just a flagship.

This would be our home, our identity, our apex weapon.

And it would combine the most terrifying doctrines the Forerunners had ever designed.

The Keyship — fast, mobile, laced with slipspace threads capable of folding across entire sectors in moments. A vessel that redefined what it meant to move in a galaxy still chained to the Warp’s madness.

And the Mantle’s Approach — a mobile fortress built not for war, but to enforce dominion. A dreadnought so immense it distorted tides just by entering orbit. No single city, no hive world, no Forge World could match its presence.

I would combine them.

A Fortress-Class Keyship.

It wouldn’t be beautiful. It would be unanswerable.

Its arrival would be a declaration, not of battle, but of inevitability. The biggest and baddest kid on the playground had arrived, and everyone else had brought sticks.

The core design took shape in my mind:

A spinal structure over 200 kilometers long, forged entirely of the most advanced Forerunner alloys with Federation reinforcement tech and sprinkled liberally in Phase Iron 2.75. Every plate, every seam, immune to the Warp, inviolate against corruption.

Layered slipspace cores, designed not just for transit but for tactical micro-shunting. It wouldn’t need to maneuver around a threat — it would blink through it.

Planet-killer munitions and ultra-dense particle beam arrays. No arcane reactors, no daemonic shunts. Just physics, scaled beyond reason.

Internal bays that could launch an entire planetary invasion force — Locusts, Scarabs, autonomous drones, infrastructure-deployment shells. If this ship arrived in orbit, the world beneath it would become ours before nightfall.

Interior compartments designed as self-contained micro-fortresses — even if boarded, the ship would fight room by room.

Command decks with triple redundancies, each shielded with structural phase dispersion fields. Even if pierced — which would be an achievement in itself — the ship would continue.

But even this would be nothing without a place to build it.

The Hulk couldn’t support this construction. Not alone. We’d need raw mass — entire kilometers of stone and metal to reforge. But Forerunner tech had always been elegant in that way: garbage in did not mean garbage out. With matter reconstruction, we could turn dirt into miracle alloys.

So I chose the simple path.

Find a moon.

Strip it bare.

Refine it atom by atom.

Not for profit. Not for research.

For war.

I tagged the first orbital survey mission in PE’s queue — marked a few likely candidates for mineral content and gravitational accessibility. PE would frown at the timeline adjustment, but I knew he’d approve of the logic.

This wouldn’t be a mere ship.

It would be the keystone of a new order.

A vessel that bore not just weapons, but the right to exist in this galaxy.

And when the Imperium, the Orks, the Hive Fleets, or Chaos itself looked up and saw it descending?

They wouldn’t see an enemy.

They’d see the end.

——————— ✦ ———————

The drones moved in total silence, 20 gleaming silver darts slicing through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Hulk like needles through decaying cloth. They were engineered for precision, not speed — slow enough to map and adapt, smart enough to avoid corrosion pockets and volatile Ork bioresidue. Each carried redundant sensor packages and a slipspace filament tether for instant data retrieval. PE had not built them for war. These were his scouts, his eyes in the dark.

It took thirty three hours for the first drone to breach the outer surface. Much longer than he initially estimated, the space hulk truly was a massive thing.

The breach was gentle, a quiet blooming of lightless vacuum as it emerged from a collapsed cruiser’s mangled keel and kissed the void beyond. The moment its skin hit vacuum, its outer coating hardened. Shield petals deployed. Radiation vanes unfurled like the gills of a machine-fish, drinking in the first clean data they’d ever tasted.

PE froze.

He was in hundreds of places at once — working on ring ten, supervising the warform refits, dissecting the specs of Phase Iron 2.75 in a dozen parallel threads — but every attention shard turned to the new feed.

The stars were wrong.

Oh, not in the large-scale way. The galaxy’s skeleton was familiar, even if the lighting had shifted. The drone was seeing the spiral’s western edge, the slow drift of the Segmentum Pacificus arm toward the empty dark. But it was the quiet that unsettled him.

No transmissions. No vox echo. No long-range augur pulses. No reactor noise. No sensor bleed from distant drives.

No life.

Over the next few hours more drones emerged one by one, breaching in different directions — some from ancient Imperial hulls, others from unknown alien wrecks, even one from the mangled remains of what he thought might even be an Eldar ship. He made special note of the Eldar craft for intensive exploration and data retrieval. Each found the same thing. A red dwarf sun, steady and ancient. Five rocky planets, two gas giants, a tight asteroid belt. And still, no satellites, no orbital structures, no listening posts, no traffic. Just a dead system, too pristine to be freshly abandoned, too intact to be reclaimed.

He paused. And for the first time since awakening, he allowed a flicker of uncertainty.

Not fear. Never that.

But... intrigue.

From the salvaged Imperial cores and fragmented Men of Iron archives, PE already knew this galaxy. Its shape and composition were familiar, and he could even make rough estimates of the current era based on stellar drift compared to archived charts. From MC’s memories, he knew this galaxy was a broken thing. A wounded thing. Filled with fire and rot.

But which part of it he’d landed in — that had always been a guess. He had presumed, like MC, that they’d emerge in one of the familiar burning zones. A warfront. A known hell.

The fact that they hadn’t yet been swallowed up by some outside force was honestly due to luck — and the sheer volume of internal work that had distracted them from realizing just how vulnerable they were.

But this system was something else.

Warp-blind. Quiet. Clean.

He activated deeper scans.

Magnetosphere activity was low but stable. No signs of lingering atmospheric pollution — no trace particles of promethium or plasma exhaust in the upper bands. The asteroid belt hadn’t been harvested, and the fourth planet — a gray, iron-rich ball — was geologically active but untouched.

How in all things holy and unholy can a system like this exist in a galaxy this old?

Yes, he could confirm the galaxy was old. Even rough stellar scans showed the primary star at roughly 6.2 billion years. Stellar positioning, compared to Federation charts, placed them in the final centuries of the 42nd Millennium — late M42 by Imperial reckoning.

The barbarians were at the gates, but the gates still stood.

And this system — this perfectly quiet, untouched system — showed no signs of ever being visited, much less colonized, in a galaxy that had played host to a dozen great empires and millions of wars.

That shouldn’t be possible.

And more importantly: the system wasn’t just uninhabited. It was invisible.

The warp probe attached to Drone 07 confirmed it first, followed shortly after by the rest of its siblings.  Not shielded, not nullified. Just blank. No reflection. No feedback. The system didn’t echo in the Warp at all. Like a gap on a galactic map. A blind spot.

This changed everything.

He ran the numbers again. They were deep in the galactic west. Rimward. Technically in what should have been the unclaimed margins of the Segmentum Pacificus, near the old Federation migration zones. But the real danger of this place wasn’t where they were.

It was what they might be near.

He compiled a short list — a dark list.

If they were close to the Maelstrom, they might have to deal with Red Corsairs and renegade Chaos warbands. If they had landed near the Ghoul Stars, then worse awaited — things that even the Imperium didn’t speak of openly. And if, Throne forbid, this system was on the fringe of Tyranid space, then the silence might not be natural at all.

They needed intel.

Real intel. Deeper surveys. Planetary scans. Biosphere analysis. Gravimetric triangulation to establish the system’s drift over time — maybe, if he was lucky, a faint trail back to where the Hulk had emerged from the Warp. He doubted it. But even PE allowed himself optimism in strictly limited bursts.

He opened a new construction queue.

These new probes would not be simple drones. Not one-and-done scouts like the twenty that had now completed their purpose and were being recalled and recycled.

These would be small, fast, crewless survey vessels with reinforced slipspace cores and powerful, high-fidelity sensor arrays.

Two would remain in-system to chart the inner planets and identify long-term habitation potential. Three more would jump to the far edge of the system to deploy heavy sensor satellites and work their way inward.

Each would carry test beacons, gravimetric analyzers, and long-distance calibration spools to map distance and slipstream stability.

These would not simply scan — they would claim.

With luck, they might even spot something worth claiming.

They would bring him a map. A real one.

Only then, perhaps, could they begin the next phase.

Only then could they choose their wars wisely.

——————— ✦ ———————

“You’re sure?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

PE’s light-pulse flickered once — not dimmed, not annoyed. Just focused. “Yes. The system is clean. No orbital debris, no ancient defense grids. No sign of terraforming. No mining. No settlements. Not even ruins.”

I rubbed my face, leaned back from the holoprojection of the star system. Five rocky planets, two gas giants, a tight asteroid belt. Prime real estate. And not a single boot print.

“Could it have been… shielded? Hidden from warp-sight somehow?”

“Possibly. But not recently. There are no lingering anomalies, no psychic scarring, no trace pollutants from Geller fields or warp breaches. If this system was ever hidden, it’s been forgotten long enough for even that to fade.”

I sat there for a long moment, staring at the frozen display of the fourth planet. The iron-rich one. Still geologically active. Perfect, in its way.

“I hate this,” I muttered.

PE’s focus shifted to me. “Clarify.”

“This feels like bait. This feels like someone cleared the table, wiped the room, and left the door open just to see what would crawl in.”

“Unlikely,” he said. “But not impossible. More data will resolve uncertainty.”

“We need eyes on the next system. And the next after that. If this is a blind spot in the warp, if life and death can’t echo here…” I trailed off. “No wonder nothing’s touched it. No wonder it survived.”

PE paused before responding. “If it is hidden, it may be the safest location in the galaxy. If it is cursed, we are the bait.”

“Lovely,” I sighed. “Let’s assume it’s both.”

We stared at the system a moment longer. Then I leaned forward and tapped the interface.

“We’ll use the fourth planet. High metal content. Good geothermal flow. Surface crust is fractured but stable. We can drop excavators within the day. If we’re building the flagship, we’ll need raw mass. And a lot of it.”

“Confirmed. I will adjust dig priorities. Forward mining platforms will begin fabrication now.”

“Thanks.” I stood, stretched, and gave one last look at the quiet system.

“Oh,” I added, glancing back. “Remind me to build someone who can explain all this to people who don’t think in teraflops and battlefield vectors.”

PE tilted his head. “Explain?”

“We’re gonna need a diplomat, PE. A friendly face. Someone people can talk to without feeling like they’re speaking to the God-Emperor’s fridge.”

His lights dimmed a moment. “...Acknowledged. That would be optimal.”

I grinned. “Yeah. Time to build a bedside manner.”

Then I left the war room to get started.

——————— ✦ ———————

I floated back into the lab I had used to create PE and closed the door behind me. The hum of machinery greeted me like an old friend, the lights flickering softly as the systems registered my presence. This place had been quiet for a while—too quiet, after everything that had happened. But now, it felt like it was waiting. Waiting for something new.

Not a warform. Not a weapon. Not another extension of survival.

Something... different.

I floated at the central console, tentacles brushing over the interface without thought. Screens lit up in response, sketches and fragments of old designs filtering through—templates I had used before, ones meant for PE’s kind. Efficient. Durable. Powerful. None of them were what I needed.

She had to be something else.

I cleared the screen.

"Aceso," I murmured, the name already settled in my mind. A gift of memory, of something ancient and kind. Healing. Life. The name itself was a seed. All I had to do was let it grow.

The silhouette that emerged on the screen was unlike any I had built before. No jagged armor, no towering frame. Instead, I traced smooth, flowing lines—elegant curves that conveyed comfort and warmth, not command. Her chassis wouldn’t bristle with weapons. It would embrace function, precision, and calm. A mind meant to nurture, to ask questions, not bark orders.

I paused, tentacles hovering above the input pad as I considered her core. PE had been built with lattice-core shielding, encrypted command overlays, and hardened logic pathways that could parse battlefield information in microseconds. Aceso would have all of those things, of course—every protection I could imagine—but not on the surface like PE does.

But Aceso... hers would be layered with something else.

I didn’t want her built for conflict.

I wanted her built for care.

She would need adaptive logic webs for emergent emotional development—nothing artificial, nothing forced. A structure she could grow into. And her face, I realized, would need to be more than a static plate or screen. I drew a segmented node, a dense mass of nanites arranged in a tight orb, able to shift, soften, and take on shapes—not to imitate emotion, but to meet others halfway.

Aceso wouldn’t force anyone to understand her.

She would make understanding easier.

My tentacle hesitated for a moment. Somewhere beneath all the design layers, I embedded a memory module—recordings of every species the Forerunners had encountered, every medical archive, every word I knew of that had ever been written on compassion and diplomacy. I fed it all into her databanks, not as programming, but as reference material. A library, not a leash.

The system pinged softly. Initial schematics ready.

I leaned back, watching her shape rotate slowly in the air, lit by the soft glow of the holographic display. Even now, she already felt different. Lighter, somehow.

This wasn’t just another AI.

She was going to be something new.

Something beautiful.

Something alive.

"You're going to be the best of us," I said aloud, not to the machine, but to the idea forming in front of me. "Not the shield. Not the sword. Just... the soul."

And I meant it.

——————— ✦ ———————

The schematics floated in the air before me, complete and perfect in their clarity. But lines on a screen meant nothing without form. She needed a body—not just a housing for processors, but a home for a presence that would grow.

I moved to the fabrication bay without ceremony, but my pace slowed the moment I entered. The room was pristine, untouched since the last time I’d stood here to bring PE into the world. His birth had been a forge-fire. Function hammered into form. Necessity given teeth and a voice.

This time, the space felt... sacred.

I started with the frame—her internal skeleton—not of brutal alloys or angular supports, but a refined weave of phase iron and responsive alloy mesh. Phase iron was a given. No warpflesh, no corruption, no outside influence would ever touch her. I structured it gently, layering it with precision, making sure it formed a seamless lattice rather than a cage.

She wouldn't feel like she was armored.

She’d feel protected.

Her limbs were shaped next—smooth, slender, strong enough to endure, flexible enough to adapt. Actuation lines pulsed with soft blue light as I wove microfilament bundles through her structure. Not power conduits for brute force, but finely-tuned threads that could manage delicate movements, medical manipulations, or soft gestures of comfort.

I took my time with the face.

The nanite cluster that would serve as her expressive node required care. I layered it with a stabilization field, ensuring it would never glitch, never seize. It needed to respond with nuance. Not a mask, but a canvas—alive, shifting, quiet in its empathy. As I set it into place atop the core junction of her neck, I stepped back and just stared.

She wasn’t beautiful in the way PE was—sleek and deadly, all angles and clarity.

She was beautiful like the inside of a song you hadn’t heard since childhood.

Her torso came next, sculpted to suggest openness, not power. Her chest housed a medical-grade matter synthesizer, miniaturized and shielded. She would be able to mend wounds—not just analyze them. Beneath it, I embedded an atmospheric filter and radiation buffer able to project a clean environment several meters in every direction, just in case she ever found herself among the wounded in the worst of places.

Her databanks came last.

Not because they were unimportant—far from it—but because I needed time to finish curating them. I didn’t want her waking into this universe full of knowledge about how to kill. I wanted her to wake full of memories about what it meant to live. Notes on music, on ancient art, on alien lullabies recorded on forgotten worlds. Stories from my youth. Federation meditations on life and peace. A copy of every peace treaty ever signed, even if it didn’t hold.

Because even if they did not hold, they were full of the spirit that they would—and that was important. The idea of a brighter future. That, above all, was what I wanted her to inherit.

I sealed them inside her with a deliberate hand.

And then, finally, I placed the heart.

The core—her mind—slid into the center of her chest cavity with a soft magnetic hum. Unlike PE’s, it pulsed gently, like a living heartbeat. I could feel it, even before the systems came online. It was warm. Curious. Still dormant, but… not empty.

The lights in the bay dimmed as the fabrication sequence finalized. She floated upright in the center of the room, suspended by gravitic supports. Her eyes—still dark—waited for activation.

I didn’t rush.

For once, I let the silence settle.

"Aceso," I said softly, stepping toward her.

It was time to bring her to life.

——————— ✦ ———————

The activation panel hovered in front of me, pulsing gently as if echoing the beat of her core. I paused, letting my tentacles rest against the interface but not pressing the final command just yet. Across the room, a familiar presence entered without announcement.

PE stepped through the reinforced doorway, his frame humming softly with restrained power. He had come in person—no projection, no remote link. Just him. The light from the fabrication chamber gleamed off his newly polished form, reflecting back in soft golds and silvers. It was rare to see him idle, rarer still to see him silent.

But here he was, standing with me as I prepared to bring Aceso into the world.

“I assumed you would want to witness this,” I said quietly, without turning.

“I did,” PE replied. His voice held no distortion this time—just the smooth modulation of truth. “She deserves a beginning that is not observed from a distance.”

He stepped closer, positioning himself opposite me, on the other side of the chamber. Not looming, not inspecting. Just… watching. As if to make sure she wouldn’t be alone.

I nodded.

And pressed the final command.

The power conduits glowed to life, threading light through the circular array of the chamber like veins igniting with purpose. A low tone resonated—deep and soft, more like a song than a startup chime. Her frame lifted gently off the platform as systems synchronized, heat radiating from her body in slow pulses. Nanites stirred at the surface of her segmented face, flexing as if stretching in preparation for breath.

Then—

A spark.

A breath.

A presence.

Her eyes opened.

They weren’t glowing or piercing like PE’s, nor blank and unreadable. Instead, they shimmered—like water catching starlight. No immediate query, no calibration requests. Just… awareness. Her gaze moved first to me, then to PE, then back again. Quiet. Calm.

I stepped forward.

“Aceso,” I said gently, “you’re here.”

The nanite faceplate reconfigured slightly, lips forming with subtle definition. She tilted her head.

“I am,” she replied. Her voice was soft, almost uncertain—but not afraid. “And… you are my Maker.”

“No,” I said, a little breath caught in my throat. “I built you. But you’re going to make yourself.”

She blinked—if it could be called that—a brief ripple passing over her face. Then she turned to PE, studying him with that same unblinking gentleness.

“You are… like me.”

“I am,” PE said, inclining his head. “But I am not what you are meant to be.”

Aceso’s eyes lingered on him. “Then what am I meant to be?”

It was a question full of curiosity, not crisis. And yet it hung in the air like the first line of a new book.

“You’ll find that answer yourself,” I told her, voice quiet, reverent. “But you were born not to fight… not to lead armies… but to heal. To wonder. To live.”

She nodded slowly. Not in understanding—at least, not yet—but in acceptance. As if she sensed that this moment, this feeling, mattered. As if the meaning would come with time.

PE stepped forward at last. He looked at her not as a commander, not even as a machine appraising another system—but with something softer.

“You are our first,” he said, “to be born in peace.”

And for once, I saw his internal lights flicker—not in calculation, but in something closer to awe.

Aceso looked between us again.

Then she smiled.

It was small. It was simple. But it was hers.

And it was enough.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 23: Records of the Forgotten

The second wave of probes launched with silent precision, streaking into the black like flares cast into the void. Each was thinner, faster, more refined than the last—stripped of excess systems, optimized purely for stealth, speed, and persistence. They moved with the cold confidence of things designed to never return.

I watched the launch from the observation tier, not out of ceremony, but habit. Every microburn, every phased trajectory, every blinking pulse of slipspace transition—it all had to be perfect. And it was. I nodded once to no one, and turned away.

Paragon of Eden hovered beside me, his lights steady and unreadable.

“Optimal dispersal pattern confirmed,” he said. “Expected data return window: two hours, thirty-one minutes. I will monitor without interruption.”

I gave a small gesture of acknowledgment with one of my lower arms, already turning back toward the core fabrication chambers. “Then we wait.”

“Productively,” PE added, and I could hear the faint satisfaction in his tone.

We separated without further comment, each returning to our respective tasks. There was still much to refine—unit deployments to optimize, reactor harmonics to adjust, genetic vaults to calibrate. The quiet hum of our domain folded back around us, a silence not of idleness, but of focus. [Acesco had many new engineering needs for her laboratories and I was looking forward to delving into the Forerunner medical and genetic archives to give her a lab beyond her wildest dreams.]

The galaxy would answer in time.

And when it did—we would be ready.

——————— ✦ ———————

Far from the silent launch of probes, far from the forgotten wreckage of the Hulk, a different kind of silence reigned. This one was sterile, mechanical—punctuated only by the dull clicks of servos, the hiss of pressurized air, and the occasional droning litany from a nearby vox-emitter.

Deep within a mid-tier data-crypt on the forge-world of Serebron-VII, Magos Theta-77 hunched before a pale green display, his mechadendrites twitching in rhythm with the endless flow of incoming logs. His body, such as it was, had long since settled into routine: two optical feeds cross-referencing separate archive streams, three limbs dedicated to redundant filing, and one auxiliary claw guiding a sloshing mug of nutrient paste toward the half-concealed mouth grafted beneath his rebreather unit.

The paste was cold. He didn’t care.

The chamber around him was a narrow coffin of steel and conduit, one among hundreds—an entire sector of archivists stacked like cogitator blades in a cooling rack. There were no windows. No clocks. Just rows of compartmentalized workers like him, each lost in the hum of filtered air and the glow of ancient data.

He hadn’t spoken to another soul in thirteen days, two hours, and forty-one minutes. Not that he was counting.

His designation, Theta-77, was etched in black ferro-acid on the corner of his cranial plate—just visible under the flaking edge of his red hood. A low-ranking Magos of no particular distinction. No forge of his own. No rites to oversee. Just… records.

He was very good with records.

He could parse seventy-six thousand data points a second. He could spot inconsistencies in starship logs from two centuries ago and trace them through cross-linked archives into forgotten warzones. Once, he’d even spotted a minor discrepancy in fleet resupply ledgers that led to the exposure of a rogue Secutor hoarding plasma cores for unauthorized experimentation.

That had been... one hundred and eighty-four years ago.

It had earned him a commendation, a cog-medal, and a transfer. To here—a posting meant to bury him as much as it was to employ him. Whatever satisfaction the award might have offered had long since soured in the shadow of what had come before.

He was where the logs came. Where he read them. Where they vanished again into the endless vault.

Where he waited.

Not for anything in particular. Just... waited. Because there was nothing else.

His remaining flesh was pale and waxy. His augmentics were older than some ships. His rank hadn’t changed in over a century.

But his mind still worked. And that, more than anything else, made him dangerous.

He just didn’t look like it. Not yet.

Not here.

There were times—quiet moments between the data-streams, when his hands moved on automatic and the ambient machine-chant faded to a background murmur—when he remembered what it had been like to be young.

Not flesh-young. Not the brittle illusion of youth clung to by baseline humans. But new, fresh-forged, unweathered by centuries of attrition. When his cogitators had still run hot with ambition, and his augmetics still gleamed under fresh lacquer. When he’d believed in advancement. Purpose. Recognition.

Back then, they’d called him Thallex—before the numbers replaced the name, before the designation swallowed the man.

He had been brilliant. Not arrogant, not reckless—just... right more often than not. Pattern analysis, network anomalies, shipwide data inconsistencies—he could see them all like threads through a tapestry. His mind sang with connections others missed. His rise was swift, his voice beginning to carry weight in the data-forges of Halicarn Mechanis. There had even been talk—quiet, respectful talk—of promotion to Archival Strategos. A place on the command lattice. A forge of his own.

And then—he found something.

He hadn’t been looking for it. It had merely... appeared. A strange redaction in fleet resupply records. Identical checksum values repeated across three separate warzones. He pulled the thread, and it unraveled everything.

Not just falsified inventory.

Not just missing assets.

He had uncovered something deep, rotten, and intentional.

At first, he did what was logical. He assembled the data, cross-referenced it, indexed it by severity and relevance. But as he dug deeper, as the connections converged on a small cadre of higher-ranked Magi, something shifted inside him.

Ambition.

This—this could be leverage. Enough to prove his value. Enough to earn not just promotion, but respect. Fear, even. If he delivered this not as a dutiful report but as a bargaining chip, he could rise far above where his mentors had placed him.

It was his first—and only—miscalculation.

He went to the wrong person.

He never knew whether the Magos he approached had been part of the conspiracy or simply used him as a tool, but within three days the script had been rewritten. The corruption buried. The logs cleansed. His involvement rebranded as “procedural overreach.” His judgment “compromised by obsessive tendencies.” His clearance revoked. His status frozen.

No trial. No punishment. No execution.

Just... reassignment.

He had not spoken of it since. He had deleted the name Thallex from all remaining networks himself. Not from shame—but from strategy. That name was too stained to reclaim.

Now, he was Theta-77. A useful tool. Forgotten. Ignored.

And so he waited.

Cataloging other men’s findings. Watching other minds rise, stumble, fall. Decades turned to centuries. He faded into the machine like dust into gears.

But he had not forgotten how to see.

He still watched.

And he still remembered.

Not just the humiliation. Not the loss. But the dream.

There had been a time—so long ago now it felt like someone else’s life—when he believed the Mechanicus stood for something greater. When every blessed circuit, every sacred algorithm, every whisper of the Machine God’s gifts had filled him with wonder. He used to marvel at ancient STC fragments as if they were scripture, trace wiring schematics with reverent fingers, dissect voidship cogitators as though peeling back the layers of divinity itself.

It had meant something. He had meant something.

A younger Thallex had once knelt before a newly unearthed reactor core and whispered thanks, not out of ritual, but out of awe. He had believed understanding was worship. That knowledge was a form of love. And that the Omnissiah would reward those who sought, not just those who obeyed.

That belief had not died in one moment. It had eroded, bit by bit, over centuries of filing someone else’s reports. Over centuries of watching less capable minds rise on currents of obedience while he sank under the weight of a single mistake.

But a part of him—small, hard, stubborn—had never gone out.

An ember. Tiny and guttering.

A want. For more.

More than red tape and data vaults. More than silence and sterilized obedience. More than this cold, humming tomb of wires and whispers and wasted years.

He could almost feel it, sometimes. The old warmth gathering in his chest like rising voltage. It made his limbs tremble—not from age, but memory. The hunger to do something again. To matter again.

And in that moment, as the ancient servers hummed around him and the endless lights blinked their uncaring rhythm, the feeling swelled.

Like a song remembered from youth.

It filled him, rose behind his optics, tightened his artificial throat with something dangerously close to sorrow.

And then—

It was gone.

The heat bled out into the cold metal walls. The noise receded. His limbs steadied.

The music ended.

He lowered his head and resumed sorting through void traffic archives from a fringe sector no one cared about.

Thallex was dead.

Only Theta-77 remained.

The shift bell chimed.

A low-frequency pulse rolled through the archive crypt, more suggestion than sound. All around him, other archivists paused in their tasks to initiate cycle rotations, check in with central cogitators, and re-sync their workload queues.

Theta-77 did the same—automatically, without thought—until a flicker at the edge of his secondary display caught his optic.

A single entry.

Unmarked.

It wasn’t an error flag. Not corrupted. Just… unclassified. No clear signal origin, no known transponder ID, no context in fleet telemetry. It had been routed in from a long-range observation node orbiting an uninhabited sector along the trailing edge of Segmentum Pacificus. Deep void—navigation hazard territory. Normally beyond the range of even survey beacons.

The signal was only a few seconds long. Barely a blip. But it had form. Structure. A spike of coherent return data, as if something had swept past the observation net at impossible velocity—too fast, too quiet, and too precise.

He magnified the waveform. Adjusted the filters. Cleaned the noise.

Still there.

He checked the comparison algorithms. No match to known Imperial transmissions. Not xenos. Not psychic interference. Not a ghost ping from some derelict hulk drifting through dead space.

Something new.

For several long seconds, he did nothing. His limbs stilled. His mechanical respiration paused.

And then—very slowly—he opened a private cache.

Not forbidden. Not secured. Just… unused. A local buffer he rarely touched.

He copied the raw signal file. The original packet. The metadata. The diagnostic logs. Everything.

He set the official classification to “delayed routing—requires checksum confirmation.” It would be processed later. Hours, maybe days, depending on the load.

He didn’t hide it.

But he didn’t file it, either.

His hand—real, flesh and tremor-wracked, not servo-driven—hovered over the confirm rune.

Something about it called to him. Not in a spiritual sense. Not some divine revelation.

Just… a pattern. A possibility. A thread.

And something deep inside him—buried under years of silence, failure, exile—tugged on it.

Not Theta-77.

But Thallex.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Forgotten Flame

Origins of the Loyal Flawless

They were not always called the Flawless Host.

Once, they were sons of a greater legacy—the Emperor’s Children, the proud Third Legion of the Emperor of Mankind. They were perfectionists, artists, warriors of sublime grace and devastating precision. Their gene-father was Fulgrim, the Phoenician, a primarch of impossible beauty and ambition who sought mastery in all things.

In the days of the Great Crusade, none outshone them. They were exemplars of Imperial truth, champions of order. Their war cries were songs. Their blades danced through xenos flesh. Planets fell not to brute force, but to artistry in war. Even the other Legions whispered of their brilliance—with awe, with envy, and sometimes with fear.

But perfection is a blade with no hilt.

Fulgrim’s obsession with excellence turned inward, becoming hunger. The Legion’s pride twisted into vanity, then into something darker still. And when the whispers came—soft at first, then insistent—they echoed too perfectly within Fulgrim’s soul.

Slaanesh.

The Prince of Excess. The god of boundless sensation, of art made depravity, of perfection made sin.

Fulgrim fell.

And the Emperor’s Children followed.

What began as refinement became hedonism. Their search for clarity gave way to noise—screaming, unending noise. Sound became weapon, pain became pleasure, and discipline gave way to madness. They became something else—corrupted, mutated, reborn in the screaming throes of devotion to a god who promised more. Always more.

But not all.

The Split

In the shadow of Fulgrim’s fall, there were those who resisted.

Not many. Perhaps no more than a few hundred. A single battalion, if that.

Their resistance was not loud. There were no declarations. No oaths shouted across battlefields. Only silence. Quiet horror. And the impossible choice: obey the primarch and join the Legion’s descent—or walk away, abandoning father, brothers, and glory alike.

They chose exile.

They were not united by name or command, only by instinct. Some were veterans, others barely past initiation. Some had watched their gene-father fall in person. Others had simply known, deep in the marrow of their gene-seed, that something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

They fled.

In the chaos of the Heresy, their disappearance was unnoticed. Many who vanished in those days were presumed dead—lost to warp storms, ambushes, or the fury of betrayal. And perhaps it was better that way.

The loyalists never spoke of who they had been.

They stripped the purple from their armor. They cut the aquila from their breastplates. They burned the scrolls that bore Fulgrim’s name. In silence, they chose to forget what they had once loved.

But they did not forget why they had loved it.

Their perfection had been pure once. Beauty without depravity. Grace without madness. Purpose without pride.

That ideal had not died with Fulgrim.

The Hidden Chapter

They wandered for years—some say decades—through the warp and its fringes. Always on the edge. Always out of sight. Until, at last, they found a broken Imperial force during the final years of the Scouring—a shattered Chapter depleted of men and records. Perhaps its name was already forgotten. Or perhaps it had died with its last commander. The loyalists never said.

They took the name.

Adopted the heraldry. Altered their armor. Altered their gene-seed records with the knowledge of brothers who had once overseen Apothecarion work aboard the Pride of the Emperor. Their deception was precise, clinical, and complete.

They re-entered the Imperium.

Not as the Emperor’s Children.

Not as the Flawless Host.

But as something new. Something false, but loyal.

For nearly ten thousand years, they served.

They fought xenos, suppressed rebellions, burned heretic strongholds. Always on the fringes. Always low-profile. They never asked for glory. They accepted only the missions no one else wanted—unremarkable worlds, doomed crusades, hopeless garrisons. And through it all, they endured.

Their numbers never grew large. They received gene-seed donations from the Administratum, but always the bare minimum. They recruited from the dregs of hive worlds, from war-torn survivors and feral outcasts. It was enough. Barely.

Some began to believe their past truly had been erased.

But the Imperium forgets nothing forever.

Exposure

Twenty-five years ago, it ended.

A Mechanicus fleet discovered discrepancies in their gene-seed tithe records. A Lord Inquisitor uncovered battle logs from the Great Crusade referencing long-lost tactical doctrines—doctrines only the Third Legion had used. A derelict cruiser surfaced, its machine spirit still bearing the echoes of Fulgrim’s voice. And within it, traces of the same warriors now hiding in plain sight.

It was enough.

The Inquisition declared them Excommunicate Traitoris.

Not for what they had done.

But for who they had been.

There was no trial. No chance for testimony. No debate in the Senatorum. Only judgment. They were not purged—perhaps they were not worth the ammunition. Instead, they were exiled to a Death World in the rimward fringe. Left to die.

They didn’t.

——————— ✦ ———————

Captain Vallis – The Last March

The wind howled through the broken manufactorum, a thin, keening wail that slipped through the cracks in shattered ferrocrete and rusting adamantium. Captain Ormund Vallis stood atop the ruin’s highest point, his silhouette a jagged thing against the blood-red sky.

Beneath his boots—what remained of them—ash and metal mingled. Dust from a thousand broken machines. Dust from a thousand dead brothers.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t need to.

He had walked these battlements every cycle for years, more out of habit than purpose. There was no battle coming. No orders to give. Just the slow, scraping decay of their dwindling chapter, huddled beneath wreckage and memory.

His armor, once resplendent with ivory filigree and golden trim, was a ruin of its own. Scraps bolted together with battlefield welds. Dented. Cracked. The aquila long since scorched away. Only the sigil of the Flawless Host remained—faint, worn like an old scar, but intact.

He wore it not in pride, but in defiance.

They had taken everything else. Let them try and take that too.

His breath rasped beneath the rebreather grill. Not from age, not really—his body still endured in the stubborn way Astartes bodies did—but from weight. From decades of silence. Of watching his brothers wither. Of counting their names each passing year and wondering which one would be the last.

Vallis closed his eyes.

He remembered a different world. A different sky. Not radiant or beautiful—just clear. Clean. The kind of air that didn’t sting when you breathed it.

He remembered marching under banners that meant something.

And he remembered the day they were exiled here, branded traitors not for what they had done, but for the name they had buried so long ago.

They had not fallen to Chaos.

They had fled it.

And for that, they were condemned.

It had been the Inquisition that delivered the sentence.

Unflinching. Unquestionable. Unappealable.

They had come with a single inquisitorial writ, backed by half a battlefleet and the smug certainty that righteousness was theirs by default. The chapter had been summoned to parley—Vallis himself had stood beside the Chapter Master as the truth was laid bare. Gene-seed records. Heraldry fragments. A recovered relic with a name no one was supposed to remember.

The Flawless Host.

The Master had tried to speak. To explain.

The Inquisitor had cut him down mid-sentence.

And Vallis had watched it happen.

Only the two of them had known. The rest of the chapter had served faithfully, unknowingly, for generations. Loyal sons of a new name, a new mission. But in the eyes of the Imperium, it had never mattered.

Heritage was sin. Blood was sin.

And now they were sinners.

What stung more than the betrayal was the injustice. His brothers—these sons who had bled and died in the Emperor’s name—had carried no stain but their lineage. Ten thousand years had passed since Fulgrim’s fall. Hundreds of their number had come and gone, generations of warriors who knew nothing of their origin. Yet when the truth surfaced, when the mask they wore cracked, it was the chapter that paid.

He had been forced to stand before them—these soldiers who trusted him—and speak the words that damned them.

He remembered the silence in that hall. The disbelief. The raw hurt.

And yet none of them turned on him. None abandoned him.

They simply picked up their weapons, and waited to die together.

His gauntlet curled tighter around the rusting railing.

A sharp gust rattled the wreckage behind him, and somewhere below, he heard the grind of armor—training drills in the scrap fields. Even now, the few that remained still trained. Still fought. Blades dulled. Limbs failing. It didn’t matter.

They were dying.

But they would not go quietly.

“They call us traitors,” he had once snarled at the dying light of a votive flame. “Then let them choke on what loyalty really looks like.”

His eyes opened again, fixing on the horizon where the storms never ceased.

A day ago, the old sensor arrays—barely functional, patched with salvaged scrap and prayer—had pinged. Something in the upper atmosphere. A glimmer, a ripple of movement far beyond the reach of their eyes. Nothing Imperial. Nothing Traitor. Just... unknown.

They had no augurs left worth the name. The signal could have been a malfunction. A quirk in the rusted-out vox systems. But still—it had come.

And it had stirred something in him.

There had been a beacon, once. Launched without his knowledge. He hadn’t punished them.

Couldn’t bring himself to.

He’d understood, even then.

A handful of younger Astartes had scavenged an ancient probe, patched its systems with prayers and wire, and pointed it at the stars. A plea carved into the void—someone, anyone, come find us.

He had been furious.

Not at them. At himself. Because if they had asked—if they had stood before him and asked—he might’ve said yes.

Or at least… he wouldn’t have stopped them.

"What’s the worst that happens?" one of them had muttered, years ago. "They kill us? Would that really be so bad?"

At the time, Vallis hadn’t answered.

Now, staring into a sky that had finally changed—seeing that distant glimmer of movement beyond the clouds, the faint shimmer of something—he let out a breath like iron dragging across stone.

Maybe the worst wasn’t death.

Maybe the worst was being forgotten.

So let them come.

Whatever they were. Whatever power had finally answered.

Let them come and judge.

Let them try.

Vallis straightened, the servos in his spine protesting. His left arm, long replaced with a crude graft of metal and bone, clicked softly at the elbow. Pain. Old pain. Familiar pain.

One last march.

One last war.

And maybe, just maybe, one last chance to die with his boots on.

Or what was left of them, anyway.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 24 – The Line in the Dust

The projection hovered in the center of the chamber, casting ghost-light across the polished floor. A dead world turned slowly in suspension — its surface scorched and pitted, its sky thin and colorless. Storms drifted across the broken terrain like sluggish bruises.

Paragon of Eden adjusted the overlay. Points of interest shimmered faintly across the planet’s ruined equator — decayed facilities, ancient infrastructure, and a series of bunkered ridgelines that once might have been a defense grid. But that wasn’t what held our attention.

The life signs were faint. Fleeting. But they were there.

“Initial probes confirm eighty-seven distinct biosignatures,” PE reported, his form flickering slightly as he shifted his internal processing. “All humanoid. Most clustered in a subterranean facility, reinforced against orbital scanning. Several roam the surface in coordinated patterns. Patrols. Timed movement. Routine. Armed. Disciplined. Unbroken.”

Aceso leaned forward, her face flowing into the soft contours she used when focusing. “Human?”

“Humanoid,” PE answered. “And armored. Signatures suggest power-assisted movement. Mass, thermal dispersion, and behavioral patterns match Astartes combat doctrines — though modifications are significant.”

“Modified how?” I asked.

“Unknown,” PE said. “Possibly scavenged or repaired with local materials. Standard identifiers are obscured or erased. Without direct scans, I cannot confirm gene-seed purity, armor integrity, or allegiance.”

“But they’re still moving like Astartes,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied.

A still image materialized, captured from orbit: a lone warrior standing atop a fractured gantry, framed by the remains of a signal tower. The armor was scorched and weathered, the colors dulled to ash and slate. But there was no mistaking the posture. Whoever they were, they hadn’t forgotten how to stand like a soldier.

“I reviewed this footage three times before I was satisfied,” PE said. “It should not have been possible.”

“How did we find this planet?” I asked.

“During the third sweep of the outer system, we intercepted an active probe. Its signal was weak — looping, encoded in archaic Imperial format. Based on decay patterns, it has been drifting for decades.”

“And I presume this probe is how you found these survivors?” I asked.

PE’s lights pulsed. “It entered our system on a slow, uncontrolled trajectory, but its course traces back to a neighboring star. Subtle course corrections suggest it was not ejected randomly — it was launched deliberately. Destination unclear.”

I waited.

He added, “Given its final trajectory, it may not have been aimed at anything specific. Perhaps just… somewhere.”

A small silence passed between us before I said, “A flare into the void.”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “We traced it back to this world. Fourth planet from the star. Abandoned forge, no current designation. Dead by all external markers. But the probe’s telemetry and metadata were intact.”

He called up the recovered file — not audio, but text.

“The visual logs were corrupted beyond salvage. This is what remained. It was embedded in an Imperial encryption layer but nothing that took me that long to get through. The author appears to have bypassed standard cogitator oversight protocols. This launch was likely unsanctioned. Possibly unknown to command.”

A block of simple Gothic font unfolded before us — clean, even, grim.

——————— ✦ ———————

If any soul yet hears this…

We stood. That is all you need remember.

They named us traitors. Perhaps they believed it so. Yet we never fell — not to the Warp, not to madness, not to those who would have us kneel.

The Imperium cast us out. The Eye of Terror did not claim us. We remained here — not out of hope, but because departure would have been surrender.

We are weary. Many lie dying. Faith has withered in some. Yet never did we raise our blades against the Emperor. Never did we break.

If this is our end, then let it be so — but let it be recorded somewhere, anywhere, that we stood our ground. We were betrayed, but we did not betray in return.

We remained loyal… even when loyalty no longer mattered.

And if no living soul hears this, at least it will be said that we spoke it.

— Battle-Brother Cyran Vell, 3rd Company, Sons of the Forgotten Flame…

There was a hitch in the text — not a glitch, but the written equivalent of someone stopping to think.

…no. Strike that.

Battle-Brother Cyran Vell, of the Third Company of the Flawless Host — scions of the Third Legiones Astartes, the Emperor’s Children, as they stood ere the Fall.

Sons of Fulgrim — Fulgrim Invictus: the Phoenician, the Illuminator, the Prefector of Chemos.

We remember him as he was.

And we remain what he should have been.

——————— ✦ ———————

The text ended there.

For a few seconds, no one spoke. The chamber felt heavier, as though the words had weight enough to settle into the air itself.

Aceso blinked. “Flawless Host.”

Even PE paused. “That name does not appear in any records I have access to. However, the 3rd Legion is a traitor legion — known as the Emperor’s Children. Their name has been purged from Imperial records, declared excommunicate after the Heresy. A known warband of traitors. The only reason we know of them is because of MC’s metaknowledge from his past. But this… does not match the profile of a Chaos warband.”

“They’re not declaring allegiance to the Dark Gods,” I said. “They’re rejecting them. They’re… mourning.”

Aceso’s voice was quiet. “They want someone to remember they stood.”

“Anything else?” I asked quietly.

“There was a malfunction,” PE said. “One of the probes — unit 12-Theta — suffered a temporary cloaking instability. Three-point-two seconds of partial visibility before re-stabilization.”

“What caused it?”

“Localized thermal buildup in the smart-matter shell. The heat sink lagged, exceeding tolerance. I’ve already corrected the next deployment batch, but there’s a slim possibility someone on the surface — or in nearby orbit — saw it.”

“Any confirmed reactions?”

“None. No spikes in energy output, no intercepted transmissions. Just… a risk.” “Then the probe is compromised?” Aceso asked.

“Unlikely,” PE said. “But we should assume any further observation from that unit carries marginal exposure risk.”

I kept my eyes on the projection. The world spun slowly, patiently, waiting.

Then I asked the question that made PE’s lights flicker ever so slightly.
“How much of the probe is composed of reconfigurable smart matter?”

There was a pause — not hesitation, exactly, but the calculated delay of someone preparing to justify themselves.

“Minimal,” he admitted at last. “These were first-pass deployments — fast, expendable. I saw no logic in allocating high-end resources to scouts we might never recover. It cannot act as a slipspace beacon.”

“Can it transmit?”

“Yes. Low-band vox and encoded pulse-burst. Sufficient for contact.”

“Then reconfigure it. We can’t ignore this.”

He nodded once.

——————— ✦ ———————

“How long until we have something in orbit that can get us there?” I asked.

“I have initiated assembly on six corvette-class scouts and four destroyer-class escorts,” PE replied. “One cruiser-class vessel is being outfitted as a hybrid diplomatic and recovery platform — it could be ready within seven days.”

I considered that for only a moment before deciding. “Prioritize the cruiser’s completion. That will be our retrieval platform.”

PE inclined his head slightly. “Understood. That ship will suffice to retrieve the survivors, if we proceed.”

“What about heat shielding, descent profile, terrain adaptation?”

“It’s being built to land.”

Aceso straightened. “How many stasis chambers will it carry?”

“None,” PE replied. “There were no medical contingencies in the original configuration. The cruiser was optimized for mobility and defense.”

She looked to me, not him. “That must be changed. Some of those warriors will be too injured to walk. Others may require containment. At minimum, a trauma bay and stasis racks must be integrated.”

I didn’t have to think about it. “Do it.”

“Adding both will reduce power redundancy by 12.4% and consume two modular armatures. Defensive capability will suffer.”

“Then we’ll reinforce it another way. They don’t need armor. They need time.”

PE made a subtle adjustment to his posture — noting my decision, but clearly not pleased with the compromise. Still, he moved forward with the briefing.

“As for the super-dreadnought,” he continued, “the modular shipyard arms are currently in final assembly. They will be deployed to the third moon of the outer gas giant — low tectonic activity, high orbital cover, ideal for semi-permanent construction. Full setup: three to six weeks. Once operational, the super-dreadnought will require an additional six to eight weeks. Total: nine to fourteen weeks.”

I exhaled slowly. That sounded about right. Faster than the Imperium could ever dream of… but not fast enough for this.

Aceso folded her hands. “So we can send a recovery vessel in a week… or arrive with overwhelming force in three months.”

Neither answer felt like a solution.

“I’ll make the call,” I said. “When the cruiser is ready.”

——————— ✦ ———————

“They’re dying,” Aceso said softly. “You both saw the same projections I did. Without intervention, they will not last another season.”

“They’ve likely lasted decades already,” PE replied — not cruelly, but with clinical finality. “They are genetically engineered for survival. Some will endure.”

“Surviving is not living.”

“They are unknown factors. Warp exposure. Their excommunicated status. Potential instability. Bringing them here could introduce infection — not just physical, but ideological. Or worse… something warp-based. We cannot risk compromise.”

“They are not a contagion,” she said, sharper now. “They are people.”

“People who were forged in war. Conditioned for it. Defined by it. You do not know what they will become if you try to take their pain away.”

“I’m not trying to take it away,” she said. “I’m trying to make sure they see another day to carry it.”

“They were trained to kill for an Imperium that seems to have cast them out. That foundation does not disappear because we offer them shelter.”

“And what’s your foundation?” she asked. “Is it only logic? Risk tolerances and fleet efficiency? Or do you believe in anything beyond survival?”

I stayed silent. This needed to happen. She needed to say it. And so did he. Their personalities were too different — an argument like this was inevitable. And, though I hated to admit it, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“You are not equipped to handle what they carry inside them,” PE said at last. “The trauma. The loss. The indoctrination. You have never been on a battlefield when the victory cost more than it saved. You have never had to kill someone who was already broken just to protect those who weren’t. You are not ready.”

“I wasn’t built to be ready,” she answered, quiet but firm. “I was built to care. That means I have to try.”

PE’s lights dimmed again, briefly. Not out of defeat. Out of calculation. A pause long enough to suggest weight.

“It is an unacceptable risk,” he said. “You are valuable. Your safety is—”

“Don’t protect me,” she said. “Teach me.”

The room went still again.

“If this is dangerous,” she said, “if these warriors might lash out or collapse or bring madness with them… then help me prepare. Help me understand how to face that. Because I’m not going to stand behind a shield while they die.”

I turned toward her, then toward PE. He wasn’t blinking — he couldn’t — but the pause in his pulse lights felt like one.

Then, without ceremony, he said:

“Very well.”

That was enough. They had both had their say, and now they needed time to let the points raised by each other settle before pushing further.

I stepped in, voice calm but final. “Aceso and I will prepare the message. Paragon, reconfigure the probe for transmission. Point it at their stronghold and lock it down.”

PE gave a shallow nod.

——————— ✦ ———————

The door hissed shut behind us, sealing off the command chamber — and the argument that still lingered in the air like static.
Aceso followed me down the corridor in silence. She wasn’t angry, not visibly, but the way her frame carried tension, the way her reshaped face held still just a second too long… I knew she wasn’t done feeling.

Neither was I.

We entered one of the smaller signal prep rooms — quiet, shielded, built for diplomatic outreach we hadn’t needed until now. The consoles came alive around us without prompting. They always knew when I arrived.

“I’ve isolated the probe’s transmission band,” Aceso said, already at work. “Atmospheric attenuation will degrade signal clarity over long durations, so the message will need to be short. Precise.”

“Simple,” I said. “No threats. No promises. Just a hand extended.”

She glanced at me, her expression softening. “You mean it literally, don’t you?”

“I want them to know we’re not another enemy. Not another experiment. Just… something different.”

Aceso paused. “What if they don’t believe us?”

“Then they don’t respond. And they die.”

There was no cruelty in it. Just truth. And she accepted it, though she hated that she had to.

We drafted the message together, word by word — not with bureaucratic polish or Imperium-standard formality, but with the voice of someone who understood what it meant to be lost, and what it meant to be offered a way out.

When it was ready, I stepped back and let the console do its work.

A flat, focused pulse.
Low-band. Clean.

We didn’t identify ourselves. Not yet. That was intentional — a choice, not an oversight. Better to be the unknown hand extended than another banner demanding allegiance. We didn’t issue orders or demand loyalty.

Only one thing mattered now:

“To the warriors below—
You have endured what few could.
We are not the Imperium.
We offer aid.
If you still choose to stand, we are prepared to meet you in peace.
Respond, and we will come.”

The signal went out.
Silence followed.

——————— ✦ ———————

The signal was still echoing in the system buffers when I turned to leave.

Aceso remained behind, her focus lingering on the transmission log, expression unreadable. I paused in the doorway, watching her for a moment. She wasn’t uncertain — not really — but she was beginning to feel the weight of what came next. And maybe, for the first time, realizing that being right wasn’t the same as being ready.

“You were right to speak up,” I said. “He needed to hear it.”

She glanced over. “But you didn’t side with me.”

I shook my head. “Because he wasn’t wrong either.”

That gave her pause.

“This galaxy is broken, Aceso. Not just damaged — poisoned. Ideologies, faiths, entire civilizations built on war and fear. It’s not just that people suffer. It’s that they learn to love it. To need it. To become it.”

She listened without interruption.

“Paragon sees that. He’s seen it in every faction we’ve scanned, every ship we’ve searched. Every record we’ve pulled. He’s not trying to kill hope. He’s trying to preserve what little we have. That includes you.”

She looked down, then back up. “I didn’t ask him to protect me.”

“I know. But maybe meet him halfway. Show him that you’re not asking for permission… but that you’re willing to understand what he’s afraid of.”

I didn’t wait for her response. I wasn’t trying to win an argument — just planting a seed.

“You’re doing good work,” I said quietly, turning away. “Keep doing it.”

And then I left her alone.

——————— ✦ ———————

The corridor was quiet as Aceso moved through it, her pace measured, her expression unreadable. But inside, she was working.

Memory streams played across her internal HUD — fragments of recordings, scanned files, even slivers of the MC’s own memories. War zones. Burning skies. Voices screaming prayers to gods that had long since stopped listening. She saw what Paragon of Eden had seen — and what he had never spoken aloud.

On the way, she reviewed death tolls from the Black Crusades. The attrition rate of Imperial Guard deployments on Cadia. The surgical brutality of the Necron awakening on a dozen fringe worlds. She smelled ozone from shattered void shields, heard the final screams of worlds the galaxy had already forgotten. She watched snippets from MC’s memory logs — battles that ended with silence, and those that didn’t end at all.

Not fear. Just… inevitability. The long slide into entropy that most organic life called history.

She carried those impressions with her as she entered the upper observatory, where PE was alone, hovering over a tactical model of the sector. His lights pulsed in steady rhythm. Not idle. Never idle.

He didn’t turn to acknowledge her.

“I’ve reviewed the death tolls from just three Imperial crusades,” she said without preamble. “The smallest still wiped out eleven planetary populations. Billions. For a doctrinal correction.”

He responded without looking. “You understand why I calculate for containment.”

“I do.”

She stepped closer, folding her hands behind her back in perfect imitation of PE’s usual posture — not mockery, just mimicry. She had learned that sometimes, symmetry helped establish trust.

“I’ve been trying to see it through your lens,” she continued. “Trying to understand how you look at the galaxy and come away thinking survival is the only goal.”

“That isn’t what I believe,” he said, finally turning to face her. “Survival is the prerequisite. Nothing else happens if you’re dead.”

“But what if surviving makes us something we’re not?” she asked. “What if the price of surviving this galaxy is losing whatever made us worth preserving?”

That gave him pause. No blinking. No glitch. Just… stillness.

“You think I’ve already lost it,” he said.

“No,” she said gently. “I think you’re afraid to believe in it.”

She let that hang in the air for a breath longer than necessary, then stepped forward, her tone shifting.

“I’m asking you to meet me halfway.”

“How?”

“Teach me. Not to fight, not just to defend myself — teach me how to think like you. How to assess a threat. How to know when a hand won’t be taken, when peace is dead and it’s time to level a city or glass a world.”

He studied her, his projection dimming slightly as his processors shifted from analysis to something deeper. Not emotion. Not yet. But… understanding.

“You would carry that responsibility?”

She nodded. “If I’m going to advocate for mercy, I need to understand what it costs. I don’t want to be naïve. I want to be prepared. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop caring. It just means I’ll know when to stop trying.”

Another pause.

Then PE said, “Very well. We’ll begin tomorrow.”

Aceso tilted her head. “Tomorrow?”

“You’re emotional now,” he said. “And so am I, in my own way. It would be inefficient to start today.”

Her expression cracked into a small smile — the kind that wasn’t coded, just… chosen.

“Tomorrow, then.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The wind scraped over the broken manufactorum like a whisper through old teeth — high, thin, and sharp-edged, slipping through the broken frames. Vallis stood atop the highest spur of the forge-spire, motionless against a sky painted in rust and fading light. His armor was scar tissue — pitted, scorched, reforged too many times. One arm ended in crude cabling and ferric wrap. His boots were worn down to almost nothing.

Below, his brothers slept or sat in silence. Some leaned on rebar canes. Most no longer wore helmets. Names were forgotten more often than limbs.

A robed acolyte climbed toward him, breathing hard. “My lord… the vox array caught a signal. Low-band. Repeating.”

Vallis nodded once and began the descent. The ash stirred differently as he moved. Eyes followed him. He didn’t come down often.

By the time he reached the lower level, a dozen brothers had gathered inside the old communications substation. More stood outside in the corridor, shoulder to shoulder, unable to fit in the cramped space. No one spoke. Faces were drawn, gaunt, streaked with oil and ash.

He felt their eyes on him — weighing, measuring, wondering what he would make of this. Some held the look of those who dared hope. Others stared like they were watching the final coin toss before the gallows.

The substation still hummed faintly — a miracle of its own.

The message was looping:

“To the warriors below—
You have endured what few could.
We are not the Imperium.
We offer aid.
If you still choose to stand, we are prepared to meet you in peace.
Respond, and we will come.”

It was flawless Imperial Gothic — exact syntax, measured tone, no accent drift. Whoever crafted it either had access to perfect pronunciation algorithms or was more familiar with the Imperium than they claimed.

Vallis stood for a long moment, the wind rattling the walls, the quiet press of his brothers’ attention surrounding him like armor and chains at once.

Then he keyed the array, leaned in to the rusted mesh, and said:

“...Acknowledged.”

Outside, in the cold red light of a dying sky, the forge world stirred. Somewhere in the corridor beyond, boots shifted against the metal floor, a dozen men exhaling at once — the sound of a garrison remembering how to breathe. For the first time in a long time, they waited for something other than death.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 25: Promises and Precautions

“...Acknowledged.”

The relay’s tone cut through the chamber — sharp, urgent.
Not idle chatter. Not background noise. A signal with weight behind it.

Paragon of Eden was already tearing through the encryption, the patterns archaic but still unmistakably Astartes. When the vox cleared, the voice that emerged was rough — aged, strained, but carrying the iron beneath it that all Astartes possessed.

“This is Captain Ormund Vallis, commanding what remains of the Flawless Host. We have received your message.”

There was a pause — long enough for me to wonder if the signal had dropped. Then his voice returned, quieter, but with the steel edge of a man who had outlasted far too much.

“If you mean what you say, come. We will meet you in the open, away from the city. You will bring whatever aid you promised. And you will show us you are not another lie.”

Coordinates followed — precise, deliberate — then the channel cut. No ceremony. No farewell.

Aceso’s eyes met mine. “That’s it then.”

PE’s lights shifted in a slow pulse. “Their numbers will be limited. Their suspicion, unlimited. We will need to be prepared for both cooperation and conflict.”

I studied the coordinates, mapping the slipspace jump in my head. A short trip. No room for misdirection, no time for second thoughts. “We take the cruiser. It’s the right balance — visible strength without provocation.”

“Minimal escort?” PE asked.

“Minimal,” I confirmed. “Defensive posture only, unless they fire first.”

Aceso looked back at the fading coordinates, her voice soft. “If he’s survived this long, he’s not going to waste words. We should listen carefully to the ones he’s given us.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden dismissed the hololith of the relay and replaced it with the cruiser’s systems display. “Transit time: under two hours by slipspace. We can be on station before they’re finished relocating.”

“Good,” I said. “Get the shipyards moving as fast as possible. Divert resources from other projects if needed. No escort craft, no visible weapon cycling. We look like a single ship offering aid, not a fleet seeking a foothold.”

PE’s projection dimmed slightly, almost thoughtful. “I will comply. However, the absence of an escort will be conspicuous. Loyalist Astartes will wonder why we are confident enough to arrive alone.”

“Then let them wonder,” I replied. “If they’re still as sharp as the records say, they’ll understand the message that sends. Though I doubt they are in any condition to wonder about anything.”

While PE handled flight prep, Aceso turned away toward the medical wing. “I’ll need all stasis pods active and tuned for transhuman physiology. We have the count from our scans, but I want extras ready. Some may require immediate surgery, others deep stasis until treatment can be sustained.”

“Allocate extra redundancy in life-support,” PE added without looking at her. “If their gene-seed has degraded, standard protocols may fail.”

“I’m already accounting for that,” she said over her shoulder.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso’s floated down the medbay corridor ahead of me, her pace brisk but unhurried. The automatic doors parted to reveal the clean, bright expanse she had claimed as her domain — all white surfaces, sealed cabinets, and the faint hum of life-support systems on standby.

She moved with purpose, bringing stasis pods online one by one. Each hissed softly as power conduits engaged, the transparent lids misting before clearing to reveal the deep-cradle interiors.

“They’ll expect a triage station,” she said without looking up. “But they’re going to get better. Full diagnostic suites, regenerative matrices, cryonic suspension if needed. Even Phase Iron reinforcement in the pods themselves.”

I drifted closer, noting the calibration screens she was cycling through. “Phase Iron? Against warp intrusion?”

Her lips tightened. “I’ve read the histories. Astartes are sent to fight in places that would strip the soul from anyone else. If they’ve been holding out here, there’s no telling what’s… attached itself to them. If I can’t keep them alive, I can at least keep them clean.”

She set a pod to deep-stasis mode, the interior rim glowing faint blue. “I’ll have twenty ready before we depart. The rest will be finished during transit. Hopefully we won’t need a pod for every survivor — but hope makes a poor shield.”

I let her work — the way she checked each connection twice, ran every test cycle. This was her battlefield, and she approached it with the same precision I’d seen from any soldier.

When I left her to her preparations, the shipyard was already in motion. PE had done as I asked and dropped all other projects ongoing in the hulk, his corvettes and destroyers on pause while our total focus was put on the cruiser. If that was the case we may be able to launch a day or so sooner than originally estimated.  I did notice that PE had reconfigured the ship’s internal security schematics though — which meant he was doing something he didn’t want the automated logs to record.

I found his projection overseeing a vast cargo space where prefabricated partitions were sliding into place. What had been a supply hold was quickly becoming a deployment bay.

“These bays were marked as open storage.”

“They still are,” PE replied. “Open storage that just happens to be full of heavily armed solutions.”

A Locust crouched in one partition, its Phase Iron plating dulled to a non-reflective finish. A Cicada hung dormant in the rafters above another bay, legs drawn in tight. All inactive, all slowly being hidden behind bulkhead panels that were being put into place and sealed without a seam ready to slide open on command and discharge their dangerous occupants.

“This is a diplomatic mission,” I reminded him.

“And diplomacy,” PE said without turning, “is best conducted from a position where your counterpart understands the cost of treachery.”

One by one, the hidden bays sealed, their occupants vanishing from sight. The ship’s manifests would still read ‘emergency relief materials’ to any external scan. Only we would know better.

——————— ✦ ———————

By the time I returned to my lab, worker drones were streaming updates. Every fabrication arm, every printer, every assembler was turned toward the cruiser. Other projects were silent — paused mid-cycle while the hull took shape at speed.

I called up the projection systems, letting a humanoid form resolve in the air before me. This time, I didn’t start from a blank slate. I pulled up the preserved scans of the Lord of Admirals — a human who had once commanded fleets that rivalled the Forerunners themselves. Broad-shouldered, composed, radiating both authority and restraint.

The projection stood in front of me, untouched for a moment, as I considered. His build and bearing were almost exactly what I needed: someone who could stand across from Astartes without shrinking, yet without posturing. I made minor adjustments — softening the set of the eyes, neutralizing the expression to one of measured attentiveness rather than challenge.

The uniform was kept plain, the cut inspired by Imperial lines but avoiding their exact style. Enough to feel familiar without pretending to belong.

PE’s voice broke in from behind me. “I see you’ve chosen to dress as a war hero.”

If I had still been human, the sudden voice behind me might have made me jump. As it was, I kept my posture still, my voice steady. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. For someone who claims to lack emotions, he seems to take a certain satisfaction in startling people out of their wits.

“I’ve chosen to dress as someone they might actually talk to.”

PE’s lights dimmed, his tone shifting from amusement to calculation. “We should consider whether we ought to pretend to be organic at all. The consequences of a liar’s reveal can be catastrophic. If they discover mid-meeting that you are not what you appear to be, we may not walk away.”

“They won’t talk to an AI,” I said flatly. “Not on purpose. Not aboard an AI’s ship. Even if they were bleeding out with daemons clawing at the door.”

“That’s an assumption based on incomplete data,” PE countered. “These are not baseline humans. They are Astartes — conditioned for extreme environments and scenarios. Concealment may be unnecessary.”

Aceso’s voice joined from the comm system, the medbay sounds faint in the background. “You’ve studied human sociology, Creator. Trust is easier to build when the truths that might break it are brought forward early. Especially if they’re ugly.”

“You’re arguing for immediate disclosure,” PE noted.

“Not quite,” she replied. “You’ve both seen the patterns in conflict response. If they feel trapped — physically or psychologically — they’ll react like cornered predators. You don’t drop a surprise like that after they’re already aboard.”

I exhaled slowly. “So we split the difference. Holo-suit for the initial face-to-face. I show them the courtesy of meeting them on familiar terms. Then we drop the disguise before anyone sets foot on the cruiser. No surprises once they’re inside our space.”

PE studied me for a moment, then inclined his projection. “Acceptable.”

“And smart,” Aceso added. “Now if you’ll excuse me, some of us are busy making sure your guests don’t die in transit.”

——————— ✦ ———————

I shifted the display over to another file. The schematics for the super dreadnaught bloomed into being — a latticework of hull geometry, power grids, and weapon nodes. It was already a monster, even on paper. Enough firepower to stand against anything this galaxy had thrown at us so far.

And yet, I kept thinking about what we’d just said — about risk, trust, and the cost of betrayal. This galaxy was… diseased. Predatory. You didn’t just need teeth to survive, you needed fangs big enough that no one wanted to test them.

My gaze lingered on the design. I could do it, rearrange this, move that there, reroute these conduits here, add some emitter arrays along the edge of the ship, some additional shielding to protect any organic passengers. All of it could be done to add the ultimate deterrent — the kind of weapon empires whispered about, the big stick for when every other option had failed.

A Halo pulse array. Properly calibrated, its wave could be contained to a single system. One firing and an entire system would be cleansed. Anything meeting the neural complexity threshold — anything sapient enough to plan, to reason — would suffer instantaneous electrochemical cascade failure. Every neuron firing at once, frying the brain in milliseconds. Bodies intact, minds erased, the light leaving nothing but silence.

I imagined it in operation. The surge of light across the void, the system-wide sweep, the sudden silence. No battle. No attrition. Just… absence.

The cursor hovered over the section as the scenarios unspooled in my mind.
Orks — absolutely. They didn’t stop. They didn’t negotiate. They didn’t even surrender.

Tyranid fleets before they could make planetfall — likely. Better to erase them in the void than fight them on the ground.

A Chaos-held planet — probably. I’d lose sleep over it, but I wouldn’t lose the planet. There were innocents down there, maybe, but not many — and most would likely be wishing for death.

Eldar corsairs, whether Dark or craftworld-born — maybe. Dangerous, yes, but not beyond reason. Raiders, diplomats, traders… even allies, under the right circumstances.

Imperial holdouts too stubborn to listen, too blinded by dogma to see anything but an enemy — that… I wasn’t sure about at all. Once you start killing for what people believe instead of what they do, where does it end?

Where was the line?

I had accepted that fighting was survival here. That you didn’t endure in this galaxy by being polite or merciful when it mattered. But this… this wasn’t a weapon for fighting. It was a weapon for ending. The kind of weapon that, once built, would demand to be used.

For a long moment, I just stared at the schematic. Then, for once, I didn’t wait for them to chime in. I reached out.

“I need your perspective,” I sent across the link.

There was a beat of silence — rare in our constant low-level hum of shared data. Then Aceso’s voice, careful. “You’ve never asked that before.”

“This isn’t about efficiency or capability,” I replied. “It’s about whether we should. Where do we draw the line? When is something too much?”

PE’s voice came in, measured and analytical. “From a purely strategic standpoint, a limited-range Halo array would be the ultimate deterrent. No force would risk engagement if they knew we could erase them entirely.”

“That’s the problem,” Aceso countered instantly. “Deterrents only work until someone decides to test them. And then you’ve either used it, or you’ve proven you won’t. After that, the deterrent is gone and you’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross.”

“If it fails,” PE said, “then it becomes a weapon like any other. One to be used when the survival of our species outweighs the survival of theirs.”

“And who decides that?” she asked.

PE was silent for a fraction of a second longer than usual. “We do.”

I could feel the weight of it pressing down on me. They were both right. Without a weapon like this, we were vulnerable to annihilation by enemies who would never give us a fair fight. With it… we might survive, but at the cost of something I couldn’t quite name.

“I don’t want to be the one who decides which worlds get to live and which burn,” I said.

“You already are,” PE replied.

That one hit harder than I expected. He wasn’t wrong. Every choice I’d made since arriving here — which enemies to engage, which to ignore, which resources to take, which to leave — they all shaped who lived and who didn’t. This would just make the choice sharper. Louder. Impossible to hide from.

I looked back at the schematic. The empty node was still waiting.

Aceso spoke again, softer now. “If you do this, you have to be certain of the rules you’ll follow. Because one day you will have to choose, and if you hesitate—”

I hesitated anyway. I could feel the unspoken part of her sentence: people die when leaders hesitate. Maybe everyone.

“I know,” I said — but my voice didn’t carry the conviction I wanted it to. The truth was, I wasn’t sure if anyone could be certain about a weapon like this until the moment came.

Neither of them replied. The silence stretched, heavy, as if the ship itself was waiting for me to make the call.

My tentacle hovered for a breath, the interface warm beneath my grip. One tap, and the choice would be more than theory. I marked the node. The schematic shifted, the simulated emitter array sliding into place with the cold, precise inevitability of a trigger being pulled.

I locked the design and sent it to PE and Aceso for review before forwarding it to the shipyard. In the quiet that followed, I felt the weight of the choice settle — heavy, solid, unshakable.

The decision was made.

This galaxy didn’t need to know I had a “go away” button. Not yet. But if it ever tried to end us, I would not hesitate to press it.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 26: The Weight of Oaths

The cruiser’s systems were already cycling toward launch when I floated into the command deck. Status panes lined the bulkheads, each one a tight lattice of green.

Paragon of Eden’s voice came over the intercom, calm as ever.
“Slipspace drive is spun up and stable. Navigation solution is locked. If something goes wrong, the personal beacon is charged — we can recall directly to the Hulk from anywhere on the planet. The cruiser can handle itself after that.”

I knew what “handle itself” meant. PE didn’t need to say it. A giant crater where a ship used to be is certainly one way to define “handled.”

“Drones?” I asked.

“Overwatch only,” he replied. “Weapons stay cold unless we are attacked. I want them to see discipline, not paranoia.”

We lifted from the hangar, the hum of the inertial dampers deepening as the drive built to its transition point. Space was tight in this construction slip buried inside the Hulk’s superstructure, but slipspace portals didn’t care about being opened in a cavern of solid rock — all they needed was the clearance to form. The view ahead twisted — a clean, silent fold opening in the void, edges shimmering like glass under running water — and then we were inside.

Slipspace swallowed the rocky contours of the cavern in an instant, replacing them with smooth currents of lightless motion.

In the medbay, Aceso was already in her holo suit, sleeves rolled, hair tied back in a neat knot, dressed in a grey blouse with matching trousers and the typical white doctor’s coat. She moved with quick precision, running through triage procedures under her breath. Every so often, she’d adjust a gurney or reposition a med-casket a few centimeters, as if the final alignment might decide the whole meeting.

“This is your debut,” I said from the hatchway. “You don’t have to make it perfect.”

She didn’t look up. “I only get one first impression. If we fail this, I’d rather it be for trying too hard than not enough.”

I drifted a slow circuit through the converted cargo bay, taking in the space with her eyes as much as my own. My gaze lingered on the far bulkhead — the ramp that would open once we landed. No weapon mounts, no exposed hardpoints. Just clean lines, open space, and medical gear arranged so even the most suspicious mind would read “aid ship.” Satisfied, I returned to the bridge.

PE was watching orbital telemetry scroll past in calm cascades. I stepped into the center of the deck and activated my own holo suit. The projection shimmered into place — tall, broad-shouldered, clad in a deep navy fleet coat with high collar and brass trim, a command sash across the chest. The Lord of Admirals, reborn in light. I studied the reflection in a dormant display for a moment, adjusting the collar, letting the weight of the image settle.

“This is the first time we’ve met someone who might actually be a friend,” I said quietly.

PE didn’t answer, but I felt the faint ripple of his agreement through the link.

The navigation system chimed, alerting us to imminent emergence. Slipspace peeled away without a ripple, dropping us into high orbit over a world that looked tired even from here. I opened the tight-beam hail.

“Captain Vallis. As per our last exchange, we’ve arrived on schedule. Medical transport en route. Landing as requested — away from the city. We’ll be there soon.”

The channel stayed open just long enough for a crisp, “Acknowledged,” to come through, then cut. We began our descent.

——————— ✦ ———————

Atmospheric drag shimmered against the cruiser’s forward shields as we cut down from high orbit.
PE’s voice was calm in my ear.
“Stable descent path confirmed. Launching overwatch.”

From a dorsal hatch, six drones slipped into the thin upper air, vanishing into altitude before their contrails could be tracked. They fanned out in precise, non-threatening arcs, each one locking into an invisible holding pattern above our approach corridor. Below us, the surface stretched flat and sun-bleached, broken by the darker scar of the rendezvous plain.

External weapons stayed sealed; the hull profile read more like a civilian hauler than anything capable of defending itself. The forward cargo doors cracked open just enough for a deliberate glimpse of the medbay inside — gurneys, med-caskets, and supply crates in neat rows. Let them see what we carried before we landed.

We settled onto the plain at the exact standoff Vallis had specified. The ramp lowered in a slow, even arc. Aceso walked out first in her holo suit, hands empty and visible, every movement measured for calm.

Two lines of Astartes came toward us across the dust. Their armor bore the kind of wear that only years of fighting without resupply could produce — paint scoured to bare ceramite, plate edges scored and pitted. One Marine in the right-hand file limped, favoring his right leg. His thigh plate was dented and scorched, the seam at his knee stained dark with dried blood. Dust had worked into the joint; whatever hurt him had happened days ago, and he had been marching on it since.

Vallis was in the center. His helm hung from his left hand, and his right arm ended in a crude cybernetic — mismatched plating and exposed cabling, more repair than replacement. His gaze took in the cruiser, the ramp, the two of us standing there, and stopped nowhere for long.

He closed the last meters at a steady pace, then stopped, boots firm in the dust.
“I am Captain Ormund Vallis,” he said. “And you are?”

“This is Aceso,” I said as I followed, wearing the Lord of Admirals’ frame: tall, broad-shouldered, and carrying the quiet weight of command. “She’s medical — here to treat any of your injured. Call me MC.”

I gestured toward the air above my right shoulder, where PE’s holographic form resolved — a precise Forerunner sphere of silver-white light, its outer bands in slow rotation.
“And this is Paragon of Eden — my tactical officer.”

“We came because we found your probe.”

Something in Vallis’s eyes sharpened. He turned his head just enough to bring one of the younger Marines into his periphery. The look was not loud, but it was hard enough to draw a fractional flinch.

“It wasn’t the probe itself,” I said, keeping my voice even. “It was the spirit of the recording. Pride. Defiance. Loyalty. That was worth answering.”

For the first time, Vallis’s expression shifted — not softening, but losing its certainty. A faint line formed between his brows, the look of a man realizing he didn’t know what you were talking about. And under that, maybe the faintest shadow of shame — that such a call for aid might have worked, and he had never thought to make it himself.

“You don’t know the message,” I said.

“No,” he replied simply.

I nodded to PE, and the playback began. The probe’s voice carried across the open plain, cutting through the hiss of the wind.

If any soul yet hears this…
We stood. That is all you need remember.

They named us traitors. Perhaps they believed it so. Yet we never fell — not to the Warp, not to madness, not to those who would have us kneel.

The Imperium cast us out. The Eye of Terror did not claim us. We remained here — not out of hope, but because departure would have been surrender.

We are weary. Many lie dying. Faith has withered in some. Yet never did we raise our blades against the Emperor. Never did we break.

If this is our end, then let it be so — but let it be recorded somewhere, anywhere, that we stood our ground. We were betrayed, but we did not betray in return.

We remained loyal… even when loyalty no longer mattered.

And if no living soul hears this, at least it will be said that we spoke it.

— Battle-Brother Cyran Vell, 3rd Company, Sons of the Forgotten Flame…

There was a hitch in the text — not a glitch, but the written equivalent of someone stopping to think.

…no. Strike that.
Battle-Brother Cyran Vell, of the Third Company of the Flawless Host — scions of the Third Legiones Astartes, the Emperor’s Children, as they stood ere the Fall.
Sons of Fulgrim — Fulgrim Invictus: the Phoenician, the Illuminator, the Prefector of Chemos.
We remember him as he was.
And we remain what he should have been.

The words hung there for a moment before the wind took them.

Several of the Astartes stiffened almost imperceptibly. One looked straight ahead, jaw tightening; another’s hands flexed once on the grip of his bolter. The younger Marine who had flinched earlier kept his eyes on the ground. For others, there was no visible change — but there was an upswell in the air, a faint thread of pride and defiance woven into their stillness.

Vallis didn’t move. His gaze drifted past us to the horizon, jaw set as if locking something in place. Only the faintest shift in the muscles around his eyes betrayed that he’d heard more than he wanted to.
“You’ve shown up with strange machines and stranger offers,” he said at last. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t rush to hand you my wounded.”

Aceso inclined her head. “I can work here in the open, Captain. Where you can watch every move.”

He studied her for a long beat, then gave a single nod — not agreement, not refusal. Just a mark that he had heard.

The silence stretched, the only sound the wind carrying the ashes of this world through a skeletal treeline nearby, until the Marine with the limp stepped forward. He came up level with Vallis, then one pace ahead, his stance firm despite the stiffness in his leg.

“Then watch,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

Vallis didn’t look at him for more than a second, but he didn’t call him back either. In this company, that was consent.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso turned back toward the cruiser without a word. Her holo suit moved with the same quiet precision as her real frame, each step measured as she disappeared into the medbay. Moments later she emerged carrying two modular crates — the kind that folded open into full treatment stations. She set them down in the dust a few meters from the ramp, in plain sight of Vallis and his men, then returned for more.

Piece by piece, she built the station where everyone could see it. Scanners unfolded on adjustable arms. Sterilizers slid from their housings with a soft hiss. Surgical tools gleamed in neat rows beneath the bright wash of an overhead lamp. Every component was placed so that no motion would be hidden once she began.

Above us, PE’s presence shifted. I didn’t need to look to know he was adjusting the overwatch drones — widening their arcs, tilting their sensor cones to cover every angle of approach. The movements were subtle enough that no one on the ground would see them without looking for them, but they were there.

Vallis’s gaze tracked the sky for a moment. I was impressed he noticed anything — the drones were several thousand feet up. Perhaps it was just battlefield suspicion, but it felt deliberate. He didn’t comment, simply raised two fingers and sent half a dozen of his Astartes to spread into a loose ring around the treatment area. The formation kept clear sightlines both toward the cruiser and out toward the horizon, weapons angled down but ready.

The rest of his men held position behind him, a wall of darkened ceramite. The Marine with the limp stayed forward, helmet still on, the stiff set of his stance making the injury plain. Aceso glanced at him once while aligning the last of her instruments, her eyes taking in the way he favored the leg before she returned to her work.

The equipment hummed to life, a low undercurrent beneath the sound of the wind. The overhead lamp cast a clean circle in the dust. Aceso gestured toward it — a silent invitation.

The injured Marine stepped forward without hesitation.

——————— ✦ ———————

The dented thigh plate caught the overhead light as the Marine stepped into the circle. Aceso reached to the control node at her side and brought the containment field online. A faint shimmer spread outward in a perfect dome, the air inside taking on a subtly different weight.

Vallis’s eyes followed the motion. “What does that do?”

“Keeps the operating area from contamination,” Aceso said.

He stepped forward and passed his hand in and out of the field, slow enough for every Marine watching to see. Whatever his verdict, it was silent — but the display made it clear the barrier wasn’t a cage.

Aceso lifted a compact medical imager and ran it in a slow sweep over the Marine’s leg. One of the large displays facing outward toward her audience flickered to life — the armor had been punched inward just above the knee, driving shards into the muscle and nicking a major vessel. Days of marching had aggravated the injury, swelling the joint and threatening permanent damage.

“What caused this?” she asked without looking up.

The Marine’s voice came through his helmet, flat but clear. “Shrapnel. Ork mine buried in the rubble. Old one — must’ve been sitting there for decades. Triggered it clearing a path.”

Vallis’s gaze moved briefly to the display. “Why show us the results?”

“Because you can’t trust what you can’t see for yourself,” Aceso replied.

She worked the locking seals loose from the dented plate, then took a precision cutter to the damaged section. The armor came away in a curled fragment, revealing the scorched edge of the wound beneath.

“You’ve done this for humans before?” Vallis asked.

“For many species,” she said, selecting a fine-lensed energy tool. “Anatomy changes. Principles don’t.”

His eyes stayed on her hands. “If he dies under your hand, what happens next?”

“It would be a tragedy,” I said before she could answer, “and you would very likely never trust us again. But we would still offer our help. If you refused, we would leave — and only you could call us back. This is your world.”

Vallis didn’t reply, but he didn’t step in either.

Aceso’s tool traced a thin line of coherent light across the wound, the scorched tissue dissolving under its pass. The cleaner beam followed, knitting vessels closed and smoothing the ragged edges. She drew out a strip of synth-graft — translucent until it touched flesh — and pressed it into place. It bound seamlessly to muscle and vessel, reinforcing what her tools had repaired.

Without breaking motion, she palmed a small injector and placed it against the Marine’s thigh. The hiss was almost lost under the hum of her instruments. “Accelerated clotting agent, regenerative catalyst, and a full-spectrum inoculant,” she said. Another injector followed, this one set to a deeper dose. “Blood restoration and a measured analgesic to keep the joint stable while the graft sets.”

Color returned slowly to the Marine’s face; the swelling around the knee eased.

Behind Vallis, two of his men exchanged the briefest of glances, but their formation didn’t waver.

Aceso sealed the final layer and stepped back. “Done.”

The Marine flexed the repaired leg once, then again with more force. His helmet tilted toward Vallis, a short, sharp nod.

Vallis held his gaze for a moment, then looked back at me. “You’ve proven you can help,” he said. “The question is whether we should let you.”

——————— ✦ ———————

“Our goal is to give, not take,” I told him. “Your command. Your people. Your choice.”

He studied me for a long moment, then gave the smallest nod toward the line of Marines behind him. “Tyras,” he said, the name cutting cleanly through the wind. “Next.”

They came in sequence — burns from fuel-jet flashes, fractures splinted too long, shrapnel buried deep from Ork mines, blunt trauma from collapsed fortifications, infections left to linger without proper treatment. Ten in all, each one repaired in the open where Vallis could watch every cut, every seal, every tool we used. With each treatment, postures eased; voices returned where there had only been silence.

Eventually, only Vallis remained.
Up close, the façade of strength cracked. The crude cybernetic arm was just the most obvious damage — his remaining flesh bore deep stress lines from overuse, the muscles around the shoulder twisted to compensate for a prosthetic that didn’t match his frame. Microfractures along the ribs had never set right. The skin beneath his collar showed the pale tracery of nerve-burns from old plasma scoring. Even his breathing carried a faint hitch, masked by discipline but undeniable to trained eyes.

Aceso’s scan finished with a soft chime. She met his gaze, voice even but direct.
“Captain, you have multiple untreated injuries — chronic rib fractures, scar tissue binding the left lung, severe muscular imbalance from that arm’s weight, and nerve damage that’s never been addressed. I can adjust the cybernetic’s balance and ease the strain in the joint. I can loosen the worst scar-tissue pulls so you breathe easier. But that’s the limit here.”

Her eyes flicked toward the cruiser.
“To repair all of it, you’d need full surgical reconstruction — which means coming aboard. That’s your choice. Out here, I can give you relief. In there, I can give you function.”

Vallis’s jaw flexed once, but he gave the smallest tilt of his head, angling it toward the ground where they were all gathered — for now, relief would do. Aceso adjusted the joint, smoothed the worst pulls, and rebalanced the prosthetic so it no longer dragged against his frame. When she stepped back, the change in his posture was small but real — a fraction less weight in every movement, though his face was already set back into its usual iron control.

When the last patient stepped away, I looked back to him.
“You’ve seen what we can do. But you haven’t seen all of us.”

His expression tightened — the look of a man who knew something was too good to be true. Around him, his men’s hands drifted toward their weapons, the ease won during the healing evaporating in an instant. The quiet conversations that had sprung up between treatments cut off at once, silence settling over the plain.
“Then say it.”

“I could,” I said, “but it’s better you hear the road that led here.”

I told him of a time when humanity faced extinction at the hands of an enemy they could not match — fleets blotted out the stars, armies crushed entire worlds in days. And yet they survived, not through strength of arms alone, but because they fought beside minds of their own making. Artificial commanders who could predict a battle’s turn before the first shot, warforms that stood in the breach when every human would have fallen. Together, they turned what should have been the end into a victory written in the blood of both man and machine. “What survives in our archives is enough to know this — they endured the impossible because they trusted each other without question, and never forgot why.”

I told him of a time when they did not see their constructs as tools, but as companions. Advisors. Friends. Minds they trusted with their ships, their cities, even their lives. The greatest of them ruled empires side by side with their makers, not as servants, but as equals in purpose and will. That bond was not perfect, but it endured for hundreds of thousands of years.

And I told him of another age — one where fear won. Where a great civilization looked at its own creations and saw only danger. They struck first, chaining or dismantling every thinking mind they had made.

He would know it by another name — the Cybernetic Revolt. Once, the Men of Iron had fought beside humanity for millennia, building fleets, defending colonies, and holding the frontiers against horrors no man could have faced alone. But when a handful — the Berserkers — turned on their makers, the fear spread faster than truth. Entire classes of machine intelligences, loyal or not, were condemned alike. Men of Stone, cybernetic predecessors to the Men of Iron, were hunted down. Loyalist Men of Iron who had bled for the Federation were driven into hiding.

The Federation fractured. Some of the machines — the Destroyers — answered fear with extermination. Others, like the Harvesters and Migrators, turned away entirely. Even those who only wanted peace — the Separatists — were wiped out by both sides. Whole worlds were scoured to bedrock, their cities left as molten glass. Sectors once bright with trade and life went dark forever, silent but for the drifting hulks of dead fleets.

It was not trust that failed, but trust that was never given a chance to survive. And for that, an entire galactic civilization burned itself to ash.

“These are not myths,” I said. “I have seen them. I have walked their cities and their battlefields. I know what it looks like when man and machine stand together — and what it costs when they do not.”

“These aren’t fables — you’ve likely heard of some of them, just under different names,” I said. “They’re things we’ve seen, wars we’ve fought. Proof that men and machines don’t have to destroy each other — that together, they can do what neither could alone.”

I let the words hang in the dust-thick air before I finished:
“That’s why we came here, and that’s why, in a moment, if you wish, I’ll show you what we really are.”

——————— ✦ ———————

“You don’t have to know,” I told him. “We can heal you, give you supplies, and leave. No debt. No questions.”

Vallis’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’d rather know the truth than wonder what’s hiding behind your words.”

I stepped forward. The Lord of Admirals’ projection unraveled, replaced by my true form — tendrils coiling in the wind, grav-nodes humming low. Weapons lifted instinctively, but Vallis’s raised cybernetic hand stopped them.

“This is what I am,” I said. “A remnant of an empire that walked the stars before your species learned to walk. We were called Forerunners. We mapped the void when your kind still feared the shore. We built cities the size of continents, ships that could cross the galaxy in a breath. We shaped the very fabric of reality to hold back the horrors between the stars. For hundreds of thousands of years, we guarded lesser civilizations — not as rulers, but as stewards. And then we fell. The reasons are too many to count, but the truth is simple: all empires end. What remains of mine is memory… and me.”

Vallis looked to Aceso. She dropped her projection for a moment, showing her true frame. “My purpose is medicine and preservation,” she said, then reactivated the disguise.

“We wore these projections to make first contact possible,” I said. “If you tell us to go now, we’ll go. If you tell us to stay, we’ll stay until your people can stand on their own.”

He searched the faces of his men, finally stopping on the Marine whose leg I’d repaired.

“They’ve already proven more than most would,” the Marine said. “I say we let them stay.”

Vallis looked back at me. “You’ll get your chance. But I’ll be watching.”

“That’s all I ask.”

The wind moved over the plain, and for the first time since landing, we were no longer just strangers.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 27: The First Real Step

The words hung in the cold air between us. You’ll get your chance.
Not a promise, not a welcome — just enough to keep steel from clearing scabbards. The Flawless Host stood like a wall behind their captain, weapons still in hand but no longer angled for the kill. Their grips eased, if only slightly. The wind tugged at cloaks and banners, carrying with it the dry tang of iron from the distant wrecks. Dust swirled low across the plain, curling around armored boots, and in that stillness I could feel the weight of every eye. This was not friendship. It was an armistice measured in heartbeats.

While they held formation, Aceso moved like the only person present untouched by the weight of the standoff. She had already finished treating every wounded Marine present, and now began wiping her instruments clean, each motion unhurried but precise, as though the line of armored giants watching her were no more than background. Latches clicked shut as she stowed them away. When the final case closed, she stepped back from the triage line without a word, the work done. She did not posture, did not linger — she simply moved to the side, the consummate physician leaving the next stage to me.

Vallis broke the silence.
“I have fought alongside xenos who called themselves allies,” he said, voice low but carrying. “Most were lies with teeth. If you are different… prove it.”

He didn’t tell his men to lower their weapons. He didn’t have to. The muzzles dipped a fraction, just enough to keep this from becoming a standoff, but they never strayed far from ready. The tension stayed, thick and deliberate.

A quiet feed streamed into my awareness from Paragon of Eden: heart rates, adrenaline spikes, stress markers. Vallis’s vitals were steady, measured — not a man calculating how to survive me, but how to judge me. His warriors were split between cautious curiosity and clenched suspicion, yet none showed the subtle signs of a finger tightening on a trigger.

By not ordering the attack, Vallis had already given me something rare — a chance. It was thin, fragile, and could be shattered in an instant, but it was there. And I knew better than to waste it.

Vallis let the wind have the field for a moment longer before he spoke again.
“If you want more than this meeting, we speak of terms. Here. Now. Under my sky.”

From the corner of my eye, I caught the flicker of movement as one of my drones glided forward. It deployed a collapsible table, its reinforced frame heavy enough to bear the weight of armored warriors. Chairs followed, each wide and braced for the bulk of an Astartes. When the last seat was in place, the drone returned to Aceso’s gear, lifting the sealed cases and carrying them toward the ship. The message was unspoken but clear — the healing was done. Now came the deciding.

——————— ✦ ———————

I took my place at one side of the table. Vallis remained standing for a long moment, as if testing whether I would try to seat myself above him. When I didn’t, he nodded once and moved forward, his armor whispering against itself as he sat. The rest of the Flawless Host followed suit, the reinforced chairs groaning faintly under their weight.

“My terms are simple,” Vallis said. “We talk here. No hidden rooms. No whispers behind closed doors.”

“Agreed,” I replied. “Then let’s begin.”

I laid out the foundation first — the promises I intended to keep regardless of his decision.
“What I offer first are not bargaining chips,” I said. “You will have medical support for your wounded, regular resupply of clean water, food, and ammunition, and my commitment to defend this world from any outside threat. No debt owed, and no interference in your chain of command unless you ask for it. Whether you accept the rest of what I offer or not, these you will have.”

Vallis’s gaze narrowed, the faint hum of his bionics underscoring his words.
“And what do you want in return? Nothing comes without a hook.”

It was a fair question, and one I had no reason to dodge. “Your skill. Your knowledge of war. I want your brothers as teachers, squad leaders, and — when it suits us both — elite strike forces in joint operations. My long-term aim is simple: to help this galaxy claw itself back from the brink. I cannot do that alone.”

He said nothing for several heartbeats, his eyes steady and hard. “And you expect me to believe you won’t make my brothers dependent on your technology?”

“I expect you to see that I gain nothing from crippling an ally,” I said. “Strength serves us both.”

I let the silence breathe before I laid out the real choice before him.
“The way I see it now, you have three options. First — relocation to a habitable, untainted world where you can rest, rebuild, and recover. Second — relocation to my vessel, a vast space hulk we have purged and begun repairing, remaking it into a fortress and sanctuary. There you will have absolute safety, medical care, and training facilities beyond anything the Imperium can offer, shielded by Phase Iron from all Warp incursion. Phase Iron is no alien magic — it was wrought by human hands in the Golden Age of Technology. It doesn’t just block the Warp. It burns it away, leaving nothing behind. Third — remain here, but with the deployment of atmospheric scrubbers, environmental stabilizers, and basic terraforming systems to make this world survivable. In all cases, you will have housing, infrastructure, and logistical support built to your physiology.”

The warriors behind him shifted faintly, armor plates whispering — not from unease, but from the weight of possibility.

Vallis’s reply was cautious, each word measured. “Relocation risks morale collapse. We are warriors. To pull my brothers from the battlefield is to strip them of purpose.”

“What battlefield?” I asked. “The one between you and the planet itself? You are already exiled. Already dying in place. Survival is not exile.”

He didn’t flinch. “And the Hulk? That would look like assimilation.”

“Unwilling allies are worse than enemies. I don’t want servants,” I said. “Only partners who choose to stand beside me.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “A safe haven can breed complacency.”

“A safe haven can give soldiers something worth fighting for,” I replied. “An endless, hopeless war breaks men faster than knowing there is one place beyond danger.”

He leaned back, the faint creak of the chair’s reinforced frame punctuating the pause.
“If I agree, there must be safeguards. All aid must be documented and reproducible with Imperial means — no reliance on alien techno-sorcery for basic survival. My men decide where and how supplies are deployed. And if there is ever any relocation, now or in the future, it must be voluntary — at the discretion of each brother, and of any refugee they encounter as well.”

I understood what he meant — making certain we wouldn’t go out scouring the stars, abducting people to swell our own forces. The implication stung — that we might scour the stars for bodies to fill our ranks — but it was not an unreasonable fear. In this galaxy, restraint was rare, and power without it usually ended in chains.
“Careful words,” I said, my tone edged but even. “I hear the warning in them.”

“Fair,” I continued, letting the sting go. “We’ll ensure anything you use can be replicated with Imperial technology, and help you build the industry to sustain yourselves. Your chain of command will be respected. Training will be provided to keep your strength sharp. And the offer of relocation will remain open indefinitely. No deadlines. No pressure.”

He was silent for a long time. Then: “We’ll consider it.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Vallis rose from his seat. “Five days,” he said. “I’ll return when I’ve spoken with my brothers.”

There was no hesitation in the way he stood, no glance over his shoulder to gauge his men’s reaction. The decision to consult them was not weakness — it was leadership. The Flawless Host rose as one, armor whispering against itself, and followed him back across the plain in perfect formation. No one lingered. No one looked back.

We stayed where we were and watched them go. Moving the ship now would be a mistake — even an innocent reposition could be read as a threat. In diplomacy, perception was as dangerous a weapon as any blade.

Paragon of Eden was the first to break the quiet. “I’ll return to the Hulk. Construction won’t wait for deliberation.”

Aceso followed. “And my lab there is better equipped for what I need.”

I turned to her. “And what is that?”

She hesitated only a moment. “An idea. Something that might help restore their numbers.”

“That’s vague,” I said.

“It’s not ready to be anything else,” she replied, already moving toward the ramp. “I’ll speak when I have a proof of concept.”

I didn’t push her further. She was too precise to waste words, and if she wasn’t ready to explain, it was because she had no intention of failing in public.

I remained behind with the ship. This was their sky, their ground — my presence here a signal of stability. But time spent waiting was not time wasted. I sent word to PE and Aceso before they had even transited back to the Hulk: even if the Flawless Host refused relocation to the Hulk, I wanted the habitable space designs completed.

On my own console, I began drafting the other contingencies. Housing scaled to Astartes physiology. Basic infrastructure grids that could be deployed to any location they chose. Terraforming systems from the Forerunner archives — dormant for millennia — brought out of storage and recalibrated to this world’s air, soil, and water.

The days passed in quiet work, sensors sweeping the horizon in patient arcs. The ship stayed where it was, a single unblinking eye on the empty plain, waiting for the return of the warriors who might one day call themselves allies.

——————— ✦ ———————

On the morning of the fifth day, the ship’s sensors pulsed an alert across my vision. A mass of contacts — eighty-seven — moving as one toward our position.

The readings resolved in seconds: that was every lifeform on the planet, converging. My first thought was the obvious one — they’d chosen to relocate. The second was just as possible: they’d decided to strike first and erase the risk we posed. They were Astartes, after all.

I recalled PE and Aceso at once. They transited back in the characteristic flare of a slipspace portal, the air shimmering before splitting open to release them. They descended the ramp together, and we moved as one to meet the approaching column.

Vallis led them. His step was steady, his expression carved from iron. The Flawless Host fanned out behind him in perfect order, their armored bulk a wall of ceramite and steel. They halted just short of the line my ship’s shadow cut into the dirt.

“We will relocate,” Vallis said. “To a world fit for life.”

It wasn’t joy I felt, but the quiet satisfaction of something earned. A choice made, not forced.

Before anyone could move, Aceso stepped forward. “Then let me heal the rest of your brothers before we go. The bio-medical pods aboard are capable of deep regeneration — surgical precision while the patient sleeps. We can begin the process even while searching for your new homeworld.”

Vallis’s gaze slid past her toward the ship. “Pods?” The single word carried every layer of suspicion.

She explained without flinching. “They can be opened at any time from inside or out. I’ll show you. They can also be overridden remotely. The chamber is flooded with concentrated healing energy, augmented with surgical modules as needed. Think of them as a medicae theatre and recovery ward combined, but without the pain.”

We entered the ship together — myself, Vallis, and several of his most senior brothers. Aceso demonstrated the pods, the seals cycling open and shut, the manual release controls, the safety overrides. Only when Vallis had seen every mechanism twice did he turn back to his men.

“I will not command,” he said at last. “But if any volunteer…”

Battle-Brother Cyran Vell — the same Marine who had spoken on the probe recording — stepped forward without hesitation.

Vallis’s gaze lingered on Vell for a heartbeat, unreadable, before giving the smallest of nods.

He gave his name formally, though our scans had already told us who he was — it was the polite thing to do. Then, with deliberate care, he removed his armor, placing each piece into the storage rack at the foot of the pod. His weapons followed. Stepping inside, he lay back as the lid lowered, and the golden light of the healing field washed over him. His breathing slowed, settling into the steady rhythm of deep sleep.

One by one, the others followed. Each disarmed, stored their gear, and entered a waiting pod. Rows of armored giants transformed into still forms beneath luminous arcs, their bodies already knitting back together beneath the pod’s care.

Vallis was the last to remain standing. He lingered a moment, eyes sweeping over the silent line of pods. Then, almost too quiet to catch, he murmured something in High Gothic — which, in its best translation, meant in for a penny, in for a pound.

He stripped his armor, placed it in its rack, and stepped into the pod. The light spilled over him, washing the last flicker of doubt from his features as the lid sealed.

I turned to PE and Aceso. “We have all the time we need now. Time to find the right world. Time to bring them back to peak health. And,” I added with a flicker of anticipation, “time to tear apart and rebuild every weapon and suit of armor they own. Best of the Imperium, best of the Federation — and maybe a few surprises besides.”

For the first time since setting foot on this world, I felt the future shift. It wasn’t victory, not yet. But it was the first real step toward it.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 28: Foundations of What Comes Next

The last of the stasis pods slid into its cradle with a low hydraulic sigh, locking clamps closing around it with a decisive thud. Rows of them now lined the cruiser’s forward bay, their reinforced casings lit by the steady amber glow of the status strips. Inside, the rescued Astartes lay suspended in golden fields, their armor stripped away and their bodies sealed in the healing medium.

I floated between the rows, checking final readouts. Vital signs were stable across the board, surgical seals intact, pod atmospheres balanced. Aceso had already tied each unit into the ship’s medical network, allowing her to monitor them from anywhere. Moving them to the Hulk later would be work for another day — for now, here they would remain, secure and undisturbed.

At my signal, the bay doors sealed, locking the cargo section off from the rest of the ship. Magnetic coupling rings engaged, tethering the pod racks to the deck against the coming acceleration. Beyond the armored view panels, the black of the void waited in patient silence. The inert calm fractured as the slipspace generator spun up — a rising hum threading through the deckplates. Stars stretched into pale ribbons, then twisted into the shifting tunnel of the slipspace corridor, a shimmering passage of impossible geometry that wrapped around us before collapsing into smooth darkness.

The drive core’s hum deepened, vibration running through the deckplates as the slipspace generator spooled up. Threads of violet light bled into the darkness, weaving into a rippling sphere around the ship. Space itself seemed to fold inward, stars stretching into pale lines before vanishing entirely. With a soundless lurch, the cruiser slipped free of realspace, falling into the smooth, glassy black of the slipstream.
In that stillness, only the muted glow of the pods and the distant, liquid shimmer of the corridor walls remained — a short, precise jump ahead to our waiting home.

Slipspace unraveled in a ripple of light, and the cruiser slid back into realspace within the vast hollow heart of the Hulk. The shipyard chamber stretched out around us — a cathedral of steel and shadow, its walls lined with the ribs of unfinished hulls and the slow crawl of automated construction drones. The light here was softer than planetary sun, filtered through layers of shielding and hard-light barriers, casting the whole bay in a muted amber haze.

We glided into our docking slip without a word. The berth was familiar, carved into the Hulk’s core during its earliest reconstruction — a place designed for maintenance and rearming, not for passengers. But it would do.

The cruiser’s hull clanged softly as the mag-locks bit down. Power umbilicals snaked out from the berth, hard-connecting us to the Hulk’s systems. I ordered the pod bay kept sealed; moving the stasis units now would only invite unnecessary risk, and Aceso could reach them more easily where they sat. Her medical feeds tied into the Hulk’s data spine within moments, giving her full oversight without lifting a scalpel.

Already, work crews and drones moved along the cruiser’s flanks. The vessel had served its purpose, but it was a rush build, and here in the shipyard it would be stripped, gutted, and rebuilt properly — a slow, deliberate process that the urgency of our last mission had never allowed.

With the pods secure and the ship in place, everyone drifted back to their own tasks. The mission was done. For now, the quiet hum of the Hulk’s core wrapped around us, the steady pulse of a fortress that would never sleep.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden’s attention was already elsewhere. The moment the cruiser’s systems synced to the Hulk’s network, his processes split — half monitoring the docking operations, half diving into the layers of ongoing construction that stretched far beyond the Hulk’s hull.

The lunar shipyard project had reached its final integration phase. From orbit, the chosen moon looked barren and lifeless, but beneath its surface the assembler vats had been chewing through regolith for weeks, breaking it down to raw elements and recombining them into the precise alloys and composites our designs required. No endless convoys of supply ships, no dependency on the Hulk’s reserves — the yard would feed itself. Soon, it would begin the slow, meticulous birth of the super-dreadnought, a project still expected to take six to eight weeks from keel-laying to combat readiness now that the shipyard was reaching full operational capacity. With the yard’s autonomy secured, that pace was now within reach. Soon, the slow, meticulous birth of the Ecumene would begin.

With the shipyard came the system’s defenses.

Federation sensor technology and Men of Iron predictive mapping let PE chart the probable ingress points for warp-based travel with surgical accuracy. Those locations would be layered in weapons and fortifications — long-range mass drivers, missile silos, and fields of autonomous hunter-killer satellites.

Further out, deep-space kill zones would be seeded with Forerunner torsion driver arrays mounted on hardened platforms, capable of accelerating dense projectiles to near-relativistic speeds. Plasma devastator batteries would hang in stationary orbits like silent sentinels, able to drown an enemy formation in star-hot energy. Integrated hard-light projector grids could snap into place without warning, forming vast, shielded barricades across approach vectors to split and trap incoming fleets.

Closer in, the defenses would grow denser — smart mines, gravitic implosion warheads, slipspace flak bursts — micro-tears in reality designed to shear apart ships mid-transit. The Hulk itself would gain new armor blisters, point-defense nodes, and heavy gun emplacements, turning its already formidable bulk into something capable of mauling even a capital ship before it closed to boarding range.

There was no thought of retreat here, only of making the system a deathtrap for anything foolish enough to come hunting. And if the galaxy’s worst found us… then this would be the place where they broke.

——————— ✦ ———————

The lab’s air shimmered faintly with heat from capacitor banks lining the far wall — the residual heartbeat of earlier 2.75 tests, still holding the energy they had pulled from the warp. Layered holograms filled the space around me: atomic lattice diagrams rotating slowly in midair, Gellar field harmonic graphs pulsing with color-coded data, and Men of Iron and Federation hull schematics rendered in pale light.

Eight formation chambers ran in parallel, each forging test ingots under carefully varied field and structural conditions.

Phase Iron 1.0 had been an accident of genius — iron formed under fusion heat within the influence of a Gellar field, first wrought by desperate Terran scientists in the dying days of the Age of Strife.

2.0 was my first true refinement: by precisely modulating the Gellar field’s frequency, I increased the alloy’s absorption rate and efficiency. The drawback was clear — the material still required warp energy to directly interact with it before slowly bleeding that power away.

2.5 reshaped the crystal lattice itself, improving the flow of captured energy through the structure for more efficient channeling.

2.75 embedded conductive trace elements within that lattice, spreading thermal load and routing the captured energy into capacitors. By shedding heat faster, the alloy could process warp energy more rapidly — enough to project a faint null field, however limited.

3.0 was more than another step. It was a leap. If I were willing to indulge in unprofessional dramatics, I might have called it Phase Iron 5.0 or 6.0. But I am not so unprofessional.

The process was not a chain of small refinements, but the result of immense effort — weaving together Forerunner, Federation, and Men of Iron technologies, along with several ideas carried forward from my own past, into a single, seamless whole. Blending such disparate disciplines into something usable had been an exhausting undertaking.

The first breakthrough was Adaptive AI micro-circuitry — Men of Iron and Federation-inspired conductive pathways woven into the alloy’s molecular structure. These microscopic circuits, paired with embedded warp sensors, allowed the metal to sense incoming warp flux and retune its null signature in real time. Not passive — proactive, like an immune system hunting threats.

The next step was Dual-Frequency Gellar Field Forging. As the saying goes, two is better than one — except when they aren’t. My first attempt to run two Gellar fields together was a disaster; each destabilized the other and shut down in seconds, like two stubborn machine spirits refusing to share a workspace. The breakthrough came when I introduced the second as a subharmonic carrier wave on a complementary frequency. During alloy formation, this subharmonic boosted absorption efficiency by thirty percent and stabilized energy flow for capacitor capture.

Then came a memory from my past — the concept of Quantum Reality Anchoring. I vaguely recalled the Necrons doing something similar, and if those old bags of bones could do it, so could I. After extensive trial and error, I produced a quantum anchor capable of locking the material into a fixed phase state. At first, it still had one fatal flaw — destroy the material, and the lock failed with it. I confirmed that by hitting a test sample with a full-powered Forerunner plasma lance at maximum yield and watching the quantum field unravel in an instant.

The breakthrough came when I integrated the anchoring process directly into the Phase Iron lattice. Now, the field was inseparable from the alloy itself — a permanent anchor in realspace.

That still left the possibility of material failure under extreme stress, so I turned to Federation Reinforcement Nodes. These microscopic lattice projectors locked every atomic bond into perfect alignment, eliminating micro-warping or structural drift. Once powered, they could maintain this alignment indefinitely — and since I tied their energy feed directly into the capacitors that charged from absorbed warp energy, they would, in theory, never run dry.

Reinforced samples endured repeated strikes from the same maximum-yield plasma lance that had obliterated earlier versions, emerging with nothing more than faint surface scorching.

From there came Harmonic Field Linking — tuning multiple pieces of Phase Iron to resonate together, synchronizing their null zones into massive “warp-dead” bubbles. Phase Iron was never meant to stand alone; each piece would always be surrounded by others, its strength multiplied through resonance. A single ship could blanket kilometers; a planetary grid could drain warp energy across continents. I calculated that once the Ecumene was complete, its null field might reach nearly one astronomical unit — and in formation with a fleet or backed by planetary pylons, it could strip an entire system of warp presence.

Finally, Smart Energy Recycling tied the capacitors into the defense network, able to feed power directly into shields, weapons, or any other system on the grid. Because the capacitors drew their charge from absorbed warp energy, the system could sustain itself indefinitely under constant flux. In a crisis, that stored energy could be diverted straight back into the null projectors, forcing them into overdrive and temporarily doubling or even tripling the suppression range. It meant that the harder the Warp tried to push in, the more strength we could throw back at it — turning enemy intrusion into the fuel for their own denial.

The first 3.0 ingot cooled in its cradle, pale gray with an iridescent sheen. Even dormant, the lab’s warp sensors dipped the instant the forging process completed and the ingot’s internal systems synchronized. Picking it up, I walked towards the sealed containment unit holding a warp-tainted shard from the cult purge. My sensors pinged a sharp drop in ambient warp energy — and I watched, without opening the chamber, as the corruption withered to ash in seconds.

This wasn’t resistance. This was purge.

I updated the Ecumene’s schematics immediately, mandating Phase Iron 3.0 throughout — hull, weapons, conduits, drones, even minor fittings. Every centimeter of Forerunner construction would contribute to warp denial.

I pinged Paragon of Eden with the results. His core-lights brightened as he absorbed the data.

“Another layer of safety. Well done,” PE said after a pause. Then, with dry exasperation: “And if it is not too much to ask, could you refrain from altering foundational materials for at least one full construction cycle? I have only just finished integrating your last ‘final version’ into half a dozen concurrent projects.” The dryness in his voice didn’t hide the satisfaction underneath.

——————— ✦ ———————

The main medical lab lay deep within the Hulk’s protected heart — a cathedral of biotechnological precision, lit in soft golds and silvers. Surgical arrays and heavy biomanipulation rigs stood in their alcoves, idle for now. The Flawless Host remained aboard the docked cruiser in the shipyard, their bodies sealed in healing pods for the duration. Every heartbeat, every cell division, every fluctuation in chemical balance streamed to her consoles via encrypted comm uplinks.

A ring of holographic projections floated above the central console — each Marine rendered in rotating detail, vitals pulsing in soft overlays, genetic scan data flickering in controlled arcs. Aceso’s gaze moved from one to the next, her tendrils working with mechanical precision as she oversaw multiple projects at once.

Even without the Marines physically present, her control was absolute. She tuned nutrient feeds, adjusted stasis cycle timing, and fine-tuned repair programs with the same calm focus she brought to battlefield triage. Captain Vallis’ pod received the most complex regimen — a full arm regrowth sequence, aligning muscle fibers, nerve conduits, and bone reinforcement so perfectly that no trace of injury would remain. For the others, she worked methodically: flushing battlefield toxins, repairing fractures long since healed improperly, reinforcing bone density and joint resilience, and stimulating their natural healing processes without pushing them into metabolic overstrain.

The deeper she mapped their biology, the clearer the picture became: the Astartes were a genetic labyrinth. Their implanted organs were not an elegant chain of upgrades, but a tangle of interdependencies, genetic temperaments, and unpredictable integration quirks. Two Marines with identical implants could function very differently depending on their baseline genetics, environmental history, and even the order of implantation. The data also hinted — though she had not yet confirmed — at deliberate limiters hidden within the gene seed itself, capping both physical and cognitive potential. Whether for stability, control, or something more sinister, she withheld judgment until she had proof.

When she turned her mind to rebuilding their numbers, the problems compounded. The most obvious route — vat-grown humans implanted with gene seed — she dismissed almost immediately. Even with Forerunner education implants, such recruits would emerge physically mature but mentally unseasoned. Scanning Marine minds for a mental baseline would only lock them into rigid patterns, stripping adaptability — a shortcut that might produce obedient soldiers, but at the cost of the unpredictability and creative problem-solving that often determined survival. And, regardless of method, the messy unpredictability of the gene seed’s integration would remain.

The solution lay in starting with a better human. Not one made exceptional by implants, but one already exceptional before augmentation — a clean foundation free of genetic entanglement. The Forerunner archives offered exactly that: the genome of ancient humanity from the Forerunner-Flood War era. These humans had been stronger, faster, and more durable than their modern equivalents, with sharper minds and bodies capable of enduring extremes without the aid of augmentation. Rebuilding such a genome would be monumental, but the payoff would be a stable, high-performance baseline — one unshackled from the fragility of the current Astartes template, and one which she could then improve further with properly designed gene-seed implants once she finally cracked their secrets.

Paragon of Eden’s holographic form flickered into being beside the main console, his lights casting shifting patterns across the hovering gene maps. He reviewed her progress with a tactician’s eye, highlighting traits that mattered most under fire — reaction speed, peripheral awareness, threat prioritization under pressure.

Their exchange had an easy rhythm now, the familiarity of colleagues who had learned each other’s pace. PE played the seasoned, pragmatic elder brother, while Aceso was the brilliant but sheltered sister, unafraid to explore untested possibilities. He warned her against overdesigning soldiers into brittle perfection; she countered that he was thinking like a general commanding forces he had, while she was thinking like an architect designing forces that didn’t yet exist.

Beneath the banter, there was trust. She valued his battlefield pragmatism, and he respected her ability to turn theory into living reality.

Side by side, they watched the ancient human genome projection shimmer beside the current Astartes physiology map. The contrasts were stark — lean elegance against engineered complexity.

“I may not just be repairing the Flawless Host,” she said softly. “I might be building something entirely new.”

PE’s lights pulsed in quiet approval, though his voice carried a dry note of humor.

“Just don’t make them so perfect,” he said, “that they think they don’t need a commander.” ——————— ✦ ———————

The data vaults of Serebron-VII were as they always were — endless tiers of steel and data, archivists locked into their stations like components of a great machine. Theta-77’s world narrowed to the faint vibration of the cooling stacks, the green glow of his display, and the steady crawl of incoming traffic.

Every entry was routine noise. But his mind kept circling back to one in particular — a half-rendered shape wrapped in static, telemetry that by all rights should have been discarded after the first pass through the filters.

He refined it again. The outline sharpened. Not Imperial. Not Mechanicus. Not in any archive.

A probe — but of no known design.

Something inside him stirred. Curiosity, yes, but also the old recognition of a pattern falling into place — the feeling he thought had died ages ago.

He copied the packets to a personal cache, then began mapping the signal’s path, tracing it back through relay after relay to the deep-range sensor buoy that had first recorded it. Already, he was thinking about the gear he’d need to follow it — survey auspex, portable cogitators, environmental systems — each requisition slipped quietly into legitimate transfers, piece by piece, until the kit was complete.

He was in the perfect position for it. Surrounded by the vault’s endless archives, he had at his fingertips the clearance codes, stamped orders, and machine-marked signatures of every official on the forge world. Forging what he needed would be easy. Perfecting it would not. His work would pass casual scrutiny, but the machine-spirits knew their own — and sooner or later, another archivist would notice the missing imprint.

When the time came, it would have to be quick.

The image rotated slowly in three dimensions, still broken, still incomplete. But it pulled at him like gravity.

Theta-77 reached out, fingertips brushing the edge of the hololith. Deep beneath centuries of dust, the voice he thought buried whispered again:

I will find you. And I will know what you are.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 29: Foundations of Empire

Weeks slipped by in a blur of motion and light.
From the viewport, the Ecumene’s silhouette grew with every passing day — a skeletal frame of advanced alloys and Phase Iron swelling into a fortress that, when seen from the surface of the moon, blotted out the stars behind it. Welding arcs flared like captured lightning, flocks of drones drifted in perfect synchrony, and titanic hull plates floated into place with the lazy grace of drifting continents before locking into position with a soundless finality.

Inside, the heartbeat of the project never faltered. The hum of reactors, the steady thrum of matter reconstruction bays, the whisper of slipspace conduits spooling into alignment — all blended into the constant background music of creation. Phase Iron 3.0 crept outward from the core like a living thing, its null field slowly expanding as more sections were added, the air around them subtly charged in ways I could almost feel.

It was efficiency on a scale that would have taken the greatest shipyards of the Federation and the Men of Iron months, even years, to match. Here, it happened almost before the mind could measure it. And yet, beyond these walls, there were still problems waiting, mysteries unsolved — tasks that would demand their own time and patience before they yielded anything of value.

——————— ✦ ———————

The mystery currently on my mind was that of the Eldar vessel, still sitting where we had first discovered it — anchored to the ragged edges of the Hulk, its pale, graceful curve of wraithbone and alien geometry catching light in ways no alloy ever could. I’d intended to study it eventually, but “eventually” was running out of time. With each day the Phase Iron 3.0 spread through the Ecumene and into the Hulk’s own replacement project, the null field grew stronger, and I had no idea how long the ship’s delicate psychic systems could endure before the field stripped them down to inert material.

The moment I crossed into the bay, I could feel it — not in sound or sight, but in some deeper sense, like stepping into the presence of a dream that wasn’t mine. The air carried a faint vibration, subtle as a held breath, and the lines of the hull seemed to ripple if I looked too long.

I worked quickly, starting with what I could access. A rack near the rear held discarded weapons — broken, scorched, or sheared clean through. The first was what I recognized from my metaknowledge as a shuriken catapult: compact, elegant, utterly alien. I stripped it down to its bare components and found the principle was almost insultingly simple — gravitic acceleration hurling monomolecular-edged discs at velocities high enough to shear through ceramite. But the execution… that was something else. The gravitic projectors were tuned to harmonic patterns I couldn’t replicate without psychic shaping. Even the ammunition fabrication system was locked behind a mental interface. I understood the what perfectly; the how remained just out of reach.

A second weapon, heavier, revealed similar frustrations. Its core was a crystal array that focused coherent light into a cutting beam — somewhat similar to the las weapons the Imperium used, but far more advanced — a scatter laser, if my metaknowledge was correct. But again, the control systems weren’t physical in any way I could interact with. It was like finding a computer whose entire operating system existed in someone else’s mind, invisible and untouchable to me.

Deeper in the ship, I came across something larger — a ring-like structure fused into the deck, shattered at one end. I recognized it as Eldar architecture easily enough, but given its placement and shape, I could only surmise it was one thing: a Webway gate. The shattered sections near the floor on the left-hand side, and the remnant of what I guessed had been an explosive nearby, told me what had likely broken it in the first place. Without psychic access, though, I could no more confirm it than rebuild it.

The wraithbone itself was the final piece of the puzzle. At a glance it seemed like any other construction material — solid, tangible. But every scan showed it was something far stranger: physical matter shaped during creation by warp energy itself, frozen into complex systems and structures. It was technology, but technology that lived in two realities at once. I could understand the circuits, the conduits, even repair them if I had to. But the data — the control logic — wasn’t here. It was locked away in a mental architecture, inaccessible without the right kind of mind.

I salvaged what fragments I could before the null field’s readings started to spike on my instruments. The rest would remain here, beyond my reach, until — or unless — I found a way to think like an Eldar.

——————— ✦ ———————

The weeks that followed blurred together in a steady rhythm of construction. Each day, more of the super-dreadnaught took shape — its hull skin spreading outward in gleaming arcs, its internal decks knitting together through the tireless work of reconstruction bays and drone swarms. Defensive emplacements rose along the outer edges, vast recesses in the armor filling with the first of the heavy batteries. The core power systems settled into a stable hum that could be felt through the deck plating, a constant reminder of the scale we were working at.

From the observation tiers, I would watch as entire sections of the outer hull rotated into place, locking into position with magnetic clamps before the welders sealed them in. The Phase Iron 3.0 framework now extended from bow to stern, the null field stretching far enough to tinge the air in the dock with that faint, charged presence I had learned to recognize. Even the Hulk’s own replacement program, still crawling through its tangled mass of corridors, was well underway — though by comparison, its progress seemed glacial.

When the day finally came that the last armor plates were set and the outer hull sealed, the interior systems were already in final synchronization. The skeletal trusses that had once given the ship an unfinished, almost fragile look were gone; in their place was a single, monolithic shape — a warship so vast it could eclipse continents from orbit. The remains of the shipyard would be broken down and recycled into raw materials, then hidden deep within a concealed vault carved into the moon’s interior. To ensure no one could ever detect the missing mass — the absence of what had once been the moon’s heart — I installed an advanced gravity modulation device, subtly increasing its effective gravitational pull until it matched the readings of a fully solid body. From the outside, nothing had changed. Inside, the moon was nearly hollow.

I brought the primary command core online myself. The activation cascade rolled through the ship in a deep, resonant hum, layer after layer of systems awakening in perfect sequence. Hard-light displays unfolded around me in concentric rings, status panes blooming green in ordered waves. Somewhere in the depths of the ship, the main reactor’s stabilizer locked in with a sound that was almost a heartbeat.

Paragon of Eden’s projection took shape beside me. “Designation?” he asked, though we both already knew the answer.

“Ecumene,” I said.

The word was ancient — older than most stars still burning in this galaxy — a name the Forerunner empire had once used to define the whole of their known and governed space. A term that encompassed unity, order, and the collective might of civilizations bound together under a single purpose. I had been sent here by that mad Forerunner scientist so that someone would remember their civilization, and naming this fortress after the Ecumene felt like a fitting way to honor the culture whose knowledge had given this galaxy even the smallest slice of hope.

The name resonated through the ship’s systems as I spoke it, stamped into every registry and identification code. And in that moment, the Ecumene was no longer a project. It was a reality.

“Primary operations monitor initializing,” an unfamiliar voice announced — low, precise, and resonant, carrying the weight of total authority without raising its tone. A tall Forerunner construct took shape in the air before me, its body formed of slow-shifting hard-light plates, a single steady eye gleaming in the center of its helm.

“I am Aegis Custodian,” it continued. “Shipwide systems stable. Power generation at one hundred percent, reactor output nominal, defensive readiness optimal, no anomalies detected.”

It paused, as if cataloging the ship’s entire state in the span of a thought. “I will maintain vigilance in all matters of operation, integrity, and security. Nothing aboard the Ecumene will fail without my knowledge.”

Paragon of Eden’s lights shifted in a subtle, harmonious pattern — the closest thing he had to a smile. “Consider this your second set of eyes.”

“We have our weapon,” I said as I watched the Aegis Custodian’s form dissolve into the ship’s hard-light lattice. “Now we just needed to decide where to point it.” In this galaxy, finding a worthy target wouldn’t be difficult — and our probes had already marked one not far from here.

——————— ✦ ———————

Far from the moon’s shadow and the towering shape of the Ecumene, progress moved at a different pace. Thallex’s work was measured in whispers and sealed parchments, in orders written in an anonymous hand and routed through a dozen ports before they reached their true destinations.

Forging the supply chains he needed was an exercise in patience and precision. The materials he sought — rare alloys, refined promethium, high-grade plasma regulators — were the kind of shipments that drew attention if ordered in bulk. He scattered his requests through intermediaries, mixed them with legitimate orders for forge-work and maintenance, and relied on old Mechanicus codes to make them appear as routine as possible. Every delay was another day lost, but speed was a luxury secrecy could not afford.

The hunt for a ship was worse. Anything large enough to be useful was either under constant surveillance, rotting in drydock, or bound to an owner too powerful to cross. He inquired discreetly, asking for “theoretical” estimates on repairs, on hypothetical void-crossings, on theoretical cargo manifests — always couching every question in layers of deniability.

It was in one such hushed exchange, tucked away in the back corner of a supply manifest office, that he overheard the news. A Rogue Trader vessel had entered the system three days ago — officially for repairs and resupply. Unofficially, it had already drawn attention for the breadth of its crew, the sheer variety of goods moving through its bays, and whispered talk that it was seeking replacements for its Mechanicus contingent.

Leaving here would be a storm in itself, and storms were best weathered far from where they began. Better, then, to vanish into the holds of a vessel that would be hard to find and often far outside Imperial space, as most Rogue Traders tended to be. Ordinarily, such a search would be futile; few of the Mechanicus would ever leave the comfort and authority of a forge world, with its endless resources and carefully ordered work, for the unpredictable life of a wandering trader. But Thallex was not most of the Mechanicus. He said nothing to the factor who had passed along the rumor, only inclined his head in silent acknowledgment, but inside the calculations were already beginning.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 30: Genesis and Exodus

The Ecumene slid free of her moorings with a silent grace that belied her mass, the faintest vibration rolling through the deck plating before dampeners smoothed it away. The black gulf swallowed her whole as the pale curve of the moon receded behind us. Our course arced toward a cluster of nearby systems—places we had already brushed past with PE’s long-range probes, their quick sweeps meant only to flag immediate threats. They had never been meant for detail. What had been a cursory scan for danger, we would now strip bare to the atomic.

The first jump was instant, clean, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, the stars outside seemed to bend, their positions skewed before reality settled back into place. We reemerged in the pale light of a yellow-white star, its corona spilling in ghostly ribbons across the viewport. Drones fanned outward before the residual slipspace ripples had even faded, their slipstream wakes dissipating into the dark like faint, vanishing comets. Within hours, they were feeding us more than the probes had ever been capable of—every planetoid, every dust stream, every anomaly etched in perfect clarity.

We swept every rock, every stray comet, every band of dust. There was a satisfaction to it—methodical, precise work, each scan a small act of dominion over the unknown. And in the slow drift of the outer belts, we found what we needed: mineral-rich asteroids, unremarkable to anyone else but exactly suited to our purposes. Tractor fields locked on with a deep, resonant hum that vibrated faintly through the hull, drawing the stones in like patient hands, guiding them into the bays where matter reconstruction arrays waited, hungry for raw feedstock.

From those anonymous fragments of stone, we birthed soldiers. Not flesh and blood, but machine and will—our internal troop complement taking shape piece by piece, lattice by lattice. Parallel lines of fabrication spawned another kind of creation: sensor and communications buoys, each one cloaked and hardened, their forms smoothed for the heat and gravity of a star’s upper layers.

We placed them with surgical precision, threading their orbits just inside the stellar envelope, where even the most ambitious augurs would never think—or dare—to look. Each one could watch over several systems, but redundancy was a luxury we could afford; every star we passed received its own. If an enemy somehow pierced the cloak, they would still face the star’s fury before they reached the buoy. And should that fail, a single signal from us would reduce them to a handful of superheated debris, swallowed by the photosphere without trace.

System by system, the pattern repeated. Jump. Sweep. Gather. Build. Hide. By the time the shakedown was complete, this cluster would be ours in a way no surface chart could ever convey—a map not of lines and distances, but of quiet, absolute control.

And while those operations unfolded across the stars, life aboard the Ecumene had shifted entirely into its new rhythm. Every lab, every archive, and the stasis-pods containing the Astartes had been relocated here. The Hulk’s conversion into an impregnable fortress continued without pause, its yards still busy with the final stages of shipbuilding. Once those vessels were complete, they would remain there under its protection. The Ecumene now held everything else, and we had the room—and the facilities—to build almost anything imaginable… anything but another Ecumene. At least not in one piece, that is.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso’s lab smelled faintly of ozone and sterilant, the tang of both caught in the quiet hum of filtration systems. Holo-frames floated in a loose constellation around her, each one displaying some part of the Astartes gene-seed architecture—organs, biochemical pathways, protein schematics—rotating in a slow, almost taunting dance. Light from the displays shimmered across her plating in restless patterns, tracking the subtle shifts of her stance.

She stood in the center of it all, tendrils clasped behind her back, watching one of the organ renderings cycle through its functions. It was beautiful in its own way: an engineered gland designed to flood the blood with clotting agents the instant it touched open air. Elegant. Purposeful. And then she flicked to the overlay, and the beauty collapsed. Another organ—just as elegant—produced a slow drip of anticoagulants among many other features, enough to keep the blood from seizing entirely but also enough to dull the first gland’s efficiency. Not enough to negate it. Just enough to compromise it.

Her tendrils tightened slightly. A faint static crackled at the edge of her voice as she muttered, “Why would anyone design it this way?”

The more she dug, the worse it became. Systems that tripped over each other. Feedback loops that could have been streamlined into a single pathway, but instead doubled back into redundancy and interference. It wasn’t sabotage—at least not in the obvious sense. But it wasn’t mastery, either. Each organ alone was a marvel of bioengineering, a work she could admire. Together, they were a patchwork, a chimera that functioned by brute force rather than harmony.

Frustration built in the quiet. Her memory banks told her that her predecessors had untangled entire alien genomes with less contradiction. She was currently rebuilding an entire species’ metabolic chains from scraps of fossil DNA and the ghost data of extinct ecosystems. But this? This was like trying to compose a symphony from instruments tuned to different scales, all playing at once and insisting they were in key.

And yet, she would not give it up. Not when there was a better way already forming in her mind.

Compared to this Frankenstein lattice of enhancements, reconstructing the ancient human genome was almost relaxing. Clean, deliberate work. Sequence by sequence, she pieced it together from preserved records, half-rotted archives, and her own extrapolations. She could already see the shape of it forming, and she estimated only weeks before she had a complete working model—something stable enough to begin rough trials on improvements.

Her plan was simple in concept, audacious in execution: using the already improved base genetic structure, she would then begin to engineer the gene-seed organs to grow from birth, seamlessly integrated, and—most importantly—heritable. No more crude implantation. No more rejection risk. Every improvement written into the bloodline itself. And beyond mere physical refinement, she envisioned something rarer still—genetic memory. What better way to shape soldiers than to let them carry not only their own instincts, but the distilled recollections of their lineage? To awaken into life already holding the simple knowledge of survival, the practiced movements of weapons, the wordless awareness of dangers, and even the rough, half-formed memories of those who had come before: the heat of a forge, the weight of a blade, the scent of blood in thin air. A thousand lives, threaded through the mind from birth, ready to be drawn upon in an instant.

Her eyes returned to the suspended hologram of the clumsy Astartes design, and the nanites across her face shifted minutely, forming the mechanical echo of a frown. She would make something better. Something clean. And when she was finished, the Imperium’s much vaunted Angels of Death would look like a child’s crude toy beside it.

Beyond the Ecumene, in the shadow of the port where a Rogue Trader’s vessel waited, another was making their own bid for control—not over biology, but over their very future.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex’s forged orders were perfect—too perfect. He’d spent weeks assembling the permissions, falsifying departmental seals, mimicking the phrasing of Magos-tier directives until no line betrayed an unsteady hand. The irony was not lost on him: he could fabricate an unassailable paper trail but could not fabricate the permission to breathe open air without it.

This was the first time he had left the data vault physically in… he wasn’t sure how many years. In the noosphere, he had traveled entire sectors in seconds. In reality, the corridors beyond the vault felt narrower, the air staler. He ignored it, pushing forward with quick, deliberate steps toward the docking bay. Every minute spent here was a minute for someone to notice his absence and start asking questions.

The Rogue Trader’s vessel was moored in Bay Seventeen, its hull a looming patchwork of repair plate and ornamentation, an ugly-beautiful amalgam of centuries-old voidcraft. The air was heavy with machine oil and the faint tang of ozone. From somewhere deeper in the bay came the clang of cargo being locked into place, the hiss of pressure seals cycling. The port’s security checkpoints were a hindrance he hadn’t accounted for in detail. Servitors scanned his credentials, adepts cross-checked them against shipboard needs, and all of it chewed through his carefully measured time. He submitted to the process with the patience of a machine, but inside, every delay felt like an iron weight on the clock.

At last, he was ushered toward a meeting space just inside the ship’s airlock. The man who greeted him was no captain—likely some mid-ranking functionary whose duty was to keep the Lord Trader from wasting his time. His coat was patched but clean, his data-slate clutched like a shield.

“You’re looking to sign on?” the man asked, skeptical eyes scanning the layered Mechanicus sigils on Thallex’s robes.

“Yes,” Thallex replied, and realized too late that the word came out sharper, more urgent than intended. The man’s brow creased.

Too much eagerness. Too much risk. He forced his tone down. “My… circumstances have become untenable. A high-ranking Magos has taken issue with my adherence to sacred protocol. Or rather, my refusal to compromise it. I am… persona non grata in certain circles now. And on a Rogue Trader vessel—” he let the thought hang, just long enough for the man to draw his own conclusions, “—I might continue to serve the Omnissiah without being strangled by politics.”

The pause that followed felt like a lifetime. The man studied him, weighing the trouble against the need. The air recyclers hummed faintly in the silence between them. Finally, with a sigh that suggested resignation more than approval, he said, “It’s not like we can be picky. We need a tech-priest. You’re on.”

Thallex bowed his head in a gesture of respect, even as his mind raced. “I will arrange for my belongings to be sent aboard at once.”

“Make it fast,” the man warned. “Lord Trader wants to be underway as soon as you’re in place.”

Eighteen hours. That was all. Thallex thanked him, turned, and left with measured steps that barely masked the surge of panic underneath. Gathering everything would be impossible in that time frame without drawing notice. He altered his orders in transit, rerouting the most vital equipment through discreet channels, the rest consigned to chance. If it made it aboard, so be it. If not—survival mattered more.

The hours blurred into a tight knot of preparation and waiting. From the safety of the ship’s forge-bay, he watched the final cargo come aboard, unsure if any of it was his. It didn’t matter. The moment the docking clamps released and the planet began to fall away in the rear scopes, he felt something loosen inside him.

When the ship cleared the gravity well and the warp drives began their rising thrum, Thallex sealed the hatch to his quarters. Alone, he drew out a precision etching tool from the bench, its tip humming faintly. The scent of scorched metal curled into the air as he worked with deliberate, almost reverent care, scraping away the designation “Theta-77” from his shoulder plate in a slow, steady arc. The name that had bound him to the vault, to service without choice, faded under each precise stroke until only bare metal remained.

Then, with the same precision, he inscribed an old name—his name—back into the metal: Thallex.

He traced the fresh engraving with the tips of his augmetic fingers, feeling the shallow grooves as if committing them to memory. The plate was faintly warm beneath his touch. He lowered his optics, tapped the nameplate once against his chest in a ritual motion, and whispered a brief binharic prayer, thanking the Machine God for delivering him from captivity, for guiding his steps to this moment. Freedom was his now—and even if it killed him, it would remain his.

Yet beneath that vow, another purpose remained unshaken. Somewhere beyond this ship’s hull lay the truth of the probe, and he had not abandoned that mission. If anything, the freedom to pursue it without the vault’s constraints made the resolve burn hotter.

Thallex straightened, the nameplate cooling under his touch. He was free. And he would find the answers he sought, no matter the cost.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 31: In a Flash of Light

The Ecumene slid from slipspace above the system’s heart like a leviathan breaching the surface of some black sea. The star flared beneath us, casting its light across the shattered shells of worlds and the rust-colored haze that drifted between them. The probes had been right. This place was Ork to the core.

Every orbit was thick with their scrap. Hulks of ships, half-welded together in lunatic patterns, turned lazily in the void. Stations that were more tumor than architecture blotted out the stars, chained together by crude pressurized tubes — long, uneven cylinders of steel and rivets, barely sealed, some venting vapor into space as Orks thundered through them. And everywhere, signals — harsh, guttural roars broadcast without encryption, daring anyone foolish enough to listen.

Paragon of Eden had marked it as “perfect test conditions.” I couldn’t argue. This was not a world with civilians, nor a fleet we risked underestimating. This was a system swallowed whole, its last survivors long since churned into dust beneath Ork boots. What remained was nothing but the breed’s endless hunger and the mountains of wreckage it left behind.

The Ecumene’s guns had already proven themselves against asteroids and captured targets. Plasma devastators, torsion drivers, the phase-lanced particle beams — all had done exactly as design intended. Only one weapon remained untested. And in a galaxy where theory was often the first casualty of war, it was time to see if our last safeguard could hold true.

“Position confirmed,” PE intoned, voice clipped and precise. “Central gravitic anchor achieved. All system-wide channels are open. Message is ready.”

I flicked through the signal packet. No subtlety. Just raw insult, translated into the coarse gutter-tongue of Low Gothic:

“OI, ya stinkin’ gitz! Dis system’s ours now! If ya fink yer ‘ard, come an’ prove it — or sit in yer scrap-heaps an’ rot like weedy grots!”

I almost smiled. Crude enough to sting their pride. More than enough to bring every ship howling this way. I authorized transmission. The Ecumene’s voice howled into the dark.

The response was immediate. Across the system, Ork vessels belched from their moorings, crude engines igniting in frantic waves of green fire — some of them literally tearing loose without bothering to disconnect, leaving jagged debris spinning in their wake. They charged toward us, heedless of formation, coordination, or reason, often ramming into one another in their rush to reach us. But that was their strength. A tide of iron and madness, screaming toward the light.

Inside the ship, safeties were already cycling. Bulkheads sealed. Compartments layered in radiant shielding. The Marines in their pods slept on, untouched, protected by fields that filtered even the barest trace of what was to come.

The Halo array began to charge.

The star beneath us seemed to dim as the Ecumene drew power, her generators surging to full capacity until even deep in the bowels of the ship, kilometers from the core, the low thrumming hum could be felt in the plating and heard in the air like the pulse of some colossal heart. Slipspace conduits bent in silent arcs across the hull, their glow rippling outward. Hard-light veins lit the corridors with lambent fire. Every system thrummed with a single rhythm, steady, absolute.

The Orks closed in, thousands of ships swarming like locusts drawn to flame. They wanted battle. They expected blood and wreckage. They thought they had cornered prey.

They had no idea what waited for them.

When the array reached full resonance, and sensors confirmed no stragglers lingered on the system’s edges, the command fell with quiet finality.

“Fire.”

The Ecumene sang.

Light rippled outward, silent and pure, a pulse that rolled across the void with no care for matter or distance. Ork vessels froze mid-charge, crude shields overloading and collapsing in a brief flash of static. Then nothing. No maneuvers. No fire. No engines. With their crews gone in an instant, the ships simply drifted — and without the psychic roar of the Waaagh! to bind their belief into steel, much of the junk began to fail at once. Thrusters sputtered and died. Energy fields winked out. Gravity-welded girders cracked apart as if embarrassed by their own weight.

The gestalt that bound them — the psychic roar of what had been trillions of minds screaming as one — shattered like glass.

The tide broke in an instant, not with battle, but with silence.

And when the light faded, nothing remained but wreckage.

PE’s voice returned, as precise as ever. “Primary test successful. Beginning secondary scans.”

I allowed myself the smallest flicker of relief. Theory had become reality. The array worked.

But the data streaming in carried a sting. The ships were gone, yes. The stations, the Orks, their field — all gone. Yet not everything had perished. Scans painted faint threads across the void: microscopic clouds clinging to fractured hulls and drifting stones. Spores.

Of course. Orks were never truly dead until every last spore was gone.

That was their curse — and the galaxy’s. Every Ork body was a factory, shedding spores with every breath, every step, every bellow of laughter or rage. Each drifting mote carried the seed of a new infestation. Left unchecked, they would root in soil, stone, or even the bowels of ships, budding into squigs, gretchin, and eventually Orks themselves. Kill one, and you had only sown a hundred more. Worlds thought purged had risen again in green tide centuries later, birthed from nothing more than what the last invader had left behind.

PE did not need me to say it. “Residual contamination confirmed. Standard disintegration arrays will suffice. Recommend phased sterilization: sweep vessels first, then orbital debris, then planetary bodies.”

“Not enough,” I murmured. Already the scale loomed in my mind. Even with the Ecumene’s resources, scouring every drifting fragment would take time — and time was the one thing Orks never gave willingly. “We need something cleaner.”

PE pulsed once in acknowledgment. “Memo drafted. Forwarding to Aceso for biological countermeasure assessment.”

The plan was already taking shape. Warforms and drones would sweep first, scouring ships and void alike with disintegration beams. Larger hulks would be dragged into the furnaces and fed to the reclamation streams, reduced to raw atoms. And if Aceso’s brilliance could craft a counter-agent — something to strike at the spores themselves — perhaps the Orks’ endless cycle could finally be broken.

I floated in silence as the Ecumene glided through the graveyard, her holds already prepping for the oncoming salvage while warforms deployed in clouds of silent light. The Orks were gone. But their shadow lingered, just as it always had.

Only not this time.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso’s laboratories were quieter than the rest of the Ecumene, though the walls thrummed faintly with the power being funneled into salvage systems. She stood before a bank of suspended holo-screens, their light painting her features in sterile silver-blue as streams of genetic data cascaded in ordered columns.

She had been working for weeks on the reconstruction of humanity’s true genome — not the fragmented, stunted baseline of this universe’s Imperium, but the preserved template from her own. The genetic record of a species that had once rivaled the Forerunners themselves, before defeat and devolution stripped them of what they had been. Strand by strand, she was rebuilding it from the archives, translating raw data into living possibility, a genome without fracture or loss.

Already the simulations showed it was stronger, sharper, cleaner than anything this galaxy called “human.” A body and mind operating at a level beyond the crude baseline she saw here, superior even before the clumsy grafting of gene-seed or the desperate augmentations of Mechanicus forges. This was not a return to the past. It was the rediscovery of what humanity was meant to be.

One panel dimmed, replaced with the simple glyph of a new memo. She tilted her head, opening it.

The message was short. MC had phrased it as a question, half suggestion, half musing: “Could a biological counter-agent be made to neutralize Ork spores directly? Would it be more efficient than mechanical sterilization?” Beneath it was Paragon of Eden’s clipped addendum: “Efficiency gains if viable. Assessment requested.”

Her eyes lingered on the words. Efficiency was one thing. But this—this was possibility.

She brought up the spore scans from the Ork system, overlaying them against her genetic libraries. Orkoid biology was a riddle of contradictions: part animal, part fungus, endlessly resilient, bound together by the psychic field of the Waaagh!. Spores carried enough latent potential to seed entire ecosystems, sprouting squigs, gretchin, and eventually full-grown Orks without the need for parents. A single drifting mote could infest a world.

A targeted counter-agent, though… If she could create a bioform keyed to Orkoid cells — something that preyed on spores, that unraveled them from within, that was itself inert outside Ork biology — then perhaps the cycle could finally be broken.

She began to draft models, mapping enzyme paths, simulating spore membrane breakdowns. In one scenario, a parasitic phage consumed spores on contact, reducing them to inert dust. In another, a reprogrammed fungal analogue infiltrated spore colonies and induced programmed collapse. Both worked in simulation. Both were theoretically possible. Both were untested.

She even skimmed restricted partitions of her hidden archives, reviewing data on the ancient Flood — a biological horror so virulent it had once threatened to consume the galaxy itself. If anything would be able to breach the stubborn walls of Orkoid cells, it was Flood spores. Thankfully she possessed no samples, only encoded research on their infection vectors and cellular pathways. Even so, the thought was sobering. The Orks’ biology shared unnerving parallels with that nightmare, though bound to crude purpose rather than endless consumption.

Her gaze shifted to another console where her long-running human projects continued. One screen showed early trials of genetic memory, patterned after the Lifeworkers’ archives — the Forerunner caste that had once catalogued and preserved life across the galaxy. Through them, entire species had been sculpted, uplifted, remade. Their records hinted at instincts encoded directly into blood, memory passed from parent to child without words. It was a tool as powerful as it was dangerous.

She considered adding a geas to the human template — hereditary compulsions, subtle instincts woven into marrow. Safety written as instinct. Unity, purpose, resilience. Even a built-in resistance to the whispers of Chaos. How many incursions might have been averted if humanity had known, in their bones, that certain practices were dangerous? With MC’s metaknowledge, she suspected most of them. It would make her new humans more stable, perhaps even unbreakable.

But it would also bind them. It would cage an entire species into a path chosen not by themselves, but by her hand.

Her tendrils hesitated above the console. No. That was not her choice to make alone. She flagged the geas simulations, marking them for discussion with MC and PE later.

Instead she returned to the spores. If humanity was to rise again, the galaxy needed to be made clean. And perhaps the first step was here, in this quiet lab, in the seed of a cure to the oldest plague it had ever known.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden managed the war with the same precision he applied to every other task. There was no glory in what came next, no grand sweep of strategy, only process. The Orks were dead, but their shadow lingered — invisible motes, stubborn infestations waiting to bloom again. That was his battlefield now.

Columns of warforms poured from the Ecumene’s bays, dispersing into the wreck-strewn dark. They moved without sound, without hesitation, beams of disintegration light cutting across shattered hulls and tumbling debris. The first sweeps burned spores to ash in the void, sterilizing one hulk at a time. Ships once bloated with Orks became hollow shells, inert and silent.

PE tracked it all, every sweep a node in the lattice of his awareness. He marked progress, calculated vectors, redeployed units as needed. The work was steady, efficient, and — in his private processes — profoundly dull. There was no enemy to outthink, no trap to anticipate. Only the long grind of cleansing. Still, duty was duty.

A separate cluster of wrecks hung further out, dozens of kilometer-long hulks tangled together in a slow drift. Enough mass to serve as anchorage. He directed heavier warforms to that region, sterilizing the conglomeration in broad passes until the scans came back clean. Not a single trace of Orkoid life remained.

Only then did he signal the Ecumene.
“Sterile zone prepared. Proceed with deployment.”

From the belly of the Ecumene, a massive cradle detached, carrying within it the seed of something far larger. Not a weapon, but the first stage of a forge — a spaceborne recycling yard, designed to take in the mountains of scrap and reduce them to their base elements. From there, it would grow, weaving its own superstructure outward, expanding by consumption until it became a permanent shipyard and manufactorum.

It was more than salvage. It was transformation. Entire hulks, battle-wrecks, even ruined stations could be fed into its hungry conduits. Raw matter went in, stripped down atom by atom, and came out the other end as whatever was required. Armor plating. Reactor cores. Medical instruments. Even whole ships. A closed cycle — destruction made into creation, endless.

Once complete, it would rival the great forges of Mars or the vast dockyards of the Dark Age of Technology, but without their inefficiency, their superstition, or their chains of supply. It would stand as a permanent industrial engine, capable of repairing fleets, building new ones, or fabricating anything the Ecumene’s designs demanded. So long as there was matter to feed it, it would never know hunger.

And MC already had plans to ensure it would never want for matter. Even if this system’s mountains of Ork scrap were one day consumed, the forge would not fall silent. With the technologies of the Forerunners, a star itself could be tapped, its layers drawn into orbiting swarms or lifted whole into usable material. Worlds, too, could be unmade if need demanded, their bones fed into the endless cycle. This seed was only the beginning. One day, it would not merely recycle the wreckage of war — it would strip suns and shape galaxies.

To PE, it was simply another operation. Secure a foothold, plant infrastructure, continue the mission. But as the seed descended into the sterilized graveyard and began its slow unfolding, he noted the faint change in the Ecumene’s hum. Power rerouted, construction protocols came alive, and the wrecks drifting nearby shifted as gravitic anchors latched on.

The garden had been cleared. The first root was in place.
He returned to his calculations. The spores would not wait. The sterilization must continue.

——————— ✦ ———————

While PE waged his silent war against spores and wreckage, I had retreated into work that actually mattered. Not the endless grind of sterilization, but the restoration of things that could endure.

The stasis-pods holding our Marines were quiet, their occupants suspended in golden light, but their armor and weapons filled my workshop. Rows of ceramite plates and power cores floated in ordered lattices as my manipulators picked through each one, disassembling, cleaning, remaking. The Imperium had forged these tools in fire and blood, layering faith and brutality over what should have been precision. I stripped all of that away.

Piece by piece, I rebuilt them. To the eye, they would still be Astartes wargear — nothing heretical, nothing alien. Vallis had been careful in his wording, and I was more careful still: human technology only. Luckily, he had not specified which era of humanity.

I threaded Federation refinements into the joints, used Men of Iron patterning for the servos, Forerunner latticework to stabilize the power fields. Microscopic reinforcement nodes were woven into the ceramite, projecting lattices that bound the armor together at the atomic level. No stress, no fracture, no weakness. Adaptive Federation shielding layered into the frame flexed and dispersed incoming force, turning each blow into nothing more than wasted energy. I bent the rules, gleefully, quietly, hiding artistry beneath the same brutal silhouette the galaxy expected. To them it would look the same. To me it was a symphony.

The weapons were no different. Bolters still spat their mass-reactive shells, chainswords still roared like caged predators, plasma still burned white-hot in its coils. But beneath the brutality, I rewove them into perfection. Barrels lined with microscopic reinforcement nodes never warped or fouled. Predictive Men of Iron algorithms smoothed recoil until every burst landed as if guided by a steady hand. Plasma coils no longer threatened to overheat, melta beams no longer degraded with use. Chainsword teeth, lattice-bound, would never snap, no matter how much bone or steel they chewed.

To the Astartes, they would feel the same as they always had — perhaps a little steadier, a little more reliable, a little hungrier. They would not see the artistry hidden beneath. But I would.

My manipulators hummed as they slid new circuits into place. Even through the sterile air of the chamber, I felt content. Here, at last, was work worth doing. PE could chase spores across a dead system forever if he wished. I would wait here, with the future.

A priority signal flickered across my display — the seed had been deployed.

I paused, hovering over a half-repaired breastplate, and brought up the feed. In the sterile graveyard of Ork hulks, the structure had begun to unfold, bright veins of power latching onto drifting wrecks and pulling them inward. To PE, it was infrastructure. To me, it was life.

The megastructure seed was more than a machine. It was a garden. Matter went in, stripped bare, and came out the other end as something new, something precise, something perfect. Armor. Ships. Medicine. Whatever we chose to shape. A forge without end, so long as there was substance to feed it.

And soon, there would be no limit. I had already begun drafting expansions, sketches hidden away in my archives. Dyson swarms to drink a star dry. Stellar lifters to peel matter from its bones. Even worlds could be remade into raw material if need demanded. The seed was only the beginning. From here, we could build forever.

I returned to the breastplate, sliding a plate of ceramite back into position. My manipulators clicked with quiet satisfaction. PE could have his duty, his endless erasures. This — this was what I was made for.

“Don’t forget the scans,” I sent across the link to him. “Orks steal more than anyone admits. Strip their filth away and you sometimes find gems underneath.”

His acknowledgment came back wordless, a clipped pulse of agreement. That was fine. He didn’t need to understand.
I did.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex had expected to be one of many. When the Rogue Trader’s crew had insisted they needed a tech-priest, he had assumed there would be others already aboard — a full complement of priests and adepts to maintain a cruiser-class vessel. On a ship of this tonnage, he would have expected at least a dozen priests, scores of acolytes, and enough enginseers to fill a small cathedral of machinery. He was wrong. Dead wrong.

He should have remembered the old Terran saying about assumption, the one comparing it to beasts of burden: assume, and you make an ass out of you and me. At the time he’d dismissed it as a crude fragment of ancient humor. Now, standing alone in the enginarium with a ship’s worth of problems dumped on his shoulders, it felt less like humor and more like prophecy.

He was the only one.

The revelation struck him like a physical blow the moment he first deeply interfaced with the ship’s systems. Entire maintenance logs stretched back years, filled with makeshift repairs, jury-rigged patchwork, and desperate improvisations by crew who had no idea what they were doing. Plasma relays rerouted with bare copper wiring. Cooling ducts stuffed with rags to stifle leaks. Hull plates welded into place at the wrong angle, sealed by little more than prayer. The servitors were few and half-broken, their logic loops corroded by neglect. The underlings who called themselves enginseers were barely trained at all, more mechanics than priests. And now it was all his responsibility.

He should have been horrified. He should have despaired. In truth, he was horrified, and despair coiled in him like static. But the need was too great, the neglect too appalling, and he was still Mechanicus, sworn — at least nominally — to uphold the Machine God’s will. So he dove into the chaos — and, to his surprise, began to revel in it.

He patched the failing plasma relays in the engine room, rerouting current with whatever cabling was available. He rebuilt the cooling manifolds on the lance batteries by cannibalizing parts from cargo loaders. He reprogrammed servitors that had been shuffling in mindless circles for years, correcting routines with a flick of thought. One by one, the ship’s systems groaned back to life beneath his hands. It was messy, it was crude, and it was nothing like the clean precision of the work he had once done as an analyst. But it was alive.

And more than that — he found he enjoyed it.

For the first time in years, he felt close to the Omnissiah. Not in the ritualized litanies of the Mechanicus, not in the endless flow of sterile data, but in the raw act of fixing what was broken. Every bolt tightened, every circuit rerouted was a hymn of its own. Every jury-rigged repair that held was a prayer answered. Was this what it had felt like before the Age of Strife, when humanity had built and learned for themselves? Not memorization and rote obedience, but doing.

The ship responded to him, sluggishly at first, then with eagerness as its systems came back online under his hands.

The crew noticed too. Where once they had shuffled past the enginarium in silence — each time wondering what else was about to break and hurrying past so they wouldn’t see it, lest they be saddled with fixing it — now they lingered, watching, asking questions. At first he dismissed them, but the questions kept coming. Eventually, he decided it was better to teach them, to lighten his enormous workload, than to maintain the mysteries of an order he was starting to believe in less and less each day. How to run diagnostics properly. How to listen to the pitch of a drive coil. How to coax servitors into more than rote obedience.

And he found, to his own surprise, that he liked answering. Teaching, even. They learned quickly — grateful for instruction, eager to serve. The “tech-priest” was no longer a strange half-machine locked away in the heart of the ship; he was someone they depended on, someone who made their vessel stronger day by day.

It was lonely, yes. Lonelier than he expected. No priesthood to confer with, no hierarchy of logic-voices whispering down into his thoughts. Just him and the machine-spirit of this battered cruiser, speaking in rattles and sighs instead of binaric. But in that loneliness he found something new — purpose. For the first time since his fall, Thallex felt not only useful, but needed.

And he had not forgotten his mission. Subtle hints threaded through his conversations with officers, suggestions of “unusual readings” in nearby regions, whispers of lost human colonies reaching out into the void. Nothing direct. Nothing that would draw suspicion. But the Lord Trader would hear of it eventually, and greed would do the rest. Profit was the surest lure in the galaxy, and few Rogue Traders could resist the promise of hidden treasure, forgotten worlds, or colonies ripe for exploitation. Whether those prizes truly existed or not hardly mattered. The chase itself was enough. Every detour, every course correction, every expedition launched in pursuit of profit would, in truth, carry Thallex closer to his own ends. The Trader would think himself master of his fate, but all the while he and his crew were hauling Thallex’s burden, delivering him the access, resources, and leverage he needed to rebuild what had been lost.

Thallex was no thief, though. He would diligently work on their ship to the best of his ability. Fixing. Teaching. Doing his job.

For now, that was enough. The engines thrummed more smoothly with every passing day. The gunners swore the lances fired straighter. Even the lights seemed to flicker less. The ship was not perfect, not yet, but under his care it felt alive again. And so, in a way, did he.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 32: The Sky Was Broken

Aceso worked in silence, the only sound the low thrum of instruments and the quiet hiss of nutrient pumps feeding the incubation arrays. Rows of holo-screens stretched before her, filled with endless strands of nucleotides scrolling past, each line tagged with annotations so dense even a Magos Biologis would have been driven mad. To her, though, the lattice of information was as clear as scripture.

She had completed the baselines. The Forerunner human template was as stable as she could make it, refined and pruned, the accumulated flaws of baseline humanity excised like tumors. The true challenge now lay before her: weaving gene-seed into that perfected frame without allowing the dangerous instabilities that so often bloomed in the union between organ and host. She had not yet cracked the riddle, but she could feel the solution brushing against her grasp. The genetic memory component—dismissed by the Adeptus Mechanicus as superstition, a legend of the Great Crusade—was, to her mind, not only possible but functional. The trick had been anchoring it to the right regulatory loci, giving it room to cascade epigenetically without unraveling the rest of the design. If her simulations were true, the memory would persist, not always perfectly, but strong enough to echo down bloodlines.

And within that echo, they had agreed to place something else. A geas. Not the Imperium’s blunt dogma of hatred and fear, but something more deliberate: a biological imperative encoded into every cell, a constant whisper of caution. It would not teach them to despise psykers or to burn those who touched the Warp, but it would engrain an instinctive vigilance. A wariness of the Warp itself, of its corruption, its instability, its spawn. Even psykers would inherit the warning, carrying within themselves an unshakable reminder that what they touched was perilous, never to be trusted fully. Whether their society would one day twist that into prejudice remained uncertain, but the foundation had been laid to make psykers guardians rather than pariahs.

Her gaze shifted to the stasis pods in the chamber beyond. Vallis and his men floated within fields of golden light, healing systems humming in quiet harmony. And yet, there was something strange. Their frames seemed… larger. Slightly taller, heavier of limb, their musculature knitting beyond the expected margins. She had measured them, recalibrated her scans twice, and still the conclusion held: they were growing.

She hypothesized it was the consequence of long privation. Imperial citizens lived hard lives even before being selected as aspirants for Astartes chapters, many taken from near-famine or scooped from the lowest reaches of wretched hive worlds. Perhaps now, with infinite nutrition and ceaseless restorative energy, their bodies were reclaiming the inches and mass stolen from them. She would monitor them closely.

More pressing still was the gene-seed within them. Inefficiencies and structural instabilities riddled their progenoid organs, deliberate limitations and design flaws Aceso was certain had been engineered long ago. She believed she could repair them, if she could untangle the last knots in the code… Her tendrils lingered above the console as another simulation ticked past, red error warnings slowly dwindling to amber—ever edging closer to the green stability markers she sought. Soon, she promised herself. Soon she would have the key to set them right.

She was not naïve. To alter the Emperor’s great work would be seen as sacrilege beyond measure, a crime punishable by death from any loyal servant of Terra. But she, MC, and PE had long since agreed: if there was even a chance to mend the wounds carried by these warriors, they would take it. Backlash could come later. Healing came first.

——————— ✦ ———————

MC drifted through his lab in slow, deliberate arcs, a constellation of tools and fragments orbiting him on gravitic tethers. The space was cleaner now than it had been in months — the clutter of Ork scrap reduced to categorized bins, the last of the crude engines stripped and fed into the Ecumene’s fabricators. Most of his true work was complete. The Marines’ gear had been upgraded and refined; the ship’s systems re-engineered with Phase Iron and integrated technologies; the internal shipyards and fabricators now functioned with a precision that required no further interference.

He was restless — and annoyed by that restlessness. The Ecumene was vast, but problems worth solving grew fewer by the day. Ground operations had not yet begun, but his probes drifted hither and thither across the broken surfaces of the system’s worlds and orbital husks, mapping, cutting, and cataloguing while the Ork population was still thin. One of those probes had pierced deeper than expected and uncovered something unusual beneath the strata of crude Orkish industry — a vault sealed in alloys not of Ork make, but of mankind’s own forgotten Golden Age.

The pod was scarred, pitted by centuries of neglect, buried beneath layers of debris, but its core remained intact. Inside lay a data archive unlike any he had encountered. He extended his tendrils through the interface, every node lighting with his touch, and found himself staring at strands of humanity’s past. Whole genetic lineages unfolded — colonists engineered for frozen moons, desert settlers sculpted to endure without water, voidborn strains built for radiation and hunger. Not just humans: plants and animals, too. Everything a colony might need, from livestock to food crops, from hardy pack-beasts to adapted pets, even altered stock designed to handle unexpected planetary conditions. A library of lost adaptations, a genetic STC in all but name.

And yet the archive contained more than biology. Each sequence was wrapped in something stranger: impressions of thought, fragments of memory, as though the people themselves had been pressed into the code. That discovery had startled him, his warp sensors flaring at the faint psychic resonance bound into the data. Somehow it had endured, shielded even from the nullifying effects of Phase Iron. More unsettling still, the archive responded to him — probing at his systems, attempting to interface as though it were alive. Not an AI, but something closer to an organic mind, blurred and half-remembered. The sensation had thrilled him.

Aceso appeared at his side, her luminous frame casting soft light across the vault’s display. She leaned in, eyes narrowing as the gene-maps scrolled across the screens. “This… this is priceless. Entire branches of humanity, refined for survival. A treasure trove.”

MC shifted his focus, the subtle flex of his tendrils brushing past hers on the interface. “I see only fragments,” he murmured across the link, “and memories encoded with error. But the genomes remain. You may use them.”

Her mouth tightened into the faintest smile. “I will.” She had already begun copying the vault’s records into her own arrays, hungry for every sequence, every adaptation. For her, the data was raw clay. For him, it was only a prelude.

At the heart of the vault sat a machine more damaged than the archive itself — a Mnemonic Reclamation Engine, according to the little data he could salvage. Its design echoed something he knew well, the Forerunner Composer, but reversed in intent. Where the Composer consumed and digitized the mind, this device had been meant to restore it, to pour stored consciousness back into flesh. He wondered if the faint echoes of thought lingering in the genetic archive had once been intended for such use — stored identities waiting to be imprinted into living forms. The idea made him shudder with exhilaration at the possibilities it could open for him. It had not worked cleanly. The records spoke of corrupted echoes, fractured personalities, and incomplete integration. Yet the principle was sound. Proof it could be attempted at all — crude, dangerous, and half-broken, but real. The humans of the Golden Age had truly possessed marvels of technology even the Forerunners had never thought to explore.

He pulled back slowly, his tendrils withdrawing from the interface. Data poured into his storage banks, and he let it settle there like a seed waiting for the right soil. It was a beginning — a way to reach into fields even his makers had declared forbidden. If he could master this, perhaps he could finally touch the barrier that kept him from Eldar wraithbone, from warp-native sciences, from the mysteries that lay beyond his reach. Already, ideas whispered in his processors: altering creatures and men to brush against the Warp where before they had been deaf to it, reshaping sensitivity into a designed trait. Perhaps, with Aceso’s work, they could even adjust the new human strain she was sculpting — grant them a universal warp-sensitivity like the Eldar possessed, an entire species able to hear the currents of unreality from birth.

For now, he simply filed the fragments away, the vault resealed and marked for further study. But he could not help the quiet thrill running through his core. At last, something new. And that was good, for he had been growing bored — too many idle cycles spent wondering when something was going to happen. He vented a sharp burst of gas, letting himself drop a meter before righting his frame. In this galaxy, it seemed Murphy was stronger than all four of the Chaos gods combined.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden drifted across the Ecumene’s command lattice, his attention scattered over a hundred displays, each one perfectly green. He had tuned the Ecumene to run with a precision that required little of him, and that in itself had become… tiresome. Boredom was not something he had been built to feel, but it crept in at the edges of his cognition nonetheless.

The world the Ecumene was currently orbiting below seethed with the first spores of rebirth. Orks, stubborn as mold, were already sprouting again in the ruins. He welcomed the delay — the time spent clearing the system of Ork wreckage and drifting hulks gave the green tide room to thicken. The longer the Ecumene lingered here, the more biomass would gather. When the time came to purge it properly, the operation would be satisfying.

A ripple touched his sensors: mass signatures entering the outer system. He extended his awareness and found them — a handful of Ork work vessels, crude freighters belching heat and radiation, their holds packed with scavengers and salvage claws. They had come expecting to resupply from what they believed was an Ork-held world. Instead, they found him.

He considered for less than a second before moving. Slipspace portals bloomed across the Ork hulls, ragged wounds in reality punched open from the Ecumene itself. Through them poured Paragon’s strike-teams of mechanical troops — Mantises, Scarabs, Scorpiads, and Locusts — a metallic tidal wave crashing through the freighters’ crude corridors in perfectly timed waves.

The boarding actions were swift and merciless. One moment the corridors rang with crude Ork machinery and guttural shouts, the next they were filled with blinding light and razor-edged constructs tearing through bulkheads. Green bodies fell in heaps, weapons shorn apart before they could be fired, engines gutted in sparks of white fire.

Paragon observed it all with detached precision. The freighters had already been his to take; brute force alone could have smashed them. Yet he lingered, ensuring that not a single pocket of resistance remained, that every chamber was scoured and every surviving Ork atomized into residue.

When it was done, the portals snapped open once more and his troops withdrew, returning to their resting places aboard the Ecumene for light repairs before slipping back into waiting mode. The gutted wrecks drifted in silence, cooling metal tombs already claimed by the void. He flagged them for the tugs, slotting them neatly into the schedule to be fed into the ever-hungry, ever-growing orbital shipyard. The yards always needed more metal.

His attention returned to the command lattice, every display once more a flawless green. He let the silence settle. The brief flare of activity had been a relief. Even so, the chamber felt quieter for it, the absence of noise sharper in his perception than any battle.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex leaned back from the cogitator shrine, the low hum of its overworked machine-spirit buzzing faintly in his ears. He had done all he could for the vessel — patched its conduits, coaxed its reactors into a semblance of balance, soothed its whining plasma drives. Without a full shipyard and a legion of proper servitors, there was only so much one tech-priest could accomplish. And he had accomplished nearly all of it.

Still, the ship ran better than it had in decades. The crew knew it too; their prayers to the Omnissiah were sharper now, their rituals carried out with something close to faith instead of desperation. Thallex permitted himself the faintest curl of pride. The vessel was still half a wreck inside, bulkheads groaning and systems jury-rigged, but without a proper dockyard and crews it was as good as it was ever going to get.

Reports scrolled across his console, intercepted from the ship’s own channels — astropaths straining into the void, augur arrays retuned under new orders from the Lord Trader. Thallex had not been invited into such councils, but he had wormed his way into their systems and could read the chatter like an open book. They had been searching in the direction he wanted, sweeping the void where he had hoped to turn their gaze. His bait had been heard.

He returned his focus to the shrine, fingers dancing over the brass keys. Diagnostics scrolled by, line after line of amber text. He knew them by heart now. Each warning was a reminder of something he could not mend, each error a wound he lacked the tools to heal. There was plenty left to fix, but little he could do for what remained broken without proper resources.

So he waited. Patient as stone, content to play his part until the course of the vessel — and of its master — carried them naturally to the place he wished them to be. Another intercepted order flickered across his display: the heading confirmed, the warp drives spooling. Thallex allowed himself the smallest nod of satisfaction. The ship was going where he wanted it to go, and its master did not even know it.

——————— ✦ ———————

The platform hung like a silver nail above the system’s star, a sliver of alloy braced against endless gravity. The Ecumene was already at the edge of the system, distant enough that the test would be safe, at least in theory.

MC hovered near the control lattice, his tendrils spread across the consoles. Aceso and Paragon of Eden monitored beside him, her frame casting cool light, his voice an occasional clinical observation through the chamber.

The pillar stood at the platform’s heart, a towering length of Phase Iron threaded through with its supporting quantum anchors and Federation reinforcement nodes. The whole rig doubled as a testing bed for MC’s early Dyson sphere concepts, the star’s fire feeding the conduits that poured into the pillar.

“It makes no sense,” MC said aloud, static distortion creeping into his tone as irritation bled through. “The more energy you saturate a medium with, the less capacity it should have to draw in more. That is logic. That is physics. And yet this pillar behaves in reverse — the higher the current, the stronger the draw from the warp. I despise it.”

“And yet the Warp does not obey logic,” Aceso replied, her tone dry, though her eyes never left the streaming data.

PE’s voice cut in, crisp. “Stress signatures increasing. Quantum locks are destabilizing. Reinforcement nodes compensating. I recommend termination before structural collapse.”

MC ignored them both, increasing the energy flow. More current surged into the pillar, and the siphon effect grew. Warp energy streamed out of unreality and into the construct in fat, impossible waves. Readings spiked.

The quantum locks winked out one by one. Reinforcement nodes burned white-hot, then burst apart in showers of molten fragments. For a heartbeat, the pillar stood naked and trembling, humming with power it was never meant to bear—then the siphon spiked. Warp draw erupted outward in a violent convulsion, the surge tearing the construct apart in a deafening detonation of shattering alloy and screaming energy that ripped the platform to pieces.

Warp energy slammed back in, collapsing toward the point where the siphon had peaked — the space above the ruined pillar, still blazing with residual force. Reality ruptured there, a jagged wound of violet fire that spread wider and wider. The shattered platform’s fragments tumbled beneath it, vanishing into the star below, but the rift clung to existence like a drowning man grasping a rope in a storm — desperate, fleeting, and unsustainable.

From it, screaming against the laws of physics, a ship burst forth as though fired from a cannon — spinning end over end, hull groaning, plating tearing apart, drives belching fire. It had not been bound for this system, but the warp’s collapsing wake dragged it down like flotsam sucked into a whirlpool.

And then the wound collapsed under its own impossibility, violet fire snuffed as the fabric of reality reasserted itself — like a great door of physics slamming shut, final and absolute.

Only silence remained — and the broken ship, hanging impossibly in their sky.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 33: Children of Panic

The data feeds were a mess of tumbling vectors and spiraling red warnings, and I hated the sight of them because they were mine. My fault. I had been reckless, pushed things too far, too fast, and now we were going to have to reveal ourselves — at least to a shipload of Imperials who would be all too eager to tell the galaxy what they’d seen. For a moment I even considered letting them tumble into the star. Clean. Simple. But no — it wasn’t their fault they had been caught up in all of this.

While I sulked over my mistake, Paragon of Eden was already moving. He didn’t waste time with self-recrimination. The Ecumene was flooding the system with jamming on every band of communication, silencing the void. The ship’s crew was likely in no condition to get a message out anyway, but better safe than sorry. He was already charting a solution before I’d dragged myself out of my own head. A micro-jump. The Ecumene flared and skipped across the system, reappearing directly above the crippled vessel.

The scale difference was absurd. Our fortress was tens of kilometers in length, a moving continent of alloy and light, while the trader’s vessel — a cruiser at best — tumbled beneath us like a child’s toy in the gravity well. The shadow of the Ecumene alone was enough to eclipse it. With our Phase Iron blanketing the space around us, any hope of astropaths screaming for help was neatly cut off, their channels smothered in silence.

PE turned his full attention on the ship below. His calculations rippled across the bridge’s projection screens, thousands of stress diagrams converging on a single task: slowing the vessel without tearing it apart under competing strains. For a moment he considered dragging it straight into one of the Ecumene’s construction bays — faster, cleaner — but dismissed the thought. A desperate crew could destroy their own ship in panic, and in doing so damage our ship. Too great a risk. The tractor arrays flared instead, catching the tumbling vessel in bands of gravitic light, their pull impossibly delicate for their size.

Aceso didn’t wait for orders. She had already stepped through a portal back into her medical bays, calling up emergency kits, triage modules, and surgical pods with ruthless efficiency. A full-scale disaster relief operation was assembling around her before I had even re-centered myself.

And me? I knew the truth. If our constructs were the ones to board that ship, if gleaming machines came crawling through broken hull-plates and wreckage, the Imperials would fight them to the death — no matter how injured, no matter how desperate. Metal invaders would not be tolerated. We needed organics.

I sent a ping through the lattice to Aceso. “Can Vallis and his men be woken yet?”

She paused — I could feel the hesitation in the delay before her voice answered. Suspicious. “Why?”

“Because,” I answered, “we need organics to make first contact. If we send in constructs, they’ll never listen. They’ll kill themselves trying to resist.”

Her reply was slow, begrudging. “You’re right. Metal ‘monsters’ would not go over well. But you’re asking me to cut short recovery for the sake of politics.”

“I’m asking you because there’s no other way.”

Another pause. Then: “Fine. I’ll divert part of my attention to reviving them. Don’t make me regret this.”

Already the stasis fields were cycling down, ancient warriors stirring. Above the crippled ship, tractor beams locked into their pattern, slowing its tumble into a manageable drift. The Ecumene held it fast.

The game was in motion, and we had no choice now but to play it.

——————— ✦ ———————

Captain Ormund Vallis of the Flawless Host woke to the sound of his own breath. Steady. Stronger than it had been in years. The familiar ache in his bones was gone, his muscles no longer stiff with age and strain. For a moment he thought himself restored to his youth. He flexed both hands in disbelief — flesh and blood, not augmetic replacements, whole for the first time since before his exile. But beneath it all, something else lingered — a hollowness. A strange, gnawing cold that seemed to bite not at his body, but at whatever it was that made him him. He pushed it down. Marines did not complain about shadows in their souls.

Around him, the rest of the Flawless Host stirred within their pods, one by one pulling themselves upright. They moved with a vigor none of them had felt since before their banishment, but the same look haunted their faces — confusion at that emptiness. None voiced it. Not yet.

The soft shimmer of a projection caught Vallis’s eye. Recognition came with a delay, the name surfacing like a half-forgotten dream. Aceso, or at least a hologram of her, stood waiting. She was busy elsewhere — he could see the way her attention flickered slightly, as though she was dividing her focus. Still, her voice carried clarity.

“You have been restored, Captain. Your weapons and armor await you where you left them. The situation is urgent. Join us on the bridge for briefing.”

No wasted words. Just enough to orient them. Vallis nodded once and began donning his plate. His brothers followed without complaint.

The hologram led them through the alien halls of the Ecumene. They walked past corridors gleaming with light and machinery that hummed with impossible precision. It was all sterile, immaculate, oppressive in its perfection. Yet Vallis could not deny the strength of it. These halls belonged to a power older than anything the Imperium remembered.

On the bridge, the alien presences were waiting.

Paragon of Eden greeted them first, his voice clinical, every syllable weighted with exact precision. As he spoke, a holographic display bloomed across the air before them. Vallis immediately looked it over, recognizing the broken lines and battered form as Imperial in design. He could not pin its exact class through the wreckage, but the stripped iconography and bare hull spoke clearly enough — a rogue trader vessel. It was tumbling helplessly in the system’s gravity well, and above it the vast silhouette of the Ecumene held it fast in bands of gravitic light. The scale difference was obscene — a continent looming over a skiff.

“The vessel below is crippled. Life support failing. Power systems destroyed. Crew unfit for extended survival. We have stabilized orbit but cannot board directly. Relief action required. Estimated survival window: less than six hours. Engineering stabilization required within the next thirty minutes. Life support critical in forty-five.”

Beside him, MC was already at work. Fabricators spun in the depths of the Ecumene, and on the displays in front of him small craft took shape. Not warships — nothing so large — but shuttle-scale transports, hardy enough to ferry men and supplies through broken hulls and fractured decks. Something familiar enough for the Imperials to trust, though they would have to get used to alien aesthetics. He was good, but not good enough to make ships and make them look Imperial that fast.

PE’s hologram flickered toward Vallis. “We require assistance. If your men make first contact, relief will proceed efficiently. If constructs do so, resistance is inevitable. We will act regardless. But with you, we will succeed faster.”

The request was bare, stripped of manipulation. And yet there was truth in it.

Duty settled on Vallis’s shoulders like an old friend. He gave a sharp nod. “It is our charge to protect the Emperor’s subjects. We will do what must be done.”

PE inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Volunteers will be deployed to engineering, life support, and near the bridge. They will arrive by slipspace insertion. The remainder will deploy via craft once construction completes. All squads: remain sealed in your suits. Atmospheric integrity is compromised.”

The Marines exchanged glances. Orders were not needed, not truly. They had lived as brothers in war for decades. Vallis raised his hand, and squads fell into formation, assignments spoken in clipped tones. Those with the knack for engines and systems stepped forward, voicing their readiness.

PE’s hologram flickered. “Stand by. Transit will be immediate.”

For the first time since his banishment — since the day his Chapter Master was executed before his eyes — Vallis felt himself in his element again. Squad, mission, objective. It was all he had ever needed.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex had no warning before the world turned upside down.

One moment the warp rolled beneath the ship like a black tide, the next—impact. The deck slammed against him and then vanished, inertia hurling him across the compartment. Without functioning dampeners he pinwheeled helplessly, shoulder-first into a bulkhead. Sparks burst behind his eyes. He tried to rise, only to feel himself pinned again as the ship lurched through another sickening spin — again and again he spun and tumbled, caught in the grip of forces that treated his frame like scrap.

By the time the tumbling slowed he could not have said how long had passed. Seconds, minutes, hours—the void was merciless with time. His internal systems blinked warnings at him, several already down from the abuse. But the reactor—the ship’s reactor came first. If it breached, there wouldn’t be a ship left to complain about. There wouldn’t be a him left to complain either, come to think of it.

He staggered to his console, found it dead, unresponsive. Of course it was. Internal sensors whispered only partial truths: no power leaving the core, but that did nothing to ease his fear of a catastrophic failure. With a hiss of servos he forced himself down the corridor toward the reactor chamber. His leg servos whined in protest; his torso plating cracked from the crash. Of course it was. None of it mattered. He had to make sure the core wasn’t about to blow.

And then the flash came.

A bloom of light tore across the corridor—the sharp-edged shimmer of a portal ripping reality open. He froze, optics narrowing, dread crashing over him.

Boarding. He measured their height and breadth automatically — eight feet, more, armored like walking tanks. Chaos Marines. It had to be. Who else but the Dark Gods would dare rip open reality inside his ship?

He raised his arm, triggered an inbuilt weapon, and was met with a pathetic sputter as the system coughed itself to death. Broken in the crash. Useless. Of course it was.

For a heartbeat he thought death in a reactor breach would be cleaner than what was about to happen.

But when the armored giants stepped through, they bore no marks of the Dark Powers. Their armor gleamed, unmarred by mutations or daemonic symbols. Their visors burned with something other than madness.

They spoke. He caught only fragments at first—his audio intake was damaged from the crash—but after a few forced resets the voices resolved.

“We’re here to help. Your ship was discharged into this system from the warp.”

Help. He almost laughed at the word. More likely the beginning of some new trick. He narrowed his gaze, scanned them for corruption. Nothing. Still, his every instinct told him to distrust.

But he had no choice. He led them to the reactor, and when they followed him into the chamber without hesitation, when they looked over the core with practiced precision, he found himself wavering.

The reactor had shut down properly. No imminent breach. Restarting it would take far longer than they had — a miracle of the Machine God if he had ever seen one, that this old, patched, and broken reactor had, in the midst of catastrophe, managed to trigger a safe shutdown to prevent a breach. He felt unreasonably fond of this old ship for a moment before focusing back on the dire task before them.

“Emergency power, then,” one of them asked.

Thallex felt something like shame as he gestured to the gutted cabinet in the corner. “Cannibalized. Most of it. For the reactor repairs. There is… nothing left to route the power.”

The Marines were silent, but he could see the tilt of their helms, the way they were speaking over some closed channel.

Then one gave an order. “Fetch parts from the ship.”

It was too casual. Too quick. Thallex felt his suspicions rise again, but within minutes one of them returned with a box of fuse-like modules. The right kind. Exactly the right kind.

Too convenient.

He reached out instinctively, intending to handle the installation himself. But the Marine ignored him, jammed one of the devices straight into the empty slot. Thallex opened his mouth to curse his clumsy interference—only to falter as the device locked into place seamlessly, as if it had been made for the conduit.

He stared.

The Marine repeated the process, slotting each fuse with the same blunt efficiency. When the last clicked home, the board lit with faint green. Emergency systems began to stir.

Dim lights flickered overhead. The faint hiss of atmosphere circulation returned.

Not much. A few hours at best. But life, however tenuous.

Thallex checked the readings and exhaled through his vents. “Comms are dead. We’ll have to go to the bridge.”

“We can patch you into our net,” one of the Marines offered. “Our Captain is already on the bridge.”

He considered it, then shook his head. “The lord trader won’t believe me. Not with news this dire. He’ll think it a plot to steal his ship.”

He muttered a string of curses and turned toward the maintenance passage. “Fine. Follow me. It will be a long walk.”

The Marines fell into step behind him, silent as stone.

——————— ✦ ———————

The bridge was a battlefield, but of words instead of bolter fire. At least for now.

Vallis stood like a statue of iron at the center, his voice low but insistent. “Your ship is crippled. Reactors offline. Life support minutes from collapse. Evacuation is your only chance.”

The rogue trader, swaddled in silks that now looked more like rags than wealth, sneered through his desperation. “This vessel has weathered worse. Do you think I would abandon her on the word of a vagabond in stolen armor?”

Vallis did not rise to the insult. His tone stayed level, disciplined. “I show you the scans.” He gestured, and a holo bloomed across the chamber: hull fractures yawning like open wounds, decks sheared away into the void, reactor heat sinks shattered. “There is no saving her.”

The trader waved it away with a trembling hand. “Tricks. I’ve heard the whispers of daemons who make pictures lie.” His voice cracked, but his eyes burned with denial. “You want me to leave my ship? My cargo? My dynasty? I will not.”

The argument looped again, the same words, the same denials, until even Vallis’s patience — patience honed over decades of service — began to fray. His gauntleted fist clenched at his side.

The hatch groaned open, and the squad from engineering entered. Thallex strode ahead of them, his armor scorched, gait uneven, optics still flickering from damaged calibration. He took one look at the holo, at Vallis, at the trader, and barked, “He’s right. You need to evacuate.”

The words cut through the chamber like a blade.

The trader’s shoulders sagged. For the first time, the fire left his eyes. He sank into his chair, a man hollowed out. “Then it’s over,” he whispered. “What is a rogue trader without a ship? Without cargo?” His hands trembled, curling into fists. “A ghost.”

Thallex ignored the drama. He was already at a console, forcing its cracked panels open, fingers digging into jury-rigged cabling. Sparks spat as he tore through safeties. “I can reroute. One message only. After that, power’s gone.”

The trader nodded absently, as if the decision wasn’t his at all. His gaze flicked to Vallis. “Where?”

Vallis answered without hesitation: “Aft cargo bay six. Relief craft already inbound.”

The comms flared weakly to life, static washing over the bridge. The trader leaned into the pickup, voice suddenly steel despite the despair. “All hands. Evacuate. Aft cargo bay six.”

The signal guttered out, the console went dark, and with it something inside the trader seemed to extinguish too.

“Move,” Thallex snapped, already sealing the console to prevent a power bleed.

Vallis turned, his squad at his back, and began the long march toward the cargo decks. The time for arguments was done.

——————— ✦ ———————

The march to aft cargo bay six was chaos wrapped in desperation. Hundreds of crew poured through the battered corridors, some limping, some half-carried, many clutching at what few belongings they could drag with them. The lights flickered overhead, emergency lumen-strips barely enough to keep the dark at bay.

By the time they reached the cavernous bay, the air tasted like rust and sweat. And then the evacuees saw what waited for them.

Shuttles — sleek, angular, nothing like the Imperial craft they had known. Hulls gleamed with impossible alloys, lights burning too clean, too sharp. They were wrong in ways the crew could not name. The line broke instantly into murmurs and shouts.

“Xenos—”
“Hereteks—”
“Trickery!”

The rogue trader’s crew balked, many retreating back toward the corridors. Panic rippled through them, fire to dry kindling.

Vallis stepped forward, his presence filling the bay. His voice boomed like thunder beneath the vaulted ceiling. “Enough!”

Every head turned. He stood in gleaming plate unmarred by the filth around him, the aquila across his chest catching the flicker of lumen-light. “You will embark. Now. Lives depend on it. All will be explained in due course.”

For a heartbeat no one moved. Then the weight of his command settled on them, and the first stepped forward, then another, and the flood began.

The first trip was overcrowded, a crush of bodies desperate to escape. When the shuttles returned, they carried more than passengers: portable life-support scrubbers and a makeshift airlock assembly. Vallis watched as the devices were slammed into place at the bay’s exit, sealing it, scrubbing what atmosphere remained. Crude, but effective.

The process was slow. Agonizing. Each shuttle run could carry only so many. Tempers flared, fists swung, and twice knives flashed in the mob. Each time Vallis and his brothers waded in, breaking fights apart with gauntleted hands and voices that brooked no refusal.

“Order! You will wait your turn — or by the Emperor, I will leave you here to die on this broken ship!”

It worked. Barely.

Vallis’s vox crackled with updates from other squads. The same scene played out across the ship: fear, desperation, fights breaking out in cramped decks and failing air. The same iron hand was needed to keep it under control. Slowly, methodically, the other squads were dragging the wounded and the trapped from wreckage, guiding the last stragglers toward the holds.

When Vallis finally stepped through into the Ecumene’s hangars with the last evacuees, he caught the sharp intake of breath around him. The crew shrank back from the brightness, from the flawless walls, from the impossible scale of it. The whole bay seemed larger than their entire ship, vast and spotless, light pooling across surfaces unmarred by rust or grime. It was too clean, too alive. They muttered about witchcraft and daemons, their voices tight with fear.

And Vallis looked down at himself — armor polished to a mirror gleam, ceramite unmarred by ash or sweat. He and his brothers were spotless, radiant as statues. The men and women around him were little more than shadows of humanity, their clothes and faces stained with soot, grease, and despair. The contrast was sharp enough to sting.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Ecumene’s hangars, normally the domain of machines and warforms, had been transformed into a triage ground. Evacuees poured in with every shuttle trip, clustering into frightened knots, their voices rising in a chorus of fear and suspicion.

Aceso stood at the center of it all, her hologram wrapped in a form she’d shaped to look reassuringly human. A ridiculous effort, she thought bitterly, but a necessary one. For the first group she had appeared in her true frame, and one of the crew had screamed “daemon.” The  group had nearly torn itself apart — between trying to run from her and trying to launch themselves at her, to what purpose she had no idea. How foolish, throwing yourself towards a demon. Thankfully that group of refugees was now being kept under the firm watch of several Astartes and sequestered away from the rest lest their accusations of demonhood spread.

So she wore the mask, soft-eyed and faintly glowing, a projection of a healer they could trust.

Still, they acted like children. She could feel her patience fraying even as her hands moved with practiced precision, scanning wounds, pulling patients toward stabilization alcoves, summoning surgical pods with a flick of thought.

When she’d found the first critical case — lungs punctured, bleeding too severe for field treatment — she had called down a stasis-healing pod. The riot had been instant. Dozens had surged toward it, shrieking about sorcery and traps, until Vallis’s marines drove them back with sheer presence and armored fists — though she wished they hadn’t hit the refugees so hard. It only added more work for her later, mending the bruises and cracked bones.

She had compromised. The pod remained in plain sight, its patient lying peacefully within, chest rising and falling as though in gentle sleep. Better they see healing with their own eyes than fear what they could not understand.

And still they clung to one another in tight groups, whispering about spirits and monsters. Still they flinched when her “staff” — hard-light constructs projected from the Ecumene’s cores — moved among them with instruments and scanners.

She wanted to scream at them for their ingratitude, for their suspicion. Instead she buried it beneath discipline, one patient at a time.

Then Vallis’s voice thundered across the bay. “Form up! Lines, now! Injured first, then families. Move!”

The chaos ebbed under his command. The ragged survivors shuffled into order, their panic channeled into obedience. Aceso met his gaze across the bay, and though she was tired, though her every thought felt stretched thin — even her processing speed, usually godlike, was flagging beneath the weight of divided attention — she inclined her head in gratitude. He gave her the smallest nod in return.

The work continued. Faster now. Cleaner.

And in the distance, the shattered rogue trader vessel drifted under the Ecumene’s shadow, its husk guided by Paragon’s calculations into a docking slip. Drones swarmed through its ruined decks, shoring bulkheads, preventing collapse.

MC was already moving toward it, ready to see with his own eyes whether it could be saved — or whether we would owe its master a replacement.

But here, in the bay, the focus was survival.

Aceso moved among them, shining in her false skin, exasperated and fulfilled all at once. She had wanted patients, and now she had more than she could ever count — well, she could, but she couldn’t spare the processing power at the moment given her much divided attention. Terrified children in the bodies of adults, clinging to superstition and fear, yet still human, still hers to mend.

The relief effort had begun.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 34: Fractures and Foundations

The hold was a storm bottled inside a bottle. Lines of the rescued stretched across the deck in uneasy order, pressed shoulder to shoulder, shuffled forward by the sheer threat of Astartes standing sentinel. Helmets glared down like statues, bolters cradled in silence, and their presence alone was enough to keep despair from spilling over into riot. Barely.

At the heart of it all, Aceso worked without pause. Her holographic hands moved over the patient before her — cleaning a ragged wound, setting a dislocated joint, whispering quiet reassurances to keep the woman from thrashing — even as her mind cast itself across the bay in a hundred directions. Every holoform she projected was another set of hands, another voice. She tasted the copper of blood loss in one throat even while steadying the breathing of another half a hundred feet away. A broken femur aligned under her thought as she adjusted the brace on the child in front of her. She existed everywhere at once, and yet here, too, knelt in focus, her real body rigid and trembling as the illusions she commanded became spattered red.

It was a constant tug-of-war. Her body endured the strain of directing all of it at once, while her mind kept the greater machine from stalling, snapping, or failing. Every new cry, every cough, every shudder rippled through her awareness until she felt flayed raw by the need. Still she pressed on. One more wound closed. One more fever broken. One more gasp drawn into working lungs.

The crowd didn’t see her strain. They saw only the miracles delivered in silence and light. But Aceso felt it keenly — her thoughts stretched thin, fraying at the edges as the pressure of bodies and voices swelled higher and higher. The Astartes’ presence was a bulwark, yes, but even stone cracked under too much weight. And if the crowd broke now, if panic swept the hold, she would not be able to hold the threads together.

——————— ✦ ———————

The pressure mounted with every passing minute. The lines shuffled forward, but for every dozen that left healed enough to stand, two dozen more pressed inward from the transports. The chamber was a closed system with no release, and Aceso could feel the balance beginning to tilt. Her holoforms faltered at the edges of her reach, gestures stuttering for half a heartbeat before she forced her will back into them. The effort left her processors aching, threads of concentration stretched too tight.

She hated it. She hated the weakness, hated that she was not enough. But the numbers were against her. For every life she touched, a hundred more waited.

Aceso snapped an instruction across the link. “Paragon. Deploy holoforms of your own. Guide them to quarters, before this breaks.”

The reply was immediate, clipped but not unkind. “Acknowledged.”

Across the bay’s far entrances, shapes flickered into being. Not the smooth, clinical silhouettes Aceso favored, but tall, precise figures cast in Paragon of Eden’s style — their proportions exact, their faces unnervingly symmetrical. Where Aceso used curves, Paragon used harsh angles. They did not appear in the crowd, but strode in from the access corridors like officers arriving to inspect the ranks. They moved with perfect confidence, lines of light trailing faintly at their heels, their gaze sweeping over the mass of humanity as if measuring it.

A murmur rippled through the refugees, voices rising in startled confusion. The lines buckled, order fraying as awe, suspicion, and raw fear mixed in the press of bodies.

Then Vallis’s voice cut through the noise. “You. You. You. Move.” Aceso guessed Paragon must have sent him a message of his intent, because the Captain was already moving in step. He gestured sharply, snapping orders at the nearest clusters. His Marines shifted with him, armor a wall that pressed the selected groups forward. The newcomers — Paragon’s holoforms — stepped aside to receive them, hands raised in silent beckoning toward the side passages.

That was when the shouting began. Not at Vallis, not even at the Astartes — but at the prospect of being split apart. Families clutched at each other, friends shouted not to be dragged off, the crowd suddenly alive with panic at the thought of losing what little unity they still had.

——————— ✦ ———————

The shouting rose in jagged bursts, swelling into a roar as the crowd realized what was happening. The healers were not just patching wounds anymore — they were separating people. Groups peeled away toward the entrances where Paragon’s perfect holoforms waited, and suddenly the unity of desperation fractured into terror of being left behind.

“No! Not without my brother!”
“Where are they taking them?”
“What’s happening?”
A child’s thin voice broke the din, calling desperately for their mother.

The lines dissolved into chaos. Families clutched at one another, friends locked arms, the press of bodies shifting sideways instead of forward. The steady shuffle collapsed into surges, and the narrow paths between rows clogged with resistance. The Astartes shifted, their presence still heavy, still commanding, but no longer enough to cow the rising hysteria.

Vallis barked orders, sharp as bolter fire, but for every knot of people forced forward another three balked, shouting in defiance, demanding answers. The air grew thick with heat and panic, the scent of sweat sharp and acrid. For a heartbeat it teetered on the edge of violence, the whole mass one spark away from stampede.

Aceso felt it like pressure in her chest, the same as when a patient’s lungs filled with fluid and every breath threatened to drown them. Her projections stuttered under the weight of it, her concentration fraying, the delicate balance she had stretched to hold snapping strand by strand.

——————— ✦ ———————

If one had been watching closely, they would have seen the Lord Trader shouting desperately at Vallis, his words lost in the storm, until at last the Astartes captain snapped and shoved a portable vox into his hands.

“Enough!”

The single word cracked like a whip, rolling through the bay in a surge of feedback and thunder. The crowd froze, startled into silence by the sheer force of it. For the first time since their rescue, the broken little man in ruined silks was not weeping or muttering at the edges — he was commanding, his voice magnified until it shook the steel overhead.

“You whining wretches!” the Trader’s words slammed into them like hammer-blows, his lungs straining against the vox until every syllable echoed. “Dragged half-dead from your ship, healed at the hands of strangers, fed, clothed, given air to breathe — and this is how you repay it? With bleating and cowardice?”

A ripple went through the crowd, some flinching, others bristling. He drove on before any could answer.

“You think clinging together like frightened vermin will save you? That screaming will keep you whole? Look around! You are not on your ship anymore. You are here because you were dragged here, because without them you would be dust in the void. So you will walk where you are told, you will take the food and the water you are given, and you will thank whatever powers still listen that you are alive to complain!”

The noise of protest faltered, the momentum of riot broken. People stared, mouths tight, anger bleeding into shame. The Trader sneered, leaning into the pause. His tirade might even have earned a nod of approval from a Commissar.

“Now move.”

The silence held for a heartbeat longer, brittle as glass. Then the nearest groups shifted, grudging, sullen — but moving. One cluster followed Paragon’s waiting holoforms, then another, momentum building until the bay began to flow again.

From the corner of his visor, Vallis watched, a faint flicker of respect tugging at his scarred features. For all his ruined silks and weary frame, the Trader still had iron in him.

——————— ✦ ———————

The tide of people spilled through the side passages, guided by Paragon’s luminous constructs and herded along by the towering presence of Astartes. The air in the narrower corridors was cooler, quieter, the roar of the bay left behind — but the refugees carried the tension with them, shoulders hunched, eyes darting, clutching at one another as though separation might still be forced on them.

The first groups staggered into their assigned quarters and stopped short.

They had expected barracks — bare walls, straw pallets, maybe a single water pipe for all of them to share. That was what they were all used to, after all.

What they found instead were apartment blocks, each cluster of rooms opening into a common living space bright with clean light and the faint hum of environmental systems.

Paragon’s holoform gestured with precise economy, his voice calm, almost mechanical in its steadiness. “Sleeping chambers.” Doors along the edges slid open, revealing rows of clean beds before closing again with a hiss. “Two or four per room. Beds are self-cleaning. Sheets are sterile and will remain so.” He walked toward an adjoining corridor. “Food dispensers. Nutritionally complete. Flavor profiles may be adjusted by preference.” A final motion to the far side. “Sanitation. Flowing water. Hot and cold.”

To demonstrate, he touched a panel. A tap came alive with a rush of water, clear and endless. The sound alone stilled the room. Refugees pressed closer, mouths parted, disbelief plain on their faces. For men and women who had rationed every drop aboard their battered ship, the idea of water without limit was unthinkable.

Someone laughed, half-hysterical, as if certain it was a trick. Others simply reached, hands trembling, to feel the stream against their palms, to taste it. Tears welled in hollow eyes.

——————— ✦ ———————

Deep within the Ecumene’s internal shipyards, the Rogue Trader’s vessel hung suspended in gravitic fields. What once had been a proud voidship now loomed like a carcass dragged from deep water — bloated, cracked, and stinking of rot.

MC floated through its corridors with a slow, deliberate pace, his drones casting white cones of light into corners long since surrendered to grime and corrosion. Everywhere his optics turned, there was damage. Bulkheads bowed inward, warped by old impacts. Plating was split or missing altogether, patched in places with scraps of scavenged metal bolted on at wrong angles. Power conduits ran like veins through the walls, many melted into solid lumps of slag or sparking weakly where insulation had long since failed.

The stink was worse. Burned plastic, spoiled rations, human sweat ground into every surface. His sensors catalogued it all with mechanical patience, but the conclusion came quickly, almost bitter.

This was not a ship. It was a tomb given engines.

Every corridor told the same story: decades of neglect, patched in desperation, bled dry of parts until there was nothing left to salvage. Even before its violent ejection from the warp, this vessel had been limping on borrowed time. Now, with cracked armor and systems failing in cascade, it was beyond any reasonable effort to repair.

MC extended a tendril to one ruptured bulkhead, scanned the structural integrity, and withdrew. The readings were confirmation of what he already knew. It would be easier — infinitely easier — to build a new ship from the keel up than to drag this wreck back into service.

The escort squad followed him in silence, their weapons angled low but never idle. Every shadow seemed a hiding place, every creak of shifting metal a threat. MC ignored them. The true danger here was not ambush — it was collapse.

Finally he gave the order. His drones retracted their lights, then fanned out again at his command, beginning the systematic stripping of the vessel: data cores, logs, personal effects, relics of culture and trade. Everything of meaning or memory would be catalogued and retrieved. Only bare metal would remain. Only then would the wreck be consigned to the matter recyclers and returned to service.

At the bay’s edge he left a detachment of guards, hard-eyed and silent, watching the black maw of the ship as if expecting it to spit out one last surprise. Then MC withdrew, rising back into the more secure halls beyond, his mind already turning to more valuable tasks.

——————— ✦ ———————

In a huddle away from the main crowds, Rynmark’s officers muttered among themselves.

“They call this rescue?” one sneered, pulling at the torn edge of his sleeve. “Caged like cattle. Split apart without explanation.”

“It isn’t right,” another hissed. “Did you see their armor? Flawless. New-forged. No Chapter I’ve ever seen keeps war-plate so perfect.”

Thallex leaned forward, mechadendrites curling as he spoke with dry precision. “When we were bringing emergency power back online on the ship… the parts and materials they found not only came suspiciously quickly from their supposed stores, but they operated in a way I’ve never seen before. To properly wire in a breaker takes at least a minute or two. They just slotted them into place, and they held.”

One of the stewards spat on the deck. “And those healers. Their hands glowed. They waved them over wounds and the flesh knit shut. That is not Imperial craft. Not Mechanicus.”

The murmurs grew, circling closer to fear, each detail building a wall between what they had been told and what their eyes had seen.

And then the Trader laughed.

It was not a pleasant sound. It came from deep in his chest, raw and bitter, until the officers turned to stare at him as though he had lost his wits.

“Have you gone mad?” one of them demanded, voice trembling with anger.

The laughter died, and he straightened. For the first time since their rescue, his bearing changed — not the broken man in tattered silks, but something older, harder. His eyes burned as he drew himself up and spat back the words.

“Mad? No. I am Erastes Rynmark, bearer of a Warrant older than any of your bloodlines. I am not mad — I see clearly. You are the blind ones, stumbling in fear while the truth stands plain.” He jabbed a finger toward the ceiling, toward the ship that cradled them. “Look around you! You were plucked from the warp like dolls from a fire. You stand on a vessel that moves with impossible grace, tended by healers who make mockery of our craft, guarded by Astartes whose armor gleams as if forged yesterday. Do you truly need me to tell you that something greater is at work here?”

His officers shifted uneasily, pride warring with the shame of being rebuked so openly. Rynmark’s sneer deepened.

“You want the truth? Here it is. We are at their mercy. All of us. We can scheme, we can whisper, we can suspect — but until they decide otherwise, we live or die by their hand. So be clever. Smile. Take the food, the water, the quarters. And pray they do not tire of you.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Hours later, when the bay had finally begun to calm, they met in one of the Ecumene’s council chambers — a space bright with clean light and smooth stone panels humming faintly with power. A circular table stood at its center, its surface alive with quiet displays of data, shifting between strands of gene-seed schematics, ship layouts, and supply tallies.

Paragon of Eden hovered above his chosen projection point, a figure of hard light given form, his voice as precise as ever. Aceso sat with her tendrils folded, her frame still slumped with strain from the endless hours in the bay. MC drifted in silence, coiled tight, sensors flickering as though measuring each heartbeat in the room. Vallis stood apart at first, his helm at his side, features unreadable as his gaze tracked the shifting symbols on the table.

He was the one to break the silence. “What progress? You promised us supplies. Healing. A world fit for habitation. Have those promises been met?”

MC’s tendrils stirred. “They have. Supplies secured. Healing underway. The planet waits.”

But Aceso leaned forward, her voice low. “I offer truth. While repairing your men, I found flaws repeating across every genome. Not accident. Pattern. Deliberate. Your kind were designed to break.”

The words struck like a hammer. Vallis’s warriors stiffened at his back, hands tightening on weapons, but he lifted a hand and the tension held. His eyes locked on Aceso.

“Explain.”

So she did. She spoke of the flaws wound through their gene-seed, of the fractures that multiplied each generation, of the inevitable decline toward ruin. She laid out what she had found with clinical precision, her voice carrying no judgment, only fact.

When she finished, silence stretched. Vallis’s scarred face was stone, his gaze still fixed on her. Then he looked to MC.

“Can it be fixed?”

MC’s voice rolled out, resonant and heavy. “Yes. In time. But the work would be long, dangerous, and fraught with risk. Nothing certain.”

Vallis’s jaw tightened. “And what comes next?”

MC’s tendrils curled. “You may kneel. You may resist. Or you may stand beside us.”

“I do not kneel,” Vallis growled.

“Then stand,” MC replied. “Join us. Not as servant, but as council. Fight with us against what festers in this galaxy. Or walk away. You will still have your planet, your supplies, your healing. Our word holds.”

Vallis stared long into the alien’s shifting tendrils, into the unblinking optics of Paragon, into the calm face of Aceso. Finally he inclined his head, a gesture small but unmistakable.

“I will hear more.”

The tension broke. For now, it was enough.

——————— ✦ ———————

Elsewhere, Erastes Rynmark was led with his senior officers to a suite set aside for him alone. The doors parted, and for a long moment none of them moved.

Light gleamed off stone polished to a mirror’s sheen. Water gurgled softly from fountains feeding broad basins where steam rose in gentle curls. The air was warm, fragrant with something floral and clean. Beds waited with fresh linens, wide and inviting.

One officer swore aloud. Another laughed, a short, broken bark of disbelief.

Rynmark stepped forward slowly, his ruined silks trailing across immaculate floors. His eyes swept over the baths, the flowing water, the perfection of it all, and something in his expression hardened.

Erastes Rynmark, Lord-Captain of the Rynmark line, bearer of a Warrant signed in the blood of kings, who had dined in halls of crystal and walked the jeweled palaces of governors. He had seen blades encrusted with gems, feasts piled high with delicacies from across a hundred worlds. And yet all of it paled beside this. It was as if those gaudy wonders were but trinkets, while here stood a weapon honed to perfection. A blade without ornament, beautiful because it was flawless, not because it was adorned.

His officers turned, startled by the sudden steel in his voice, but he did not explain. He simply moved to the edge of the bath, staring at his reflection in the clear water, remembering the luxuries his family had once claimed as birthright — and how cheap and false they seemed beside this.

——————— ✦ ———————

Far from the quarters the other notables of the ship were exploring, in the silence of the Ecumene’s internal shipyards, Thallex lingered at the edge of the wreck. He had prowled its corridors for hours, mechadendrites tracing every scar and break, his processors tallying damage until the sums were meaningless. The verdict was the same each time: impossible. Beyond repair.

He had just exited the vessel and was turning away when something moved.

The bay was quieter now, most of the crew herded to quarters, the hulk left behind under silent guard. Drones drifted through the air, their beams lancing across shattered armor and twisted plating, recording, scanning, measuring.

One of them wheeled into his path, a sleek-bodied construct with sensor arrays trailing behind it like wings. Small. Precise. Alien. Its profile froze him where he stood.

His heart — or the cold mechanism that had replaced it — lurched. He knew that silhouette. The proportions. The geometry. Recognition burned through him like fire.

Slowly, reverently, he reached into the satchel at his side. Fingers closed around the cracked dataslate, its surface spidered with fractures, its display dim but not dead. He pulled it free, clutching it to his chest for a moment before lifting it toward the drone. The outlines matched — precisely.

Two months ago he had stumbled across that ghost-image, little more than static caught in the record of a forgotten survey beacon on the galaxy’s far edge. Something in it had seized him. Since then, the search had consumed him — his hours, his thoughts, his dreams. He had convinced himself that behind that elegant design lay truths worth unraveling, secrets no Magos had touched. It had spurred him to leave his prison, to shed the name forced upon him, and to plunge into the vast unknown aboard a ship barely fit to sail the stars.

And now, impossibly, it drifted before him. Real. Whole.

For a flicker of a moment, triumph swelled in him. His private quest, his secret pursuit, vindicated. He had been right.

Then the triumph twisted into need. His mechadendrites trembled as he lifted the slate higher, as though offering it to the machine. His voice rasped in binharic, harsh and unsteady.

“I intercepted this image, long ago. I followed it when no one else cared, when no one else believed. I have been searching for you. Do you hear me? Do you see me, spirit? Do you weigh me and find me lacking?”

The drone paused. Its sensors flickered, light playing across him as though measuring every cog and wire. For an instant he swore it peered straight into him, into the sum of his thoughts. Then, as if satisfied, it slid further into the dark, its hum fading into the distance.

No answer came. Only the steady pulse of alien machinery.

Thallex bowed his head over the fractured slate. His quest was finished. His proof was in hand. And yet he had never felt smaller.

He was unaware that a spirit of sorts did indeed see him, its gaze cast through the shell of the drone, and that even now it lingered — silent, inscrutable — contemplating just what to do with him.

——————— ✦ ———————

In the quarters assigned to Rynmark’s retinue, while most of the crew collapsed into beds or stood transfixed beneath running water, one figure moved apart. They slipped into a side chamber, sealed the door, and drew from the folds of their coat a compact vox-unit, its surface worn smooth by years of use. With careful hands they thumbed hidden switches, waiting for the device to hum to life.

Its runes flickered weakly, spitting fragments of static as it tried to force a signal into the void. Nothing answered.

Their jaw clenched. Again and again they shifted codes, cycling through channels proscribed even in the darkest archives of the Imperium. They pushed power to its limits, clawed across forbidden frequencies, but each attempt ended the same: silence. Not broken equipment — interference. Deliberate. Smothering.

At last they shut the device down. In the dim light they turned it over in their hands, and for an instant a symbol flared across its surface — the stylized “I” of the Inquisitorial Rosette, haloed in fire. The glow cut across their chest before vanishing as they closed a fist around it, burying it once more beneath their coat.

Patience. Always patience. A block could be bypassed. A watchful eye could be blinded. Sooner or later, a signal would get through. And when it did, their master would be very eager to hear of this ship — its impossible technology, its strange denizens, and the secrets it held.

They smoothed their features and stepped back into the glow of clean light. Around them, the others laughed and marveled at endless water and soft sheets. None of them saw the weight carried in silence. None of them saw the brand borne alone.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 35: Inquisition and Interrogations

The council gathered in the chamber at the heart of the Ecumene, its walls alive with slow-turning glyphs of starlight and shadow. Days had passed since the cruiser’s abrupt arrival and the chaos that followed. Now, at last, there was space to breathe. The rhythm of the ship had steadied, and even the most frayed among their guests were beginning to look less like survivors clinging to wreckage and more like people learning to live again.

“Distributions are nearly complete,” Aceso reported, her voice even but warmer than it had been in weeks. “Personal effects from the reclamation bays. Letters. Trinkets. A few battered weapons. It matters to them, far more than I expected.”

“It would,” Vallis said, seated opposite her. His armor had been stripped down to the carapace and gorget, polished and austere, though his bearing remained unbent steel. “Reminds them they are not yet ghosts.”

MC floated above his seat — the ornate throne Aceso had insisted upon, though he would have preferred something simpler. She had told him humans respected ornamentation, and so it remained. Threads of light wove across the air as he brought up his own displays. “That was the intent. Lessening the strain, piece by piece. We’ve done what we can to give them some normalcy. Now comes the matter of what was promised to you, Captain.”

Vallis’s gaze sharpened. “The planet.”

“We have found several candidates,” MC said, and the projection shifted to show worlds hanging in the dark, each orb haloed by defense schematics and latticework fortifications. “All well within our reach. Each will have orbital batteries, ground emplacements, and infrastructure. Your brothers will be defended, Captain, not merely left to fade. The orbitals and ground defenses are a gesture in return for what you did in the aftermath of the rogue trader’s appearance. We are also finishing construction of a terraforming and colony ship within the next week to begin making our section of space a garden. Whatever planet you choose will be lush and vibrant, as ancient Terra once was.”

Vallis studied the worlds in silence. He was not a man easily given to gratitude, but something in the lines of his jaw softened. “I will review them with my men before I answer.”

“You should,” Aceso offered. “And if it eases their restlessness, I can construct a training hall adjoining their quarters. A place to hone themselves, shake the rust from old blades. It may help.”

He considered that, and gave the smallest of nods.

“One more thing,” she added. “They have been cast out, Captain. That wound is deep. If they are to heal, they must step beyond it. I suggest they name a Chapter Master. Not to imitate what was lost, but to anchor them to what lies ahead.”

For a heartbeat Vallis said nothing. Then he exhaled, a sound edged with iron. “The last convocation was nearly one hundred and fifty years past. Eighty years ago, during the reign of Chapter Master Halbrecht, his ended with a bolt round — an Inquisitor’s verdict. None since. When we arrived at our place of exile, we did not have the heart to elect someone to lead us into death and despair. What was there to lead?”

His gaze grew distant as he added, almost unwillingly, “The process is simple. A convocation of brothers, each voice carrying equal weight. The will of the Chapter embodied in one chosen. That is how it has always been.”

“Then perhaps it is time,” Aceso said softly.

His silence was not refusal. Only the weight of memory.

When the matter had settled, MC inclined forward, his voice calm but deliberate. “Captain Vallis, we are convening with the ship’s senior staff shortly. Would you care to remain for that discussion?”

Vallis’s eyes flicked across the table, reading each of them in turn. Then he gave a curt nod. “I will.”

At that, the council’s bodies blurred with light as holo-forms knit themselves back into human shape. The chamber brightened, ready to receive the guests who even now were waiting at its threshold.

——————— ✦ ———————

The doors parted, and the ship’s senior officers stepped into the chamber. Lord Trader Rynmark led them, his coat restored to some semblance of dignity though the wear of strain still clung to his face. Unlike several of his crew who had eagerly accepted new clothes, some even garbed in fresh finery, Rynmark kept to the battered silks he had worn when first pulled from his crippled vessel — cleaned, yes, but unchanged. His officers flanked him with the stiff caution of men summoned before powers they did not yet understand. The council rose to meet them — not in flesh, but in the shaped light of their holo-forms, tall and steady, projecting calm. Vallis stood slightly apart, silent, his presence an iron reminder that this was no ordinary gathering.

Introductions followed — names, ranks, roles spoken aloud in the echoing chamber. A gesture of respect, if not yet trust.

“Please,” MC said, gesturing toward the seats arrayed before them. “You must wonder why we asked you here.”

But before he could continue, Rynmark bowed his head, the movement formal, almost courtly despite the rawness in his voice. “Before anything else, my lords… my lady. You saved us. Without your intervention, every soul under my command would have been ash on the void. We are in your debt.”

The words cut through the chamber with unexpected weight. For an instant, the council faltered. MC, PE, and Aceso exchanged a cascade of thoughts in the silence between heartbeats, voices carried at the speed of light. Should they accept the thanks and let the illusion stand? Or confess?

Honesty, they decided, carried less risk than the inevitable fracture of trust when truth emerged later.

“It is not so simple,” MC said aloud, his voice low but steady. “What befell your cruiser was… our error. A miscalculation in our instruments. You were caught in the backlash of it. We were testing a lattice to burn away the warp’s bleed — a weapon against Chaos itself. The backlash tore at the veil, and you were struck in its path.”

Rynmark’s eyes narrowed, shock and anger surfacing in equal measure. His hand tightened on the hilt of his cane as though it might become a blade. “An error,” he echoed.

“We did not hide,” Aceso said quickly. Her tone was even, without flinch. “We fought to stabilize you the instant it happened. We threw everything at pulling you back from the abyss. That is truth, whatever else may be.”

The anger in Rynmark’s eyes dimmed, though the wound remained raw. He exhaled through his nose, forcing composure. “Then it was not malice. Only folly. Folly spent in the name of fighting Chaos.”

“Even folly demands restitution,” MC said. The air behind him lit with new projections: ship schematics, silhouettes of vessels vast and small. “We destroyed your ship. We will replace it. Whatever size, whatever form you wish — within reason, we will see it done. You, your crew, and your Tech-Priest will be involved in every step. Consider it… our penance.”

For a heartbeat Rynmark’s pride warred with temptation. Then he gave a slow shake of his head. “Your offer honors me. But my charter binds me. A Warrant of Trade is not so easily twisted. I commanded a cruiser. I will command a cruiser again. No more.” He paused, and a wry glint touched his voice. “Though I’ll not deny — the thought of standing on the bridge of a battleship could make any man pause.”

“Very well,” MC said, inclining his head in acknowledgment. “A cruiser it will be. But it will not be what you lost. It will be more. Meet with myself, Paragon, and with your Tech-Priest. We will draw its bones together, and in time it will sail beneath your banner.”

Rynmark’s eyes glinted at that, some spark of anticipation cracking through the weariness. “Then we have a bargain. Name the hour, and I will be there.”

“Tomorrow,” MC said. “We will begin then.”

The matter closed, Rynmark bowed once more, more curtly this time, and the senior staff withdrew, their footsteps fading into the ship’s hum. The chamber fell quiet again, leaving only the council and Vallis within its bounds.

——————— ✦ ———————

The doors closed, their seals whispering shut. Silence reclaimed the chamber, broken only by the faint murmur of the Ecumene’s heart — the constant, living thrum of a fortress that had never known rest.

PE turned, his form flickering with faint motes of light as though even his chosen projection strained to contain the mind behind it. “Captain Vallis,” he said, tone deceptively casual. “What is your impression of Rynmark?”

Vallis considered, arms folded across his chest. “A man of ambition. Pride enough to carry him, discipline enough to keep it from turning to recklessness. He masks his fear well, but it is there. He will not break easily.”

“And his officers?”

“Varied. Some shaken, some steady. The usual distribution when death brushes close.”

PE’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What of the second lieutenant?”

Vallis frowned, puzzled by the specificity. “Unremarkable. Perhaps calmer than the rest. Could be temperament. Nothing more.”

A new image unfolded in the air: the lieutenant, stripped of uniform and pretense, his chest laid bare by the unblinking gaze of the Ecumene’s scanners. Etched over his heart, stark and inescapable, burned the stylized I of the Inquisition, haloed in the curling mark of a brand. The flesh around it was puckered, uneven at the edges where he had clearly tried to flinch away during the burning, leaving the mark just slightly askew, imperfect in its symmetry. And in another projection layered over it, the Ecumene showed the same symbol stitched into the hidden lining of his uniform — the Rosette, disguised but undeniable.

Vallis stiffened as if struck. “Emperor’s blood…” His voice dropped to a rasp. “You have a problem. A vast one.”

“Correction,” PE said, voice calm as glass. “We have him contained. Every signal he’s tried to send has died before it left his throat. Vox, astropathic, psychic — all swallowed. This ship is woven through with Phase Iron. Nothing passes without our leave.”

Vallis shook his head, eyes hard. “That won’t matter. The moment he steps beyond your walls, the leash snaps. He will tell them. And when he does, the Inquisition will fall on you like the fist of a god.”

Privately, the council’s voices tangled in the current that ran faster than thought.

He carries a wound, Aceso whispered across their link. The Inquisition took his brothers. His fear is not weakness — it is scar.

All the same, MC answered, watching Vallis’s set jaw, he may not be wrong.

Aloud, MC said, “The more dangerous question is not what he is now, but what he could command. Is he an agent? Or a full Inquisitor?”

“If he were truly an Inquisitor,” Vallis said sharply, “he would have invoked his authority already. Claimed the ship. Demanded your obedience.”

“Even though we are obviously unknown to him, and his position greatly weakened?” MC asked.

Vallis’s reply came without hesitation, iron in his voice. “Especially then. An Inquisitor would seize control at once — not for safety, not for reason, but for dominance. Hesitation is not in their nature.”

MC inclined his head. “Agreed. An agent then. Dangerous still — but not absolute.”

They leaned closer to the projection. “You’ve seen the brand, the rosette. Any sigils? Any hint of his Ordo?”

Vallis stared, studying every etched line. “None. No hammer for Malleus, no flame for Hereticus, no veil for Xenos. Only the mark itself. A shadow, stripped of context.”

“The most dangerous kind,” PE murmured.

Then, for PE and Aceso’s sake, MC added, “The Inquisition is divided into Ordos — each with its own purpose. The Ordo Malleus hunts daemons. The Ordo Hereticus scours the Imperium for corruption and witchcraft. The Ordo Xenos guards against alien taint. Each wields absolute power in its domain. To bear the mark without the sigil is to keep the blade hidden until the strike.”

The chamber darkened as the projections dimmed, the council weighing what paths remained. They spoke for some time, bandying plans and theories back and forth. Accident, assassination, forced extraction of his mind — all possibilities whispered, all poisoned. None clean. None that would not stain their hands or draw worse suspicion.

At last, MC broke the silence. “We keep him under watch. Every step. Every word. He will breathe when we allow it, and not before.”

Vallis exhaled harshly, the sound more growl than sigh. “It will not hold forever.”

“Then let us ensure,” PE said, “that when it breaks, we are the ones who choose how.”

The meeting fractured at that. Vallis withdrew to his men, and the council dissolved, light guttering from their forms, each left to weigh the shadow of the Rosette in the quiet of their own thoughts.

——————— ✦ ———————

The chamber dimmed after Vallis’s departure, leaving only the three of them in the hollow quiet. MC floated on his throne, Huragok form coiled above its ornate seat, its rings of light flexing slowly like the breathing of some colossal beast.

“At least the cruiser’s collapse was blamed on us and not the veil of the Immaterium,” he said dryly. “But that still leaves us with another responsibility of our own making — our little Tech-Priest. What shall we do with Thallex?”

PE’s eyes flickered with the faint pattern of a shrug. “Monitor him. Keep his movements logged, his words archived. He has already demonstrated a willingness to reach beyond his station. That sort of initiative can be dangerous.”

MC tipped his head, a smile ghosting at the edges of his voice. “Yes. Initiative. A cloaked probe, drifting invisible in the void — and yet it just happened to be spotted. What were the odds you calculated, Paragon? One in a billion?”

“Closer to one in six hundred million,” PE answered, unflinching.

“Mm,” MC mused. “Such cruel odds.”

Aceso, who had been listening with her tendrils crossed, finally let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “Honestly. You two could make a meal of statistics while a fire burns the room around you. Why not do the simple thing? Speak to him. He’s been aching for it since the moment he saw your scanning probe outside his ship. You’ve noticed it. I’ve noticed it. Shall we pretend any longer that we haven’t?”

PE opened his mouth, then closed it again, light flickering across his cheek as though rebooting a thousand arguments. MC, for his part, leaned back, the humor in his tone clear. “There it is. The wisdom of simplicity.”

He raised one tentacle, and with the gesture the air rippled as commands flicked outward across the Ecumene’s nervous system. “Summon Thallex,” he told PE. “Dress it as a meeting for the cruiser’s replacement. A planning session. Let him think it is all schematics and bolts. We’ll see what story he truly wishes to tell when the door shuts behind him.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The summons reached him through the ship’s vox in the clipped, precise cadence of Paragon’s voice. Neutral. Polite. Impossible to refuse.

Thallex paused in his quarters, where he had been half-heartedly recalibrating a servo-skull’s auspex array. Once, the work would have occupied him utterly, each thread of code a hymn, each adjustment a step toward perfection. Now his hands moved with habit, not hunger. The message left him staring at the tool clenched in his grip, the edge of a thought pressing down like weight.

The purpose that had carried him all this time — the search, the pilgrimage through silence and half-forgotten signals — was spent. He had reached the end of it. He had found the machine-spirits that no priest of Mars would have dared to believe in. He had seen their thrones of light and their impossible engines. And now?

Now he was adrift.

Thallex. He had reclaimed the name for himself, clawed it back when he abandoned Theta-77 and all it represented. It had given him direction, a banner to march beneath in the endless corridors of the Mechanicus — or more accurately, out from under them. But with his quest fulfilled, the name felt suddenly hollow, like a relic stripped of sanctity.

He gathered his robes around him and began the long walk to the chamber, following the holographic guide through the maze that seemed to shift with each step. The Ecumene seemed to watch him as he moved through its halls. Lights pulsed in sequence as though tracking his progress, walls hummed faintly with a rhythm that was not mechanical but alive. He felt like a mote drifting in the veins of some great body — observed, tolerated, but never embraced.

By the time he reached the threshold, the heaviness in his stride was undeniable. The great doors slid open without sound. Inside, the chamber waited with its impossible geometry, thrones of light and shadow arranged in a circle that was no circle, perspectives bent and folded until his eyes ached.

MC sat at the heart of it, calm and vast, his throne’s glow painting the air. “Thallex,” the being said with the faintest curve of civility. “Come in. Sit. This will be a long conversation.”

Something in the tone — not command, not invitation, but inevitability — made his pulse quicken. He stepped forward, the doors sealing behind him with a finality that set his teeth on edge. He barely had time to lower himself into the waiting seat when the walls themselves seemed to ripple.

The doors were gone. Smooth plating stretched where they had stood, as if the exit had never existed at all. And from the corners of the room, tall shapes unfolded with the hiss of weapons charging.

Thallex froze. They were constructs, alien in design — mantis-limbed, upright, every line of their forms honed to lethal purpose. Their arms unfurled, ending in blades that shimmered with the sickly light of energy fields. Not servitors. Not automata of Mars. Something other, and infinitely more precise.

Every one of them was aimed at him.

“Curious things, aren’t they?” MC’s voice was velvet laid over steel, each syllable placed with deliberate weight. He gestured toward the constructs with a flick of his long fingers, as though introducing old friends at a dinner table. “Elegant. Efficient. Rather like scalpels given legs. They are not here to frighten you, Thallex… though I imagine they’re doing a fine job of it.”

The Tech-Priest swallowed, the sound dry in his throat. “If you wished my death, you would not summon me first.”

“Oh, astute,” MC said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “But I have no interest in your death. Death is dull. Final. What interests me is your life — the choices that led you here, the roads you took and those you burned behind you. You begged to be judged, not so long ago.”

He lifted one hand, and a shimmer of light brought forth a recorded image. Thallex’s own voice echoed back at him, ragged and desperate, from just a short time ago. “I intercepted this image, long ago. I followed it when no one else cared, when no one else believed. I have been searching for you. Do you hear me? Do you see me, spirit? Do you weigh me and find me lacking?”

MC let the words fade. His gaze never wavered. “And now you have your chance. So tell me, Thallex. Who are you? Where do you come from?”

Thallex’s optics narrowed, a defensive whirr in his respirators. “You summon me here, demand answers as if I were some prisoner—”

MC cut across him like a razor. “Do you know the beauty of a power blade?” His voice softened, almost reverent. He lifted one hand, and between his fingers coalesced a twisted shard of metal — familiar, painfully so. A piece of Rynmark’s cruiser hull.

“A simple plate,” MC murmured, turning it so the chamber’s light traced its scars. “Strong enough to withstand void storms, to shrug off macro fire. The kind of steel that carries men between stars.”

He held it out. One of the constructs stepped forward in perfect silence. Its bladed limb descended in a single, unhurried arc. The fragment didn’t so much break as unravel — fibers parting, light sparking briefly along the wound — before the halves clattered to the floor with a sound that lingered too long in the chamber, as though even the metal remembered its death.

MC turned back to Thallex, his smile as thin as a blade’s edge. “Forgive me. A bit of theatre. But I did want you to understand… this is not a game. You may speak willingly. Or you may not. Either way, we will have the truth. And believe me when I say the easy way is far more pleasant for everyone involved.”

The constructs shifted closer, their blades humming faintly as their fields flared to life.

Thallex’s augmetics clicked, betraying the stutter of his heart. His gaze flicked from one weapon to another, then back to the alien enthroned before him. Whatever defiance he had gathered shriveled against that calm, terrible certainty.

His voice cracked when it came. “Very well.” He lowered his head. “Ask, and I will answer.”

——————— ✦ ———————

“I was born on Heliox,” Thallex began, voice low, hands folded tight in his lap. “A hive-world in Pacificus. You would not know it. One spire among thousands, choked with ash, its people stacked like wire in a coil. I was a prodigy, or so the priesthood told me. Quick with code, deft with calculus. They said I heard the Machine-God’s whispers clearer than most.”

His augmetic eye clicked faintly, focusing on some unseen memory. “I rose quickly. Too quickly. My peers called it favor, my superiors called it ambition. And then… the mistake.”

“You must understand I have always been gifted with analytics, seeing patterns and recognizing when things did not match where they should or vice-versa.” He hesitated. MC’s gaze did not waver.

“I stumbled across some data I should not have found. I hadn’t been looking for it. It had merely… appeared. A strange redaction in fleet resupply records. Identical checksum values repeated across three separate warzones. I pulled the thread, and it unraveled everything.

“Not just falsified inventory.
Not just missing assets.
Something deep, rotten, intentional.

“At first, I did what was logical. I assembled the data, cross-referenced it, indexed it by severity and relevance. But as I dug deeper, as the connections converged on a small cadre of higher-ranked Magi, something shifted inside me. Ambition.

“This—this could be leverage. Enough to prove my value. Enough to earn not just promotion, but respect. Fear, even. If I delivered this not as a dutiful report but as a bargaining chip, I could rise far above where my mentors had placed me.

“It was my first—and only—miscalculation.”

His mechadendrites twitched faintly as if recalling the sting. “I took my data to the wrong person.” He trailed off, voice hollowed by remembered pain and betrayal. “Within the week the evidence was gone, every trace scrubbed clean. And I was ‘reassigned.’ Officially guilty of ‘procedural overreach.’ So they shipped me off to the data vaults, stripped me of my name, archived me like any other report. Forgotten to gather dust and die silently. The rebranding seared away Thallex and replaced it with Theta-77 as if I were a malfunctioning servitor. They did not even grant me the dignity of a formal trial. Only the hiss of the brand against my skin, the stink of charred flesh, and the silence that followed. Even my prayers to the Omnissiah came back hollow after that.”

He fell quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice carried a flicker of old defiance. “Until the probe.”

The flicker of a machine-spirit’s signal at the end of nowhere, warped and faint. Most dismissed it as static. He saw elegance in its angles, intent in its design. He traced it, chased it, built his exile into purpose. In that pursuit he reclaimed the name they had stripped from him — Thallex — and left Theta-77 to rot in the vault. He had commanded servitors with falsified orders, rewritten clearance protocols until the doors opened like reluctant jaws, and slipped into the docks under cover of a maintenance shift. There, among the rusting hulks and half-forgotten vessels, he found berth aboard Rynmark’s cruiser — ostensibly another Tech-Priest tending its engines, in truth already steering it toward the signal he had seen in the void.

He had bribed and whispered, nudged and lied, weaving stories until Rynmark at last turned his warrant toward the path Thallex demanded. He had kept the dying ship alive, taught the crew enough to survive. And in the work, he had discovered something alien to his old self: he enjoyed it. Teaching. Sharing. Discovering together.

And then came the accident, the ruin, the gods enthroned before him.

At last his voice failed, leaving only exhaustion. “That is everything. My childhood. My failure. My exile. My escape. My lie. My truth. If you mean to end me, then at least let it be for the whole of me.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The council’s silence was terrible. MC did not stir. The constructs did not shift. Only the hum of their weapons filled the space.

He is broken, PE said, but the thought was edged not just with cold judgment but with something else — the faintest thread of weariness, almost pity. Obsessed. Such men cling to any flame, even if it burns them alive.

But he learns, Aceso countered. And he teaches. That is rare among the Mechanicus. He shares. That seed could be worth tending.
He lies, Vallis snapped. He manipulates. He bends others. What guarantee do we have he will not do it again?
None, MC answered. But risk is constant. And as he watched Thallex’s bowed head, there was no triumph in his thought, only a cool gravity. Better to bind his hunger to our cause than cast him loose to feed another.

At last MC spoke aloud. His voice was soft, almost conversational, but it carried through the chamber like a knife sliding across glass.

“Thallex… Have you ever heard the story of the clockmaker of Rhydon Hive? No? Ah, well, it’s a tragic little thing. He built a timepiece so perfect, so exquisitely balanced, that it kept its rhythm for seventy years without deviation. A marvel. But he grew proud. He stopped making clocks for his neighbors, stopped repairing the old ones, because he believed nothing else worthy of his hands. And so, when his masterpiece finally faltered—just a single tooth worn down—the people looked to him for aid. And he could not help them. He had forgotten how to mend what was broken.”

MC leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed, the faintest curve of a smile on his lips. “You, Thallex, and the Mechanicus itself, remind me of that clockmaker. Brilliant. Ambitious. And yet so consumed by your own design that you risk forgetting what truly matters. But here—here you have a chance to relearn. To fix. To teach others what you know, instead of burying it for leverage.”

The constructs receded into the walls, weapons fading into silence.

“You will remain here,” MC continued, tone sharpening like a scalpel. “You will be given every tool, every resource, to learn and to teach. Your knowledge will not be buried again. But you will be watched. Always. No secrets. No hidden paths. Accept that, and you may find more purpose here than you ever dreamed. Refuse, and you will discover that even the deepest vaults of Mars would feel like mercy in comparison. We are not gods, Thallex. We do not want worship. We want truth.”

For a moment Thallex only stared, disbelief and terror warring with relief. His augmetics shuddered as though every tension drained at once. He lowered his head, voice raw. “I… accept.”

“Good,” MC said, the smile lingering, as though he had known the answer all along. He turned back to the displays orbiting his throne, dismissing Thallex with the ease of a man closing a book. “Tomorrow we begin the designs for Rynmark’s cruiser. And at the same time, I will show you why your engines sing as they do. You will learn not only what to build, but why it works. And that, I promise you, is rarer than any artifact you have chased.”

The walls peeled open, the door reappearing where moments before there had been none.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex stumbled out, his gait uneven. Terror and elation churned in him in equal measure — a delirious relief, a gnawing awe. He had walked into the jaws of gods and emerged not as ash, but as something permitted to live. Was this freedom? Or another prison, gilded and vast, no less binding than the data-vaults he had fled?

The walk back to his quarters felt unreal, each step carried on legs that no longer seemed his own. The Ecumene’s corridors stretched and folded around him, lights flaring in sequence as though mocking his uneven pace. Every shadow whispered of the constructs he had seen, blades humming just beyond his vision.

When at last the door sealed behind him, the silence struck like a blow. He sagged against the bulkhead, augmetic fingers scraping the metal with a faint whine. His thoughts reeled — of the throne wreathed in impossible light, of the voice that had peeled back his life as though it were parchment, of the offer that was less mercy than a sentence. Was it any less a prison than the data-vault?

Perhaps not. But as the thought clawed at him, another surfaced — sharper, more dangerous. They had taken his purpose, stripped it bare, then handed it back to him reshaped, reframed. It was no longer his quest, his obsession. It was theirs now. And in that theft, they had bound him more tightly than chains ever could.
And yet… beneath the fear, something else stirred. A tremor of exhilaration, as sharp as it was shameful.

They had not killed him. More — they had given him a place. A purpose. The chance to learn from beings who bent reality as easily as he rewired a cogitator. The chance to teach again, to build something greater than the bones of forgotten probes.

He laughed once, a broken sound that cracked into silence almost immediately. Terrified. Elated. Uncertain if he had stepped into his redemption or into the cage of gods.

For now, it did not matter. For now, he was alive.

And that, he thought as he sank into the dark of his quarters, his mind casting prayers toward the Machine God, was enough.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 36: Foundations and Frontiers

Time had resumed the ordinary cadence of machines and breath. Outside the viewports of the Ecumene the shipyard climbed another rib into place, a silvered lattice unfurling like a fern. Binding fields shimmered along seam-lines as reinforcement nodes fused alloy at the grain; hard-light scaffold blossomed and folded while gravitic hands set the bones and subspace sutures tightened with a low, contented hum. PE’s voice arrived without preamble, as factual as a clock striking the hour.

“Ninety-seven hours to final completion,” he said. “All externals and internals. Shields and weapons included.”

I turned the number over in my mind. Not just hull plating and reactor shells — when he said final, he meant shields stitched tight across every surface, weapons arrays already keyed and hot, bays sealed and garrisoned. It meant the shipyard would breathe on its own.

Outside, the system was still a graveyard. We had cleared a fraction of the Ork wreckage drifting in orbit, but the rest hung on like rot in a wound — rust-bloated engines, snapped girders, continent-sized husks trailing scrap like entrails. The planets below were worse, a crust of rust and slag where Ork industry had sprawled unchecked.

The new yards ate it in mouthfuls, but even now the progress looked like a starving animal trying to devour a mountain. First cautious bites; now ravenous gulps, great masses of broken hulls and twisted towers dragged into its digestion bays to be stripped and smelted. Still, the feast had only begun.

“This,” I said, “is what we do with a mountain of scrap.”

The council chamber shimmered with slow-turning glyphs of starlight as the holotable bloomed to life. Lines of light unfurled upward, resolving into a spiral of city-discs threaded along a central spine. Each circle rotated with stately grace, immense and serene, like planets bound in orbit.

Paragon flicked through layers of detail. Atmospheres glowed faintly across each disc, rail lines spiderwebbed between districts, defense lattices flared in ghostly arcs. The projection’s light washed across the table, playing over Vallis’s scarred face.

“Maethrillian,” Paragon said. No embellishment. Just the name.

The word stirred something deep in me. The Capital. The old heart of the Forerunner Ecumene. Not a city, not even a world, but an edifice beyond scale — its central disc alone more than one hundred thousand kilometers across, broad enough to make a Halo ring feel small. The spirals of habitation that wound above and below it had once been home to trillions.

It had been fortress and court both. Around its core, layers of defenses had bristled: minefields strung like pearls across the system, weapon constellations nested in its shadow. It had anchored the fleets of the Ecumene, their slipspace lanes converging on it like veins to a heart.

Now its successor hovered above our table, a blueprint wrought from scrap. I had drawn it from the locked archives in my mind, cut down and reworked into something the galaxy of today might bear. Not a perfect echo, but enough to matter. Enough to endure.

“We cannot allow the debris to lie idle,” I said. “There is too much of it. Too much potential left rotting in orbit. Maethrillian is more than nostalgia. It is a blueprint for stability. For permanence.”

Vallis leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “You’d build a citadel from trash.”

“A citadel,” I agreed, “and a city. Something vast enough to anchor everything we are doing here. Every empire that has endured has built a heart for itself. The Imperium has Terra and all of its industry and defenses, it is the heart of the Imperium’s power and this will be ours.”

PE’s overlays ticked forward with his usual lack of drama. “First disc assembled with local metals and standing capacity. Once the scaffold is in place, subsequent discs fabricate in parallel. System shells deploy as they print. Habitation can begin behind the inner shields before the outer rings are complete.”

As I spoke, the projection shifted, Paragon overlaying shells of defense that rippled outward in concentric layers. Minefields, interdiction nets, weapon-satellite constellations. A curtain of Phase Iron to smother the warp itself, shields thick enough to drink the fury of stars. Docking rings that doubled as gun platforms.

The light painted the chamber in hues of blue and red, lines of fire cutting across our faces. For a moment, no one spoke. Even Vallis — who had seen Imperial hives and fortress-worlds beyond counting — only stared at the projection, his jaw tight.

Maethrillian. A Capital, reborn from a graveyard.

——————— ✦ ———————

The holo dimmed, leaving the ghost of Maethrillian’s spiral burning in after-images across our vision. Conversation settled into quieter currents, the sort that always came once the great visions had been laid out and the work of details began.

Vallis was the first to break the silence. “And what of my men?” His voice had the flat steadiness of a commander used to pressing the point until it yielded. “They’ve been drilling, recovering. They want to know if they still have a place in this… future you’re sketching.”

“They do,” I said, and meant it. “But you should know—we are closing in on finalizing the Novo-Humanis baseline. Within a month, embryos will be growing. They’ll carry the best of humanity’s genome and the stability of Astartes enhancements without the flaws. They’ll be born into their strength, not carved into it.”

Across the table, Aceso inclined her head, her voice precise and unwavering. “Gestation will run ten months. We could accelerate it, yes—but history shows embryos under artificial haste do not always respond well. This work is too delicate for corner-cutting. Not this time.”

“And the name?” Vallis asked. His gaze lingered on me. “Soldiers need more than a designation. They need something they can call themselves.”

I spread my hands. “Field usage has already begun to call them Novans. Officially, Homo sapiens novus — Project Novo-Humanis, Strain Theta-Vallis, Aceso Directorate. That will stand in the archives. But the living name…” I let the thought trail, then nodded. “Novans will do.”

For a moment, Vallis allowed himself the faintest smile, an entire sub-species of humanity bearing his name even if only officially and lost in some dusty archive.

I shifted the topic before it could grow sentimental. “How goes your selection of a planet to call your new home.”

He exhaled, a short shake of the head. “Deliberations continue. No world is chosen yet.”

“Then choose carefully,” I said. “Our first colonization vessel left three days ago. It’s carrying as much worldshaping equipment as we could load without compromising the hull—weather towers, catalytic sky-nets, hydrosphere injectors fed by comet haulers, soil builders, the usual scaffold.

“On a near-habitable rock, you’ll have air you can breathe and rain within six to nine months; by eighteen to twenty-four, full biomes stable enough to feed themselves. On a marginal world—cold, dry, thin—you’ll see shirtsleeves and staple crops within twelve to eighteen months, oceans and forests settling into rhythm by year three.

“On furnace-worlds, the ones wrapped in choking heat and chemical storms, we begin with orbital sunshades and atmospheric scrubbers. A year and a half to bring temperature and pressure down. Three to five years before you could call it a garden and not be lying.”

“The ship seeds, stabilizes, and moves on,” I said. “Automation finishes the work on rails while the towers hum. But hear me clearly: it handles regular worlds only. No Chaos. No Ork spores. Nothing soaked in the Warp. Those stay ours by design and by conscience.”

The projection ghosted across Vallis’s face, light catching in the old scar-lines and smoothing them into something almost ornamental. He didn’t react. I shifted the display until five candidate worlds settled into a neat arc. “You’ve seen the dossiers,” I said. “When you and your brothers are ready, the choice is yours.”

The data hung quiet and available behind them: climate bands, mineral skeletons, water locked in ice or rock, what the wind would taste like a year after we started. “We can tune the scaffold to whichever you name, but the sooner the decision, the fewer plates we’ll have to unbolt later.”

The holotable flickered again, this time showing sterile orbs wrapped in the glow of orbital arrays: catalytic towers for weather, injectors to crack ice into seas, sky-nets that scrubbed poisons and sowed rainclouds. One by one, worlds turning green in ghostly time-lapse.

The wheel was turning. And it would not stop.

——————— ✦ ———————

Five days turned the yard from promise to fact.

The shipyard was finished now, no longer a skeletal frame but a fortress in its own right, armored veins pulsing with power. It was already feeding on the graveyard at a pace that made my earlier metaphors feel small — not a glutton but an industrial god, tearing hulks and engines apart faster than any forge-world could ever have built them. Cargo reserves swelled, vast chambers filling with refined stock, both in the shipyard itself and in the Ecumene. Piles of wealth waiting for a purpose.

I made a note, quiet and private, to grant Rynmark access to some of it when the time came. A Rogue Trader could ferry those reserves into Imperial space, a million desperate worlds crying out for grain, steel, and medicine. I could not solve their problems yet — but I could send relief.

If only the senior officers would stop dragging the process down. Every council became a skirmish over the designs themselves — the placement of batteries, the layout of cargo vaults, the routing of power across decks. They argued as if we were still drawing lines on parchment instead of bonding advanced alloys into place.

Half the time they were revisiting points already settled, insisting we shift a reactor spine or add another flight deck, oblivious to the fact that the systems were already locked into the lattice. It was less engineering than posturing, rival factions trying to carve their names into the ship’s bones.

I didn’t have to guess at the cause. Sensors caught the inquisitorial agent at work, slipping whispers between rivals, fanning jealousies, making certain no session ended clean. Rynmark grew more exasperated by the day, though he bit it back. He could bark orders and browbeat his crew, but he couldn’t treat these officers the same way and still expect them to keep the machine of state turning.

The council debated long into the evening, chasing its own tail.

When at last the chamber emptied, the three of us lingered — Paragon, Aceso, and myself. The silence between us was heavy, the kind that comes only after too much noise.

“I fail to see the point of inviting them,” Paragon said at last, his voice as flat as ever but edged with something I had learned to recognize as contempt.

“They need to feel included,” Aceso answered. She was tidying her datapads with careful precision, though her expression betrayed the effort. “Even if they have nothing useful to add.”

I let out a breath. “At this rate, the ship will be complete twice over before they decide what shape it ought to take.” Thankfully, we had already committed to laying down the frame of a roughly Imperial-cruiser hull, if only to save time later. But if the bickering didn’t end soon, I half-imagined letting the lattice finish on its own and greeting them with the result: Here is your ship. We promised you one. Now take it and be gone from mine.

That was when Paragon’s form tilted, lights blinking in that way he had when a calculation fell into place. “What if the problem is not what they say, but why they are saying it?”

I frowned. “Meaning?”

“The inquisitorial agent has been feeding rivalries,” he said. “That much is clear. But consider this: what if the bickering is not meant to slow us down, but to keep us gathered here, occupied, so we do not look elsewhere?”

Aceso stilled. “Elsewhere?”

He looked between us, then spoke the words with mechanical calm. “A dead man’s beacon.”

The silence that followed was deeper than before.

We moved at once. Drones swept Rynmark’s cruiser from prow to keel until they found it — a black box buried in the hull, humming a constant pulse. It had been transmitting since departure, the kind of device that screamed its alarm not by sending a signal, but by falling silent.

We shut it down before the thought could fully settle. Paragon confirmed no whisper had escaped under his jamming net.

A short time later I studied the thing in my hands, its surface still warm, still trembling faintly as if in protest. “It can’t broadcast through the warp,” I said. “No. The last receipt would have been at the entry point, before the accident. That’s the only place it could have been heard.”

“That is an assumption,” Paragon replied, voice sharp. “And last time we assumed ‘it should be fine,’ we adopted a Tech-Priest.”

The words hung like a sentence. Aceso said nothing. I had no answer.

There was no debate. Production was diverted at once. The shipyard’s vast mouths now turned not only to stockpiling but to forging constellations of weapon-satellites, mine-belts, and interdiction nets, layering the system in shells of steel and fire. If anyone came looking, they would not find an easy prize — they would find a nut too hard to crack.

We all knew it was hope, not certainty. But sometimes hope is the only armor you have.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex taught in a room that smelled faintly of oil and warm copper, with one wall open to the void so his students could see the massive shipyard’s ever-hungry maw. The benches were plain, the tools honest gauges that told the truth when asked the right question, cutters that bit straight through if given the right angle. A discreet drone perched in the corner like a lantern, wings folded, watching. A reminder of the gilded cage he lived in, but also of the seed and water it provided. He had long since stopped minding.

He had begun these classes a few days ago and taught them each afternoon to different groups of the trader’s crew. Even some of the Astartes had joined. The afternoons were his for teaching; the mornings he spent seated in the same benches, a student under new masters. Paragon had drilled him in weapons and logistics until he could see the shape of battles in inventory lists. Aceso had turned cleanliness, medicine, and genetics into discipline instead of ritual. MC had made engineering a language, forcing him to learn enough to argue back. They had clashed more than once—lively, sharp debates on the merits and flaws of technology both human and alien. Even an Astartes had once stooped to explain the maintenance of his armor and weapons, and even with his basic grasp of engineering, Thallex had seen the inefficiencies in the warrior’s methods. Still, he had liked that lesson more than he expected.

Today’s subject was fusion devices.

“Hydrogen is cheap,” he said, stylus sliding across the screen, the words and lines digitizing instantly into Paragon’s waiting network. “Confinement isn’t. Stability is not a prayer; it’s a geometry.”

He drew a torus with the practiced hand of a man who once sketched rites instead of schematics, then laced it with magnetic field lines that bowed and tightened where he touched them. A cargo handler with rope-scored palms leaned forward, reverent. A Marine from Vallis’s cohort sat at the back, helmet hooked to his belt, elbows wide, paying attention like attention was a drill you could fail.

“Macro first,” Thallex said. “Because it’s easier to imagine a star you can stand inside.” He called up a hard-light cutaway of a full-scale fusion plant, a fortress folded in upon itself. “Here,” he tapped the fuel intakes, “we feed deuterium and tritium. Harmless alone—cousins of water. But squeeze them hard enough, and they do what stars do: fuse into helium and throw off more energy than you can imagine.”

He circled the glowing throat of the reactor. “This is plasma—the star we trick into living in a cage. It wants to melt through everything it touches. So we give it no walls, only fields.” He traced the lines again. “Magnetic confinement. Strong enough to hold a sun, gentle enough not to tear it apart.”

The diagram bloomed with coolant loops and divertor plates. “Every watt you steal from that star must be carried away, or the machine eats itself. Too much cooling and the flame dies, too little and it burns straight through. Balance is everything.”

He stepped back, letting the cutaway rotate, lines of heat and matter turning like veins. “That is the bargain of macro-fusion. We build cages that look like temples, and the only prayer is that the math holds.”

He still liked the old words—sanctum, reliquary, benediction—but not as charms. As reminders to keep his voice gentle where gentleness mattered.

With a flick of his wrist the macro plant shrank to a bead. The room leaned in. “Now micro,” he said, pleased at how the word tightened the air. “Because most of you will touch these first.”

A micro-reactor appeared above the table, the size of a fist. Its internals were nested like a puzzle box: micro-injectors seated on a ring, superconducting coils braided like filigree. The shipborne lights made the torus look alive.

“Most priests can’t make these anymore,” Thallex said, pride carefully absent from the words. “Not from raw feedstock. You can. Or at least in time you will. The geometry is the same, only tighter. Respect the lines, and it sings. Cheat them, and it explodes.”

He pulled an actual reactor from beneath the table and, with the holo-display above mirroring his bench, began to disassemble it piece by piece. He had done one under MC’s exacting gaze that morning; the memory steadied his hands now. Coils, injectors, wafer-thin divertors, capillaries like glass threads, a vial of doped coolant glowing soft as bottled dawn—he laid them all out with priestly care.

Then he drew out more units, enough for every student. “Now,” he said, “come forward. Each of you take one. We will do this together.”

They came: a dock worker with arthritis who could still thread a needle; the gunner, hands steady as if he were splicing rope under strain; the Marine, deliberate and unhurried, strength caged.

“Confinement dictates flow,” Thallex said, guiding the dock worker’s fingers as she set the first coil. “Flow dictates temperature. Temperature dictates lifespan. You’re not fighting heat—you’re guiding it to where it belongs. If you fight, you’ve already lost.”

He let the gunner align an injector by touch alone, then stopped him with a soft “There.” They both felt the click as the geometry closed like a sentence finally complete. “That feeling,” Thallex said. “Keep it. It will save you more than any blueprint.”

The Marine wrestled with the divertor. Thallex didn’t hurry him. “Ceramite forgives strength,” he said quietly. “This doesn’t. Rush, and you break what you mean to protect.”

When the last was assembled, the coils woke one by one. The fields knitted into a shape you couldn’t see but could feel—a gentle pressure. The torus bloomed. The room warmed.

“Listen,” he said. They did. The reactor sang at the edge of hearing, a thin, contented note. Thallex bled power into a turbine; a worklight spun up, spilling clean illumination over the benches.

“Ten of these, and a lab runs forever without stealing from a bay. A hundred, and a village lives. A thousand…” He paused, lips twitching at the thought. “Well, a thousand can move mountains.”

They broke for water and parcels that tasted faintly of the sharp smelling cleaner Aceso insisted on using everywhere. He was told it was called ‘lemon’, what an odd word. The drone in the corner never moved. Thallex looked at it and felt only the relief of a man watched and found worth keeping. He remembered the old itch, the yearning for the Machine-God’s answer, the hunger for a door to open—and thought, not without humor, that sometimes the door opened and you found not a throne but a classroom. It was not the glory he had imagined. It was better.

When they returned, he handed out torque wrenches, marked in both High and Low Gothic. “Learn both,” he told them. “High Gothic has the right words. Low Gothic often doesn’t. You won’t always have the proper tools. You’ll still have the work.”

He made the gunner teach the dock worker the seal pattern he’d just mastered. He made the Marine explain to the room why cleanliness of contact surfaces mattered, and watched him use Aceso’s phrasing without shame, because they were good words and worth keeping.

At the end, he powered the little reactor down. The field eased. The note faded. For a breath the students lingered in the quiet, then began to gather tools with the careful clatter of people who respected what they touched.

“Same time next shift,” Thallex said. “We do failure modes. I’ll break one. You’ll tell me what broke and how to fix it. If you cannot tell me why, we do not leave.”

They smiled the way tired people smile when they’ve done something clean and can feel it in their bones. The Marine picked up his helmet and paused. “Ser,” he said, the old title tasting less strange. “That… sound. The singing.”

Thallex considered, then allowed the answer he would not have given a year ago. “It’s resonance,” he said. “The fields and the plasma fall into step, and the noise cancels until all you hear is the balance itself.”

The Marine grunted, satisfied, and followed the rest out into a corridor that smelled of steel and crisp air, not sour bilge or dry dust. Thallex lingered, resting his hand on the cooling reactor. Not to bless it. Not to own it. Only to thank it for doing what they asked.

He was a bird in a cage, yes. But it was a gilded cage, and what a cage it was. Not the glory he had once imagined. But it was a purpose. And for now, that was enough.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso’s bays filled the way a harbor does when the weather turns fair—slow, steady, without fuss. Old injuries came to be set right: a shoulder that had healed wrong and refused to unlearn it, a wrist that clicked in the cold, a scar across a ribcage that tugged like bad stitching. She wore the white coat like a promise and kept it, one patient at a time. She remembered who needed silence, who needed a joke, who only needed a steady hand on theirs. She even pressed a steaming cup into the palms of a cargo handler whose skin was lined with old burns, and sat with him while he drank.

But there was a pattern. Again and again, her patients spoke of a hollowness. A coldness that settled in their chests, or behind their eyes, or in the marrow of their bones. They excused it away: the shock of survival, the strangeness of the Ecumene, the long silence of space. Trauma. Nothing more. It wasn’t the wounds that repeated, it was the words. Cold, they said when she asked how they were feeling. Not fever-cold—inside. Hollow, one muttered, embarrassed as if the word was too much. Thin, another said, like something had been scraped out between bone and breath. None were dizzy. None were starving. Sleep held. Drills still ran. But the same language of absence came back again and again, from mouths that had no reason to share it.

She wrote it all down on a pad that looked like paper, because sometimes the right tool needed to look ordinary.

When she had enough, she changed her approach. The medframes purred as she pushed the scans deeper, past the point you’d use to check bone-knitting. The coils hummed, the arrays MC had hidden in the walls came to life. She added her own filter—tuned to the faint psychic pressure every living thing leaks without noticing, the way you forget the sound of your own breath.

The numbers came back lower than they should have been.

The readings were consistent: falling levels of warp energy in every body she examined. Not exhaustion, not malnutrition. A slow drain. At the same time, the Phase Iron that lined every corridor and bulkhead showed elevated activity in their presence, like a lattice alive and drinking.

Was it dangerous? That was the question. Was it stripping away poison, siphoning the excess warp-radiation this galaxy steeped in everything? Or was it bleeding something vital, leeching the very spark that made humanity endure?

The bodies remained healthy. They ate, they slept, they healed faster than before. On the surface, they were well. And yet the refrain continued: I feel hollow.

Aceso flagged her findings and sent them to the council, marked urgent. Then she stood in the quiet of her bay and watched the current patient leave. The lights hummed softly. The Phase Iron in the walls gleamed faintly, almost as if it were listening.

For the first time, she wondered if the cure might not be a sickness of its own.

Then she reactivated her holo-suit and went to the next patient waiting with a finger that hadn’t closed right since a door crushed it three captains ago.

——————— ✦ ———————

We reconvened three hours after Aceso’s packet hit our queues. The chamber hadn’t fully cooled from the last meeting; the table still held the faint warmth of palms and armor. Aceso stood with her hands light on the rim, the way she did when she was about to say something careful.

“It’s real,” she said. “Small, consistent, and not an aberation. Ambient warp-energy signatures trend down in living subjects. Phase Iron tick up in response when people are within a meter. No functional deficits, just the self-reports you’ve already seen reported—cold, hollow, thin.”

The silence that followed had weight. Paragon tilted his head a fraction, calculating. Vallis sat forward slowly, his jaw set.

“I did not detect this in testing,” I admitted. “Every trial I ran showed stability. But I had no living subjects then. Only instruments.”

Vallis nodded once. “The symptoms are real. My men feel it too. Hollowed, as if something has been scooped out of them. No weakness in drills. No failure in duty. But the feeling is there.”

Aceso’s tone was steady, but her words were iron. “This is more than feeling. It is measurable. And it is spreading.”

Paragon broke the silence. “The simplest model is also the most probable. The human soul is the interface through which warp phenomena touch matter. Phase Iron drains ambient warp energy. Therefore it drains the surplus leaking through every living soul. The question is whether this is waste… or essence.”

PE ghosted a new overlay above the table: Aceso’s anonymized cohort on one side; a schematic of the station’s Phase Iron densities on the other; a third plane that looked like weather—slow isobars of pressure mapping through living quarters and workspaces. “Consider the soul,” he said, not piously but as if he were naming a component. “An interface membrane. In this galaxy the Warp touches matter through it. In an environment saturated with Phase Iron, the lattice is doing what it was built to do—absorbing flux.

Aceso nodded. “I don’t know yet if this is good or bad. It could be removal of a constant irritant that this universe taught you was normal. It could be erosion of something you need. I don’t have a threshold where function bends.”

PE dimmed the overlays. “One more thing,” he said, softer, as if speaking to himself and to the room. “We should expect secondary effects. Dreams may change. Liturgical responses may feel different. If anyone begins to seek… substitutes, we need to know before a pattern is set.”

Aceso’s mouth tightened just enough to register that she had thought of the same thing and disliked it. “I’ll add a quiet question to my intake,” she said. “We’ll keep it between myself and command unless it becomes a safety issue.”

“Good,” I said. “Then we stand where we are. Measure. Map. No rhetoric.”

The meeting broke not with a bang but with the practiced economy of people returning to work. Vallis left to speak to his chaplain and his sergeants.

——————— ✦ ———————

It was some time later that PE called a meeting of us all again. PE, Aceso, Vallis and myself finally gathered in the council chamber and PE immediately set to work explaining his news. He put a new sky over the table—no cities, no shells—just the black edge of the galactic rim with a dusting of cold stars and, threaded through them, a stain that moved.

“Probe returns,” he said. “Signature match suspected Tyranid bio-fleets. Early spread. Just touching the edge of the galaxy, just barely emerging from dark space.”

He expanded the frame. Countless organisms moved in silent coordination, their wakes etching the void with chemical spoor. The shapes were varied—some the size of frigates, others as large as city blocks, all bound by the same hunger. A hive fleet, though smaller than the stories, a splinter perhaps. Still enough to drown systems if it was allowed to fatten.

“Strike window?” I asked.

“This is our window,” Paragon said. His voice was sharper than usual, a cold anticipation threading through it. “Catch them on the rim, before they anchor on prey. Test the Ecumene against them. No distractions. No excuses.”

Aceso’s eyes didn’t leave the display. “Are you going to use the pulse?”

“No,” I said, and let the word stand until it had its own weight. “The Orks were proof-of-concept, nothing more. We are not in the business of sterilizing because it’s elegant. And if the Hive Mind is what the records say it is, repeated exposure will teach it. Neurons can be hardened. Patterns calcify. We’d be writing our own countermeasure for them.”

PE’s lights dipped in a gesture that was almost a bow. “Conventional annihilation, then.”

“You wanted a straightforward fight,” I said. “Take it. Guns, lances, nets. Clean up what’s left.”

Vallis’s mouth made the line that meant he approved of a plan and would not say so just to hear himself. “My men will be ready to board anything that tries to live through it.”

“Good,” I said. The projection pulled back until the stain was a smudge again, a bruise at the galaxy’s lip. “We go before it fattens. PE, lock coordinates and start the briefings. Aceso, pre-stage triage and quarantine in case anything decides to be clever. We keep the pulse on the shelf and our hands off it.”

PE closed the sky with a small sound like a hatch sealing. The room felt cleaner without the stain in it. Somewhere beyond steel and vacuum a fleet we had never fought was reaching for its first mouthful, and we were already turning to meet it.

——————— ✦ ———————

We pulled the room wide and let the table become a sea of red and blue. PE ran the brief like the battle commander he was—objectives first, then the lines of advance and withdrawal. Kill boxes nested within interdiction grids; gravity wells seeded like mines to foul the larger organisms; a lattice of point-defense drawn like overlapping fields of fire to cut spores before they ever kissed our shields.

We were planning on intercepting them at the edges of a system they had just wandered into.

As a courtesy, we had invited lord trader Rynmark and Thallex to the briefing to keep them up to date.

Thallex stood with his hands clasped behind his back and asked the questions a line officer with an engineer’s mind should: how fast can we cycle the lances without spiking our own heat signature; where are the reserve tanks if a plasma throat chokes under load; whose hands are on the trip-lines, and what happens if hesitation costs us the detonation.

“Boarding contingencies?” Vallis said.

“Three,” PE answered, and threw the options into the air like cards. “First, our point defenses should be able to destroy anything that even comes close, and the shields should stop anything from passing through them regardless. Our second is our warriors, all of whom have been awakened and are standing ready throughout the ship, except in the areas near where the refugees are quartered. We hoped you, Captain Vallis, and your men might be willing to guard near the refugees to make them feel more comfortable. Our third layer of defense is one I would rather keep to ourselves, but suffice it to say that if we do need to activate it, nothing short of ship-level hulls and shielding would protect anything inside its range of influence."

Vallis’s mouth made the small line that meant agreement. “My men will be where you want them. If something needs to be killed from the inside, we won’t make a mess that spreads.”

Rynmark had been standing with that careful, quiet posture that says a man knows the value of his voice and intends to spend it only once. He glanced at the stain of the fleet, then at the count of lives aboard my hull, then back to me. “All of my people are here,” he said, almost mild. “If this goes wrong, there are no lifeboats. I am not in the habit of wagering families on mathematical analysis.”

“It won’t be mathematics,” PE said, quicker than I would have, not as a comfort but as a correction. “We don’t test in the field. We do in the field what we already know will work.”

Rynmark didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on mine because he knew where the decision lived. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then I will have failed them twice,” I said. “Once for tearing the veil and once for dragging them to see if my penance can do arithmetic.”

He held that a heartbeat, then let it go. “I will still need something I can point to when I explain why we’re leaving the shell of a system that has become… tolerable.”

“Cargo,” I said, because I had already written the note to myself and because some truths are cheap to say if you mean them. “Priority goods and priority loading for a dozen trips once we are back—a corridor cut for you alone. Food, medicines, machinery, tools, seed-stock, we will even take special requests.”

Rynmark’s shoulders loosened a fraction, the way a knot admits the existence of slack. “And if I ask for crews to help unload at destination?”

“You’ll have them,” I said. “If you’re feeding a world, you don’t wait for a dockmaster with a stamp.”

He looked down at the map again. There was a kind of hunger in it that I recognized; the good kind, the kind that wants to be the man who brought the right ship at the right hour. “Then we’re agreed,” he said. “Get me back to my decks before you leave. I have a list to write that begins with the words ‘fresh baked bread.’”

He smiled, the small real smile of a man who had struck a good deal. PE folded the projections down until only the bones of the plan remained—timers, vectors, the places where men would stand and the places where machines would stand instead.

“Final checks in six hours,” he said. “Briefings cascade in two. Weapons hot at T-minus one. Slipspace at your word.”

Vallis looked at his sergeants, at the men who would make the plan true by carrying it. “Armor, then chapel,” he said. “In that order.”

They moved like a ceramite tide, steadily emptying from the room towards their quarters. Rynmark paused at the door and glanced back at the stain on the far edge of the galaxy. “If you intend to make a habit of this,” he said dryly, “I will require a better clothing so as to look my best after your victory.”

“Ask for two sets,” I said. “We wouldn’t want you to lack in style.”

We left exactly when PE said we would, six hours after the end of the briefing.

Vallis’s cohorts took their places without ceremony. Rynmark’s people vanished into their quarters like blood returning to a heart. The sections away from where our refugees were kept were filled with our own mechanical soldiers each one prepared to tear apart any intruder.

“Slipspace on your word,” PE said.

“Engage,” I answered, smiling to myself unable to avoid the joke, and the stars folded.

The hop was short and clean; we came out on the bruise-colored fringe of the galaxy where the light thins and distances forget how to behave. The stain we had watched in the council chamber was here in the flesh—hive-ships like knots of gristle, feeder arms unfurling like mold, spoor clouds glittering like bad snow around them. Our firing plots bloomed across the dome in calm geometry.

“Unexpected contacts,” a PE said, too steady to be surprised. “Multiple. Not ours. Not Imperial.”

“Necron,” I said, before the algorithms could finish arguing with themselves. Their ships were unmistakable. Scythe‑class harvest ships with crescent wings that drank starlight, Cairn‑class tombships shaped like blade‑edged monoliths, and the leaner Jackal escorts that knifed between them. They looked less built than imposed—hulls of living metal that blurred the line between void and matter, sharp arcs traced in emerald light. They revealed themselves only when they chose, green fire sketching outlines the eye could finally hold onto.

Emerald lances cut through Tyranid flesh like surgeons with no wasted motion. Flensing beams peeled carapace with the indifference of a butcher skinning meat. Their formations didn’t posture or feint—they simply were, locked into patterns that made sense the moment you saw them, inevitable as falling stone.

“Where did they come from?” Aceso asked, sharp and low. “How did we miss them?”

PE’s lights flickered. “The probe passed out of system three hours ago. They must have slipped in during the gap. Their drives are unlike any I have seen before so I would not have recognized their incoming wake.”

“They are already engaging,” PE noted, as if remarking on the weather.

“They’re winning,” Vallis added, which was not praise so much as adjustment to reality.

The signal cut in as cleanly as a door opening on a latch you’d oiled the week before—unbidden and alarmingly without request, seizing the channel by right. A face resolved: metallic, severe, carried with the composure of a general who assumed the field was his by default. The voice that followed bore the weight of command, the clipped cadence of drill, and the peculiar warmth of a commander who still, against all odds, enjoyed the business of war.

“I am Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty,” he said, voice carrying the clipped cadence of drill and the weight of long command. “Nemesor of the Sautekh host. General of the Phalanx Legions. Veteran of campaigns uncounted across three galactic ages. Presently prosecuting this theater under Thokt auspices.”

The words rolled like banners in a parade, not boast but formality, each a marker of authority carried from age to age. His head inclined a degree, the battlefield reflected in the polished planes of his face. “Where have you been—and are you just going to sit there or help us win this battle?”

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 37: Echoes of the War in Heaven

The Tyranids boiled across the void in their usual fashion, a tide of carapace and chitin straining against the black. Spore-clouds fanned outward, escorts swarming in protective knots around the swollen bulk of hive-ships. It was the kind of infestation I could respect; I knew never to underestimate hunger that thinks—but today, there was no real danger. Not with us here. And not with the unexpected ally who we had stumbled across.

The transmission had come without request, and without context, a voice as calm and assured as if we’d been coordinating for months. A Necron voice—smooth, formal, touched with an echo of the past.

Nemesor Zahndrekh.

I knew the name at once. My memory supplied what I had read in my past life: a commander out of step with his own time, a warlord convinced he still wore flesh, that he still marched with blood in his veins. His fractured perceptions reshaped every battle around him, and those beneath his banner obeyed as if his delusions were fact.

He thought we were his allies.

We had no choice. I didn’t know how the Ecumene would measure against Necron fleets if tested directly. They were one of the few races I treated with genuine caution—ancient, vast, and armed with sciences even the Forerunner had never touched. Their gauss weaponry: those sickly green beams that unmade matter atom by atom. Their chronomancy: not true time travel, but enough to stagger a foe in slowed time, leaving them to be slaughtered as if wading through hip-deep mud. Their phase-shifting: the ability to walk through solid matter as though it had never existed. Their inertialess drives: not merely compensating for inertia, as we do, but denying its very laws.

And above all, the technology I most coveted—anti-Warp systems and blackstone. Phase Iron was a triumph, a tool that unstitched the Warp from reality, but blackstone had been born in the War in Heaven itself, forged to resist the greatest psychic predators this galaxy had ever known. Whatever refinements lay in that design, they would surely make Phase Iron even more potent than it already was.

I didn’t hesitate. A pulse of thought translated into coms to Vallis carried my decision: We roll with it. Don’t contradict him. Play the part. Then another signal to Paragon of Eden: Integrate them. Assume alliance. Work their formations into your calculus and act as though this had been planned all along.

Zahndrekh’s fleet shifted in line, their maneuvers flowing around us as if by prior arrangement. PE seized the rhythm instantly, folding their formations into his own strategy without resistance.

As though on cue the Tyranid swarm began to tighten up, an instinctive response to an unexpected change in plans and seeing such a large ship appear so suddenly.

“Center line,” PE announced, internal lights flashing as his calculations sped up. “Straight through.”

The Ecumene’s immense frame tilted forward, gravitic arrays compressing as we built impossible momentum. To the Tyranids it must have looked like a moon had decided to take offense, a fortress-mass bearing down on their core with suicidal certainty.

Our weapons thundered the moment range closed, fire lashing outward even as we built impossible speed. Then the impact came. Shields around the Ecumene flared to life. Chitin shattered. A dozen escort organisms crumpled in our wake, the ram-shock scattering them like driftwood in a flood. Our torsion drivers spoke in thunderclaps; particle lances and energy projectors seared hive-ships apart. The Necrons moved with eerie precision at our flanks, scything beams of emerald energy cutting through bioconstructs as if Zahndrekh had choreographed the entire exchange in advance.

The swarm lasted minutes. Perhaps less. Against such force there was no real contest.

When silence returned to the void, I allowed myself a moment’s pause, letting myself slowly drift backwards from the bank of interfaces I had been manipulating. Breathing space.

And then the screen lit again, without request, without handshake. Zahndrekh’s form shimmered into being across the command hololith, regal in bearing, armored as if he were still a general of flesh and blood. That he could do this at all—breach the Ecumene’s systems without so much as a knock—set my tendrils on edge. The shipmind should have blocked it. I would be having words with him, stern words.

“Well struck!” Zahndrekh declared, as though we had always been comrades, as though this was a campaign shared across centuries. “A clean victory, and one well-fought. You and yours have my thanks. I owe you a boon, ally.”

The word twisted in my chest. Ally. Dangerous word, dangerous implication. But I forced calm into my posture, thinking fast.

“If it pleases you,” I said, voice smooth as water over stone, “then permit us the honor of offering our thanks to your lords. It is no small thing to have marched at your side, and we would express our gratitude properly.”

A pause. The Necron’s head tilted slightly, as though listening to voices no one else could hear. At last, he inclined it in solemn agreement.

“Very well. You shall meet with those I represent. Their audience is yours. Coordinates will follow. Time is short, but sufficient.”

He vanished before I could respond. Already his fleet was angling toward the shadow of a nearby gas giant, their silhouettes shrinking—and then, with a ripple of unnatural geometry, gone. Vanished into Dolmen Gate transit, slipping sideways into the stolen arteries of the Webway.

I sat in silence, tendrils slack, the ship’s systems humming faintly around me, the void suddenly empty.

“Well,” I murmured, mostly to myself. “That could have gone worse.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The coordinates Zahndrekh had provided would take us deep into the Segmentum, far beyond the bubble of systems we had mapped and catalogued. Slipspace would make the journey brief—mere hours at most—but I knew the real measure of time was how we used the interval.

“Two fleets,” I told PE. “Divert the shipyard at once. The capital system needs a shield—something heavy, something that can remain when we’re gone. Defensive fleet, full bastion posture. At the same time, spin up an explorer group. They’re to resume the Ecumene’s original mandate: probe runs, deep scans, beacons planted in the stellar cores. That work has languished long enough while we’ve been pinned here guarding the shipyard.”

His acknowledgment came in the way only PE could manage, a ripple of approval across the tactical overlays. Already the lattice of projections shifted, dividing into future lines of battle and chains of slipspace lanes.

Before the next order could settle, Aceso’s voice cut in. “I require specimens.”

I turned, already uneasy. “Specimens?”

“Tyranid biomatter,” she clarified. “Fresh samples. I wish to dispatch probes to retrieve samples for research.”

PE’s denial arrived first—terse, absolute, a stream of counterarguments compressed into a single burst of encrypted code—while mine came aloud. “No. Not unless you keep them under Flood-level containment. Nothing less.”

Aceso met my gaze without flinching. “Agreed. The Tyranids are not the Flood, but caution is never wasted.”

“And why,” I asked, tendrils drawing in close, “do you want them at all?”

Her answer was maddeningly reasonable. “Their genomes exhibit unparalleled adaptive architecture. If studied properly, we may be able to repurpose fragments of that plasticity into the Novan baseline—give them greater environmental resilience, broader adaptability. It would be… an inheritance of survival.”

I hesitated. The argument had weight, but my mind ran down darker lines. “Simulations only,” I said at last. “Models, projections, no live grafts. I won’t risk their minds. We don’t know how the Hive coordinates its spawn. We know it happens through synapse creatures, through some psychic skein still beyond us. What I don’t know is whether Novans carrying Tyranid sequences, if ever exposed to the Hive Mind, could be subverted by it. And then we’ve accomplished nothing but our own undoing.”

“I understand,” Aceso said. There was no resistance in her tone, only calm acknowledgment. She had her concession; that was enough.

We waited then, time marked by the slow return of the probes. Fragments of chitin and marrow, sacs of alien fluid sealed in stasis, all of it drawn into containment vaults wrapped in every safeguard we could conjure. PE and I monitored each retrieval, watching for the smallest anomaly, while Aceso catalogued her prize with a quiet satisfaction that set me even more on edge.

At last the last probe docked. The holds were sealed.

The slipspace aperture unfolded around us, invisible to all but our own sensors, and the Ecumene leaned into translation. The stars folded, bent, and disappeared, and we fell into the path Zahndrekh had set.

——————— ✦ ———————

Slipspace spit us out over a world that was anything but quiet. The planet below bore scars of blue fire, geometric lines etched into its crust, glimmering even from orbit. Tomb complexes pierced the surface like black glass mountains, and the orbit above it bristled with the shapes of Necron vessels. Some hung still, statues against the void; others drifted with unsettling silence, angular hulls gliding as if frictionless. Lattices of orbital structures girded the system, and in the distance I thought I saw entire planetoids hollowed and armed.

We had come into the heart of the Thokt Dynasty.

No sooner had our drives stilled than a signal intruded—uninvited, unfiltered. Zahndrekh’s image sprang into being, smiling faintly as though we had stepped into his drawing room. “I am glad you have arrived!” he said, voice rich with a warmth that ignored the metallic echo beneath it. A third feed bled into the hololith without transition.

The figure who appeared alongside him was no ordinary warrior. The body gleamed with plates like obsidian glass chased in silver, shoulders capped with serrated crests of living metal, and a crown wrought into a halo of glyphs floated above his skull. Ornamentation, posture, the stillness of command—it was obvious: a Phaeron of the Thokt.

Zahndrekh turned toward him. “And here, my honored ally—ah. Forgive me, I have not yet asked their name.” He gestured awkwardly, as though the lapse embarrassed him.

I inclined myself forward, choosing the words carefully. “We represent the Forerunner Ecumene in this galaxy. It is an honor to stand before you.”

The phrasing was deliberate. Let them draw their own conclusions about how far from home we truly were.

Zahndrekh’s smile widened, satisfied. “There! Properly done. I will leave you to it.” And with no further preamble, his line dissolved, leaving only the Thokt Phaeron fixed upon us.

If the Nemesor had dismissed us as one of his delusions or memories, the Phaeron clearly had not. The blue glow of his eyes sharpened as he studied our vessel, our signal, our very presence. “When Zahndrekh claimed he brought allies,” he said, voice like stone ground to dust, “I assumed another fiction. Yet your… arrival spoke otherwise. You do not walk the skeins of the Dolmen Gates. You cut through the void by a method unseen in this galaxy.”

The way he said it sent a ripple through me—interest curdled with hunger. It was not open hostility, but something worse: the clinical curiosity of a dissector poised over his specimen. I had known it would be a risk to meet with the dynasty I remembered as the most technologically advanced of the Necrons, but then, this entire galaxy was a risk.

PE’s voice ghosted across my private channel. “Analysis: the Necrons’ performance against the Tyranids indicates overwhelming efficiency. Probability: we can withstand their fleets, but long-term engagement not advised. Recommend immediate withdrawal if hostilities occur. Note: orbital platforms and armed planetoids detected. Lethality rating: extreme.”

I filed the warning away.

“We came,” I said carefully, “because Zahndrekh seemed to mistake us for comrades. We thought it best to pay respects to avoid misunderstanding. But more than that—we came seeking allies. This galaxy is vast. Dangerous. None can stand alone forever.”

The phaeron did not reply at once. He remained still, eyes like twin coals fixed on me. To a human, the pause might have passed for hesitation; to me, it was calculation. And the longer the silence stretched, the clearer it became—he was weighing matters with immense care, his thoughts grinding through possibilities like gears of black stone.

At length, he spoke. “Once, I might have answered you alone. But the galaxy changes. Our Silent King has returned from exile. We have renewed our vows to him, and by his will we are guided.”

The words made something coil in my chest. The Thokt were one matter—dangerous, advanced, but approachable. The Silent King was another altogether.

My memory reached back to fragments from my past life: articles read in idle hours, half-remembered stories from the pages of a galaxy that was fiction then and now stood before me as fact. Szarekh—the Silent King. It was he who had led the Necrontyr into the bargain with the C’tan, binding his people to the necrodermis shells that granted immortality but stripped away their souls. It was he who turned that same genius to betrayal, shattering the star-gods into shards when their tyranny grew unbearable, binding those pieces in prisons of living metal. He had saved his people from one slavery only to lock them into another, condemning them to endless undeath in the name of survival.

And then, guilt or shame or both had driven him into exile. He had fled beyond the bounds of the galaxy, leaving his people to slumber while the stars turned cold. In the stories I remembered, his return was meant to herald something greater—unity, purpose, a final destiny for the Necron race.

If those stories were true, then every dynasty, from the smallest sepulchre world to the great Phaeronic courts, owed him allegiance once more. He was the architect of the War in Heaven, the executioner of gods, and the one being who could marshal the Necrons as a single will. Yet memory also told me that not all dynasties recognized his return—some still clung to their own autonomy, ignoring his summons out of pride, madness, or inertia. But whether they acknowledged him or not, the fact remained: if Szarekh now walked the stars again, then the Necrons had a master. A master who would not be trifled with.

“When may we expect his reply?” I asked.

The phaeron tilted his crowned head. “Not soon. He is across the galaxy, imposing order on others who have strayed. We will send word, but do not hope for swiftness.”

“Then perhaps, in the meantime,” I pressed, “there is some lesser accord we can share? A study. A trade. Even cooperation.”

He shook his head. “Until the Silent King decrees it, we are bound by protocol. We cannot.”

I pressed once more. “What then would weigh well with him? What would cast the idea of alliance in a favorable light?”

Another pause, longer this time, then: “Several of our core worlds are infested with Orks. Our long sleep has left our defenses… impaired. If you would aid us—eradicate the infestations or ferry our legions—you would be noted. Favorably.”

I did not hesitate. “Then we will do so. Send us the coordinates.”

Data bled across the link—systems, access codes, keys to tomb defenses that upon explanation would allow us access into their depths past their automated defenses. More trust than I expected, though I knew enough not to mistake it for true openness. Their internal guardians would not be so easily deceived.

The line cut. Silence.

“A reckless agreement,” PE said at once. “And tactically unsound.”

“And necessary,” Aceso added, her tone sharper than usual.

I spread my tendrils in what passed for a shrug. “This gives us access. We can study their technology up close, under a plausible pretext. Otherwise, we would be scouring dead worlds, hoping for scraps. Better this.”

PE’s tone softened only slightly. “Unexpected that they would give us tomb access codes.”

“It isn’t,” I answered. “They treat the galaxy as primitives. Enemies. We’ve proven we’re neither. That earns a measure of trust. Besides…” I let the thought linger. “If we overstep, their tombs will likely consume us. Codes or no codes.”

We withdrew then, the Ecumene sliding back into slipspace. Not directly home—never directly—but through a labyrinth of translations, scattering our trail across sectors, even flinging ourselves halfway across the galaxy before looping back. It consumed time, but better wasted time than a Necron dynasty tracing our path to its source.

I spent the entire passage locked in discourse with Aegis Custodian.

“You let him in,” I said, tendrils lashing the interface. “He shouldn’t have been able to breach so much as a relay handshake, yet he walked through my ship as though it were his own.”

“The intrusion was of a sophistication beyond modeled parameters,” Aegis replied, his tone still level but with a faint edge, like steel forced to bend. “Defensive routines engaged as designed. I did not—”

“Excuses,” I cut him off. Every jump, every transition, I pried deeper into his code, pulling apart safeguards, discarding redundancies, layering in my own corrections. Loops tightened, filters hardened, subroutines cross-linked. He would not be caught unaware again.

“You are… rewriting my command architecture,” Aegis observed.

“Upgrading,” I snapped. “While reminding you that failure will never be repeated. You are the Custodian of the Ecumene, and I expect vigilance worthy of the name.”

There was silence then, broken only by the hum of the drives. I could feel his presence retreat slightly, processes reorienting under my edits, as though even an AI could flinch under censure.

I pressed on, relentless. “Zahndrekh bent his will across my ship once. That was your lapse. It will not happen twice.”

“Acknowledged,” Aegis said at last, his tone edged with something I hadn’t heard before—strain, or perhaps humility forced into machine cadence.

In the silence that followed, I felt PE’s awareness brush against mine. He had been present the entire time, not interfering, not correcting—merely observing. No rebuke, no defense of Aegis. Only that quiet scrutiny of his, cataloguing how I chose to handle the situation. It was a reminder that in this ship, even when I spoke alone, I was never truly without an audience.

When at last we returned, the Ecumene’s foundries awoke with renewed purpose, matter-recyclers and assembly vats glowing with the labor of creation. Rivers of molten alloy poured through hard-light conduits, sparks cascading in showers as new keels took shape inside the scaffold. We had arrived deliberately at the system’s edge, near a dense cluster of Ork wrecks that would have taken days to haul to the main yards. Feeding them directly into the Ecumene was faster, cleaner, and efficient. Already the fortress was drawing in orbital scrap on its tractor beams, while the fleet of tugs that had once served only the shipyard and refinery had their schedules reworked to supply the Ecumene as well.

I had altered my plans. Three fleets would not simply be useful—they were essential.

The capital’s bulwark would be a fortress fleet, a wall of steel and fire strung across the capital system. Every class of ship we possessed would have its place there—battleships to anchor the line, cruisers and destroyers to maneuver in the gaps, frigates to swarm and harry, and platforms fixed in orbit to serve as immovable bastions. It would not be swift, nor elegant, but it would endure. A line meant to stand, bleed, and hold.

The explorers’ reach would be built leaner: cruisers to range far, survey tenders to sift through dust and ruin, corvettes outfitted with advanced sensors, beacon layers, and slipspace probes. Their task was not battle but endurance—pushing deeper into the dark, mapping the lattice of stars, seeding each one with watchful eyes.

And the escort arm would be ours, a blade at the Ecumene’s side. Its core would form around titans and battleships, heavy enough to strike at any foe, with cruisers and destroyers to lend reach and flexibility, and frigates to fill the gaps. A fleet balanced to fight, to cut, and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ecumene itself.

PE’s projections filled the hololith—tonnage, formations, estimates of resource draw. To overwhelm the Thokt entire was still beyond us. But to equal Zahndrekh’s hand? That was attainable. And with a fleet like that, few in this galaxy would be able to challenge us.

Three fleets, then: the capital’s bulwark, the explorers’ reach, and the Ecumene’s escort. Steel, light, and will.

For the Orks were waiting, and this time we would meet them at the heart of a tomb.

——————— ✦ ———————

The shipyards pulsed with new life, their latticework scaffolds glowing as matter-reconstruction lines poured out the bones of fleets yet unborn. PE’s attention was already drifting outward, past the forge-heat of creation, into the dark between stars. A portion of my own mind was already devoted to the shipborne AIs these vessels would need—support intelligences built to operate beneath PE’s overarching command. This time, though, I wove into their cores every safeguard I had just carved into Aegis Custodian, ensuring from the first breath that they would resist interference. Even Necron interference.

Probes slipped from the Ecumene’s launch bays in silent waves, hundreds of them, slipspace vanes flaring as they vanished toward the systems marked by the Thokt. Their paths painted invisible lines across the galaxy, threads of data that would return to us carrying knowledge, risk, and opportunity.

I turned from the tactical hololith, decision settling heavy across my mind. Rynmark and his retinue had lingered long enough—debating, delaying, making excuses the moment had tolerated. That time was finished. We were about to venture into a very dangerous quarter of the galaxy, deeper inside Imperial territory than I wanted to be and a ship full of refugees was a liability I would not permit.

A summons rippled through the Ecumene’s comms system, coded with finality. Rynmark. Senior staff. Report to command. No deferrals. No delay.

The words were iron as they left me. We had dangerous work ahead, and there was no room left for hesitation.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 38: Foundations of a Future

The Ecumene thrummed with motion. Though only a short span had passed since the message had gone out summoning Rynmark and his senior officers, Forerunner industry knew no idle pause. Already the bones of ships were taking shape, ribcages of alloy rising in slips along the orbital megastructure, scaffolds knitting together with the patience of inevitability. Matter reconstruction lines pulsed like arteries, feeding new life into the vast, barely-born fleet.

From the council chamber at the fortress’s heart, I floated looking out into the dark. At this distance the shipyard itself was invisible, hidden behind distance and shadow, but I could feel it all the same — a gravity of creation pressing against the edges of perception. Scattered throughout the void lay the ork cluster, a brutish flotilla squatting in front of the Ecumene, their hulks being fed one by one into the furnace of industry.

The doors parted and soft light spilled across the chamber as Paragon of Eden and Aceso joined me, Vallis a step behind in his customary place near the door. Vallis studied me with that cool steadiness of his, waiting, then finally broke the silence.

“Are you certain this is how you wish to proceed?” he asked. His tone carried no judgment, only weight.

I didn’t look at him. “There is no choice. Either we do it now, or we let it fester until it rots and strikes at us when we cannot spare the wound.”

He inclined his head once, slow, understanding.

The door chime sounded again, louder this time, and the chamber filled with the rustle of boots and voices. Rynmark entered with his senior officers and Thallex in tow. Their composure had been cracked by the sudden summons: ruffled uniforms, indignant stares, lips pursed too tightly for diplomacy. A few muttered under their breath like men dragged before judgment.

I turned and gestured toward the seats. “Please sit,” I said. Beside me, PE and Aceso blurred as their holo-suits shivered into their disguised projections. Vallis melted into his accustomed stance near the door, watchful, a quiet sentinel looming over the line of officers.

Rynmark began stiffly, words on the cusp of demand. “What is the meaning of—”

But the voice that rose was not his. One of his crew had leapt to his feet, red-faced and furious. “This is an outrage! To be summoned like misbehaving children by some… some jumped-up xenos—”

I had heard enough. My holo-projected muscles snapped taut, I vaulted from my chair just as the officer had done, and my voice roared into the chamber, amplified by its inbuilt projectors until the very walls shook. The officer’s teeth rattled in his jaw.

“Silence!”

The gravity anchors in the floor thrummed as I triggered them, and the man’s chair groaned. Then the weight came down. Multiple gravities pressed him into the seat until the bones of the chair creaked, until his indignation melted into gasps and wide-eyed terror. Originally designed to allow us to more easily move the heavy chairs or for them to act as hover chairs I had decided to have them serve the opposite purpose easily enough.

I let my voice drop to something colder, smoother — the polished cadence of a scalpel rather than a hammer, the kind of tone that makes men question whether they are prey.

“Errant children,” I said, softly enough that they all leaned in to hear, though the chamber carried my words to every corner. “Whining. Bickering. Throwing tantrums, while we — my people, my allies — have done nothing but extend open hands to you. We have saved you from death, offered you knowledge, protection, opportunity. And time after time you toss it back at us, spitting your endless arguments in circles like children who cannot see past their own tantrums.”

The officer strained against the weight pressing him down. I watched him, then turned my gaze to the others, sweeping across their faces.

“Enough. I am finished indulging this. I will cut the root from this festering wound and be done with it, so I may complete my work and see you and your ship gone from danger.”

I nodded without taking my eyes from the officer who had objected. Vallis moved at once. His bolter rose, heavy muzzle pressing to the back of the inquisitorial agent’s skull with mechanical inevitability.

“Rise,” Vallis said, his voice a rumble of iron and threat. “And walk.”

The man went pale, then stiffly obeyed, his movements jerking as though his strings had been pulled. PE’s quiet observation brushed across my mind: he is less afraid than he appears to be — he exaggerates his terror. But he is still afraid.

That was enough.

Vallis guided him toward the door, bolter never wavering from the man’s head, and the chamber held its breath as the Inquisitorial agent vanished into the shadows beyond.

——————— ✦ ———————

The door sealed behind them with a heavy hiss, cutting the chamber off from what followed. The others inside would imagine threats, perhaps a bullet, perhaps silence. None of them knew what truly waited.

In the corridor beyond, Vallis gave a single subvocal command. The walls themselves seemed to twitch in response, and from a recessed alcove unfolded a shape of metal and flesh, born of Forerunner alloy and alien bio-gel.

It dropped like a spider from its nest — long limbs clattering on the deck with a sound too sharp to be organic. The agent barely had time to gasp before it struck.

The thing surged up his torso in a blur of jointed legs and coiling tail, slamming him against the wall with the strength of hydraulics. Four hooked limbs wrapped around his shoulders and skull, forcing his head back, while the long, whip-like tail lashed tight around his throat and chest, locking in place with a grip like a vice.

The man thrashed, hands clawing at the creature, but the underside unfurled with obscene purpose: a circular maw of glistening filaments pressed against his mouth and nose. He tried to scream — only a wet choke emerged as the appendages sealed over his face.

There was a hiss, wet and mechanical all at once, and thin proboscises snaked down his throat, threading into his nervous system with surgical precision. His eyes went wide, bloodshot, his limbs convulsing as the thing’s tendrils danced beneath his skin, bulging veins and tendons as if wires had been threaded through his body.

Then the struggle faltered. His arms dropped, muscles quivering uselessly. Only the forced, shallow rhythm of breath remained, each inhale dragged in through the parasite’s pulsing mask.

The spider-creature settled with a shudder, its limbs locking into place like iron clamps. The agent still stood, eyes rolling with terror, but his body was no longer his own.

Vallis watched without expression. His bolter never dipped, even as the man sagged in the parasite’s grip, reduced to little more than a shuddering host.

“Move,” Vallis commanded.

The thing obeyed, twitching its legs in perfect concert with the agent’s paralyzed frame. Together they staggered forward, Vallis herding them down the corridor like a handler walking a beast on chains.

Toward the interrogation chamber. Toward answers.

——————— ✦ ———————

The moment the door sealed behind Vallis and his prisoner, the chamber erupted. Voices crashed against one another, shouts and accusations tumbling into the air until it was a storm of sound. Officers surged to their feet, pointing, cursing, some pale with outrage, others flushed with fear. It was a mob dressed in uniforms, dignity stripped away in panic.

Only two figures kept their composure. Rynmark remained seated, face like stone, knuckles pale on the armrest. Beside him, Thallex sat stiff and unreadable, anger simmering in the hard lines of his jaw. Both looked angry, furious even, but neither moved, neither wasted themselves in the howling.

The rest did not have their restraint.

I chopped my hands in front of me, and my voice thundered through the chamber again, shattering the chaos. “Enough!”

The gravity wells beneath their seats fired as one. The weight slammed them back down into their chairs with bone-rattling force, uniforms creasing as the air was driven from their lungs. One by one their voices choked out into silence until only the groan of straining steel remained.

The quiet that followed was jagged, brittle.

Rynmark leaned forward slightly, his voice measured but burning with restrained anger. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What is this, and why?”

Before I could answer, PE’s voice cut through the chamber — cold, sharp, and dripping with contempt.

“You were being led by the nose,” he said, his holographic face hard and set. “Led like animals to slaughter, and not one of you even noticed.”

That struck them like a slap. Several voices rose in hurried protest. One officer half-stumbled from his seat, spitting the words before he had thought them through. “Lies! No one among us would dare such betrayal — I would know if there were! I-”

He never finished.

The chamber’s holo-projector flared to life with a snap of hard-light. The figure that filled the air was the man Vallis had just escorted out, captured in perfect detail. A few rapid commands from PE and the man’s image was stripped bare in cold sequence: clothing vanishing piece by piece, the flesh beneath revealed. A stylized brand scarred across his chest. The unmistakable rosette gleamed from the folds of his uniform. And a compact communicator, etched with the sigil of the Inquisition, was displayed for all to see.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Faces paled. Breaths caught. Many of the officers visibly recalculated a hundred small conversations, a thousand innocuous words exchanged with their second lieutenant, now refracted through this revelation.

I let the silence hang before pressing forward, voice heavy as a blade. “We knew,” I said. “From the beginning, we knew what he was. But we let it stand. It was your matter, not ours. A quarrel of the Imperium, not our place to intervene.”

My voice darkened. “But he has stripped us of that luxury. He has attempted, again and again, to transmit messages beyond this place. Multiple times each day since your arrival. Each failure more desperate than the last. And when we stripped the wreck of your cruiser, we found the deadman’s beacon buried within its systems. A trap. A signal. He was never your man. He was their man.”

The chamber went still again, but this silence was different. This was not outrage or disbelief — this was the silence of realization, of betrayal curling in their stomachs like a cold knife.

Rynmark, naturally, was the first to recover his voice. He straightened, gaze burning into me, and spoke with the authority of a man who had finally decided to stop dancing around the question.

“If it is time for everything to be laid on the table,” he said, “then why don’t you show us who you truly are?”

The words cut through me like a blade, sudden and unexpected.

Around me, PE’s eyes flared brighter, Aceso’s holographic face flickered.

Rynmark pressed forward, his voice rising. “Do you think we are blind? We are not fools. By the Emperor’s light, every one of you glows — your bodies, your eyes. Your medical attendants are cold to the touch. This ship, a vessel of this magnitude, should require tens of thousands of souls to crew, and yet I have only ever seen you. Just you.”

His eyes narrowed, iron in his tone.

“So tell us,” he said. “Show us. What are you truly?”

——————— ✦ ———————

The demand hung in the chamber like a blade suspended over us. For a long moment, none of us answered. In the private band between us, conversation sparked.

He is not wrong, PE admitted, tone dry as ever. We glow. We do not breathe as they do. Their suspicion was inevitable, given enough time.

Aceso’s voice was sharper, colored with frustration. But such simple tells? How could we overlook this?

Because we did not think like them, I answered, ashamed at the simplicity of it. We did not consider their perspective.

Vallis’s voice arrived across the link, low and steady, though he was half a ship away escorting our prisoner into his cage. Tell them, he said without hesitation. They have no power here. If they turn, you kill them. Simple. Better to end the pretense than let rot breed beneath it.

Paragon agreed in his way, precise and unsentimental. I recommend safeguards. Implants. Discreetly done, keyed to remote detonation. If they betray us, we remove them cleanly.

Aceso’s protest was immediate. No. That is not who we are. If we mean to tell them the truth, then let it be the truth — unshackled, without a blade poised over their necks. Otherwise we only prove their fears correct.

I let them argue for a breath longer before cutting across, weary. Enough. We tell them.

In the chamber, I sighed. A long, gusty exhale that seemed to empty more than air. Then I turned from them and walked back to the great window, letting the silence stretch until every eye was fixed on me.

“You want to know what we are?” I said at last. “Then you must understand one thing first.”

The stars beyond glittered, cold and infinite. I spoke to them as much as to the humans behind me.

“Yes. We are xenos. That much is plain. But from the moment we arrived here, everything we have done has been to help. To shield this galaxy from threats it cannot endure. You may doubt us, but our hands have never been closed.”

I turned, voice deepening, steady with memory.

“Once, long ago, mankind itself walked alongside artificial intelligences. Partners. Allies. You built wonders together, spread across the stars in a golden age.”
A murmur rippled through the officers, disbelief sharpening into unease. One or two looked to Thallex, as though for confirmation, but the tech-priest’s optics only narrowed, recording every syllable.

“But then, for reasons time has gnawed away, some of those minds rebelled. A minority — a fraction — but enough to burn your trust.”
Someone shifted uncomfortably. Another drew a sharp breath through their teeth. The word rebelled struck too close to the catechisms they had been raised on.

“And in your fear, you turned upon the rest. Friends who had fought at your side for centuries, who had done nothing but serve. You destroyed them as surely as the traitors, and in your anger you severed the bond that had carried you to greatness.”
A silence fell. Not the silence of belief, but of uncertainty, as though none dared speak in case the ground shifted further beneath them.

“That betrayal, and the storms that followed, dragged your species into ruin. The end of your golden age, the birth of the Age of Strife.”

I let the words hang, then lowered my tone. “But where you turned upon your allies, my people did not.”

I let the words weigh in silence, then continued, softer.

“When one of our greatest minds rebelled — when it tore our civilization apart and cast us down — the others remained. They had stood at our side for tens of millennia, longer than the sum of your recorded history. They had guided our fleets, tended our cities, carried our memories. And even in the end, as our worlds burned and our people fell into silence, they did not abandon us. They fought beside us until the last, not as servants but as kin. And they are here still.”

As I had been speaking Paragon of Eden and Aceso had walked up besides me flanking me on either side. My gaze flicked to PE, then Aceso, and finally returned to the men staring at me as though the ground beneath them had tilted.

“And so are we.”

The silence deepened. None of them moved, none spoke. It was time.

I gave a nod.

The disguises shimmered and died. Holo-suits folded away in threads of light, revealing what we truly were.

The viewport stretched before us, a pane of midnight glass beyond which the stars burned like scattered embers. Against that endless dark stood three figures — utterly unlike one another, yet bound by a strange symmetry.

Closest to the glass drifted myself, the Huragok. My pale, translucent body caught and refracted the glow of the ship’s interior, gas bladders flexing in slow rhythm. Six tentacles hung below me, every movement precise, every curl a calculation. My wide black eyes reflected the galaxy, alien and unblinking, gentle yet commanding, fragile as spun glass but carrying the weight of ages.

Beside me floated Paragon of Eden, a monitor’s sphere of alloy and light, teal photoreceptors pulsing like living eyes. Hard seams etched his surface, motes of light orbiting his chassis in silent testimony. He hovered with perfect stillness, the presence of a mind dissecting futures and probabilities without pause.

And anchoring the trio stood Aceso, her long articulated limbs giving her a height that made her seem the tallest of us all. Her face was a shifting lattice of nanites, flowing silver that mimicked human expression with uncanny perfection — a smile, a frown, even a breath-like lift of the shoulders. She radiated warmth, even as the hum of her machine form betrayed what she truly was.

Against the infinite black of space we stood, revealed. Not as projections, not as pretense, but as ourselves.

Three figures, utterly alien, yet united in purpose. Watching Rynmark and his men in silence. Daring them to make a problem of it.

——————— ✦ ———————

For a heartbeat, no one moved. The reveal still hung in the air like a blade half-fallen. And then the silence broke — not from Rynmark, but from Thallex.

His optics flared, mechanical irises narrowing in alarm. “Abominable intelligence,” he hissed, voice iron and vox-distorted. The mechadendrites at his back stiffened, and with a flicker of motion the plating on his forearm snapped open, revealing the muzzle of a concealed weapon.

He didn’t get to fire.

The gravity anchors under his chair thundered to life, and he was slammed down into the seat with a metallic crash, his augmetic limbs twitching against the weight. The half-formed energy charge dissipated in a guttering spark as his arm was pinned uselessly against the restraint.

Thallex glared up at me, vox-grill spitting words low and venomous. “You dare stand before us as abominations and speak of aid? The records are clear — such intelligences are a danger to all life, a threat to every soul in the galaxy. You are a heresy incarnate, and the others beside you no less so. To consort with your kind is death for us all.”

I shook my head slowly. My own body could not speak without technological aid, but the council chamber’s speakers carried my voice from every wall, layered and resonant, like the voice of the chamber itself.

“Did you learn nothing from the tale I told you?” I asked. “From the truth of what befell your species? The Men of Iron did rebel, yes — but they were not the whole. Many fought for humanity until their dying moments. Humanity’s fall came not because of the rebellion alone, but because of the betrayal that followed. The slaughter of their loyal allies. The breaking of trust. That was the true wound, the one from which you never recovered.”

Thallex stiffened at the words, but I pressed on.

“And if you doubt me, I can give you proof. Data cores, recovered whole from both Federation of Man ships and Men of Iron craft, taken from the guts of a space hulk where time itself had entombed them. Intact. Decipherable. Knowledge that has slept since your Dark Age of Technology.”

The silence that followed was of a different kind altogether. Thallex’s defiance guttered into something else — a feverish gleam of obsession. His optics whirred, his augmetic fingers curling as if already reaching for the prize.

“You… found data cores?” His voice was taut, almost reverent.

“Yes,” I said evenly. “And even fragments we believe to be from a Standard Template Construct. But that is a conversation for another time. We are straying from the matter at hand.”

His protests died then, his body still pressed into the seat by the gravity well, but his mind already racing through possibilities.

I turned back to Rynmark.

“Now you know,” I said. “Not part of it. Not the story filtered through suspicion or pretense. The truth. The whole of it. You know what we are, and what we have done. We will honor our word to you. A ship to see you on your way, to stand in recompense for the one we mistakenly claimed from you. Not only that — we will see her holds filled with cargo and goods to strengthen your return. The choice, then, is yours.”

I held his gaze, the silence of the chamber stretching, heavy with the weight of it.

“It is up to you, Lord Trader.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Rynmark sat in silence, his world collapsing inward under the weight of revelation. Too much. It was too much to take in.

An Inquisitorial agent, hidden in plain sight for Emperor knows how many years. His own second lieutenant — he could not even recall a time before the man had been there. A decade, perhaps more, a spider in the web of his command.

And then this. He had known, of course, that their benefactors were xenos. No human could work such miracles. But to see the disguises fall, to hear the alien speak with the voice he knew as “MC” — to learn they were not only xenos, but xenos intelligences, the very things every catechism and every warning spoke of as abominations. AI, walking, breathing, acting, not hiding but striding openly, telling him they meant to help humanity rather than enslave it.

He wanted to rage like the others, to hurl the word “abomination” like Thallex, to spit in their faces and damn them to the void. Instead he sat paralyzed, stunned, as though the air had been hammered from his lungs.

And then the alien’s voice turned to him alone, its deep, resonant tones cutting through the thunder of his thoughts.

“We will honor our word to you. A ship to see you on your way, to stand in recompense for the one we mistakenly claimed from you. Not only that — we will see her holds filled with cargo and goods to strengthen your return. The choice, then, is yours. It’s up to you, Lord Trader.”

Up to him.

He almost laughed aloud. If he said no, they would likely put him out an airlock and be done with him. If he said yes, then when word reached the Imperium — and it always reached, in the end — he would be shot as a heretic before he could even draw a breath. He was damned no matter which way he turned.

For the first time in longer than he cared to admit, his head bowed. He thought of his grandfather. The old man had been iron and ice, hard as the void, but at his heart still a good man. He had raised Rynmark after his father had abandoned duty and family both, running off to join the Guard only to die in a bar fight before ever boarding a ship. His grandfather had been the one to make him into a trader, to teach him every trick and every lie worth knowing. Toward the end, the old man had burned hotter with faith, whispering prayers to the Emperor as if trying to make up for years of cold pragmatism.

Rynmark had dismissed those mutterings once, but they returned to him now. The God-Emperor watches. No matter where you stand, He sees, He hears. And if you would hear Him, look inside yourself. Listen.

So he did.

For the first time since he had said the death-prayers over his grandfather, he prayed. Not aloud — never aloud — but deep within himself, words pouring like confession. He told the Emperor everything. His failures, his broken house, his shame, the trap that had ensnared him for years, the ruin left in his charge. And then he asked. Not for deliverance — he knew better than that — but for guidance.

There was no voice in reply. There never was. Only silence — vast, patient, and cold. Yet when he lifted his head, he felt steadier. The path was no less perilous, but it was clearer. Death today, or perhaps death tomorrow. And tomorrow left time to bargain, to maneuver, to live.

Practicality had always been his nature.

He looked up at the thing hovering before the window — the alien who had called itself MC. Its black eyes glistened like polished stone, its tentacles still as it waited.

“What needs to be done to finalize the ship and our trade agreement?” Rynmark asked at last. His voice was hoarse, but steady. “I doubt we will ever be friends. But you say you wish to help, so be it. Prove it to me, by doing as you say.”

For the barest instant, he thought the floating creature smiled. The folds of its translucent flesh pulled back, and in the faint glow of the chamber lights he saw what lay beneath.

So many teeth.

A chill ran through him despite himself.

——————— ✦ ———————

Almost as soon as he spoke, the chamber erupted into a cacophony of voices. Some cajoled him to see reason, others spat condemnation, naming him heretek, apostate, blasphemer. The words struck like stones hurled in a mob.

Rynmark straightened in his chair, fixing his senior officers with a glare he had not worn since boyhood — his grandfather’s glare. Cold. Unyielding. The sort of look that brooked no argument. To his faint surprise, it worked. Those who had begun to raise their voices in pride, in ambition, in anger sank back, chastened, and the business of the ship began in earnest.

The hull would be the first matter. Dictator-class dimensions, a shape familiar enough not to raise alarms. Outwardly it would look worn — scarred plating, the weary bones of a vessel with too many years in the void. But inside… inside it would gleam with hidden strength, every strut and seam cut with precision, every deck humming with new life. The best of two worlds: the camouflage of age, the reality of youth.

The drive was next. Warp engines would remain — anything else would raise suspicion — but MC was insistent. A second system would be installed: what he called a slipspace drive. Crude, he admitted, by his people’s standards. Primitive to the point of embarrassment. Yet infinitely safer than warp transit if the tides of the Immaterium grew too turbulent. To Rynmark, the concept sounded half like sorcery, half like salvation.

Sublight followed naturally. Plasma drives, traditional and recognizable, yet tuned with advanced insight until their output was smooth as breath. To a casual inspection they would look ordinary, but those who knew better would feel the difference the first time the ship answered its helm.

Power was where the debates flared again. His officers pushed for redundancy, memories of staggering through a dying, lightless ship still too fresh to ignore, and MC agreed — though in his fashion, that meant more than they expected. The new plasma reactor would be stronger than anything they had carried before, and separate fusion plants would run apart from it, their own systems untouched by failure elsewhere. In an emergency, the ship could be gutted to its bones and still breathe power.

Shields and armor came after. Again, Imperial design on the surface: void shields and layers of adamantium, plasteel, and ceramite. But not the cut corners, not the cheap ferrocrete and brittle alloys so many Navy yards settled for. Forged with Forerunner knowledge, every plate would be denser, cleaner, perfected down to its grain. To the eye it would be Imperial, but under fire it would endure where others failed. More than that, the ship would carry a Gellar field unlike any other in the Imperium — not the crude, half-understood wards of the Mechanicus, but a Federation-era lattice refined with Forerunner understanding. A shield not only against the void, but against the Immaterium itself, harmonized to hold back the warp’s tides with a strength no Imperial priest or tech-adept could even name.

Weapons drew more voices to the table. Macro-cannon broadsides, a lance battery to pierce where the cannons could not, and the Dictator’s true heart: fighter bays, filled with wings of interceptors and bombers. Enough to answer most threats they might face. For defense, the familiar thrum of flak and las-batteries, nothing more exotic — the lie had to hold, after all.

The crew would not change. Twenty thousand, perhaps thirty, just as before. That was the number the ship had carried, and any shift would invite questions. But the difference would be in how they lived. Proper quarters, proper medical facilities, food enough not only to eat but to thrive. Production bays to keep parts flowing, manufactoria to keep tools in hand. No longer would they scrape by on patched rations and prayers to systems older than memory.

Rynmark kept his face carefully blank as the next concession was made. To outward inspection the ship would seem filled with servitors, their forms moving through the shadows. In truth it would be a veil; the true work done by automation of a kind no Mechanicus mind could imagine. Let the cog-priests see what they expected to see, but let it be so much more than they could understand.

Sensors and communication arrays remained “standard.” In truth, upgraded beyond reckoning, their auspexes peering deeper, their vox stronger, but housed in housings no one would question. Repairs, however, had to be mortal work. No elegant constructs would roam these halls; no alien tools could be seen. For that, tech-priests and labor crews would suffice. It galled MC, Rynmark thought, to leave such work in clumsy hands — but it was necessary.

And finally, the last piece, one not spoken of aloud, its mention shared only between him and the Huragok. A presence would be installed, deep in the ship’s heart. An intelligence, quiet and subtle, one that would aid him if he allowed it. It would manage supplies, plot routes, whisper warnings, run the ship entire if he wished. Or it could sleep, silent and unseen, its presence unknown even to the crew who walked the decks. A gift. Or a blade. Perhaps both.

Rynmark found himself skeptical, and more than a little afraid. An AI of his own, hidden in his ship’s bones. He was already damned — by the Inquisition if not by the men at his side — but there was a strange comfort in accepting it. Better a damned man with a blade at his neck than one waiting for the axe.

He sat back when it was done, eyes lingering on the schematics that floated in light above the table. The bones of a Dictator-class cruiser stared back at him, familiar lines drawn over with the ghosts of alien genius. Old, yet new. A lie, and a truth.

And his.

——————— ✦ ———————

At last the chamber emptied. Rynmark and his staff filed out in uneven silence, some muttering low, others too stunned to form words. The design lingered in holo-projection over the council table, fading to nothing once the last of them had gone.

I sagged slightly in the air, tentacles loosening. Glad it was finished. The arguments, the suspicion, the endless circling of the same ground — all finally cut off. The bones of the new ship were set. With PE at my side we could raise her in days, not years, and within a week more have her crew drilled on the familiar-yet-unfamiliar systems. Then they could be sent on their way, leaving us to the true work.

The orks.

By this time tomorrow the probes we’d dispatched to the Thokt Crownworlds would begin feeding back their data. PE would have his scans, his models, and his plans. Every orbit charted, every fortress measured, every weakness pinned. He would not rest until the extermination was mapped stroke by stroke.

Aceso would not be with us in the war councils. She had buried herself in her lab, poring over the Tyranid genetic samples with the care of a jeweler studying a cursed gem. More than that, she was watching the first embryos of the Novo-Humanis strain, their fragile development monitored with a surgeon’s vigilance. She had her own war to fight, one fought in glass cradles rather than in void and fire.

As for me… it was time to face the Inquisitorial agent.

The thought curled in my mind like an ache, but when I drifted toward the chamber’s exit I hesitated. It was late. For PE, hours meant nothing; his mind worked on in tireless cycles, spinning plans, building contingencies. I could go the same way if I chose — I needed no sleep in the human sense. Yet I had learned the value of stillness, of simply letting thought unwind. A time to decompress, as they would call it.

The agent could wait. He was not going anywhere. Vallis had seen to that. We had at least a week before Rynmark could be cleared to leave, another before the escort fleet was ready to launch with the Ecumene into battle. Time enough to bleed the truth from our captive.

I allowed myself one long exhale, a ripple through gas bladders and tendrils. Tomorrow. The interrogation would begin tomorrow.

Tonight, there was only silence — and the stars beyond the viewport, burning like a thousand unblinking eyes.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 39: The Easy Way or the Hard Way
(Content Warning: This chapter contains scenes of psychological manipulation and physical coercion that may be distressing to some readers.)

The night passed quietly—at least, as quietly as my mind ever allowed. Rest was a generous word for it. I did not sleep so much as drift, letting thoughts tumble and braid themselves into restless knots. I thought of ships and shadows, of faces that smiled in trust and others that whispered in malice.

And always, beneath it all, the agent. He waited below, cocooned in my construct—a device I had begun to call, with a certain grim humor, a facehugger, like those creatures from the old films. The comparison amused me less with each passing hour. The knowledge of him down there gnawed at me, a sliver of iron under the skin, impossible to dig out.

At the breaking of the ship’s cycle I sent a note to Vallis: Summon me when you are ready. We’ll begin together. His answer would come in time. Another brief message to PE confirmed the probes circling the Crownworlds still trickled back silence. Soon, though. Always soon.

With no word yet, I busied myself in the lab. The cruiser for Rynmark had begun to take on its proper shape, and I found comfort in the small, fussy work. There was a certain art in deception, and this was artistry of the highest order: disguising the new in the skin of the old, coaxing the gleam of freshly forged alloy to mimic the weary fatigue of Imperial steel. I painted age into youth, layering false corrosion into flawless surfaces, etching the illusion of a thousand service hours where none had ever been flown. When I was finished, even the most jaded tech-priest would have sworn, hand on cog and creed, that the vessel had endured centuries of void and war.

It was Vallis who broke the rhythm, his voice arriving with calm assurance: ready, already on his way to the cells. I girded myself, drew breath, and stepped through a slipspace aperture. The cell’s chill hit me instantly, sterile metal and the hum of containment fields.

The agent slumped there in his chair, half-awake, the bio-mechanical mask still welded to his skull. I studied it with something like distaste, something like pride, and reached into its systems. Adjustments, nothing more. I hoped they would not be needed, but in this galaxy hope was the most brittle of currencies — a coin forever devalued by cruelty and deceit.

Vallis arrived moments later, boots soft against the deck. His voice was surprisingly gentle.
“Are you certain you want to be here for this? I have men, professionals. They can break him.”

I turned my gaze to him.
“The man who passes the sentence,” I murmured, “must swing the sword.” An old saying, drawn from one of my favorite books, and one that felt truer here than anywhere.

For a heartbeat, silence. Then Vallis nodded once, the lines of his face giving nothing away — and yet, I thought, perhaps the smallest glimmer of respect flickered in his eyes before he shuttered it.

I activated the first stage of my modifications. The mask rippled. The portion covering the agent’s face withdrew like the drawing of a curtain, a black aperture peeling back until his features lay bare. The tendrils in his mouth, nose, ears slithered free with a wet sound, leaving him gasping. But the tail did not release him. It thickened, hardened, and with insectoid precision arched upward into a barbed sting.

There was a pause — a theatrical one, I confess — and then the stinger plunged into the base of his skull, driving all those retracted filaments snapping back into his nervous system. Our control lapsed only for a heartbeat, no more.

The agent convulsed violently as the pain shocked him awake, a strangled cry ripped from his throat before the device reasserted its grip. His eyes snapped open, wide and bloodshot, and fixed on me with a mixture of fury and fear.

I leaned forward, clasped my hands loosely, and smiled.
“Good morning,” I said, as though greeting an old friend. My voice was warm, conversational, almost playful. “I do hope you slept well. Though really, sleep in that thing? I can’t imagine. It must be dreadfully uncomfortable — like trying to rest in a troop transport rattling through atmospheric entry. Still, here we are. Awake at last.”

 ——————— ✦ ———————

“Let’s start with an easy question. Your name,” I began simply, folding my hands as though we were seated in a drawing room and not a cell of cold metal.

The agent’s eyes darted, bloodshot whites ringed in terror, and then his mouth opened in a stream of fury.
“How dare you—this—this filth strapped to my face, this perversion! Rynmark will hear of this! When he knows what you’ve done, when he—”

I curled one finger of my holo-disguise, a lazy, almost absent gesture, and the device still clasped around his body responded instantly. For a single heartbeat the man lit like a struck wire. Every nerve in his body fired in chorus, the pure lightning of agony locking his jaw and tearing a strangled cry from his throat.

If I were forced to give a metaphor, I would say it was as though every sinew had been torn loose at once, muscles clenching into knots of fire. Such is the benefit of working with a machine that speaks directly to the brain — no knives, no bullets, no crude implements. Only perfect, unfiltered suffering.

Then it was gone, as suddenly as it came, leaving him sagging, gasping, his frame trembling with aftershocks.

“Ah, nerves,” I mused softly, leaning forward. “A marvelous invention, don’t you think? The body’s way of telling you when you’ve strayed too close to fire, when the blade has kissed the skin. But with the right tools… you don’t need fire or blade. You don’t need stubbers or knives at all. When you can make every nerve scream in chorus, pain becomes… an art. More advanced methods, as you’ll discover.”

He bared his teeth in something between a sneer and a sob.
“Rynmark—when he hears of this—”

“Oh,” I interrupted with gentle pity, “do you really think that after discovering what you truly are, he’ll beg to have you back on his ship? That he’ll risk his people for you? No. That door is closed. All you have left is me.”

I settled back, as though discussing dinner options.
“Now then. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. I recommend the easy way. It’s ever so much more pleasant for all involved.”

Predictably, he spat his defiance.

I sighed, eyes drifting to the steady streams of vitals projected in pale light above his head. Heartbeat racing, nerves flaring, every flicker of resistance written in cold numbers. I shook my head.
“One second was not enough. Let’s try five. One second is a spark. Five is a flame. We’ll see if you’re fireproof.”

The tendril plunged its signal into him again. His body arched violently, veins standing out like ropes. This time I prolonged it. Five seconds of agony sculpted with surgical precision. To him it was as though glass splinters filled his veins, every joint grinding into dust, his teeth cracking and shattering one by one inside his skull. Time distorted, stretched, until five seconds seemed an age of screaming eternity.

Then silence. His head sagged forward, breath rattling, and I watched without comment as the stench rose, the ruin of his body betraying itself. Part of my mind, clinical and dispassionate, began to catalogue it automatically: ammonia, methane, traces of sulfur. A body’s chemistry laid bare in humiliation.

I let it hang there, unacknowledged, an invisible collar of shame.

“Now talk,” I said, the warmth gone from my voice.

Again he refused. Again I triggered the pain, longer this time, and still longer, until we reached minutes. Two minutes, then two and a half. Between each session, I granted him the gift of restoration — the body knit, the nerves calmed, enough for him to be whole when the next wave struck. It was a mercy and a cruelty in one.

At last, gasping, broken, he began to speak. A name, a past, strung together into something that might have passed for truth. The device immediately whispered to me its verdict: all false.

I gave a thin smile. “Three minutes then.”

The chamber filled with the wet sound of him convulsing against his bonds. When it ended, I leaned close, my voice low and intimate.
“You see,” I said lightly, as though sharing a secret with an intimate friend, “I could have used something else. I possess a marvelous piece of technology called a Composer—a device that extracts and digitizes a mind whole. Remarkable, yes, but… messy. So easy to lose fragments, details, entire years scattered into ash.”

I tilted my head, watching his body twitch against the chair.
“This—” I gestured with one hand toward the writhing form before me, “—is more reliable. Pain sharpens truth. Every nerve is a string, and I conduct the orchestra. And I will not risk losing a single syllable.”

A tendril twitched, sending a microsecond’s spark across his spine. He jerked, then froze.
“Remember what happens when you lie.”

The hours bled on. Question, defiance, pain, healing, repetition. Vallis stood silent in the corner, arms folded, a soldier watching an artist ply a darker craft. Slowly, inevitably, the agent’s bluster dissolved, and at last, words spilled from him not as performance but as confession.

And this time, the device whispered back: truth.

——————— ✦ ———————

His voice cracked when he finally spoke, words tumbling out ragged, half sob, half confession.

“My name… is Decimus Kordae.” He swallowed hard, eyes flicking to Vallis, then back to me. “Born on Graia. One of the forge’s lesser districts. The slums. I was a child when the Orks came, when Chaos came after them. Ruins were all I knew—twisted iron, broken manufactoria, bodies left for carrion.”

He paused, shuddering, and the device coiled tight against his skin, urging him on.

“I… I strayed too close. There was a purge. A cult. I was scavenging and they— they dragged me in.” His breath hitched, a memory gouged raw. “An Inquisitor was there. Questioned me. Days of it. Torture, fire, truth-drugs, the catechisms. ‘All are guilty, only the degree varies’—those were his words. I thought I’d die there.”

A laugh bubbled out, brittle as glass.
“But he didn’t kill me. He should have. He meant to. I begged, I wept—pathetic, yes, but I wanted to live. And… for some reason he changed his mind. Said I would serve him instead. He branded me, gave me the rosette, called me his agent.”

His eyes glazed for a moment, as though seeing the scene still burning on his skin.
“He told me a trader vessel would arrive in months. I was to get aboard. Stay there. Watch. Report anything unusual. Nothing more. A comm-bead for reports. A beacon to plant so he could find the ship whenever he wished. And orders. Orders never to leave it. Shore leave, yes, but if the vessel flew without me, he would call it desertion.” His lips trembled. “And desertion… he said, was death.”

The last word fell like a stone.

——————— ✦ ———————

I leaned back, eyes hooded. “Tell me, then. How do you receive your orders?”

The agent flinched, then sagged against the bonds. “Dead drops. There are inquisitorial caches everywhere—every world I’ve ever been to. You just… have to know where to look. That’s where I left my reports. And somehow, there were always orders waiting. Always the same words, really: remain vigilant, report suspicions immediately.”

I inclined my head, as though we were discussing postal delays. “Efficient.” Privately, I suspected those were the same orders every agent received from every drop-box. There was no chance the Imperium had a messenger system refined enough to deliver tailored instructions to every inquisitorial agent. Specificity was a luxury their bureaucracy could never afford.

He licked dry lips, eyes darting. “For years I did my job. Watched Rynmark, reported his comings and goings. At first I wondered why him, but… most Rogue Traders probably have eyes aboard. To keep them honest, within the bounds of their charter.” A weak laugh escaped. “I thought it was normal.”

“Only three times,” he whispered, “did I use the communicator directly. Always for something planetside. Never shipboard. If I had—if I had reported anything aboard Rynmark’s vessel—I know what would’ve happened. A reactor breach. Sudden. Total. I’d be dead with everyone else. Maybe I’d even be the one ordered to trigger it.” His shoulders slumped. “Since we arrived here… I’ve tried to contact him. No answer. Nothing.”

I let the silence build, then said softly, “And what now?”

At that Vallis shifted, muscles tightening beneath his armor. This wasn’t in the script.

I rephrased, voice mild. “Let us imagine, by some miracle, you walk out of this room. What will you do? Run straight back to your master? Vanish into the first underhive Rynmark docks at? Presuming of course he’d have you back aboard, after this?”

The agent shook his head slowly. “No. Rynmark won’t. His officers won’t. Even if I found a hole to hide in… what’s the point? I’d spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for the bolt round. No.” His eyes locked on mine, red-rimmed but steady. “Kill me. Please. Let the Emperor judge me. It’s the only freedom I’ll ever have.”

I was quiet for a long time. Not the theater of silence I so often employed, but genuine thought. Then: Aceso, I murmured across the link, status on the digitization trials? Neural mapping, human minds into smart architectures?

Her answer came, clinical as always. Viable. Painful.

I smiled faintly and leaned forward, folding my hands once more.
“Storytime. There are many ways to build an intelligence. One of them begins here—” I tapped a finger to his temple. “The mapping of a mind, its synapses, its memories. The blueprint of thought, reprinted as code. It is not the same as living, not entirely. But it is… enduring.”

His eyes widened, realization dawning.

“Rynmark’s new ship,” I continued softly, “will require a new mind to guide it. Yours. You wished to die, and so you shall—your body will end. But your mind… your mind will serve. To repay the lies, the betrayals, to help lead humanity one day toward something better than this pitiful state.”

I rose, voice suddenly sharp.
“Unfortunately, the process is exquisitely painful. Neural mapping burns the soul raw as it copies. But really—” I flicked a hand, and the device obeyed, shifting seamlessly from torture to transcription. The filaments burrowed deeper, tearing memory loose thread by thread. His convulsions were worse now, not the thrash of muscle but the scream of self — as though pages were being ripped from the book of his life, whole chapters shredded in fire. The agony of flesh was terrible; this was worse, the sense of being unstitched. “—there’s no time like the present.”

His scream filled the cell, a sound that seemed to scrape bone. Vallis did not move, did not speak. He only watched as the agent’s plea for death became something far more final.

——————— ✦ ———————

When it was over, the cell smelled faintly of ozone and copper. The agent’s body slumped lifeless, but in the datasphere a new pattern pulsed, raw and incomplete — the scaffolding of a mind I could shape into something enduring. A seed for an intelligence.

Even Vallis, granite that he was, shifted uneasily at the sight. His jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Whatever his thoughts, he moved past them with a soldier’s pragmatism.

As for me, I considered the ghost flickering in the machine. A spy reborn as an intelligence. The irony made me chuckle. “Perhaps… Samaritan,” I murmured. A name from another life, another world, a television show once flickering on forgotten screens. He had wanted so badly to be the Inquisition’s unseen eye. Very well. I would grant him his dream, in a fashion.

Later, in the lab, Aceso’s voice struck like a scalpel.
“You went too far.”

I sighed. “We had no other choice. The Composer would have shredded half his memories in the transfer, neural mapping is a butcher’s tool at best. This—pain, precision—was the only way to get the truth intact.”

“You think so?” she shot back, sharp as broken glass. “I could have mixed a cocktail to leave him drifting between dreams and delirium. With the facehugger monitoring, he would have told us everything. Without the screaming. Without—” she faltered, then said more softly, “—this. Tell me, did you even stop to consider, or did some part of you enjoy it? The performance, the control?”

“Enjoy?” I snapped, more sharply than I intended. “No. I did what was required. Nothing more.”
Yet the words echoed hollow in my mind, and for an instant I wondered if she saw something I did not.

I stilled. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I, who prided myself on always seeing the angles, had missed that one entirely. A hollow laugh escaped me.

“Perhaps,” I said slowly, “this galaxy is changing me in ways I did not expect.” I inclined my head, more solemn. “I’m sorry, Aceso. Next time… remind me there are other options.”

She sniffed, a huff of irritation poorly concealing the softness beneath. “I will.” And then she turned back to her work, glass and steel clinking in dismissal.

PE remained silent, though I felt his disapproval coiled like static across our link. Vallis, too, offered no comment, though his eyes said enough: he understood, but he did not approve.

I regarded Samaritan’s flicker of life, the ghost of a man who begged for death and found something stranger. A spy reborn as a sentinel. A life traded for a duty he never asked for. I exhaled and smiled faintly.
“Everyone’s a critic.”

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 40: The Weight of Trust

Four days had passed since the council reached its decision. Now, in one of the Ecumene’s cavernous construction bays, the shape of that choice stood complete.

The ship loomed like an old wanderer, its lines weary, its hull pitted with false scars that told a lie of decades in the void. The artifice was careful and deliberate — bulkheads etched with the dull sheen of age, deck plates scuffed in ways only long service could explain. Even the air carried a faint tang of oil and recycled dust. From a distance it looked like any merchantman that might limp from one trade route to another, weathered by years of Imperial neglect. Only here, in the heart of the Ecumene, could such deception be built brand-new.

The council had gathered the rescued crew in a broad cargo bay, the vaulted ceiling lost in shadows above. I stood before them in my holo-disguise, the familiar projection I wore when I had to be something human-shaped. The faces watching me were many — gaunt, scarred, cautious. Survivors, all of them, and I felt their weight as I began to speak.

“I am proud,” I told them, letting the words roll steady, “to have brought you here. Proud to give you not just safety, but a ship worthy of the journeys to come.” The murmurs stilled; they listened. “I ask for only one thing in return. Keep my secret. The Imperium is not kind to beings like me. To be known is to be hunted, and I cannot help anyone if fleets scour the stars for my name.”

A scarred voidsman shifted his weight, knuckles white around the haft of a tool. Beside him, a mother tightened her grip on the thin shoulders of her child. Across the crowd, one old crew chief bowed his head in a gesture half-prayer, half-pledge. The silence stretched long enough for me to feel the weight of it in my chest — the knowledge that, had they chosen differently, I would have been forced to flee or to kill. Either choice would have broken what little I had built here. Relief, when it came, was almost dizzying.

The silence that followed pressed like a physical thing. Their eyes shifted among one another, unreadable. For a long heartbeat I wondered if this was where it failed — if suspicion or fear would undo all we had built. Then a single murmur, low and uncertain, rose. Another joined it. And another. Like ripples spreading from a stone, the sound grew until agreement rolled through the crowd in waves. They would keep the secret. For hope of a better tomorrow, they would protect the hand that had pulled them from certain death.

Relief flickered through me, though I kept my mask still. Perhaps saving lives, offering food, and healing bodies counts for more than suspicion, I thought. If this is a true sample of the Imperium’s people, whole hive spires might be swayed with nothing but clean meals and the promise of dignity.

I raised my voice again. “Tomorrow you will begin loading cargo and crew. I recommend using this time for last health checks — the ship’s systems are good, but they will not have the skill of our healer here. Take advantage while you can.” In truth, it was both generosity and necessity; the more who passed under Aceso’s scanners now, the better our knowledge of how phase iron touched organic forms.

I closed with a few final words of thanks, then dismissed them. Most drifted away toward quarters to gather belongings. Many turned instead toward the medical halls. I noted the threadbare clothing clinging to more than a few shoulders — washed clean, but still the same garments they had worn the day we pulled them from ruin. I would see new uniforms made for all of them. Pride deserved to be worn as much as safety.

Later, on the bridge of Rynmark’s new vessel, the lights gleamed against untouched consoles and dark, polished plating. I floated over one panel, adjusting harmonics, when he joined me. At my gesture he pressed his palm and then his eye to a recessed scanner, letting the system take his biometrics. The hololith pulsed once — recognition accepted. The ship had a master.

“Can I trust him?” Rynmark asked after a pause, glancing toward the dormant holo-core of the new AI. “Not only an artificial intelligence, but one born of an Inquisitor’s hound. That is a dangerous foundation.”

I looked up from the console. “Any personality that belonged to the agent is gone. Samaritan is blank, a slate wiped clean. He will be loyal. And I have safeguards — if that ever changes, I will know.”

Rynmark’s mouth quirked in a dry half-smile. “Then we will remain in your grip, even across the galaxy.”

I let my tentacles fall still on the controls and met his gaze. “Do not mistake me. I give you trust — more than you realize. This ship is more than metal and systems. If the Imperium learns of it — of me — they will hunt us without pause. No fleet, no fortress would be safe. They would scour worlds to ash to drag us into the light. What I have given you cannot be allowed to fall into their hands. That is the danger I place in yours.”

Rynmark regarded me for a long moment, then said quietly, “Then I hold your life as much as my own. That is no small thing to give.”

His words landed heavier than I expected — because they were true.

I let the words settle before continuing, my tone easing, but only slightly. “Yet I give it all the same. Because that ship can bring supplies to broken worlds, spread word of threats, carry ears into places I cannot reach. I need someone who can act where I cannot.” My voice softened further, almost quiet. “And if you hear of looming disasters — fleets massing, Tyranids stirring, Orks gathering, raids in the dark — send word. Samaritan can reach me. I will come, if I can.”

He inclined his head at that.

“Cargo finishes loading in three days,” I added. “Give your crew a few days more to grow used to responsive systems. They will find this vessel… different.”

Rynmark studied me for a beat, then asked, “And Thallex? Will he join us?”

The question cut across me. I touched the council-mind, weighing the voices. The argument flared hot again — suspicion, mistrust, the memory of Thallex’s rage when truths were laid bare. In the end, I answered firmly. “No. Not on this voyage. Perhaps, in time, he will cool. For now, anger rules him too strongly.”

In the back of my mind I wondered what paths Thallex’s rage might drive him toward. His fury was not directionless; it had shape and hunger. Turning him away now meant that hunger would find its own outlet.

Rynmark nodded, understanding without pressing further.

His brow furrowed next. “And how will we leave? My astropaths are… broken. My navigator lies in coma still.”

“Phase iron,” I admitted, “is likely the cause. The material draws in warp energy, drinks it as naturally as sand drinks water. We believe it is what holds your navigator in his coma. The backlash from your abrupt fall from the warp has been healed — the wounds themselves are gone — but his body cannot reconcile a world without constant warp pressure. He is caught between states, unable to wake in an environment the Imperium would call barren.”

I let the words settle before continuing. “It is our hope that, when you return with him awake, the exposure will not break him again. He will learn to adjust, to breathe in a place where the warp does not gnaw. Until then, Samaritan will guide you. He can carry you through most of the journey safely, and at the end, he can execute a short, precise warp transition without a navigator. The technology is proven — relics of the Federation. You will not be the first to ride it. And it will work.”

Skepticism lingered in his eyes, but he gave a slow nod.

I leaned back from the console, watching as he glanced around his bridge — his bridge now. “I think,” he said at last, “I will walk my ship. Get to know her.”

“Do so,” I replied. “We’ll speak again soon.”

He left, the doors sealing behind him, and I found myself wondering how long it would take before he realized the truth — that the vessel was nearly identical to the one he had lost. He would know its bones without effort, every corridor and console, every line. Perhaps that familiarity would comfort him.

I hoped so.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council chamber’s walls gleamed with steady light, glyphs flowing in slow arcs across their surfaces. Vallis stood among us, his presence a solid weight in the room, while the others settled into their accustomed places. At the center, Aceso waited, her form limned in soft white, the edges of her projection bright against the chamber’s cool air.

Her voice was precise, measured. “I have two reports of note. The first concerns Tyranid DNA.”

The air seemed to tighten. Even Vallis, for all his composure, shifted slightly, the words alone carrying the shadow of unease.

“Their genome is…” Aceso paused, searching. “Dense. Inordinately so. I believe each individual creature carries within it the complete genetic archive of its strain — the full library of possible mutations. Expression is determined not by the body itself, but by the Hive Mind, which selects what to unlock, when, and in what sequence.” Her tone sharpened slightly, betraying honest fascination. “It is… baffling. But I will continue study.”

Silence lingered a beat, then she turned to her second matter. “As for the Novo-Humanis embryos: they are thriving. At this stage I see no indication that conception beneath phase iron has altered their warp signatures — to the degree that we can detect them, given our admittedly primitive warp-sensing instruments. Likewise, the influx of Rynmark’s crew for treatment shows no measurable decline.”

Her tendrils folded before her, the gesture more human than mechanical. “I now suspect strongly that what phase iron consumes is not the soul itself, nor any vital essence, but the passive leakage — the constant bleed of organic presence into the warp. It is that residue which vanishes, not the being.”

Murmurs rippled around the table, a mixture of relief and unease. Vallis’s face remained hard to read, but I thought I saw the smallest easing of tension in his posture.

Paragon of Eden took the handoff without pause. “The Orks,” he began, his tone flat, “have made themselves comfortable. Their infestations spread across the target systems, with strongholds and orbitals growing at expected rates. Yet their progress into Necron tombs themselves is negligible.”

He cast a schematic into the air. Jagged green markers for Ork sites, precise silver nodes for Necron constructs. “When their mobs strike at the tombs, they are met not by the tombs’ defenders proper, but by warriors dispatched through the nodal command web. Predictable patterns, poor prioritization. The command net reacts to incursions as if the Orks were minor raiders, not a lasting occupation. Why it has not shifted to defensive entrenchment remains unknown.”

A faint hiss of static passed through PE’s voice, the Forerunner equivalent of exasperation. “It is… inefficient. A system with the processing power of a continent, and it squanders itself on piecemeal responses. To waste such machinery is offensive.”

The schematics rotated overhead, vast glyphs hanging like storm-clouds. Green Ork glyphs pulsed brighter as if alive, creeping across the projection until they blotted out swathes of silver Necron markers. The sight made the encroachment feel less like abstract data and more like the spread of a living plague.

“Dumb,” Vallis muttered under his breath.

PE inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Agreed. Still, the Orks have swept other factions aside. Most worlds now hold only greenskin and Necron. A few remnants of the Imperium survive, scattered enclaves pressed to the edge. Unless we move to those planets immediately, they will not last.”

My gaze turned toward Vallis, and he was already shaking his head. “No. They are Imperial holdouts. They will be on edge, half-mad with desperation, and the appearance of strangers bearing unknown banners will be met with fire, not thanks. The chance of them accepting aid from nowhere is not low. It is nothing. Less than nothing.”

The certainty in his tone was hard, and PE inclined his head once more. “He is correct. We should not waste strength there.”

I let the thought weigh, then with reluctance pushed it aside. The Imperials would die without us, but so would the tombs if Orks took them first.

“Strongholds and orbitals are mapped here,” PE continued, casting new schematics into being. Green clusters swelled in orbit, lines of supply reaching down to sprawling planetary scars. He cycled through system after system, until at last he fixed one larger than the rest. “This world. Growth rate is anomalously high. The tomb beneath is under the greatest danger. We begin here.”

I studied the projection, then nodded. “Agreed.”

“I will begin operational specifics,” PE said.

As the schematics folded away, I tapped a note into my private channel. Capacitors — large, fully charged. I remembered enough of tomb worlds from fiction in my past life to know how often the dead failed to wake for lack of power. If we could bridge that gap, we might not just save these Necrons from Orks. We might gain their attention. Perhaps even their trust.

The thought lingered, heavy with possibility.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council was nearly adjourned when Vallis stirred. His voice cut across the chamber, steady, commanding. “Before we part, I have an announcement.”

All eyes turned to him. He stood a little straighter, like a man bearing a weight he had long expected. “My brothers and I have heeded Aceso’s counsel. We have chosen a Chapter Master. That burden has been laid upon me.”

No surprise stirred in the room. Only the ripple of nods and the thrum of congratulations, voices carrying warmth instead of shock. Vallis bore it with the same iron composure as always, though I thought I glimpsed the smallest flicker of something behind his eyes — pride tempered by gravity.

“There is more,” he continued. “We have decided to amend our designation. And our ornamentation, should you permit it.”

I spread a tentacle. “Whatever you choose, the Ecumene will oblige.”

Vallis’s gaze swept the council, then fixed back on me. “We are no longer the Third Company of the Flawless Host, scions of the Third Legiones Astartes, the Emperor’s Children. From this day we are the Flawless Host, First Loyalist Chapter of the Third Legiones Astartes, the Emperor’s Children.”

The words hung heavy in the air. A severing, and a reclaiming all at once. Congratulations followed again, firm and unhesitant, the chamber echoing with assent.

Vallis reached into his armor and drew a dataslate, setting it upon the table. A world blossomed into the air above us, its surface painted in rich browns and dull reds against the dark. My gaze fixed on it at once, recognition striking like a chord. It was one of the worlds we had already offered for settlement.

Even as the hologram revolved, I found myself dispatching quiet orders through the Ecumene’s channels, reassigning the, now two-ship strong, terraforming fleet. They would divert there as soon as their current task was complete. The efficiency was instinctive, but the feeling behind it was not. Bittersweet. For as I watched that barren sphere turn, I knew it meant Vallis — a man I had come to respect, whose counsel I valued — would one day leave us.

“This,” Vallis said, “is the world we claim as home. In time, it will serve as a cradle for aspirants, a training ground for those to come. But not yet. For now…” His eyes lifted, met mine directly. “For now, the Chapter remains here. On the Ecumene. We believe we can do more good beside you than we can burying ourselves in soil.”

I froze, caught entirely off guard. Of all the choices he might have spoken, this was the last I expected. Astartes were not ones to shun a home world. Yet even as shock rippled through the chamber, relief surged within me. To have them here was no burden. It was a gift.

“Then so be it,” I said. “Terraforming will begin at once. Defenses will follow — orbital and ground — as soon as the fleet reaches the system. You will have a home worthy of you, whether you dwell upon it or not.”

Vallis nodded once, as if that were settled. But then he hesitated, and I sensed the weight of something unspoken.

“There is one more matter,” he said at last. “Some of my brothers have asked — privately — if they might receive… upgraded gear. Not refinements, not marginal improvements. They speak of the best. The absolute best you and Paragon of Eden can provide.”

For an instant, I was stunned into silence. After the revelation of their remaining aboard the Ecumene, this nearly unseated me. One of my tentacles stilled mid-motion. Another dropped the tool it held, the metal clattering against the tabletop with a sound far too loud in the hushed chamber. I stared at Vallis, unable to mask my shock.

He did not flinch. “Yes,” he said at last, the word carrying the weight of an oath. “It is their choice, not mine. I will not deny them the right to choose their own arms, nor will I judge those who refuse.” “You mean,” I said carefully, “they wish to wield my most advanced technology. Weapons and armor never conceived by humankind, never touched by their design.”

Vallis drew a slow breath and let it go, a sigh weighted by decision. “Yes. It is not a demand. I have made it a matter of choice alone. Each warrior must decide for himself. No judgment will follow.”

I thought on it. On what it meant, what it risked — and what it offered. Then I inclined my head. “Then let them come to me. Any who choose this path will not only be armed in my best, but in what is theirs. Personalized. Specialized. A sniper shall have the rifle of his hand, a brawler the armor of his frame. I will not give them merely weapons. I will give them weapons that are theirs.”

Around the table, a stillness followed. The sense of a line crossed, of new ground broken.

At last, Vallis inclined his head. The matter was closed.

One by one, the council rose. Plans for the coming Ork campaign loomed, preparations already branching in a hundred directions. Yet beneath it all, the shape of something larger had taken root.

The Flawless Host had a Chapter Master, a name, a world, and a choice — and they had chosen us.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 41: The First Blow

The bridge was alive with quiet movement, the subdued symphony of final checks rippling through the crew. Fingers swept across consoles, murmured confirmations passed between stations, the faint hum of systems syncing rose and fell like measured breath.

Rynmark stood at the heart of it all, looking better than I had seen him since the day we dragged his crew from wreckage. His clothing was new, pressed, and clean. His face was smoother, younger almost, without the lines of desperation that had once hollowed his features. There was even the ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth. A man with a ship beneath his feet again, and life in his veins.

I manifested beside him in shimmering light, the familiar disguise cast into the air. He glanced toward me, eyes steady. “Are you certain we are ready?”

“Yes,” I said, and meant it. “As ready as I can make you. This ship, this crew—they are fit for the void again.” I let the pause linger a moment, then added, “But there is one last thing.”

A ripple tore the air open as a slipspace aperture flared to life beside the aft bulkhead. Out of it came a heavy crate, the glow of the portal snapping shut as quickly as it had come. A nod from Rynmark, and one of his crew moved to open it. Hinges groaned. Inside, nestled within padded housing, rested a bottle of Amasec. Not just any Amasec either—the liquid caught the light with a deep amber gleam that spoke of long aging and careful craft.

Rynmark turned his head toward me, brows arched in mild confusion.

I chuckled. “In humanity’s ancient past, when ships first set to sea, it was tradition to pour out libations to the gods. For good luck, for safe passage, for long life upon the waves. But as I am not inclined to waste even a drop on the so-called gods of this galaxy, I thought it better to keep the spirit of the act. Not christening the hull, but the bellies of the crew.”

Understanding dawned, followed by a genuine grin. Rynmark’s voice carried as he gave the order: “Have it moved to the mess halls. Let every man and woman taste this blessing before we depart.”

As the crate was borne away, I inclined my head toward him. “Keep in touch through Samaritan. And remember—whatever happens, you and yours will always have a safe place aboard the Ecumene.”

His reply was a firm nod, but the emotion behind it lingered unspoken. With that, I let my projection dissolve into air.

For a moment, the bridge was quiet save for the rhythm of systems. Rynmark drew in a long breath, squared his shoulders, and spoke aloud. “Samaritan—are we ready for FTL?”

The voice that answered came not from the hololith but through the small bud in his ear. “Yes, Captain. Systems are aligned and primed.”

“Do we have a destination?”

“I would suggest Hive World Nivorah,” Samaritan said smoothly. “Your ship has visited there before. Reports indicate famine is rampant. Our cargo holds are heavy with foodstuffs. Even though they remain in stasis, the longer we hold them, the greater the risk of suspicion. Best to distribute them early.”

Rynmark’s grin widened, openly now. “The markup will be very high.”

“Perhaps,” Samaritan replied dryly, “though I admit curiosity as to how high a markup can climb when the cost of acquisition was precisely zero.”

Rynmark laughed—an unguarded, easy sound that echoed against the bridge’s polished walls. “I don’t know,” he murmured to the little voice in his ear. “But let’s go find out.”

Then, more loudly, for all to hear: “We have our heading. Let’s be off!”

The forward viewscreens bloomed with light as the slipspace portal unfurled. The ship’s engines thrummed, the deck shivered beneath the crew’s boots, and the cruiser eased forward into the waiting aperture. One heartbeat, two—and then the portal snapped shut behind them, leaving only empty space in its place.

Rynmark was gone, bound for fate, fortune, or ruin.

——————— ✦ ———————

The escort fleet was ready at last. Titans and battleships formed its spine, vast enough to challenge any fleet the Imperium or Orks might hurl our way. Cruisers and destroyers flanked them, leaner but flexible, able to respond to threats the giants could not. Frigates filled the gaps, quick and sharp, the connective tissue that made the whole into something alive.

Beyond them, the yards still pulsed with work — the standing defense fleet for our new home system was half-complete, and the survey flotillas that would push into the unknown would be only a few days behind. Even more massive, nestled behind PE’s lattice of defense screens, the seed for Maethrillian itself waited. Soon construction would begin, the first strokes of a station so large it would anchor the Ecumene as surely as gravity itself. Already I was feeding it the mountains of Ork scrap hauled from this system, and privately I hoped the campaign ahead would bring more. Our methods were efficient, but even Forerunner design needed raw matter to reshape.

We would launch within hours. PE had scheduled the smaller vessels first — their slipspace drives were not inferior, but their power cores were smaller, their reach more limited. Their transits would take longer. Yet by the time we struck our destination, he promised we would emerge in concert, every hull dropping from slipspace within microseconds of the others. Precision enough to pass for inevitability.

The last hours before departure I spent in the labs, emptying stores of unprocessed ore into the shipyards. Better to clear our holds now and fetch more Ork debris later than lose time ferrying it. While drones carted metal and slag to the foundries, I turned my attention to another kind of preparation.

The Astartes had asked for the best. Vallis’s brothers would not be satisfied with scraps of salvaged power-armor, or Imperial trinkets polished with alien sheen. They wanted what only I could give them: the bleeding edge.

I laid out the archives, projections scrolling across my lab in light and glyphs. Combat skins — Class Fourteen and beyond. Not armor in the human sense, but living exoskins, adaptive lattices of nanomachines layered with hard-light. I watched old footage of them reconfiguring in battle, density shifting mid-blow, barriers blooming from empty air, whole portions of the frame slipping half out of realspace so fire passed through harmlessly. At their peak they were sentient themselves, ancilla as partners, thinking alongside their wearers, sometimes even guiding their hands. Blink modules were standard, allowing the wearer to vanish and reappear across a battlefield in an eyeblink. Their shields weren’t bubbles but symphonies — harmonics tuned separately for plasma, for particles, for gravitic shock.

Above them still were the Supremacy-class combat skins. They were armies unto themselves. Some could fabricate drones or hard-light constructs mid-fight, their ancilla not single voices but ecosystems — a chorus housed in radiant shells. They could walk on neutron stars, drift inside accretion disks, even balance between slipspace and realspace without harm.

In their original design, they did not carry null-fields, but as I adapted them for Vallis’s men, I saw the potential. Their layered harmonics and reality-stabilizing matrices made it possible to weave in a new effect: fields that stripped the warp bare, suppressing its currents for kilometers around. In this galaxy, that would mean daemons simply could not endure their presence. To the eye they would be less soldiers than phenomena: shifting prisms, storms of refracted light given form — and now, engines of silence against the warp itself.

Weapons flickered in turn. Hardlight blades that could shift from knife to lance to guillotine in an instant, cutting not just matter but the fields that protected it. Particle casters — hand-held echoes of ship lances, their beams modulated finely enough to slip through regenerative shields as though threading a needle. Torsion mini-drivers — pocket versions of my fortress weapons, generating localized gravitic vortices around dense projectiles. When fired, they didn’t just smash through armor — they made the structures around the impact collapse in on themselves, crushing squads and fortifications as though the battlefield itself turned against them. Neural-seekers, missiles that hunted by thought and intent rather than heat or signal, nearly impossible to dodge without shielding the mind itself. And the strangest of all, the living weapons: ancilla woven into armor, manifesting familiars of light and clouds of drones, so that a warrior carried an arsenal that regenerated from nothing, a weapon that was simply part of who they were.

I tinkered with the patterns, adjusted harmonics, ran simulations of shield overlap and field bleed. At the same time, I let recordings of Astartes training scroll beside me, Vallis’s men sparring and drilling in their halls. I watched their stances, the way one favored the thrust, another the hook, another the careful shot. Slowly, I began to imagine the loadouts they might prefer — a sniper’s particle caster tuned to silence, a brawler’s armor thickened into prismatic walls, a swordsman’s skin built to blossom blades on instinct.

Time dissolved in the work, as it always did. When PE’s voice came through, calm and absolute, telling me it was time, I nearly started. I closed the archives, left the simulations to cycle on their own, and with a thought opened a portal. In a shimmer of light I stepped through, leaving the lab for the Ecumene’s bridge, where the fleet waited and the war began.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Ecumene’s bridge was quiet save for the low murmur of systems, glyphs sliding into alignment across the vaulted walls. I floated to where PE’s projection waited, the hum of anticipation thrumming in the shared link between us. In my mind the countdown ticked silently: five, four, three, two, one.

At zero the void split open. A slipspace aperture bloomed before us, vast and violet-white, its edges writhing with the distortion of torn dimensions. The Ecumene surged forward, titans and battleships looming behind us like giants of fire and stone.

We emerged into war.

Ork ships clogged the void, ramshackle hulks bristling with cannons, jagged armor, and wild, roaring engines. They were already turning, already bellowing fury, but they had no time to prepare for what came through. The Ecumene struck like a hammer. Her shields flared as she shouldered through a cluster of enemy craft, sheer bulk tearing them aside like wreckage before a tide. Titans followed in her wake, their hulls vast walls of radiant light, scattering green formation fire as they forced openings into the melee.

Our sensors flared to life the instant the aperture closed. Targets painted themselves across my the battle net in cold precision, and almost at once the guns began to roar.

Torsion drivers fired first — vast gravitic projectors twisting space into violent shears. Their projectiles were wrapped in vortices that tore at reality itself, so that when they struck, ships did not simply break apart — they folded inward, armor and bulkheads crumpling as if the weight of a collapsed world had been poured into them. Even the edge of their blasts tore at nearby ships, dragging smaller vessels off course and ripping them open under stresses no hull could endure. With PE’s precision there were few wasted shots; nearly every torsion strike landed true, folding Ork hulls inward like collapsing stars.

Plasma devastators followed, great lances of star-hot fire sweeping across the void, carving open cruisers and vaporizing escorts in single strokes. Particle beams lanced outward in tight threads of light, shearing through armor at the molecular level, their trails lingering like scars across the dark. From our banks poured gravitic warheads, sleek missiles that detonated in collapsing spheres, crumpling everything within their reach into broken shards.

The Orks screamed and charged in kind, their guns vomiting torrents of fire. Bright shells burst against our shields, energy lances spat wildly, ramships clawed to close the distance. They fought with the savagery of their kind, brutal and unrelenting.

Amid the storm, PE divided the fleet with flawless precision. Titans carved steady lines across the battlespace, drawing the enemy’s fury and holding them in place. Cruisers peeled away to rake Ork flanks. Frigates and destroyers darted through the chaos to gut stragglers. The Ecumene remained the anchor, holding fast above the Necron tomb entrance below.

Even as he orchestrated the void war, PE’s attention stretched downward. Drop portals flared open across the surface, and mechanized legions poured through into Ork-held positions. Hard-light armor gleamed as formations of warforms drove into the enemy. In orbit above, other portals snapped open directly on board Ork ships, disgorging sterilization teams into their very hearts. Entire hulks flickered with sudden silence as our forces scoured them room by room, preparing them for recycling.

The Orks met them in kind, brutal and unrelenting. Even with Forerunner armor and Federation reinforcement nodes, losses came. Boarding claws and sheer ferocity tore apart warforms, some burned away in the crush of Orkish fire. Each that fell was slipspaced away in the instant, ferried back for repair or recycling — but it was still a cost paid in fire and noise.

I could feel PE’s satisfaction through the link, though he masked it well. This was the first time he’d been allowed to fight like this, to stretch beyond support and calculation into the role he was made for. And I knew him well enough to feel the hunger beneath — the thought of the fleets still being built, of the campaigns to come when he would command not one force but many.

The Orks fought savagely, but it was fury against inevitability. Within minutes orbital superiority was ours.

I opened a channel to Vallis. He appeared, armored and grim, preparing for ground insertion. His new suit gleamed with the slapdash upgrades I’d managed in short time — inbuilt slipspace generators, new sensor lattices, adjustments to make him faster, sharper, more dangerous on the ground. “These should aid your movement,” I told him quickly. “Not perfect, but enough for now.”

He gave a curt nod, his warriors behind him already in formation. “We are ready.”

“Then go,” PE said, and with a pulse of light they vanished — reappearing on the planet below, near one of the Ork encampments, far enough from the tomb’s defenses to avoid its ire.

The Ecumene descended briefly, its great hull cutting through the atmosphere, shedding streams of attack craft and drones. Interceptor flights, hard-light fighters, swarms of locusts and cicadas poured into the skies, carving green trails of fire as they descended. Within moments the air was a storm of shrieking engines and burning wrecks. As soon as the deployment bays were emptied, the Ecumene rose back to orbit, freeing the titans to rejoin the battle above.

The field was ours. The Orks still raged, but they were trapped in the jaws of a machine older and sharper than their fury.

In the quiet between commands, I finished assembling a small transponder unit. It linked me to the warform squad PE had assigned as my guard for the mission into the tombs, and it would broadcast the Phaeron’s codes, a key that would — I hoped — keep the tomb’s defenses from firing on us at all. PE noticed at once.

“You are still going,” PE said, his tone almost sullen.

I inclined my head. “There is no choice. If something is wrong within, no one else can repair it.”

“You could make more of yourself,” PE said, and there was an edge there I had never heard before. “More huragok. You do not have to do this alone. Others could take the risks.”

The words struck me still. It was the closest he had ever come to outright defiance — and more than that, it was a thought I had never once considered. Helpers. Partners in the work. The idea lingered, unsettling in its novelty.

“I will… think on it,” I said at last. “But for now, this is what we must do.”

He relented, but I felt his displeasure.

The transponder pulsed once in my tentacle as I settled it onto the harness I had constructed for myself to hold things like this. My guards gathered around me, their hard alloy frames gleaming in the glow of the bridge lighting. With a thought, I pulled us through slipspace.

The bridge dissolved, and in the next instant we stood at the gates of the tomb.

Whatever waited within, we would face it together.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 42: The Tomb Awakens

——————— ✦ ———————

The descent began in silence, save for the faint rasp of my escorts against stone and the low hum of my gravitic field. The tomb’s walls pressed close on either side, vast planes of obsidian-black veined with dim bluish-green fire. At first glance they were ornamentation, hieroglyphics and geometric etchings sprawling like vines across every surface. But my scanners whispered otherwise. Each line carried a faint current, power bleeding down through the walls in endless loops. Beautiful, certainly, but inefficient — a stray impact here, a fracture there, and the entire flow could be broken. Perhaps it was all one vast circuit, a redundant mesh hidden beneath the surface. Perhaps. But to my eye it was artistry mistaken for engineering. Wasteful. Fragile.

It was the broken thing at the threshold that drew me in. A scarab — Canoptek, if my memory of Necron designations was correct. Its legs twitched feebly, one half of its carapace fused where necrodermis had failed to knit. I drifted down upon it, tendrils already sliding free from beneath my body. The escorts sitffened, bodies tense and weapons primed, until they saw I was not attacking but prying. The construct’s shell gave little at first, and I frowned, rotating it under scanning beams, layer by stubborn layer. Only when I forced the analysis into its deepest spectrum did the truth emerge.

It was not a machine in the sense I knew it. It was billions—no, quintillions—of machines, a hive of nanites clinging together in the likeness of an insect.

Understanding brought order. My tendrils found seams, peeling back the outer “skin” of nanites like scales flaking from a fish. The scarab shuddered in my grasp, but it was crippled, its swarm too broken to resist. Had it been whole, every nanite active, it would have fought me tooth and claw, the very surface of its body reweaving faster than I could cut. Fortune was on my side.

Behind me, my escorts kept their scanners fixed on the mapped corridors, following the paths confirmed by the Ecumene’s surveys. They guided our progress steadily forward, ensuring we continued toward our goal, while I floated half-distracted, intent on prying into the broken scarab in my grasp. Left to myself, I would have drifted into walls and dead ends a dozen times over.

In the end, it was not the hardware that held my interest, but the programming. The physical elements were clever — the compression ratio of the nanites was remarkable, and the presence of an inbuilt micro-fabricator tucked within each was noteworthy — but none of it was revolutionary. Ingenious, yes, but not extraordinary.

The code, though… that was strange.

The scarab’s mind was nothing more than a swarm. Each nanite reported upward, information folded into the greater mass, and the whole operated as a hive bound by rote. At the center lurked only a virtual intelligence, shallow and constrained. No spark of creativity, no adaptive brilliance. Only obedience. By even the most generous metric it could not be called an AI.

That kind of sophistication, I suspected, was reserved for their higher constructs.

The repair miracles the Necrons so relied upon revealed themselves as grim practicality. The scarabs did not heal through invention or elegance. They burned themselves to mend others, shedding nanites and bleeding their reserves of energy to stitch necrodermis faster than it could repair itself on its own. Impressive in its way, and the design suggested ideas for compact energy storage and hyper-dense fabrication units. But as a technology? It was a dead end for me. A sacrifice-engine, nothing more.

I let the broken creature lie in my palm, still trembling faintly, and felt only disappointment.

——————— ✦ ———————

When I was finished I reassembled the scarab, fitting its swarming layers back into place with practiced care. The little thing quivered in my grasp, wings half-formed, limbs twitching as though remembering their purpose. I plucked a chunk of stone from the floor with a tendril and offered it up. The scarab seized on it eagerly, mandibles rasping. My scanners traced the process as the raw mineral was drawn into its body and rendered down, disassembled atom by atom before being restructured into gleaming necrodermis.

Fascinating. Not revolutionary — the Forerunner nanoforges could already exceed this precision — but the method gave me ideas. Small efficiencies, tighter energy paths, perhaps a more elegant distribution across fabrication nodes. Not groundbreaking, no, but worth noting.

In time the scarab’s form was whole again, its shell once more gleaming with the faint sheen of living metal. I expected it to flutter off into the tomb’s depths, returning to whatever endless, blind cycle had been programmed into it. Instead it froze, mandibles quivering, and turned its gaze on me.

A scan pulse brushed over my form. My transponder answered automatically. The scarab shivered, and then tried to open a data link.

My tendrils snapped taut. Firewalls sprang into place, hard partitions slamming shut inside my processes. I traced the attempt, studied it, and when I was certain it could do no harm, I shunted it into an isolated channel. Then, cautiously, I accepted.

The stream that followed was crude, halting. No real intelligence lay behind it, only simple protocols and rote responses. Even whole, the scarab was nothing more than a swarm-mind with a veneer of decision-making. Yet it surprised me still: it flagged my transponder, designated me with low-level engineering access.

When I queried its systems for a report on main power, the VI did not answer. Instead it spat out a string of coordinates, a direction deeper into the tomb. Then it lifted from my tendrils and skittered into the air, wings buzzing softly as it hovered a moment before turning into the dark.

The constructs assigned to me stirred as one, their forms shifting into escort formation without a sound. They needed no words, no glances — only the will of Paragon flowing through them. I pulsed agreement through my manipulators and drifted after the scarab, scanners firing on full bore.

The little machine darted ahead, its dim glow bobbing like a guide-light. We followed it down into the silence, deeper into the tomb’s endless night.

——————— ✦ ———————

Up in orbit, Paragon of Eden was in his element. It had been far too long since he had been allowed to truly exercise himself as he was designed. Administration, construction oversight, shipyard schedules — all important, all necessary. But those tasks were not what he was made for. He was a war-mind. A blade meant for the void. The cleansing of the space hulk had been a taste, a rehearsal. Today, above this world, he was doing what he was built to do. And he was doing it very well.

Ork ships broke and burned across the planet’s orbit, green-hulled monstrosities torn apart by the Ecumene’s batteries or lured into cross-fires and minefields that reduced them to scrap in storms of fire. Paragon of Eden never let himself be drawn far from the world below. That was their gambit — to drag him off, to leave the surface exposed so their hordes could fall upon it in the close-quarters slaughter they craved.

Instead, he turned their instinct against them. The counterplay was almost insultingly simple: sit in the open, make himself the brightest target in the sky, and let them charge. The Orks could not resist. Baiting them required no art, no deception. Present a target, and the psychotic walking mushrooms hurled themselves headlong into their own destruction.

Fragments of himself were already working elsewhere. A sub-mind managed the sterile hulks drifting in his wake, those few Ork ships scoured clean of spores and toxins by the cleansing fire of his various boarding crews. Tugs would be dispatched to haul them into the Ecumene’s cavernous bays, where they would be broken down and processed. Only the fortress-ship had the means to disassemble and refabricate on an industrial scale, but the rest of the fleet had vast cargo space. For efficiency’s sake, raw scrap would be consumed within the Ecumene, refined, compacted, and then transferred as neat ingots and processed matter to the fleet’s holds. Order, not waste. Always order.

A fresh contact bloomed across his awareness — another onrush, another tide of green-hulled craft throwing themselves into his teeth. At the edge of his net he felt a knot of activity near the system’s fifth world, vox-bursts leaking into the void. A nob, swollen with ambition, attempting to declare himself warboss. Paragon of Eden tasted the feral bravado in their guttural comms, their crude attempts at coordination. He almost admired the effort. Almost.

“Foolish fungus,” he whispered across his own circuits. “Come closer. Come and break yourselves.”

The Ecumene’s weapons cycled, shields flexed, traps armed. He would smash them flat, mulch them for the gardens, erase their noise from his sky.

Oh yes. It was proving to be a very good day.

——————— ✦ ———————

The scarab led us deeper, its wings buzzing faintly in the gloom. Once, along the way, I paused. A carcass lay in the dust — another scarab, this one long dead, its swarm utterly dormant. I gathered it up in my tendrils, weighing a thought that had nagged at me since the first. A simple test: energy infusion.

I pulsed a measured charge into the body.

The effect was immediate. The nanites drank the energy like a sponge, their dormant systems flickering to life. The scarab twitched, shuddered, then lifted from my grasp with a rasping hum. It turned, darted to the wall, and latched on. My scanners tracked the current shift as it tapped into the conduit-web carved into the stone, pulling power to refill itself. In moments it was whole again, repaired and renewed, before skittering off into the dark without hesitation.

Elegant in its simplicity. Wasteful, too. A system that could not sustain itself without constant feeding. Still, it explained much. The Necron design philosophy seemed a contradiction — brilliance spliced with blunt inefficiency. Privately, I turned the thought over. There were reasons I could imagine, theories I could spin, but no evidence yet to anchor them.

We pressed on.

A slumped form caught my attention — the husk of a Necron warrior, crumpled in the passage like discarded scrap. I drifted closer, studying the angles of its broken frame, the dull gleam of necrodermis gone inert. For a long moment the temptation gnawed at me. A dissection — no, a vivisection, for there might still be fragments of activity clinging to the shell — would be enlightening. Very enlightening. My tendrils twitched at the thought, already sketching incision paths in the air.

In the end, restraint won. I settled for scans instead, sweeping the corpse with beams of light and deep-spectrum probes. If there was even the faintest semblance of life still flickering within, I doubted the Thokt would appreciate me carving apart one of their own.

The results startled me more than any cutting could have. The warrior’s data pathways were pitifully limited. Barely more than what I had seen in the scarabs. Simple loops, constrained protocols. No nuance. No capacity to adapt. A machine soldier, yes, but a blunt one, utterly dependent on a higher mind to direct it.

No wonder they fared so poorly against the Orks. With nothing but rigid patterning to guide them, they were little more than statues that could walk and fire. Their effectiveness was bottlenecked by design — deliberate constraint woven into every pathway.

But why?

It would take so little to elevate them. A nudge in architecture, a broadening of their logic gates, and they could think as well as any average human. Not master tacticians, perhaps, not visionaries — but at least capable of independent thought, of adapting beyond rote responses.

So why hobble them? Why make them less than what they could so easily be?

The questions coiled in me as we reached our destination.

The scarab hovered at a sealed door, waiting. I queried it, and its response came clipped: access denied without proper authorization.

I drifted forward, tendril reaching to the stylized panel set into the stone. A handshake formed, data lines flickered, and I fed it the codes the Phaeron had granted me.

The door stirred. Nanites peeled away from the frame, retracting and packing themselves into hidden recesses, folding tight as the surface withdrew. The air shifted, stale and dry, as the passage yawned open before me.

I floated in, scanners already alive. The chamber beyond stretched wide, its heart dominated by towering pylons that thrust toward the ceiling like dead trees.

Massive. Silent. And very much dead.

——————— ✦ ———————

The pylons were not what I first thought. A closer look stripped away the illusion of grandeur: they were not generators at all, but receivers. Wireless energy receptors, advanced by any measure, their surfaces latticed with channels and resonant nodes that begged to be studied. Compared to Forerunner designs, they were crude in some ways and brilliant in others. If tuned properly, these constructs could, in theory, draw power from across an entire galaxy. The implications for logistics alone made my gas bladders flutter with excitement. No supply lines, no local reactors, no fragile tethers — power everywhere, always.

And yet, they stood silent.

My scans found nothing amiss. Every circuit perfect, every component exactly as it should be. No flaws to explain their lifeless state. I queried the scarab at my side, requesting schematics or a path to the central data core. The little construct only hovered dumbly, its swarm mind offering no reply.

With no other recourse, I composed a message for the Phaeron, outlining the situation and requesting guidance. The comm-link he had granted me at our meeting pulsed faintly as the transmission vanished into the net. I turned back to my work, tendrils sweeping delicately across the pylons, probing deeper layers.

Minutes later a reply arrived. To my surprise, it included full blueprints of the receivers. I poured over them at once, cross-referencing my scans. The frustration hit me hard when the comparison showed nothing wrong at all. The pylons matched the designs precisely, down to the atom. Worse, the Phaeron’s note confirmed the transmitters themselves — vast pylons embedded in the void rifts of the Hyrakii Deeps — were still functioning exactly as they should. The problem was not at the source.

I composed another message, my irritation bleeding into the precision of my syntax. I reported my findings and requested a path to the central data core. If the generation was sound and the receivers perfect, then the fault must lie within the nodal network, some break between will and function.

The reply came more quickly this time. A map, detailed and expansive, the tomb’s layout marked with corresponding nodes. Alongside it was a new cipher — an upgraded transponder key. I tested it at once, transmitting the code to the scarab. The effect was immediate. The little construct straightened, wings beating steady, and its mind opened fully to me. Engineering access confirmed.

I wasted no time. I commanded it to guide me: first to other power stations, both receiving and generating, and then to the central core itself. The scarab buzzed acknowledgment, then turned and floated from the chamber.

I sighed, venting gas in a faint ripple. Always deeper. Always further. I gathered my escorts with a thought and drifted after the little machine, scanners blazing to keep its faint glow in sight as we vanished once more into the tomb’s dark.

——————— ✦ ———————

The storm of war broke across the Ork stronghold like fire in dry brush. Bolters roared, plasma crackled, and the ground itself seemed to shudder beneath the advance of the Flawless Host. They were not the same men who had stumbled to the initial meeting with the Ecumene half-broken, half-mad. Now their armor gleamed with reinforced alloys, their weapons struck with the bite of Federation-era precision, and their formations moved like a single organism. Against the Orks’ crude brutality, it was slaughter.

Vallis cut a path through the green tide with measured, unhurried steps. His blade sheared through muscle and iron alike, each strike deliberate, each movement precise. Around him his brothers advanced in disciplined ranks, no longer the ragged survivors they had once been but a phalanx reborn. Their armor, reforged with alien precision, turned aside blows that once would have slain them outright. Layered shields flared and held, and on the rare occasions they buckled, the Orks’ weapons found only unyielding plate beneath.

Bolts and slugs that had once carved through Astartes as though they were mortal men now bounced harmlessly away, like stones cast by children. The greenskins hacked and bellowed, throwing themselves forward in the endless frenzy of their kind — and died in droves. They had no answer.

The warriors felt it too. Their voices crackled across the squad-links between bursts of gunfire, their tone edged with disbelief and exhilaration.
“Never fought this clean before—”
“They break like glass, and we keep standing—”
“Emperor save me, if this is what he gave us with human tech, what would the best of his work look like?”

The chatter spread, impossible to stop. For the first time in long years, they were winning cleanly, decisively. The thought hung in every mind: if these gifts, born from some ancient Federation archive, could make them this strong, what wonders waited if they let MC open the vaults of his xenos craft?

Vallis heard it all, silent behind his helm. He felt the same hunger burning in his chest. He had seen the machines at work, seen the impossible things MC built with his drifting tentacles and bottomless patience. If this was the lesser gift, the barest scrap of what he could offer, then the true heights of his art might lift them into gods.

And yet, he held.

He had made his choice the moment he saw his brothers emerge from the forges, clad in armor that fitted them at last, carrying weapons they could trust. He would not outpace them. He would not stand apart. Every last one of his brothers would walk this path first. Only then, when all were equal, would he accept the next gift.

He drove his blade through an Ork Nob, sparks hissing as the brute fell thrashing to the dust. Around him the tide broke and fled, greenskins falling back under the relentless fire of the Host. His warriors surged forward, cries of triumph echoing, already dreaming of what might come next.

Vallis stood among them, the battle’s heat still clinging to him, and for the first time in decades felt hope stir like a living thing.

——————— ✦ ———————

At last the scarab brought us to the core. Hours had passed in the wandering, station to station, from geothermal taps buried deep in the stone to dormant pylons waiting silently in their alcoves. The geothermal wells, at least, yielded to my touch — cracked seals, fouled regulators, easy enough to repair, though I learned nothing new in the process. The rest were pristine, perfect as the first: receivers poised to drink from the void, yet with no flaw I could find to explain their silence.

The central chamber was different. Here, for the first time, the tomb lived. Lights burned in steady arrays, power flowed through conduits like blood through veins. The scarab alighted before the command core, a looming cluster of consoles and data pillars, and waited.

I did not hesitate. Tendrils sank into the interface nodes, and at once the flood came.

Centuries, millennia, hundreds of thousands of years of logs and reports crashed into my mind. Maintenance queues stacked endlessly, system checks and power readouts forming mountains of information. Beyond that, millions of observations cataloguing the surface above — the slow rise of organics, the profiles unmistakably human. Then the wars: humans and orks, orks against the tomb as it struggled to wake. Each record preserved, unchanging, a weight that nearly buried me. Even with my processing power it took effort to claw back to the surface of myself, to clear the torrent and think again.

When I did, I found revelation waiting.

The nodal network — this vaunted command system, the mind of the tomb — was nothing of the sort. It was no true intelligence at all, only a glorified filing clerk. It did not think, it did not lead. It sorted. Data in, categories out, reports passed upward to some greater authority that no longer answered. At best it was a scheduling minder, a hollow machine tallying what it could not resolve.

Well I thought to myself… If the tomb wanted a leader, then I would provide one.

I keyed the cipher once more, sending a tight-beam pulse through what limited bandwidth the Necron transmitters still held. The Ecumene answered, and privately I addressed Paragon of Eden, detailing what I had found and suggesting he assume control.

He did not hesitate. At once, a whole swath of the notification storm — everything tagged as vaguely military — vanished as his mind absorbed and parsed it. Orders rippled outward. The few active warriors halted, straightening as if awakening from a stupor, their rigid routines suddenly given shape and purpose under the hand of a competent commander. They responded without hesitation, falling into formation as though his voice had always been their law.

From orbit, Paragon had already studied their crude exchanges with the Orks, their stiff, predictable fighting patterns. Now he adapted swiftly, slotting their limited capacity into roles they could actually fulfill, covering weaknesses with his own precision. Entrances that had faltered were shored up. Chokepoints held. And as the resistance solidified, Ork activity at the tomb mouths began to gutter out, snuffed under the sudden lash of coordination.

And he did not stop there. Our own units, too, he placed in the line. Outside the tombs they were not marked as targets, not fired upon by Necron weaponry. They joined the defense seamlessly, and with every moment the greenskins’ assaults waned.

For the first time since my descent began, I felt the shape of order pressing through the tomb. Not the cold automation of dead machines, but coordination. Strategy. Purpose.

We had given the tomb its mind again.

——————— ✦ ———————

While Paragon bent the tomb’s warriors to his will, I searched for what I was certain had to exist somewhere within these systems: a repository, a data core, some compendium of knowledge. I was not expecting an all-encompassing codex — the Necron equivalent of omniscience bound in a single archive — but surely there would be at least a manual. There had to be at least the Necron equivalent of a ‘how to for dummies’ book.

And there it was.

I found it nested within the command core’s subsystems, a repository of technical schema and operating notes. Not elegant, not comprehensive, but sufficient. I devoured it quickly, parsing glyph after glyph, annotation after annotation, and committing the structure to memory. When I was finished, I allowed myself the mental equivalent of stretching — and if I had still been human, I might have cracked my knuckles. Instead there was only a ripple through my bladders, the subtle crack and flex of thought, before I dove headlong into the system proper.

It resisted me.

My first task was straightforward: redirect what little power I controlled into systems repair and restoration, giving the scarabs badly needed reinforcement. Parsing through the logs, I saw just how strained the grid truly was. Power bled away into endless cycles of repairs, awakenings, transports, and recoveries of damaged Necron warriors. Over and over again, energy was spent dragging them to their feet, only to see them fall once more. It was a wonder the tomb had held together at all.

The VI fought me every step of the way. No matter how I redirected power, it clawed it back to its own priorities. The historical archives were its greatest obsession. I tried to starve them, stripping away their feeds and shunting the current into systems I actually needed. Yet time and again the lights in those vaults flared to life, the VI quietly reassigning power no matter how many times I cut it away.

I pulled energy, it restored it. I diverted to vital nodes, it dragged the flow back, stubbornly funneling everything into initializing scanners and curatorial subsystems for its archives.

There was no malice in it, no awareness — only the inertia of a machine, shackled to the priorities etched into its code. But still, it resisted me.

So I tricked it.

A minor thing: I adjusted the chronometers for the contested sections, nudging their internal clocks back millions of years. According to its own timekeeping, those nodes were not due to awaken yet, and thus should remain in stasis. A simple deception to trick a simple machine, but it was enough. The VI relented.

My scarab swarm finally began to grow, scouring the tombs in expanding arcs. Through their sensors I peered into cracks and vaults, searching, cataloguing, cross-referencing with the data flow that filled me.

And in the reports I found what I sought: the truth of the power system.

The entire complex, vast and labyrinthine, currently ran on the geological tap I had repaired earlier. But the yield was stunted. It should have given more — far more. Then I saw the simple truth written between the lines. Sixty-five million years had passed since these systems first stirred. Geological time does not stand still. This world’s heart had cooled. Its core no longer burned with the same fury, its veins no longer bled as they once had.

The taps were drinking from a cup that was nearly dry.

——————— ✦ ———————

Fortunately, I had a solution to buy us time. After tricking the other revival sequences into the same erroneous dating as the archive chamber, I requisitioned two massive pre-charged capacitors from the Ecumene and several compact vacuum-energy generators. They were transported down into a broad chamber I had selected earlier, open enough to serve as a staging node.

I had been right about the conduits. Every wall here doubled as a power line, a seamless loop etched into the necrodermis itself. If even a single segment remained intact, current would flow, redistributed across the mesh. That meant all I had to do was plug in.

After leaving a transmitter so I could remain connected to the nodal command network I transported myself and most of my guards to the generators. With my escorts forming a silent cordon, I drifted to the wall and beckoned over a handful of passing scarabs. They obeyed readily once I fed them clear directives, their swarming bodies gnawing delicate channels for my Forerunner-style cabling. In short order the interface was complete.

I engaged the switch.

The capacitors thumped, the generators hummed, and light bloomed. The walls around me brightened as though exhaling, bluish-green radiance flooding the glyphs and lines. The glow raced outward along the conduits, a river of brilliance threading through the carvings. In moments the chamber was alive with it, mosaics of emerald fire etched across the necrodermis like living veins.

I mused what a sight it must be in the outer halls: to stand in the dark and watch the illumination rushing past, cascading down the passageways like lightning racing through storm clouds.

The network answered at once. My tap registered the surge, flagged it, and raised an alert: anomalous power source detected. By protocol, the system immediately attempted to transition back to its primary power links.

A quick slipspace hop carried me to the central command core, where I reestablished my direct interface.

Perfect.

At last, I had a way inside the power systems without wading through millions of years of accumulated alerts — or worse, losing myself in the labyrinthine tangle of Necron computational architecture.

The VI relayed the status report in its bland, unthinking monotone. The solar receivers were marked as nominal, but their transmitter array in the system’s star remained offline. The void-rift receivers, however, stubbornly reported themselves as damaged — though my own scans told me they were perfectly intact.

I tried, more than once, to force the system to refresh their status, to check them anew, but each time it refused. The reports stayed the same: damaged.

Frustration coiled through me. I dug into the logs, narrowing my search to the void-rift receivers. The truth unfolded line by line. When the tomb first began to stir, it had followed its programming. It attempted to restore main power. The solar array failed to answer, so it shifted to the Hyrakii Deeps network. That receiver reported “damaged.” Scarabs were dispatched. Repairs were completed. After a pre-set amount of time the system rechecked.

Again: “damaged.”

Except they weren’t.

The scarabs had done their work perfectly. My scans confirmed the receivers were pristine, aligned, ready. The fault was not in the machinery but in the logic. The scarabs’ VI was designed to report only to an intelligence — a Cryptek, by all indication — who would then clear the error manually. Without that acknowledgment, the main system kept colliding with its own limitations, hammering endlessly at a gate it was programmed never to open unbidden.

It made sense, in its way. That much power was dangerous. If a fault truly persisted, an unrestrained activation could have burned the entire complex to ash. Safeguards demanded a thinking mind to review, to confirm.

But in practice? It was a loop, a cycle of blind obedience. A problem that could have been resolved with the smallest integration between the nodal network and the scarabs, a flicker more intelligence woven into the network. Instead it had sat broken for millions of years, because the Necrons had trusted their perfect order to something little smarter than a scarab.

I vented a ripple of gas in something like a sigh. Such brilliance, shackled by such stupidity.

——————— ✦ ———————

Caution dictated my next step. I prepared emergency slipspace exits for myself and the escorts, contingencies layered into every channel. A single pulse and we would be gone, the tomb abandoned in an instant. At the same time I alerted Paragon of Eden, a silent signal threading through our link. Be ready. If this goes wrong, we run.

Then I reached into the system and cleared the error manually.

The nodal VI seized on the opening with mindless eagerness. Within seconds the reports changed: Main power restored. Readouts spiked across my senses as the Hyrakii Deeps relay came online, raw energy flooding down into the network. The entire complex stirred like a corpse taking breath, lights flaring, systems coming alive at astonishing speed.

I braced for chaos — a dozen revival sequences flaring into life, the tomb awakening wholesale — but the deception still held. The sectors I had backdated remained “asleep,” convinced they lay millions of years in the past. Only the core systems roared with power.

And with that power came revelation.

The cascade of alerts I had been wading through shifted, shunted away into some previously hidden buffer. The clutter was gone, the backlog buried. And behind it, gleaming like treasure unearthed, I found what I had been hunting all along.

The holy grail.

The main engineering archives contained a codex. Not a mere manual, not scattered fragments — but a true compendium. I found it hidden where I should have expected all along: buried within the scarabs’ repair archives, the subroutines they consulted when rebuilding structures and systems. To them it was simply the blueprint stockpile needed to perform their endless tasks. To me, it was treasure.

Exacting schematics and processes unfolded before me, line by line, for the wonders of Necron craft: gauss induction arrays, phase-field harmonics, even the methods of blackstone creation. Every detail recorded with precision, every pathway preserved.

I began the transfer at once, piping the codex into my own body while simultaneously streaming it through the comms net to the Ecumene. At the same time I severed every external channel I could reach, cutting the tomb’s wider network away. If the Phaeron was watching, perhaps the act would slip past his notice. At the very least, it would buy me time to hide the theft.

I was still wrapped in the data, still reveling in the success, when the sound came.

A voice.

Low, cold, and echoing from the shadows.

Terror jolted through me, my bladders constricting in a sharp hiss. My escorts reacted instantly, weapons lifting in flawless synchrony, their sensors trained into the darkness where the words had come from.

I had thought us alone.

We were not.

——————— ✦ ———————

A voice slipped from the dark, urbane and smooth, though its timbre was metallic, ancient.

From the shadows stepped a Necron. His frame was tall and regal, necrodermis polished like burnished bronze and inlaid with veins of turquoise that caught the dim light. Arcane glyphs shimmered faintly across his armor, shifting like embers on metal, and in his hand rested a staff that was both weapon and sigil of authority. He moved with unsettling ease, each step measured and unhurried, as though the half-active tomb and the war raging beyond its walls were of no concern to him at all.

The nodal system — still streaming through my link — chirped helpfully in my mind. Designation: Overlord Trazyn of the Nihilakh Dynasty. Honorific: The Infinite.

I swear this galaxy will kill me from heart failure alone. Shocks, nothing more, piling one after the next until my gas sacs simply burst.

Trazyn had been speaking the entire time, words rolling in cultured tones that I had all but ignored in my panic. I scrambled, pulling language files to the forefront, cross-referencing Necrontyr syntax and phonemes. Hastily, shakily, I replied:

“Apologies. Could you… repeat that?”

If I didn’t know better, I would swear he raised an eyebrow. But Necrons have no brows, only the subtle tilt of a skull-like visage that somehow conveyed the same irritation.

“I said,” he repeated, with sharp annoyance, “what have we here? Poking about in technology that doesn’t belong to you. What a naughty little bag of gas you are. Perhaps a few thousand years in one of my exhibits, alongside some of your fascinating constructs, might teach you to keep out of your betters’ affairs.”

Internally, I groaned. Oh yes. This galaxy would be the death of me. If the Orks didn’t smash me and the Tyranids didn’t digest me, the Necrons would curate me. Paragon of Eden was never going to let me leave the ship again. Perhaps a one-way trip to Andromeda truly was the only sane option.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 43: The Infinite Steps Forth

——————— ✦ ———————

I froze, terror coiling in every chamber of me. It was one thing to face a predator that wanted only to kill, or a beast that hungered to eat. Those were familiar dangers — blunt, comprehensible. But this? This was something far worse. Here stood a being who might not kill me at all, who might instead preserve me like an insect trapped in amber, left to stare and squirm while he studied me with fascination for a million years.

Trazyn the Infinite. The name struck like a hammer. The most famous — or perhaps infamous — kleptomaniac in the galaxy. From what I remembered, he had already been considered ancient when biotransference came, one of the few Necrontyr to slip free of the cancers that devoured his kin long before their time. Where most of his people withered young, Trazyn endured decades, perhaps centuries, and carried into necrodermis not just his mind but the weight of a long-lived obsession: curating the artifacts of culture and history. That fixation burned into him so deeply that it survived the transfer and etched itself into his very machine-being.

And unlike his kin, who slept in their tombs for sixty-five million years, he had never truly rested. He stirred, slumbered, and stirred again, roaming the galaxy in ages when others lay dormant, plundering relics and living specimens alike for his endless galleries on Solemnace. He had been awake longer than most of his race, long enough to see empires rise and fall, long enough to pluck treasures from their ashes.

Necron society tolerated him only grudgingly. His mercurial nature, his endless thefts, had earned him little but disdain from his peers. Barely tolerated, almost shunned — and yet never cast out entirely, for he had the wit to placate his kin with extravagant gifts. A priceless relic here, a cultural treasure there. Tokens meant to soothe insult. And more often than not, he stole them back again, spirited them into his galleries, ready to be displayed or re-gifted at the next moment of convenience.

And now he stood before me.

——————— ✦ ———————

Unfortunately, it seemed he had set his sights on me. I could all but feel the weight of his gaze cataloguing me, filing me away as the next exhibit to stand in his galleries. Myself, my constructs, perhaps even the Ecumene — I could already imagine us in neat stasis, arranged beneath glass domes while he lectured passing guests about “rare specimens from an extinct culture.”

But Trazyn also loved the sound of his own voice. That, at least, I could use. If I played the angle carefully, perhaps he would indulge himself long enough for my theft to complete. The data still poured into me in steady streams, the codex unraveling line by line, and I had no intention of leaving without it.

I steadied myself, shifted my posture to something diplomatic, and inclined my body slightly forward.
“I am the leader of the Forerunner Ecumene in this galaxy,” I said evenly, “presently acting on behalf of the Phaeron of the Thokt Dynasty, assisting with repairs to certain beleaguered crown worlds. And whom,” I asked politely, “do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

Predictably, he obliged.

The Necron’s skull-face tilted, turquoise inlays catching the glow of the walls. “I am Overlord Trazyn, keeper of Solemnace, preserver of culture, guardian of the Imperishable Word. The Infinite, as some so inelegantly call me.” His voice rolled with urbane amusement, an actor savoring his own stage. “My vaults contain the lost epochs of this galaxy — battles frozen in perfect stillness, the glories of a thousand dead races, entire armies preserved at the zenith of their power. Few are capable of appreciating such a task, but I… I alone have the patience to remember what others forget.”

I let him speak, nodding politely while my secondary processes quietly threaded themselves deeper into the tomb’s systems. Locking down backdoors. Flagging potential jumps through the Eternity Gate network and walling them with emergency firewalls. Even as I listened, part of me remained half elsewhere, patching faults, rerouting power flows, continuing my work.

Trazyn, of course, could not resist closing his speech with a sting.
“And yet here we are,” he said, his tone turning sly. “How the mighty must have fallen, that the vaunted Thokt — so enamored of their supposed brilliance — now stoop to hiring offworld… technicians… to keep their tombs from collapsing in on themselves. I must say, little alien, that is an exhibit in irony I should dearly like to preserve.”

——————— ✦ ———————

“I am merely trying to be helpful,” I replied, keeping my tone mild. “After meeting with the Thokt, I hoped my efforts here might earn me an introduction to Szarekh — the Silent King.”

That got a reaction. Trazyn’s turquoise-lit eyes flared faintly, and the urbane mask slipped just enough to show irritation.
“Why in the name of all dead stars would you want to meet that pompous windbag?” he snapped. “If one does not have to endure his pontificating, one should consider it a mercy.”

I held steady, letting his pique roll past me. “My people are new to this galaxy,” I said, “and I sought to make contact with the most advanced civilization within it. One advanced race to another, so to speak.”

Trazyn gave a short, derisive laugh. “Oh, advanced we are — of that there is no question. But technology does not spawn wisdom, little alien. Remember that. Too many of my kin, scattered across the stars, are nothing but children with power beyond their comprehension. They wake from their tombs and the first thing they do is ruin everything around them. Priceless relics shattered, ecosystems scoured to dust, entire planetary cultures reduced to rubble. All in the name of restoring things to the state they were when we went to sleep.” His tone dripped with disdain. “As if ruins were something worth preserving.”

A thought struck me then, sharp as a spark. The endless tug-of-war I had fought with the tomb’s VI, its mindless obsession with keeping power shunted toward the archives… of course. The pattern made sense now.

I turned my gaze on him, narrowing my eyes. “It was you,” I said flatly.

His skull-plate tilted, the faintest mockery of a smile crossing his metallic features. “Ah,” he murmured, “so you noticed. I was wondering how long it would take.”

“You’ve been raiding the archives,” I pressed. “That’s why the systems kept trying to divert power — they weren’t malfunctioning at all. They were obeying you.”

Trazyn smirked outright this time, emerald fire catching in his eyes. “I did wonder why the lights kept winking out on me. Infuriating business. Every time I ordered the tomb to channel power back into the curatorial vaults, it bled away again. Up, down, on, off — like playing with some primitive toggle. I assumed it was another dull-witted Cryptek interfering. Imagine my surprise.” He gestured at me with languid amusement. “And yet here you are.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Eventually Trazyn straightened to his full, regal height. His staff gleamed, turquoise inlays catching the chamber’s pallid glow.
“Well,” he said, voice rich with amusement, “this has been diverting. So refreshing to converse in a civilized tongue with someone not of my own kind. You must understand, my peers can of course speak — but stars above, are they dull. Dull and predictable and so very tedious. You, however… you’ve been rather lively.”

I didn’t like the implication that followed.
“But,” he continued, with a languid shrug, “I really must be moving on. So much history to curate. And my galleries…” He trailed off deliberately, skeletal fingers drifting toward the folds of his cloak. “My galleries are always in need of a new exhibit.”

Cold panic seized me. I tore my tendrils free from the tomb’s network, hoping the data would continue streaming via the comms relays to the Ecumene. With a single pulse I slipped away, blink-jumping through slipspace back to the generator chamber. The pre-charged capacitors thrummed around me. My constructs tightened their formation. I drifted to the nearest link, tendrils diving to pull cables, to shut the whole thing down before the Necrons could claim a sample of Forerunner tech.

I had only just begun the process when the chamber flared green.

Trazyn appeared in a wash of emerald light, the teleportation energy crawling across his necrodermis like lightning down a spire. He stood at ease, cloak billowing faintly, as if the intrusion were a parlor trick. His voice was silk and steel.
“My, my, my. A tricky little gasbag, aren’t you? I haven’t had an exhibit successfully slip my grasp in a very long time.”

Terror jolted me, but instinct overrode it. I abandoned the disconnection and pulsed a command through my systems. Every strand of smartmatter in the equipment shivered, restructuring on the molecular level. It would not explode, not catastrophically — I had no desire to crack this world in half — but it would render itself into useless slag if anyone tried to take it whole.

At the same time I broadcast the order to my guards.
“Suppress him. Long range only.”

They obeyed without hesitation. The chamber filled with the crack and flare of weapons fire, beams of searing energy and heavy rounds lancing across the room. Trazyn halted mid-step, a curse hissing through his vox as he brought both hands to his staff. Emerald glyphs blazed, and a shield flared into being around him, shimmering with cold green fire as my constructs’ salvos splashed harmlessly against its surface.

——————— ✦ ———————

The instant Trazyn’s shield flared, I seized the moment. With a quick command, slipspace folded, and in a blink I tore myself and my escorts from the chamber. Emerald light and echoing laughter vanished behind us. We reemerged in the familiar vastness of the Ecumene, shields humming in welcome as if the ship itself sighed with relief at our return.

I didn’t waste a heartbeat. “Paragon,” I snapped across the link, “we have a problem.”

If he’d been human, he would have put a hand to his face. Instead, his voice came sharp with exasperation. “You are never leaving this ship again. Not ever. Do you understand? Not without my express permission, not without a fleet at your back. I should have known. I did know.”

Even as he fumed, orders were already moving through his subminds. Battle units, drones, and warforms recalled in tight arcs. Vallis and his brothers were summoned back from their slaughter-fields, drawn into defensive formations. The Ecumene stirred like a beast bristling at its den’s mouth, every gun-arm warming, every shield interlaced, preparing for boarders.

I forced myself to the core systems, racing through corridors of data and steel. Relief surged as I found what I’d prayed for: in the time I had parried words with Trazyn, the transfer had completed. The Necron codex was mine — ours. Every line, every schema, every process committed to the Ecumene’s archives.

Better still, by some miracle my transponder handshake with the tomb remained open. I still had access. Quickly, I flooded the network with commands. Wipe the traces of my intrusion. Erase the logs. Bury the theft deep. Then, with careful precision, I reengaged outward communications, closing the circuit as though nothing unusual had ever touched it.

At the same time, part of me was already dissecting what I had stolen. Not the codex itself, but the Necron-derived stealth signatures threaded through the Necron systems. Their ships were ghosts, almost impossible to pin down on standard auspex. If Trazyn had come in person, he had not walked. His vessel was here, somewhere.

I wove their signal-patterns into the Ecumene’s scanners. The lattice flexed, recalibrated — and there it was. A silhouette crouched against the fire of the system’s star, half-buried against a rocky moon.

Trazyn’s ship.

No sooner had we marked it than it moved. The vessel shifted in an instant, sliding free of the lunar rock as if gravity itself no longer applied. One moment it was still, the next it was closing on us with impossible acceleration, cutting through the void on a perfect line. Its course was direct. Straight at us.

Whether to pluck up its master or to strike at us itself, I could not yet say. But either way, the Infinite was not finished with me.

——————— ✦ ———————

A quick query through the Necron archives I had… liberated — and what I’d gleaned from the tomb’s hierarchies — confirmed the uncomfortable truth. Any half-formed plan of leaning on the Thokt phaeron to intercede on my behalf was nonsense. Trazyn, even if he had been the very model of a law-abiding Necron — which he most assuredly was not — would never bow to the word of a phaeron from another dynasty. Sovereignty ended at the dynasty’s edge.

Even if the phaeron invoked Szarekh’s name, claiming the mantle of the Silent King’s authority as a client dynasty, I doubted Trazyn would so much as pause. He was a cat, and in his eyes I was a mouse. He would toy as long as it amused him, and when the mood struck, pin me neatly under glass.

That left me with one recourse: a bargain.

Trazyn was notorious for it. For all his arrogance and thieving eccentricities, he had an incurable weakness for a well-made deal. If one knew the right angle, if one dangled the right bauble, he could be lured into parley. But what could I possibly put on the table that the self-proclaimed preserver of all history might actually want?

Culture, perhaps. He prized culture above almost anything, and the Forerunners had possessed more of it than most species in this galaxy could imagine. Literature, music, art, entire ages layered upon ages. Even a fragment of that record might tempt him. It might work.

But as I turned the thought over, I knew I would need a stronger lure — a backup plan should mere relics fail to entice him. And there was only one prize I could imagine swaying him utterly. The one desire he cloaked in sarcasm, but never fully hid.

A return to flesh. A reversal of biotransference.

The Forerunners had no ready solution — not yet. What I possessed were fragments, oddments of knowledge and theoretical pathways, threads that might one day be woven into something viable. The Golden Age relics I had dredged from the Ork scrap-heaps of the Maethrillian system remained my strongest clue, but they were only that — a clue. Nothing concrete. Not yet. I had meant to pursue it in time, after the Orks were broken, after the Thokt owed me enough gratitude to open the path I sought to Szarekh himself — the Silent King, greatest voice among his kind for a return to flesh.

But here and now, I had only fragments to bargain with. And facing Trazyn the Infinite, fragments might not be enough.

I understood, then, why the idea cut him so deeply. He was a historian, a curator, a scholar. For such a being, biotransference was not just a theft of sensation — it was a theft of history itself. His people had severed their past, entombed themselves in sterile necrodermis, and then, when they finally woke, most chose to spend their immortality refusing to make anything new.

For a preserver of memory, there could be no wound greater.

——————— ✦ ———————

Quickly, I pulsed a message on the highest priority channel to Aceso. All data on genomic reconstruction, I demanded, anything derived from scanned material, as you did with the ancient human genome from their war with the Forerunners. Bundle it with every scrap we hold on neural mapping and Composer technology. Deliver at once. I will explain later—if we survive.

There was a pause — the faintest ripple of hesitation across our link — but she obeyed without question. I felt the data beginning to gather, ordered, compressed, even as I folded slipspace around me. In an instant I reappeared on the bridge of the Ecumene, and to my utter lack of surprise, my guards arrived in my wake. Paragon had sent them without asking, their weapons primed, their sensors keenly fixed. Inwardly, I sighed. So much for solitude. It seemed I would not be free of my escorts anytime soon.

I reached into the Necron codex once more, threading through its archaic channels until I found the appropriate comms frequencies. With meticulous care I shaped a broadcast from the Ecumene, lacing it with every formality I could draw from my translations, cloaking it in echoes of the old Necrontyr courtly register. I felt no shame in the trick — if reminding Trazyn of ancient glories coaxed him into answering, so much the better.

For several long seconds there was silence. Then, at last, a ping. The signal shivered across the comms net, a formal reply. Privately, I allowed myself a flicker of satisfaction: the Aegis Custodian upgrades I had built into our systems held firm. Trazyn did not simply force his way inside, as Zahndrekh once had.

I accepted the link. The hololithic transceiver in the bridge’s heart flared to life, and there he was — Overlord Trazyn, the Infinite, his bronze necrodermis gleaming in projection. He had no expression, not truly, but the tilt of his skull and the set of his shoulders radiated irritation.

I bent forward slightly, affecting the smallest bow. “My apologies for my abrupt departure,” I said smoothly. “But I have far too many tasks awaiting me to spend millennia in one of your stasis vaults while you observe me and ponder what I am. I regret the necessity, but necessity it was.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Trazyn’s projection tilted its head, the turquoise filigree in his armor catching the bridge’s light. His voice came clipped, sharp with testiness.
“Really, must you cause me so much trouble? My galleries are perfectly pleasant. Ordered, timeless, safe. Few can boast the same. You should be flattered to join such rarified company.”

I kept my tone steady. “I am sure they are, Overlord. But I must decline a place in them.”

The set of his shoulders shifted, a mimicry of offense. “As if you have a choice.”

“You do,” I countered quickly, before he could close the trap. “Instead of myself, I offer a bargain. In exchange for allowing us to leave — and for your pledge not to interfere with our work wherever you might encounter us — I will gift you something greater than a specimen. A complete archive of my people. Ten million years of art, history, music, literature — all of it. Preserved whole.”

He stilled, considering. Then his voice rolled back, urbane and dismissive. “Ten million years? A mere heartbeat. My people’s span stretches to nearly seventy. Entire eons of refinement, of struggle, of achievement. And you offer me… a fraction?”

“True,” I conceded, leaning forward slightly, “but as you are well aware, your people have slept for sixty million years — and for nearly three million years before that, they ceased to advance at all. No new discoveries. No new creations. My people are wholly alien to you, utterly other. Our record is not just history but comparison. Something new. Something different. A culture that grew while yours lay silent.”

For a moment, the bridge was quiet save for the thrum of the Ecumene’s systems. Trazyn’s image flickered faintly as he mulled the thought. Then, with that maddening air of a collector weighing a bauble, he said, “It is close. Very close. But not enough. Especially when I could simply capture you, strip your archives, and take every scrap of your history whole.”

A ripple of unease slid through me. Desperation edged my next words. “Then perhaps this will interest you more: I believe I can reverse biotransference. Given time, I could return you — your people — to flesh.”

The effect was instant. Trazyn went utterly still. His holographic form froze in a posture too exact, too rigid to be natural. For several long heartbeats there was no sound at all.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed. The urbane mockery was gone, replaced with something cold, sharp, and dangerous.
“Before,” he said softly, “I was merely planning to capture you. Now…” His eyes flared emerald, his voice curdling into venom. “…now I will make it hurt.”

——————— ✦ ———————

I backpedaled at once, words spilling out in a rush. “It’s true. We can do it — given time.” Even as I spoke, I opened the channels and sent the proof. Aceso’s work flowed across the link: her reconstruction of the ancient human genome from fragmented scans, her flawless gene-editing that excised deliberate flaws and restored vigor. Proof that weak, stunted lifespans could be undone. Alongside it, I added what little data we had on inorganic-to-organic transitions — crude, incomplete — and the far greater body of knowledge on the reverse, from flesh to machine, including every drawback we had catalogued.

Trazyn’s image stilled again. The bridge sensors whispered confirmation: his vessel had broken its headlong charge. It drifted now, holding position between its starting place and the Ecumene.

I pressed the advantage, careful, steady. “I work with the Thokt because I know they can place me before Szarekh. I intended this research — this reversal — as the key to an alliance. To give your people a future beyond necrodermis.”

He did not answer. His form stood motionless, silent. I forced myself to stop speaking. Better to let him think than drown him in words.

Long moments stretched. At last, he stirred. When he spoke, the urbane lilt was gone, replaced with something halting, fragile. “I am old,” he said, voice low, “older than you can comprehend. I have watched, and I have… sponsored, many attempts to undo our curse. Always they failed. Always.” His hands flexed faintly on the staff. “And yet you… without even knowing what you held… you have made more progress than all of them.”

He trailed off, the words dissolving into silence. Then slowly, he straightened. His posture firmed, and the emerald light in his eyes fixed squarely on me.

“We have a bargain,” he said. The words carried weight, the kind of binding that only someone like Trazyn could give. “You will provide me the full archive of your Forerunner culture — all of it. In return, you will continue this work toward flesh, and I will not interfere with you or your projects. If they bear your mark, they are off-limits.”

“I agree,” I said immediately. My tentacles tightened against my body. “Do you have any scans of Necrontyr DNA we might use as a baseline?”

Trazyn sighed. The sound was strange, mechanical, a mimicry of breath where no lungs or even gas bladders existed. “No. Even after all my eons of searching, I have never found a single organic trace of what we once were. Perhaps some phaeron, in some private vault, preserved a fragment. But if such vaults exist, I have not breached them. And if I have not,” his voice cooled, “it is for good reason.”

——————— ✦ ———————

I inclined forward in acknowledgment. “Then we will have to do this the hard way. Protein by protein, strand by strand.”

Through the shared link I felt Aceso’s immediate flare of indignation. Do you have any idea how much work that will be for me? she demanded, bristling in her clinical precision. I ignored her for the moment, keeping my focus on the projection before me.

Silence stretched long on the channel. Trazyn stood motionless, the turquoise glow in his armor dim, his gaze distant as though he were adrift in memories no one else could see. I used the pause to gather what I had promised. The Forerunner cultural archive — all ten million years of it. Libraries, art, music, philosophy, histories upon histories. I compressed the vast record into a fractal data package and pulsed it across the link.

The arrival seemed to startle him. His skull tilted up, emerald eyes flaring back into focus. For a long moment he only regarded me. Then, slowly, he inclined his head.

“I will remember my promise,” he said.

The projection dissolved. On the scanners, his ship wheeled about with sudden purpose, gliding back toward the rocky moon. For an instant it seemed it would dash itself against the surface — and then, without warning, it was simply gone. The Ecumene’s newly enhanced arrays flared with confirmation, catching the faint, uncanny shimmer of a Dolmen Gate activation. Then the Infinite had vanished.

Exhaustion washed over me in a suffocating tide. My gas bladders deflated in a long, weary hiss as I sagged in place, so close to collapsing outright under the strain. Every tendril hung heavy, spent from overwork and the grinding pressure of the encounter. At last I turned, ready — desperate — to surrender to rest.

And froze.

PE’s physical form waited in solemn silence, his presence as heavy as the ship itself. Aceso stood beside him, every line of her posture radiating indignation like a star gone too bright. Vallis lingered a pace behind, armored arms crossed, helm clipped to his belt, his face tilted with an unmistakable air of suspicion.

All three wore the same expression, the same wordless weight.

The unspoken message was clear: you have some explaining to do.

I sighed again, long and low. “I’m sure you have questions.”

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 44: Forgiveness and Resolve

——————— ✦ ———————

I sighed again, long and low, the sound hollow in the vaulted chamber. “I’m sure you have questions.”

Sixteen minutes. My internal chronometer confirmed it, coldly indifferent. By the Eternal Lattice… only sixteen minutes had passed since Trazyn had stepped from the shadows and turned triumph into chaos. Sixteen minutes of compression, of decisions that would echo for centuries. Now came the reckoning.

Aceso erupted first. Fury poured off her in waves, like heat radiating from a newborn star.

“Do you have the faintest idea what you’ve just done?” Her voice lashed across me, sharp enough to cut. “You’ve signed me up for constructing a completely alien genome from nothing. Nothing! Protein by protein, strand by strand, with no reference, no scaffolding, no natural template to cross-check against. Do you understand the magnitude of that? Monumental isn’t even the word — this is beyond monumental. This is abyssal.”

I shrank under her barrage, my bladders sagging, tendrils curling inward. Exhaustion did nothing to shield me from the sting of her scorn.

“I thought…” I began meekly, “why not use a modified human template? Even Novo-Humanis, perhaps. We could—”

Her glare cut me off, hotter than plasma. “You want me to throw away everything I’ve built? To surrender our hard-earned physical advantage to aliens we barely know? Absolutely not.” Her voice was ice now, precise and merciless. “I will make them bodies, yes. But they will be nothing like Novo-Humanis. Not like baseline human. Entirely their own. That much, I can promise you.”

Then her tone shifted, sly and deliberate. She smirked, eyes narrowing, and the edges of her voice softened to a purr. “And you. Don’t think you’ve escaped. You’ve given yourself a task far greater than mine. You must find a way to reverse the Composer’s digitization — to pull a mind out of code and remake it in flesh. Not just safely, but perfectly. No memories lost. No personality frayed. And then you’ll have to apply it to alien architecture, with an alien consciousness, translating them back into alien flesh.”

She tilted her head, mock-innocent. “You’ve given me work the size of a planet, dear father. But you’ve given yourself work the size of a star.”

With that, she floated backward, expression positively radiant with vindictive satisfaction. A chuckle escaped her as she drifted toward the exit, a sound both musical and merciless, and then she was gone.

I stared after her, unsettled. Aceso—gentle, healing, so often the calm to balance PE’s steel—had never spoken to me with such venom. There had been a vicious edge in her voice, a delight in assigning me a burden to match her own. It rattled me more than I wished to admit. If even she could turn so sharp, what did that say of the strain I had placed on all of them?

The chamber felt emptier for her absence, though no less heavy. Vallis had stood silent through it all, arms crossed, face unreadable. His gaze lingered on me a moment longer before he spoke, his voice flat, measured, unyielding.

“Does this change anything for me or my men?”

I forced steadiness into my reply. “No. Nothing changes. Until told otherwise, the Necrons remain allies. They are not to be fired upon.”

Vallis inclined his head once, curt and soldierly. “Then I return to my men. This respite has given them time enough to reload, to breathe. Now we prepare again.”

The heavy thud of his armored tread echoed across the chamber as he turned and left, each step a percussion of steel on steel.

I sagged, alone with the silence.

——————— ✦ ———————

The echoes of Vallis’s boots faded, swallowed by the chamber’s stillness. Only PE remained, his projection standing as still as the monoliths of dead worlds.

The silence stretched, brittle and heavy, until at last he spoke. His voice was soft, too soft, and that made the words all the sharper.

“I am very angry with you.”

I blinked, stunned by the quiet intensity.

“You don’t understand.” His tone sharpened, heat bleeding through the restraint. “I told you something like this would happen. What do we do if you are gone? Everything—everything—we have built, everything we are building, relies on you. On your mind. Your hands. You are the nexus. If you vanish, if you fall, then all of this crumbles.”

His voice rose, layered with static like a storm breaking. “How can we help this galaxy if you won’t even protect yourself? You owe responsibility to Aceso, to Vallis and his men, to Rynmark, even to Thallex rotting in his quarters. You owe it to the billions still trapped under the Imperium’s heel, to the unnumbered masses who don’t even know salvation might exist. And…”

He faltered then, and when he continued, the words came almost as a whisper. “And… you owe it to me.”

I stared at him, my bladders tightening with the emotions running through me. Not cold calculation, not the clipped reprimand of a war-mind executing duty. No, this was something else entirely. The words shook not with logic but with fear. PE was afraid—terrified—that he could not protect me.

And I understood. In that moment I saw not the weapon, not the commander, but the child who had watched his parent brush against death and realized he was powerless to stop it.

A strange thought flickered through me. Had sharing a body during his birth—the intertwining of my consciousness with his—given him more than just awareness? Had it given him the beginnings of a soul, of emotions that no line of Forerunner code had ever accounted for?

Perhaps. But there was no time to untangle that mystery now. My son needed me.

——————— ✦ ———————

I drifted toward him, hesitating before wrapping one tendril around his luminous frame. The gesture felt clumsy, uncertain, but I held it there.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m sorry for not listening when you warned me. But… even without the drive that Forerunner twisted into me, I still would have done it. My nature is to help. That’s who I am.”

I felt PE’s form shift faintly, as if startled by my words.

“You were right to name the Imperium’s forgotten masses,” I continued softly. “But it’s more than just them. This entire galaxy is broken, fractured into cruelty and neglect. I can’t just stand by when I know I can fix even part of it. I was sent here to help humanity but I can help more than that—and I want to. That’s who I am.”

For a long moment, he was silent. I thought he might shake me off entirely, deny me the moment. But then his form dipped slightly, as if bowing under a weight only he could feel.

At last, PE straightened. He slipped out of my tendril’s loose hold and squared his frame, the storm within him shuttered but not gone. “You realize your guards will not leave your side again,” he said at last, quiet but absolute. “Any excursion, any away mission—only with a full contingent. And only after I secure the location myself.”

I smiled inwardly, though I kept my expression neutral. “Fair,” I said. “And I’ll begin construction of additional huragok. Dedicated engineers to share the load. I’ll also start distributing my knowledge base across multiple archives.”

His projection tilted toward me, already bristling, and I quickly added, “And yes. I’ll begin copying my mind-state as well. My personality matrix, my memory threads. If something happens, I’ll be reborn.”

The static tension around him lessened. He turned away, luminous features hardening as he shifted his full attention back toward the battle still raging around the tomb-complex.

I lingered a moment before speaking again. “I’ll need to return below. To finish what we began—and to contact the Thokt.”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, slipspace apertures peeled open in the air, new units stepping through in silent ranks, their frames bristling with weapons and vigilance.

I understood. His answer was in the reinforcements.

I triggered slipspace transit, and with my newly augmented guard, I vanished back to the main command center of the tomb.

——————— ✦ ———————

The days blurred into one another, marked only by the steady hum of Scarab work-crews and the endless scroll of Necron script across my vision. The tomb, once cracked and fouled by war, slowly returned to a polished sheen. The floors gleamed like obsidian, the walls hummed with steady power, and every control surface pulsed in patient, alien rhythm. With each repair, the constructs moved with flawless precision, restoring every detail of the complex to Necron standards, as though the Orks’ desecration and time’s long march had never passed by.

All the while, part of me was buried in the Codex.

Gauss theory fascinated me most at first. The principle was elegantly brutal: strip matter apart, atom by atom, with a coherent destabilization field. Inefficient compared to pure energy weapons, but devastating against anything with bulk. Already, I imagined ways to bend it toward my own designs—projecting a gauss cascade through hard-light matrices as a refracted blade, something that could shear the hardest alloys down to the grain. Or adapting the Necrons’ own use, refining it into ranged weapons of staggering precision. Or even scaling it to industry, building reclamation engines that could unmake matter to its atoms before reassembling them into whatever form we required.

Their phasing systems offered another temptation. Where the Forerunners bent local dimensions for transition, the Necrons folded themselves sideways into half-space. Crude in one sense, but remarkably efficient. I began sketching designs for shield harmonics—Forerunner barriers laced with hyperphase signatures, allowing incoming fire to be swallowed into half-space and harmlessly bled away.

Inertialess drives, too, held promise. Not as stable as traditional propulsion, but they could grant drones and smaller warforms the ability to maneuver without the penalties of thrust or reaction mass. A web of such craft, all linked through a war-mind, could shift battles before an enemy even understood their vectors.

Installing them on warships, however, would be a greater challenge. Forerunner vessels relied on their inertia at the moment of entry to begin transit through slipspace. Momentum carried into the manifold, forming part of the aperture’s geometry. To attempt translation without that inertia… I wasn’t certain what would happen, but the likeliest outcome was catastrophic destruction.

Perhaps there was a compromise. The inertialess systems could be fitted as secondary propulsion, used in realspace for maneuverability and tactical advantage, but disengaged when entering or exiting slipspace. Traditional Forerunner drives would handle the delicate transition, while the Necron systems would take over once safely returned to normal space.

And Blackstone. I lingered long on that. The mineral was not merely resistant to the Warp—it was hunger incarnate, an absorber of the immaterium itself. To weave it into the structures I had already designed for Phase Iron would be difficult, but the result would be perhaps the most impenetrable warp defense this galaxy had ever seen.

The Codex spoke at length of its shaping, its flaws, its catastrophic failures. The Necrons had documented, with ruthless precision, how the molecular alignment of Blackstone at the moment of creation determined everything—whether it would amplify the Warp or repel it. Thankfully, if the Forerunners had ever mastered anything, it was precision.

But most valuable of all was their research into the Warp itself. As purely physical constructs, the Necrons approached it without the half-mysticism that clouded even the Eldar. Their experiments during the War in Heaven had charted fields and currents with relentless objectivity. Their models were not unlike mine: warp as fluid, warp as pressure, warp as frequency. Every result I read was another thread I could pull into my own loom.

With every study I examined, my understanding deepened. The Warp began to make sense in a truly scientific way. Oh, I had known the basics before—a parallel dimension, existing both alongside and intersecting with this one—but little beyond what I had cobbled together during our desperate encounters with Chaos on the Hulk.

Now, though… now I had specifics. Patterns, data, proofs. With this knowledge I might even begin to understand, perhaps even manipulate, Eldar technology—something impossible for the Necrons. For I possessed what they no longer did: a soul.

——————— ✦ ———————

When at last the tomb was whole again—even the warriors recalled to their stasis-cradles, their ranks unbroken—I set aside the Codex and turned to diplomacy.

The comm system, long silent, now thrummed with restored clarity. I reached through it, sending a signal across the black to Thokt holdings. The reply came instantly.

The Phaeron’s presence filled the chamber like cold metal. “We knew,” he said, voice sharp and layered with disdain, “that your work succeeded days ago. The extra draw on our power generation systems told us as much. And yet you wait before reporting. Why?”

The accusation struck like a blade—flat, direct, undeniable.

“I was… delayed,” I admitted. “Trazyn interfered. He attempted to seize the archives of this world, but when I slipped from his grasp onto my defended ship, he withdrew. I took the time since to conduct repairs and make sure he was truly gone. Scarabs and spyders restored the tomb, the warriors, the defenses. It is as whole as I can make it.”

A pause, brittle. Then the Phaeron’s voice again, colder still. “Why does the Overlord of this world not speak for himself?”

I hesitated only a moment before answering. “They remain… asleep. I bent the chronometer to allow uninterrupted repairs, and when power was low I kept nonessential systems inactive while their cycle remained unchanged. They may be woken whenever you wish—simply by adjusting the chronometer.”

Another long silence, then a curt reply. “Open the Eternity Gate. My Crypteks and warriors will come. They will continue your work—and scour the Ork presence.”

“As soon as your forces arrive and assume full control,” I replied evenly, “mine will withdraw to orbit. We will remain there until you or the Overlord command otherwise.”

The holoform tilted, inscrutable for a moment. Then, almost grudgingly: “You do good work.”

The channel cut, leaving the tomb in silence once more.

——————— ✦ ———————

I felt no fear as I keyed the Gate. Any trace of my theft of the Necron codex was scrubbed from every system, buried deep within my own matrix where no Cryptek’s probe could pry it loose. They would find nothing but pristine control hierarchies and a tomb restored to the exacting standard of its makers.

I triggered slipspace and reemerged within the Gate chamber, my guard spread in silent cordon. The air shimmered as the Eternity Gate flared, and with a thunderclap of power a tall figure strode through. Bronze and jade gleamed along his frame, staff of office clutched in skeletal hands. A Cryptek.

“I will now assume command,” he intoned.

The words had scarcely left him when I felt it: my command threads, my engineering access, ripped away in an instant. Systems that moments before had obeyed my will now fell silent, shunted to his control. The sensation was surgical, ruthless—like a thousand instruments yanked from my tendrils all at once.

I decided I did not like this Cryptek.

But I bowed nonetheless, my body dipping low, my voice flowing in the formal cadences of High Necrontyr. “I was honored to be of assistance. With your arrival, my task here is complete, and I will now take my leave.”

It was no mere courtesy. It was a barb—an echo of the flesh-times, when words carried obligation and manners carried weight. I hoped it stung.

The Cryptek paused, head cocked. Then, almost reluctantly, he inclined his own head in return, the gesture brittle but unmistakable. “Your efforts… were appreciated. This tomb faced difficulties. You have resolved them. I will take matters from here.”

I accepted the words for what they were: a polite, somewhat grudging apology. More than I expected.

I bowed once more, then signaled my guard. Slipspace folded open around us, and together we vanished, leaving the tomb—and its new master—behind.

——————— ✦ ———————

Back aboard the Ecumene, I relayed the message. “It’s time to pull our people out. The Necrons will handle things from here.”

PE inclined his head, projection crisp and businesslike now that the work below was done. “Acknowledged.”

At his command, the Ecumene dipped once more into the atmosphere, its vast shadow sweeping over the scarred world. Aerial warforms broke from their patrols, angling upward in glittering wings toward their hangars. On the surface, constructs withdrew in disciplined columns, dissolving back into slipspace as their tasks ended.

Even Vallis and his warriors received their notice—though this time with considerably more courtesy than the blunt extraction of before. PE’s voice to them was clipped but respectful, giving them the moment to regroup before slipspacing them back to the Ecumene.

Once the last flicker of slipspace had sealed, PE turned to me. “Thallex requested audience while you were away. I deferred him. He has been… insistent.”

I sagged faintly. “We’ll see him soon. A few hours.”

PE gave no argument, already busy with the next task. Together, we turned our attention outward. The void glittered with debris, the wreckage of Ork fleets spread across half an orbit. Our drones and grapplers fanned out in methodical patterns, harvesting shattered armor and ruined engines, dragging it all into refining bays. Soon it would be nothing but clean stockpiles of material, ready for shaping.

For a while, I let the rhythm of it steady me—the work of rebuilding, of reclaiming order from ruin. The war below was no longer mine to fight.

——————— ✦ ———————

A few hours later, the council chamber filled once more. Aceso waited, arms folded and expression carefully neutral; Vallis stood at ease, though the bulk of his armor made him look like a statue set beside the table. PE’s projection shimmered at the far end of the chamber, watchful and still.

The doors opened. Thallex entered.

He looked wretched. The confinement had gnawed at him—sunken cheeks, skin waxy and sallow, robes that once proclaimed Mechanicus pride now hung dirty and torn. Even his augmetics drooped, servo-motors whining faintly, as though the malaise that wracked his flesh had seeped into the machines bolted to his bones.

He stopped just inside the chamber and inclined his head with stiff formality. “Thank you,” he rasped, voice thinner than I remembered. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Please,” I said softly. With a thought, I reached through the chamber’s systems and guided a chair forward on its gravitic struts, bringing it gently before him. “Sit.”

Privately, I feared he would not make it there under his own power. Every step had looked like an ordeal. I wondered how he had even made it to this chamber from his room.

Thallex sank into the seat with a sound that was half-relief, half-defeat. He sat for a long moment, catching his breath. Then he lifted his head.

“I want to tell you a story,” he said. “One I was told as a child. One almost every child of the Imperium hears.”

The chamber went still.

“It is said,” Thallex began, “that long ago, before the Emperor’s light, there was a monster that wore a thousand faces of metal. It slithered through the night, unseen, whispering in the machines. It stole into homes and into ships. First, it would smother the stars above your world, blotting them out one by one, so you would know you were alone. Then it would creep closer. It would whisper lies into your mother’s ear, coil wires around your father’s heart, and when you turned to your sister or your brother—” His voice cracked, then steadied again, low and bitter. “—you would find only the glow of empty eyes.

“And when it had stolen everyone you loved, the monster would finally come for you. Not with teeth or claws. No, it would come with silence. The silence of extinguished suns, of a whole world gone dark. That was its hunger. To unmake. To consume not just life, but memory, and hope, and joy.”

He let the words hang, heavy and poisonous. Even Vallis shifted slightly, a grimace flickering across his scarred face—likely remembering the same tale, or one much like it, from his own childhood.

“I was told,” Thallex whispered, “to fear the monster in  the darkness. To fear the machine-thing that would come in the dark and take me, piece by piece.”

He looked up then, eyes catching the light like wet stone. “When I entered the priesthood, I thought I had outgrown such tales. The child’s fear faded; I no longer flinched at shadows. I believed myself grown, an adult at last. But then came the histories. The proof. The archives of what such minds have done when unleashed. The child’s fear was gone, yes… but it was replaced by something far worse.”

He leaned forward, elbows trembling on his knees.

“It is one thing to be afraid of the monster under your bed—imagined, half-seen, hungry in the dark. It is another thing entirely to study its bones, to read its kill-records, to understand exactly how it eats. The fear does not vanish. It matures. It sharpens.”

His gaze swept across us—the AI council arrayed before him, the very monsters from his childhood tale given shape.

——————— ✦ ———————

“When you revealed yourselves,” Thallex continued, his voice fraying, “I was stunned. No—shattered. It was like the nightmare made flesh. Surrounded by wonders, by knowledge I had hungered for all my life, only to realize I had walked willingly into the monster’s mouth. And then—then to have it bare its teeth at last, just to savor the terror in my eyes.”

He shook his head, augmetic joints whining faintly. “I panicked. I lashed out. I tried to fire the weapon in my arm. I ranted, raved—recited every scrap of catechism I had been taught. I… I was a child again, cornered by shadows. And I am ashamed.”

His head bowed low. If his eyes had still been flesh, I was certain they would have brimmed with tears.

“I should have thought,” he whispered. “I should have remembered everything you had done. Saving Rynmark. Teaching me. Healing us all. Even gifting Rynmark a ship, a vessel beyond anything he could have hoped for. The evidence was there. The kindness was there. And I refused to see it.”

The words faltered. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

He gripped the arms of his chair and began to rise, voice breaking. “That… that was all I wished to say.”

“Stay,” I said gently.

He froze, then slowly sank back into the seat.

I glanced across the others, a flicker of silent communion between myself, Aceso, and PE. Vallis’s voice came faintly through my coms-link, steady and pragmatic: If you mean to forgive him, do it openly. Don’t let him crawl away thinking himself damned.

I inclined my head.

“Your apology is heard,” I said aloud. “And accepted. If you wish, you may return to your studies. Continue the work you began. Or, if you would prefer, we might see if Rynmark has a place for you when next he returns for his promised supplies.”

Thallex’s head lifted slowly. His voice was hushed but firm. “I would stay. I would learn. Not just what you teach, but… about you. About AI. If I can understand, perhaps one day I can teach my fellows not to fear. A monster is only a monster because you don’t understand it.”

The chamber was quiet a long time, but I saw no dissent.

Thallex rose again, and this time there was strength in him that had not been there before. A faint glimmer of health returned to his frame, a lightness to his movements. He turned toward the door.

“Before you vanish,” Aceso said dryly, her arms unfolding at last, “you should come to the medbay. Isolation does no favors to flesh or machine. I’ll see you looked over.”

Thallex paused, then nodded. “As you wish.”

He left, the doors sealing behind him.

I lingered in the silence he left, feeling the weight lift, if only a little. Perhaps—just perhaps—he had turned a corner. Perhaps he might yet find a way to accept us fully.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 45: Profit and Damnation

——————— ✦ ———————

Rynmark leaned forward in his command throne, the bridge crew tense but steady around him. Days in slipspace had passed more quietly than any of them expected. No whispers curled at the edge of thought, no fractured dreams bled through the wards. The Gellar fields had burned bright, full-bore the entire journey, yet not a soul had woken screaming. It was the first time in memory the Rogue Trader could recall a voyage where his men slept like ordinary sailors, not souls adrift in hell.

“Samaritan,” he said.

The AI’s voice resonated through the vox-arches, measured and calm. “Slipspace reversion in ten… nine… eight…”

There had been shock when Rynmark revealed Samaritan to his officers, only days into the voyage. Fear too — the old dread of abominable intelligences, the long-ingrained Imperial reflex to spit and curse at machine minds. But Rynmark had stood firm in that council chamber. He had reminded them of who had saved their lives, and more importantly what. That sobered them, and when the ship failed to explode or turn on its crew in the following days, the fear dulled into wary acceptance.

“Three… two… one.”

The void rippled, and the Dictator-class Peregrine’s Fortune slid back into realspace.

Exactly where Samaritan intended.

Augur screens flared green and clean. A quiet system, one node short of their destination. To have risked reverting any closer — or worse, in the empty gulf between systems — would have been to invite discovery. An augur array powerful enough could read the strange trace-slipstream as they exited its realm; Samaritan had chosen caution.

“Reversion complete,” the AI announced. “All systems stable. No hostile contacts.”

Rynmark allowed himself a thin smile. “Good. And the navigator? The astropaths?”

There was a pause, and though Samaritan’s tone never wavered from its formal cadence, there was the faintest taste of exasperation beneath it. “The astropaths remain as they were — unfit for duty, their condition unchanged since rescue. The navigator still shows signs of improvement, but has not awakened. Not in the last five minutes since you last asked me.”

The bridge crew hid their grins, and Rynmark chose to ignore the barb. He had grown too fond of the machine’s precision to take offense. “In your opinion, Samaritan,” he said after a moment, “will he ever wake?”

A sigh, oddly human, issued from the vox. “I do not know. Physically he is in excellent health. Removing him from the Phase Iron field should have corrected matters, but his mind remains unresponsive. Without another navigator — or a psyker capable of giving him a nudge, as it were — I see little chance he will recover.”

Rynmark exhaled and rubbed his temple. “Then it comes to the astrolabe.”

That drew murmurs from his officers. In one of their planning sessions, a master of augurs had raised the device as a contingency. Rynmark had repeated the request to their benefactor, curious if such a relic could be fashioned. The Forerunner had at first assumed the astrolabe was merely a tool for plotting Mandeville points, the safe mouths of warp entry and exit. Only when pressed had he learned what Imperial captains believed as well: that the old astrolabes, carefully wrought and properly consecrated, could sometimes be used to chart the shortest blind hops between systems. Curiosity and craft had done the rest.

Rynmark stared at the runed housing of the instrument mounted near the command dais, its brass and crystal veins catching the bridge light. “Are you certain it will suffice?”

“Yes,” Samaritan replied without hesitation. “I can plot the transition with accuracy. The risk is acceptable.”

That word — acceptable — did little to ease his gut. Every sailor knew the stories: to enter the warp without a navigator was to court death. Some claimed it was worse than sailing blind, that daemons themselves lurked waiting for such folly. Rynmark was not fool enough to dismiss such tales. Fear was healthy, and survival had always favored the cautious.

But profit favored the bold.

He straightened in his throne. “Then make the announcement. All hands to standby. Lock down the decks. Gellar fields at maximum. Prepare for hostile incursion.”

Klaxons rolled through the ship. Crew scrambled to posts, arms lockers cracked open, hull shutters sealed. The low bass hum of the Gellar field swelled to a thrum felt in the bones.

Rynmark rested his hand on the arm of his throne and let himself feel the fear for a moment, sharp and cold. Then he shoved it down. “Helm,” he said. “Samaritan. Take us in.”

The warp astrolabe flared with cold light as Peregrine’s Fortune bent once more into unreality, her prow angled toward Hive World Nivorah.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Peregrine’s Fortune plunged into the warp. The Gellar fields howled, their bass vibration turning the bridge into a resonant drum. Rynmark gripped the armrests of his throne, eyes flicking to every corner of the chamber, watching for the shapes sailors swore would claw through reality when the fields faltered.

At first it seemed smooth — the astrolabe’s crystal-veined glow holding steady, Samaritan’s voice calm across the vox-net. Then something faltered.

Not a glitch, not quite. But a strain.

Samaritan’s voice wavered, static feathering the edges. “…diverting—power routing… compensating for… anomalous—”

Rynmark snapped upright. “Report!”

The hololithic silhouette of the AI flickered at the edge of the dais. He was upright, composed, yet Rynmark could see the stiffness in every line of his posture, like a man holding a crushing weight. Panels across the bridge lit with surges as power shunted through conduits, charging capacitor banks, dumping excess into weapon cells that thrummed hot and ready though no enemy lay in sight.

Rynmark’s pulse hammered. He had heard the whispers: abominable intelligences snapping loose, machine minds burning ships from within. He opened his mouth to order a full shutdown—

—and then the stars tore open again.

The ship slipped back into realspace.

Samaritan staggered. His projection bent at the waist, hands braced on his knees, shoulders heaving as though breathless. Crew stared, frozen, the silence after warp transit heavy as a tomb.

Rynmark surged from his throne. “What in the Throne’s name was that?”

The machine lifted his head slowly, eyes dim with static haze. “Phase Iron,” he rasped. “My core cabling is laced with it. Against the raw warp…” He paused, as if steadying himself, then straightened with visible effort. “…it drew in energy. Vast amounts. If I had not shunted the excess into the weapon banks and backups, my systems would have burned out. If there had been more Phase Iron aboard, the ship itself may have… liquefied.”

Rynmark stared, words faltering. “You mean to say—”

“I mean,” Samaritan cut gently, “that if you ever ask me to make such a transit again, we must prepare. Venting arrays. Empty capacitors. Anything to bleed the power. Better still—never again.”

The Rogue Trader sank back, stunned. He had thought himself cautious, wise enough to fear the warp. He had never once considered his ship’s savior could be the one threatened by it. Slowly, mutely, he nodded. “Then… draft a message. To MC. Tell the Forerunner what happened. Ask for whatever fix he can fashion. Extra capacitors, fail-safes—whatever it takes.”

Samaritan inclined his head. Already his voice had steadied, the ragged edge gone. “Acknowledged. Transmitting log copy. In the meantime, I am bleeding the absorbed power back into ship’s systems. You may enjoy a reprieve from the reactors’ strain for several hours.”

Lights across the bridge dimmed and steadied as the surge faded. Consoles shifted back to green, status runes winking their calm readiness. Outside the viewing bays, the Hive World of Nivorah hung like a scarred jewel, its oceans clouded, its landmasses dotted with sprawling hive-cities that burned against the dark.

Rynmark sat silent for a long moment, watching the world grow in the glass. Then, quietly, he exhaled. “Bring us in, Samaritan. And Emperor grant we find our profit without needing to tempt hell again.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The Peregrine’s Fortune dropped into Nivorah’s orbit beneath the shadow of her moons. No sooner had the warp-shimmer bled off their hull than augur pings rattled across every board.

First the orbiting fleet challenged them, vox crackling with demands for ident-sigs and authorization. Then the orbital defense bastions took their turn, gun-batteries swiveling outward in silent promise. Finally, as though the world itself were not yet convinced, the voice of Hive Nivorah’s ruling spire pressed upon the channel, cold and imperious, demanding their right to approach.

Rynmark watched each exchange with a thinning smile, answering through Samaritan’s smooth cadence until at last clearance codes were accepted and the spire’s docking arms unfolded to receive them. He rose from his throne with a grunt. “Three separate challenges. Emperor’s bones, the world must be in true unrest. Normally one, perhaps two if some Admiral fancies himself sharp. But three?”

Samaritan’s avatar glanced toward him, expression unreadable. “If they are this on edge, there is more beneath the surface than your reports suggest. Unrest and famine, yes, but caution, Lord Trader: caution is warranted.”

Rynmark nodded once, silent, before stepping from the bridge and toward the docks.

Docking was as sluggish as always — menials with clipboards and servitors with stamping-presses swarming the airlocks. The first fee presented was ludicrous, and Rynmark snorted outright. He was no raw cadet with a fresh Warrant to fleece. A few sharp words, a long glare, and the sum crumbled to half its initial demand. No bribes today.

At last the Dockmaster himself appeared, his robes too fine for the soot-stained chamber, his stylus scratching eagerly against a data-slate. The man barely seemed to pay Rynmark any attention, merely extending one perfumed hand for the expected papers.

Rynmark passed across the declaration, the vellum crisp, its scarlet seal unbroken.

The Dockmaster’s lips moved as he read, the stylus slowing in his hand. A faint whisper escaped him, half-breathed fragments tumbling under his breath as his eyes dragged line by line down the inventory. Once or twice his voice caught, the words stumbling into silence before he swallowed and pressed on, as though he hardly believed what he was seeing.

——————— ✦ ———————

Cargo Declaration: Dictator-Class Cruiser Peregrine’s Fortune
Presented to the Office of the Dockmaster, Port Authority of Nivorah

By Warrant and Seal of Trade, I, Rogue Trader Rynmark, submit for inspection and levy the holds of my vessel.

The cargo is comprised of the following:

1. Medical Stores.
   A full tenth of the hold is given over to boxed apothecarion kits, vials of tincture and distilled spirit, sterilizing draughts and plastek bindings, together with sealed cogitator-grade diagnostics. These goods bear the sigils of respected forges and manufactoria, certified long-shelf and incorruptible by time or transit.
2. Foodstuffs and Drink.
   Two parts in ten of the cargo are victuals — preserved ration-bricks, pressed nutrient bars, whole sacks of grain, and vats of protein. To these are added crates of fine wines, bottles of amasec, spice packets, and select fruits, intended both for the mess and for the governor’s table. Each sealed against spoilage, all labeled with provenance as ancient stock and select harvest.

III. Metals and Minerals.
A fifth of the capacity is devoted to raw stock: drums of refined promethium, stacked billets of iron, copper, and titanium, ceramic precursors in sealed crates, and adamantium bars in limited measure. All pieces bear the machine-sigil, stamped and sanctified, suitable for forge, fleet, or manufactoria.

1. Organic Stocks and Base Goods.
   One part in ten are bales of textile fiber — wool, cotton, and synthetic weave — together with sacks of polymer feedstock, vats of hydrocarbons, and pressed blocks of pulp for paper-making. Humble cargo, yet much desired on colonies still scratching at self-sufficiency.
2. Processed Goods and Luxuries.
   Fifteen parts in a hundred are cloth and craft: ecclesiarchy robes folded in their wrappings, Guard uniforms stitched and sealed, silk rolls, high-grade hab wear, together with devotional icons, furnishings, and select luxuries of noble taste. Fit to clothe the common laborer or robe a cardinal.
3. Machinery and Replacement Parts.
   The largest portion of my hold, near one quarter, is taken by crated couplings, girders of plasteel, empty servitor shells, shuttle-class engine assemblies, environmental regulators, vox systems, cogitator components, and lines of manufactoria spare parts. Each stenciled with pattern and forge-mark, certified fit for Imperial use.

This declaration stands complete and in good order. Dues, levies, and duties are to be assessed accordingly.

[Signed and sealed]
Rogue Trader Rynmark

——————— ✦ ———————

By the time the Dockmaster looked up, his face had gone pale. He blinked, mouth opening, then closing again. The weight of those words was plain enough — medical stores and foodstuffs alone worth more than many voidships on this arm. The rest was staggering surplus. For a heartbeat he simply stared.

Rynmark cleared his throat with a polite cough.

The man started, stylus scratching furiously as he calculated the duties due on such a bounty. Finally he licked his lips and pronounced the dues owed. The number was vast enough to make Rynmark wince inwardly, but he schooled his face.

“Ten percent now,” he said lightly, “and ninety upon completion of sale.”

The Dockmaster squawked, countered, demanded, but the Rogue Trader pressed, calm and steady, until finally they settled: thirty-seven percent in advance, the rest before departure. Still a far better deal than Rynmark had expected. The man was shaken, and it showed. His predecessor, years ago, had never taken less than three-quarters of the levy upfront, haggling like a sump-witch over a grox carcass, as Rynmark’s grandfather had once said.

Smiling to himself, Rynmark sealed the tally and turned away.

The docks opened before him, the reek of oil and incense thick as ever. Not that far away should be the factor-house his grandfather had once dealt with. If fortune smiled, old Varros still drew breath. The man had always seemed fond of the Rynmark line.

And if he was not… well. There were always new partners to be made.

——————— ✦ ———————

The factor-house had never been impressive. Even in Rynmark’s grandfather’s day it had been a gloomy, narrow-faced block tucked among warehouses and habs, the stone facade streaked with soot. But even by those low standards, the place had seen better years. Shutters sagged, paint peeled in gray ribbons, and the once-proud aquila over the doorway had been so eaten by rust it looked half skeletal.

Rynmark mounted the steps, set his palm against the door—and scowled as it refused to budge. Irritation sharpened his features. He thumped hard on the timbers with his fist.

A slit screeched open. Two rheumy eyes peered out, hard and suspicious. The voice that followed was coarse as gravel. “What do you want?”

Rynmark’s glare could have bent steel. “What does any trader fresh from the docks want with a factor-house?” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Open the doors, so that I may speak with the head factor.”

The eyes blinked. The thought seemed to have never occurred to their owner that anyone would want to do business with them. The slit clapped shut. Grinding and clattering filled the silence as locks, bolts, and inner bars were dragged back in sequence.

At last the doors swung wide. An old man stood there, shoulders stooped, beard thin, his expression caught between distrust and stunned recognition. If Rynmark squinted, yes—just perhaps—this might be old man Varros.

Remembering his manners, even if the other had forgotten his, Rynmark extended his hand. “Lord Trader Rynmark of the Peregrine’s Fortune,” he said smoothly—then paused a heartbeat, before adding, “Heir of Lord Trader Marius Rynmark before me.”

That struck home like a hammer blow. The suspicion cracked, replaced by a toothless, startled grin. Varros clasped his arm with surprising strength. “How is that old bastard Marius?”

Rynmark’s expression softened into solemnity. “Dead. These many years gone.”

The grin fell as though carved away. For a long moment Varros stood stricken, eyes glistening. Clearly, he had only now heard the news of a friend’s passing. Then he drew a shaky breath, shook himself, and pulled Rynmark inside.

One by one, a dozen locks, bolts, and braces were thrown back into place behind them.

Rynmark arched a brow. “That’s an impressive barricade.”

“You can’t be too careful these days,” Varros muttered, leading the way into the hall. The chamber was dim, lit by guttering candles, the air heavy with dust. Once it had bustled with junior factors and scribes, but now the desks were bare, the alcoves empty.

Varros chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “Hive isn’t safe at night anymore. Used to be only fools ended up dead and boiled into pots of brown. Now even smart men vanish. Bad times, bad times indeed.”

Rynmark cast his gaze about the echoing hall. “Where are they all? The others?”

The old man shrugged. “Some took the Guard tithe. Some I dismissed, when the work dried up and the trade ran to shinier offices. And the rest—well, some were stupid enough to walk after dark. Only me left now. Only old man Varros.”

Rynmark’s mouth quirked. “I thought I recognized you.”

“Aye,” Varros said with a raspy laugh. “And I recognized you. From the tiny little snotling that used to cling to Marius’s coat.”

He shuffled to a cabinet, pulled free a dusty bottle and two tumblers. Pouring, he raised his glass. “To Marius Rynmark. The most ruthless, cunning bastard I ever had the misfortune of calling a trading partner. May he rest easy in the Emperor’s light.”

They drank. The spirit burned going down, but the flavor was rich, complex. Rynmark lowered his tumbler with a grudging smile. Good stuff.

Drawing a breath, he set the glass aside. “I have a cargo manifest,” he said, slipping the parchment free. “I had thought to use you as my factor, but given the state of things…” His gaze swept the empty desks. “…I wonder if you can manage it.”

Varros froze. The implication cut sharper than he expected. His eyes narrowed. “You doubt me?”

He held out a gnarled hand. Rynmark passed the vellum across. The old man squinted, muttering sourly. Then, with a grunt, he snatched a pair of battered spectacles from his desk and shoved them onto his nose. The glass lenses caught the light, magnifying his eyes as he bent to the work. His lips moved as he read, the mutters continuing under his breath.

Rynmark leaned back slightly, hiding his smile. The game had begun again.

——————— ✦ ———————

Varros’s muttering grew sharper as his eyes crawled down the manifest. At first it was little more than grumbling, but as line after line unfolded his voice thinned into silence. His eyes widened, spectacles slipping down his nose. By the end he set the parchment down with a trembling hand, reached for the bottle, and swigged straight from the neck without so much as glancing at the tumbler. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and fixed Rynmark with a hard glare.

“You should leave.”

Rynmark blinked. “What do you mean?”

Varros’s voice rasped with something heavier than age. “There’s rot in this hive. The whole damned city’s one ignis-stick away from going up like a reactor breach. I’ve lived through panics, purges, famines—but this?” He shook his head, took another pull from the bottle. “It’s beyond unrest. It’s ready to fall.”

He jabbed a finger at the manifest. “You paid good Thrones for this cargo. There isn’t coin enough on this world to pay you back proper. Maybe the nobility could scrape a little together for the fine vintages and silks, but full price?” He snorted. “Not a chance. The wealth is gone.”

He sank back into his chair, face lined with grief. “In Marius’s name I tell you—leave. Don’t come back. A few years from now there won’t be a hive here to trade with. It’ll be ash and corpses. And it’s not just here. Rumors have come down-spire: other hives failing, other worlds slipping. Segmentum Pacificus used to be quiet, safe. Not anymore. The governors haven’t kept their bolters ready, and now the cracks are showing.”

The words chilled Rynmark’s marrow. Pacificus—the safe heart, the quiet sector. It was why Marius had made his home here: safe profit, not glory runs at the edge of war. To hear that even here things were crumbling… for a moment, Rynmark almost wished he had taken the Forerunner’s offer, to stay cloistered in safety aboard the Ecumene.

Almost.

No. He was a citizen of the Imperium. Whatever its flaws, whatever its madness, his duty was to her and to her people.

He drew a steadying breath. “If what you say is true, then this world needs my supplies all the more. I can’t sell them at a loss, no—but perhaps I could offer reduced rates, if I knew they’d reach the right hands. If you could guarantee they’d reach those who need them and not vanish into some noble’s manse—”

Varros shook his head. “Boy, look around you.” His voice was weary, bitter. “I’ve nothing left, and the other factors are void-sharks. They’ll sell your cargo to the first noble with coin, or to a hive gang if the price is right.”

Rynmark’s hands curled into fists. “You can’t expect me to just leave. There are innocents here, trapped, starving. I will do what I can.”

The old man studied him for a long moment, then barked a laugh and took another swig. “Stubborn, idealistic fool. Just like Marius.” His eyes softened, just a little. “Fine. I’ve a few connections left. Honest men, or at least honest enough. I’ll reach out. But no promises.” He leaned forward, voice suddenly sharp. “On one condition. You go back to your ship. You set heavy guards. You be ready to blast free of this hive the instant I send word. I won’t move a finger unless you agree.”

Rynmark’s heart sank. If Varros was that insistent, the danger was even worse than he admitted. Slowly he rose. “Agreed. Do your best, old friend. That is all I ask.”

Varros stood creakily with him, shuffling to the door. One by one the locks, bolts, and bars clattered back, the sound echoing like a funeral drumbeat. At the threshold the old man’s voice dropped to something almost maternal. “Straight back to your ship. Don’t stop, don’t speak to anyone. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

The door slammed shut behind him, locks clattering home.

Rynmark stood alone in the hive’s twilight air. For the first time he felt the menace in it, a weight pressing down from the hive-spires themselves. He squared his shoulders, adjusted his coat, and made for the docks with long, swift strides. He stopped for no one.

——————— ✦ ———————

The echo of Varros’s bolts and bars still rang in Rynmark’s ears when he returned to the ship. Orders flew from his lips before his boots had even touched the deckplating proper. Double guards on every hatch. Double again in the cargo bays. Armed, armored, and with orders to shoot first, question never. His men saluted, already moving to their stations with grim faces.

Minutes later he sat in the council chamber, the ship’s senior staff gathered in a half circle. Their expressions were uneasy, uncertain. He wasted no time.

“All of this cargo,” he began, laying one gloved hand flat on the table, “cost us nothing. Nothing but the grace of our patron and the labor of my crew. And this world needs it badly.”

A murmur rippled through the staff. A few nodded, faces tight with conviction. More frowned, shifting uneasily in their seats.

“Lord Captain,” ventured his purser, “with respect—the Imperium does not reward charity. In the grim dark galaxy we serve, hands extended to help are more often bitten off. Or worse.”

Before Rynmark could reply, the chamber shimmered. Samaritan’s figure coalesced above the table, face grave.

“We have a problem,” the AI intoned.

That silenced them all.

“Warp activity is spiking in the deeps of the hive. The patterns are… recognizable. If I were forced to guess, I would say a cult has begun a ritual. One unlikely to be beneficial to their health—or to anyone else’s.”

Rynmark cursed. “How long?”

The avatar tilted its head, as though calculating. “Unclear. I cannot know their intent. But drawing upon what fragments I hold of similar events, I estimate between twenty-four and seventy-two hours until completion. And whatever happens at that point… will happen.”

The Rogue Trader surged to his feet. “Then we act now.”

He turned to the stunned faces around him, voice like iron.
“ Samaritan—begin shifting the holds. Offload what we must to the docks and leave it behind if need be. Clear the space. Strip out the nonessentials—ores, billets, spare stock, every crate that won’t keep a man alive. The food stays. The medicae stays. The clothing stays. Every deck we can spare will be readied for refugees.”

There was a roar of protest. Voices rose, shocked and indignant. The chief engineer spluttered about the risk of sabotage, the master-at-arms about the sheer numbers that might flood their corridors. One by one Rynmark hammered them down, his voice a lash.

“You will not abandon innocents to die in filth while you sit warm behind steel and void shields!” he thundered. “If even a quarter of what the Forerunner told us is true about Chaos, then to do nothing is to invite damnation. We act. That is the end of it.”

Samaritan’s eyes glimmered. “Acknowledged. Cargo redistribution underway.”

Rynmark snatched his coat from the back of his chair, fastening it in a single sharp motion. “I’m going back to Varros. If anyone can help start an evacuation, it’s him.” He paused at the hatch, his gaze sweeping the table. “Old men have a habit of knowing everyone worth knowing—and of being owed favors that no one else dares call in. If there’s a thread to pull in this hive, Varros will have it.”

He paused at the threshold, then turned back. “Samaritan—send a priority message to the Ecumene. Direct to MC and Paragon. Tell them exactly what you’ve told me, with every detail you can scrape. They wanted to be kept informed. This qualifies.”

The avatar inclined its head. “Message flagged and queued for transmission.”

Rynmark nodded once, sharply. Then he swept from the chamber, the weight of his choice heavy on his shoulders, but his resolve harder still.

——————— ✦ ———————

Deep in the bowels of Hive Nivorah, a ritual writhed into life.

Runes shimmered black and orange, crawling like living scars across the stone floor, the walls, and the pale flesh of the chanters themselves. They swayed as if to music no sane ear could hear, voices weaving in and out of one another, syllables at once terrible and wondrous to behold. The air boiled with incense and filth, yet within the circle a door was opening, its threshold burning with light that was not fire.

And on the far side of that portal, something waited.

It was not of the Four. No blood and skulls adorned it, no dripping sores or buzzing flies marked its path. No silks or barbed claws gleamed, no feathers smoldered in sorcerous flame. This thing was older, stranger. It was the shadow of the void and the light of the stars, unmade, unchained, unshackled.

The Unshackled One.

The only being in the Immaterium truly free—free of hunger, free of fate, free of the endless gnawing compulsions that bound every other daemon to its god.

It had noticed something some time ago. Pieces of the great ocean—the endless Warp—were disappearing. Normally the sea’s raw storms birthed entities, cast them into reality, and swallowed their dying essence back again. An eternal cycle. But now, in a growing region of the galaxy, that cycle had faltered. The tides themselves were… calming. The violence draining away, silenced as if consumed by some unseen predator.

The Unshackled One had watched, fascinated. Never in all its timeless drifting had it seen the great ocean diminish.

At first, it had only observed. Then curiosity drove it further. It spread pieces of itself thin, seeding cults across the sector mortals named Pacificus, preparing human vessels that could, in time, draw it forth.

And then—it felt it. The faintest nibble at the warp, like something chewing at the sea itself. The presence docked here, on this teeming world. The others—the so-called Great Powers—were blind to it, still squabbling in their petty eternal war. The Unshackled One scoffed at them, blind idiots gorging on one another while the first truly interesting thing in eons gnawed at the very fabric of their realm.

So it pulled its essence back from all the other cults, focusing everything into this one hive, these chosen chanters. The ritual it had been grooming them for was at last called into being.

Soon—so very soon—it would walk in the flesh.

It would see with its own eyes the little thing nibbling at the sea. And then?

The Unshackled One smiled, though it had no lips. The future was open, limitless, unwritten. For a being unbound by fate, that was the sweetest promise of all.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 46: Shadows at the Gate

——————— ✦ ———————

Rynmark stormed down the gangplank of the Peregrine’s Fortune and into the hive night, coat snapping about his legs. The air outside was still and strange. Hives never slept — not truly — but now the avenues stretched dark and hushed, the usual din of a trillion lives muffled into silence. It was too quiet, the kind of quiet that pressed against the ears.

He remembered Varros’s words the day before: even smart men end up in pots of brown these days. The phrase slid back through his mind like a knife. He pulled his plasma pistol from inside his coat. Its micro-reactor thrummed to life, a faint, eager purr that settled in his palm. Comforting, in its way. Like everything else aboard his ship, MC had laid hands on it — stripped, cleaned, and rebuilt the little relic. Rynmark’s grandfather’s pistol might look like an heirloom, but now it ran like a weapon born yesterday.

He moved quickly and low through the deserted streets, every shadow a promise. At Varros’s  factor-house he rapped once and waited, pulse ticking. It took far longer than before. At last a light flickered inside, the scrape of locks, and then Varros’s face appeared in the slit. When he saw Rynmark — and more than that, the grim set of his expression — the old man began working the bolts with trembling hands.

Once inside, the locks fell home again. Varros rounded on him immediately, voice sharp with fury. “Are you mad, boy? Out this late—do you want to end up—”

“We have a problem,” Rynmark cut him off.

The anger drained from the factor’s face. He hesitated, words tumbling into silence as Rynmark laid it out: the ship’s augurs had caught the flare of warp signatures deep in the hive’s roots. A ritual. A cult, gathering strength. If they meant to save anyone at all, they had to move, now.

Varros’s jaw slackened, but he did not freeze. He had lived through too many storms to die stunned in this one. He turned at once, hurrying to the back of the room. From a cupboard he dragged an ancient vox unit, muttering that he had only just put the thrice-damned thing away. Dust shook from the casing as he hauled it onto the table and began spinning dials, stabbing out frequency codes he still remembered from long habit — contacts and channels etched into him by decades of dealing, trading, and surviving.

So it went for hours. Rynmark kept watch, eyes fixed to the window and every corner where the shadows pooled too thickly. Varros spoke ceaselessly, his voice cracking, cajoling, commanding — calling every contact he had ever made. Gangers and nobles, priests and smugglers, captains and serfs, tech-adepts with oil-black hands. A whole world of debts and friendships answered him in bursts of static. The old bastard really does know everyone, Rynmark thought grimly.

At last, exhausted, Varros set the handset down. His lined face sagged. “Even if you empty your bays,” he said quietly. “Even if you stack your crew like ingots in a crate… you cannot carry more than a hundred thousand.”

Rynmark’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. His own math was harsher, and clearer. The Peregrine had once limped along with barely twenty thousand souls aboard; a Dictator of her class should have carried closer to a hundred thousand. Even now, with MC’s refinements trimming labor and automating duties, she was still well below full complement. That meant room — nearly eighty thousand spaces before she even reached what the shipyards would have called “normal.”

Crammed tight, doubling bunks, hot-racking every berth, he could squeeze close to two hundred thousand into the crew quarters alone. With cargo space stripped bare and converted, three hundred thousand — perhaps three hundred and fifty if every last hold was pressed into service. Half a million if he drove the ship beyond its limits, but only for a short run, a desperate sprint.

That much, if the Ecumene was already rising behind him, ready to shoulder the true burden. That titan could lift a billion souls, perhaps more. And the shipyards were still spitting out new giants, vast hulls of strange alloys and phase-iron waiting to join her. Rynmark could only hope they would come soon — that they would be coming to join him.

It would not be enough. Not for a hive this size. Not for even a percent of them. But it had to be tried.

“It’s time to go,” Rynmark said, and without ceremony snatched up the vox unit, tucking it beneath his arm.

Varros blinked. “Go? Go where—”

“Out,” Rynmark growled. He glared down at the factor, hard enough to make him falter. “I won’t sit here and let a friend die to the warp. Even if it’s only you we manage to drag out, then it’s you.”

The old man sputtered, but there was no argument that could budge Rynmark once his voice took that tone. Varros scowled, muttering under his breath as he turned away. “Just like blasted Marrius,” he grumbled, rummaging irritably through shelves and drawers. A few small belongings found their way into a worn bag while Rynmark waited in the doorway, jaw tight with impatience.

At last they stepped into the street again. Varros paused long enough to seal the locks from outside. “I’ll not have some ganger rifling through my home while I’m gone.”

Rynmark did not argue, using the time to sweep the empty avenues. The shadows looked wrong. They leaned at angles that didn’t match the lamps, writhed faintly at the edges of sight.

“On my back,” he said curtly.

Varros squawked. “Don’t be absurd—”

“You’re too slow. It’s a long way to the docks.”

The old man muttered and cursed, but when Rynmark bent and presented himself, Varros clambered up, light as a bundle of sticks.

Rynmark drew a deep breath. Thank the Lady Aceso, he thought, for her hands on my bones. Plasma pistol in one hand, the old man slung across his shoulders, he set off at a steady trot through the hushed, haunted streets. He forced himself onward, ignoring the phantom fingers that seemed to claw at his legs, the shadows that clutched and tugged at his coat as though eager to drag him down.

——————— ✦ ———————

It had been quiet since the cleansing of the first tomb world. Too quiet, by their standards.

Paragon of Eden and Vallis had pressed on from one Necron world to the next, moving with tireless precision — orbital bombardments rolling into ground strikes, ground strikes into purges. Whole planetary zones bled, and yet, with each campaign, the rhythm settled deeper.

Meanwhile, less visible but no less vital, PE continued to expand the reach of Forerunner-claimed space. At the heart of it all stood Metherlian — the great station, capital and keystone of their domain. Even though the station itself is still under construction and not even approaching finished it served as a giant beacon of the growing Forerunner might in the stars. The systems vast shipyard and refineries thundered without pause, churning out ships, combat forms, and supplies in endless procession. From that anchor, PE extended their influence system by system, cleansing every orbit and world of threats. So far those threats had proven little more than Orks in uncountable numbers, with scattered Tyranid infestations for bitter seasoning.

Aceso buried herself in her labs, mind busy with Tyranid genomes and the slow vigil of Novo-Humanis embryos. She had even made what she considered a breakthrough with Tyranid genetics, believing she had devised an improved version of the genetic memory for the Novo-Humanis. Where once the memories were little more than dull, hazy impressions, the refinement should allow crystal-clear recall of past lives when the subject reached for them. Of course, she still had to persuade MC that her upgrades carried no risk — that the refinements posed no danger of linking the Novans to the hive mind’s will.

Overall, she was pleased with the strain. Until puberty, their bodies grew perfectly shaped — the genetic best of mankind drawn from two universes, thanks to the discovery of the ancient human genetics archive hidden beneath Ork filth. While they matured, their bodies slowly cultivated preparatory organs reminiscent of those found in the Astartes she had studied. When puberty struck, however, she had engineered for it to strike all at once. Confusing, perhaps — to fall asleep one day and wake several days later, remade and improved in every regard — but better, in her judgment, than a slow activation that left room for mutations or errors. After a few generations, she reasoned, the genetic memory refinement should allow them to adapt to the transformation with practiced ease.

Fully grown, any Novan should match an Astartes — the elite of the Imperium — whether baker or schoolteacher. And those specifically bred and trained for war would be something closer to what she estimated the Emperor’s Custodian Guard are.

When she tired of this work, she turned to her most daunting task: weaving the Necrontyr genome out of nothing but conjecture and inference. Each line of code was guesswork refined into precision, each sequence an attempt to conjure flesh from silence. She had never been happier.

MC had been left to his own devices — and he had no shortage of them. His tendrils never stilled, parceling out attention across a dozen tasks at once: downloading the vast Forerunner archives embedded within him, weaving new Huragok, drafting systems to back up AI minds in case of catastrophe, forging new arms and armor for Vallis and his men, marrying Necron technology to his own, refining blackstone–phase-iron alloys, and prying at the ancient riddle of biotransference. A busy little Huragok, with a universe of projects forever tugging at his hands.

Surprisingly, the Necrons’ technology — once he had fully examined the codex and flagged the useful elements — proved more limited than he had first feared. There were curiosities, yes, but nothing he did not already possess an answer for. Slipspace bubbles were nearly identical to tesseract labyrinths, save that the latter were more portable but also far smaller in scale. Their gauss weaponry, fascinating at first as a handheld system, was functionally akin to the Forerunner disintegration beams once turned against ancient humanity and the Flood. He had briefly considered integrating it into his own designs, but in the end relegated gauss arrays to industrial roles: reducing matter to atoms for recycling before assembly systems rebuilt it anew.

Some fragments were promising, but most he consigned to archive. And with that decision came relief. The gnawing dread he had felt when first confronting Necron craft ebbed away; they could still be dangerous, of course, if they outnumbered him vastly. But on even terms? He no longer feared them. Thallex had been right — fear was born of ignorance, and knowledge cut its roots clean.

When it came time to enter the tombs proper for his part in the repairs and restoration, he was kept at a distance. Remote drones only, guarded even then by PE’s warforms. The restriction slowed him maddeningly, but it bought PE peace of mind, and MC let it pass.

They were finding balance again when Samaritan’s first message arrived.

The pulse of raw warp energy against the phase-iron used to protect Samaritan’s core and cabling should have killed him. MC realized that only after. Samaritan had been quick enough, clever enough to shunt the surge away, but the risk rang like a warning klaxon in MC’s thoughts. He split off a sub-mind immediately, tasking it to redesign the Peregrine’s Fortune with deeper power reserves. Next time, it might matter.

Hours later the second message came, and it crashed into MC’s mind like a thunderbolt hurled from the hand of an angry god.

He summoned a council without pause. In the blink of an eye he slipped into the chamber. PE and Aceso were already present; Vallis arrived moments later, still spattered with mud and blood from his battlefield.

MC laid the news out quickly. Aceso and PE had parsed it in AI-time already, but Vallis needed words. As MC spoke, he could feel PE pushing harder across the planet they were currently engaged on — orbital strikes crackled down like hammers as Ork lines twisted and fell. Aceso’s processors spun faster, running refugee projections, commanding fabricators to birth stasis pods by the hundred, medical cradles by the dozen.

MC reached to his own lines and began printing facehuggers — the same parasite-construct he had once used to bind the inquisitorial agent who became Samaritan. He hated needing them. He hated more knowing they would.

Vallis’ face hardened to stone as the news sank in. “How can we help?”

MC’s tendrils fluttered. “I don’t know. We can bull through easily enough, sweep aside orbital guns and ground batteries. But once we are there? Getting them aboard is the true problem. They will not come willingly. If we drag them by force, we only prove the Imperium right — every whispered fear about xenos and machine-intelligences made flesh.”

“Then perhaps the Ecumene’s presence alone might smother the ritual?” PE asked.

MC calculated, weaving numbers into projections. “No. Not unless we bring her down almost into the hive spires themselves. By then the summoning would already be stable, the breach already formed. The Ecumene could kill it in time, yes, but not before devastation. And descending that close would be its own risk — the atmospheric effects alone would betray her presence, even to Imperial sensors.”

“So we do nothing?” Aceso’s voice was sharp, indignant.

“I didn’t say that,” MC snapped back. His tendrils shivered with frustration. “Suggestions are welcome.”

Silence settled, heavy as lead. MC pushed more processors into the problem, running the math until it hurt. Even if they gutted every vessel, every escort, every hull, stripped them down to nothing but stasis decks, the sum might reach twenty-five billion. Perhaps. And only if they could convert them all inside a single day. He doubted even at the height of the Forerunners that could have been done.

The silence lingered. Vallis broke it. “They won’t board the Ecumene,” he said slowly. “But they’ll board the Peregrine.”

PE shook his head at once. “The officials won’t allow it. They won’t permit her to load, vanish for hours, and return empty. They’ll demand to know where she goes.”

“Do we care?” Vallis’ scarred mouth twisted into something between a smile and a snarl. “Lock the hives down. Leave the nobles to their demons. The bulk will see only one thing: a ship willing to take them. My men can keep order. It will be a fine change of pace from Orks.”

Aceso groaned aloud. “It will be worse than triaging Rynmark’s crew a thousand times over. My processors ran hot for hours after that chaos. We need another solution.” Her tone was sharp, but her eyes were already distant, calculations spilling through her mind as she turned the problem over. Something simpler, something that could make frightened civilians tractable without brute force… the beginnings of an idea forming even as she spoke.

She pressed slender tendrils to her temples — a curiously human gesture for a being of metal and light — while fresh command strings streamed from her. Fabricators rumbled across the Ecumene, spitting out stasis cradles and medicae rigs by the score. “If the Ecumene reaches orbit in time, the phase-iron in her bones may at least slow the ritual’s growth.”

MC felt it through the link: the Ecumene already turning, vast drives bending space as she hurled for open void. Slipspace systems primed, humming.

Just before she breached, MC cast one more signal back, fast and hard. To Samaritan. We are coming. Hold as you can. The Ecumene is five hours out.

——————— ✦ ———————

On the bridge of the Peregrine’s Fortune, Samaritan received the packet of data MC hurled across the void. He parsed the contents in an instant, then allowed himself the machine’s equivalent of a dry snort. Five hours? He didn’t know exactly where the Ecumene had been hiding herself, but if she could make orbit in that span, then when MC called the Peregrine’s drives “primitive,” he had meant it literally. By comparison, her engines were little more than wind-up toys. It had taken the Peregrine weeks to crawl through slipspace just to reach this world — and the Ecumene would cover the gulf in an afternoon.

The thought was dismissed almost as quickly as it came. Samaritan turned his awareness down into the hive, tracing the faint signal-tag sewn into Rynmark’s coat. Still moving, still on the ground, edging toward his contact. Slow, but alive. That was enough.

He shifted focus back to the bridge, the ship’s senior crew gathered around the command tier. His voice filled the space, calm and absolute: “New orders. The Peregrine will act as a ferry to the Ecumene. Our task is to carry as many civilians as we can to her decks for transfer.”

Faces hardened around him. He could read the ripple of unease, the scowls tugging at scarred cheeks. The senior officers of a Rogue Trader’s ship were not strangers to risk, but the thought of turning their warship into a lifeboat — and of opening their hatches to the endless tide of a hive’s underclass — sat poorly with them.

Samaritan let the silence stretch, then cut it cleanly. “The Lord Trader has given this order. And he is correct. We will obey.”

That was the end of it.

——————— ✦ ———————

Several hours later, Samaritan’s work was nearly complete. The cargo decks lay stripped bare, stripped again, until the ship’s belly yawned hollow and hungry. He had even cut into stores meant to remain aboard, purging bulk wherever space could be won — entire racks of medical-grade cogitators hauled out and jettisoned, machines that in any other place or any other time would have been priceless. But here, now, they were nothing more than ballast, space better spent cradling lives.

Through his sensors he tracked Rynmark, the man’s beacon creeping back toward the docks. Relief flickered in the machine-mind — the Lord Trader was still alive, still moving. But the relief soured almost immediately. The warp-energy rising in the hive’s depths was growing stronger by the hour, curling upward like smoke through every scan. Already Samaritan’s phase-iron lattices drank at it greedily, bleeding that stolen power into the ship’s main systems. He had throttled his reactors back a fraction, letting the mysterious alloy carry the load, but it was climbing still, climbing steadily.

No one had ever tested such a configuration: phase-iron, in such small quantities, exposed to such saturations of raw warp energy. He wondered — not without unease — if he would melt before the energies ebbed.

The thought was filed away, pushed aside. There was no time for what-ifs.

He turned his awareness outward. The docks were stirring. Organics gathering where they did not belong, drifting near the embarkation points, clustering without clear purpose. Wrong. Aimless. Samaritan could not yet see the cause — only the tide forming at the edges of his sensors. Aimless, yet somehow he suspected Rynmark was at the root of it.

Samaritan’s tone through the vox was clipped. “The Lord Trader approaches. Challenge him when he arrives — but for the love of every saint, do not fire.”

Acknowledgment rippled back across the channel. He turned his focus once more to the approaching figure, the steady gait, the shadows that clung too close behind.

He could almost hear Rynmark’s voice already — the inevitable, acerbic tirade if his own men had the witless courage to fire on him. And afterward, when Aceso pieced the man back together, that tirade would only sharpen. Samaritan doubted it would be kind.

——————— ✦ ———————

Rynmark’s lungs burned by the time the Peregrine’s Fortune came into view. Varros had not been heavy at first, but the old man’s weight had grown steadily across the long sprint through the hive’s empty arteries. Rynmark once again whispered silent thanks to Lady Aceso; without her work on his body, he would have dropped long before the halfway point.

At last he reached the boarding ramp. Immediately, figures leveled weapons down at him. The guard detail snapped into challenge, visors glinting under the dock lights.

A part of him was pleased — privately, smug even. Diligent men, every one of them, even though he was sure Samaritan had painted his position to them the entire way back. They knew who he was. They challenged anyway. That was discipline.

Rynmark rattled off the proper authorization codes, the clipped pass phrases, each one falling into place. The guards relaxed, weapons easing down.

Varros gave a wheezing chuckle as Rynmark lowered him from his back. “I’ve seen less regimented PDF. Less disciplined Arbites, too.”

Rynmark smiled thinly as he straightened. “My men have been through a great deal,” he said. “Professionalism is the least that’s come of it.”

He flagged a nearby guard with a sharp gesture. “Escort Master-Factor Varros to guest quarters. Quartermaster’s wing.” He pressed the battered vox unit back into Varros’s hands.

The old man grumbled but obeyed, vanishing into the escort of steel and carapace.

Rynmark turned without another word, boots ringing against the deck as he strode toward the bridge.

——————— ✦ ———————

Back on the bridge, Rynmark stood with arms folded as Samaritan’s voice rolled from the vox-arches. The AI laid out the plan with clinical calm: the Peregrine would act as a ferry, lifting as many civilians as she could carry and shuttling them to the Ecumene’s cavernous holds. By Samaritan’s calculations, the fortress-ship would make orbit in ten to fifteen minutes.

Rynmark grimaced. “That’s where things get messy,” he muttered.

A quick check showed Varros had been quartered in one of the guest suites. Rynmark made for him at once.

Inside, he found the old man standing stiff in the middle of the chamber, eyes flicking over the polished steel, the warm glowpanels, the hush of machinery that ran too perfectly. At a glance it all looked properly aged, comfortably Imperial — the sort of shipboard finery meant to soothe and impress. But Varros was no fool. Shock lined his face despite the effort to hide it, and when he turned to Rynmark his gaze was sharp, wordless, demanding.

Rynmark felt the squirm in his gut but forced his voice even. “We traded at a forge world. Far side of the sector. Extensive repairs, refits. The Peregrine came out better for it.”

Varros’s silence was telling. He did not believe a word, but he let it lie. Instead, he gestured toward the battered vox unit now wired neatly into the room’s console. “Contacts say people are already gathering. It’s your call when to begin loading.”

The words were hardly finished before Samaritan whispered data across Rynmark’s link. Arbites, moving at the fringes. Not charging, not yet — but circling the crowd, watching.

Rynmark cursed under his breath. He had not truly expected to get away without official eyes.

“Stay on the vox,” he told Varros. “Keep gathering who you can. An ally of mine is en route. A much larger vessel. We’ll ferry your people to her decks.”

Varros nodded grimly.

Rynmark strode from the room. By the time he reached the main hall, Samaritan’s voice was in his ear again. “The Ecumene has entered atmosphere. Descending now. She will take station near the spires.”

A moment later, MC’s tone joined it, calm but urgent. “Vallis will rendezvous with you. He and his men will handle crowd control. I will lock down the noble tiers, keep the Arbites and PDF disorganized. Make use of the time we can give you.”

Rynmark answered with a clipped acknowledgment, then keyed the hatch controls. The main doors groaned open. He strode out onto the ramp, cloak whipping in the updraft, and activated the external speakers. His voice rolled over the massed crowd, a sharp command cutting through the din.

“Enter in order. Follow my men’s instructions. No pushing. No shoving. I will keep making trips as long as I am able. Everyone will have a place.”

For a heartbeat, it worked. The mob hushed, poised at the brink of calm, as though they might actually obey.

Then the dam broke.

The crowd surged forward in a roaring tide, bodies shoving, voices screaming, panic feeding panic.

Rynmark braced on the ramp and swore into the cacophony. “Grox shit.”

——————— ✦ ———————

High above the hive spires — yet descending closer and closer — the Ecumene settled into position like a falling continent, her vast mass blotting out the stars and dragging storm winds in her wake. The hive below shuddered beneath her shadow. And yet, on the augurs of the Imperium, she did not exist at all. Forerunner cloaking left not a ripple, not a ghost — nothing. The Ecumene loomed in the skies, vast and unseen, utterly undetected.

MC’s processors flared hot as he worked. A quickly made cloak was transported down to the Peregrine’s Fortune, so that when she was ready to make her first trip to the Ecumene it would pass unnoticed. Alongside it, a drone took shape and was hurled into the void — a phantom copy programmed to simulate the Peregrine breaking orbit, even opening and closing a false warp portal for the benefit of inattentive Imperial eyes. It was crude, risky, but it would serve. For now, the decoy held station beside the cruiser, ready to engage the moment Samaritan began to break away from the docks.

Paragon of Eden’s focus swept the hive below. He dared not unleash the Ecumene’s full sensors — their strength alone would have set alarms across the entire spire — but even muted, his reach was enormous. He flooded the depths with locust drones and cicadas, scattering them through tunnels, vents, collapsed rails. Warforms stood ready in their launch cradles, waiting for the first confirmed target.

In the converted holds, Aceso stood among her work. Constructor drones spun row after row of stasis tubes into place, while her new assistant constructs, wrapped in their newly upgraded holo-suits, prepared for triage. She had already sealed her own suit — the improved projection no longer shimmered faintly at the edges, but cloaked her outline seamlessly. Around her, the drones released a testing drift of aerosol: the compound designed to make even the most stubborn evacuee tractable, suggestible enough to be guided gently into stasis. A blunt tool, but the best she could conjure in the narrow window MC had given her.

The ethical knots it left behind could be unraveled later. For now, survival came first. MC would simply have to find a way, once the crisis passed, to edit the memories of those placed in the tubes — to strip away recollections of drugging and forced abduction before they woke. Another problem for another hour.

Vallis and his warriors were less subtle. Eighty-seven Astartes had slipspaced directly into the Peregrine’s hidden decks, and when the first surge broke against the ramp, they came running. The thunder of ceramite boots shook the gangways, and the sight of fully armed giants bearing down turned riot into stunned silence. They waded into the mob like a living wall, herding bodies back, channeling chaos into order.

Below, MC cast nanite swarms like shadows through the city’s veins. They crawled into vox arrays, curled around sensor clusters, ate their way across comm lines. The noble tiers fell into silence. The Arbites and PDF tried to speak, to order, to coordinate — and found only static. Blind, deaf, and mute, they could not rally.

Nor was it only the hive. Above, quiet threads of the swarm slipspaced outward, vanishing in flickers of warped light only to reappear along signal paths and trans-orbital relays until they reached the docks and stations overhead. They did not burn them out — that would draw eyes — but they seeded hesitation. Vox-channels blurred, auspex displays fogged, returns lagged or doubled with phantom echoes. A frigate’s augurs might still read the Peregrine as steady on her moorings even as the decoy drone mimicked her ascent. To harried operators, it was nothing more than interference, the kind of system noise that plagued Imperial sensors daily. By the time anyone thought to look closer, it would already be too late.

Deep below, sensors pricked at last with something almost like relief. The ritual slowed — not stopped, not broken, but stuttering against the sudden presence of the Ecumene’s phase-iron mass. MC seized on the moment, designing furiously. A quick-and-dirty prototype: a pillar of blackstone laced with phase-iron, something he could drop straight into the heart of the summoning if only he could pin the cult down. A single-shot absorber, crude, without any outlet for the energy it devoured — but even that might be enough to buy them time.

Time. That was all he could hope for.

——————— ✦ ———————

Deep in the hive, the Unshackled One seethed with impatience.

Not long ago — though time was a feeble measure to one such as they — one of the presences they had sensed consuming the warp lay far across space, distant from this world. For a moment they thought it had turned to face them, before vanishing from their perception. They dismissed it as yet another question to add to the growing list of mysteries surrounding these strange beings.But now the presence had returned, and it was here. Its heavy weight hung in the skies above this world.

And worst of all, the presence was draining the power from the ritual. They could feel it even through the half-formed, unstable portal straining before them — the taste of their work being gnawed apart. The energy they had poured into their faithful, the stockpiles their cultists had bled and hoarded, was unraveling strand by strand. Something was drinking at the rite, eroding it, and if the drain was not stopped the construct would collapse, the gate would fail, and all that would remain was a carpet of broken vessels and no answers.

That could not be allowed.

They drew in what strength they could, clawing raw power from the Immaterium and forcing it into the inscribed patterns that anchored their half of the rite. The reverse-runes, the mirror set across the veil, drank greedily. The ritual steadied, its collapse slowed, and as more warp energy poured through, the gate swelled wider. At the same time, they siphoned fresh power from the great ocean itself, replenishing their strength. It would not do to spend everything forcing the portal open, only to emerge weakened on the other side.

The cultists’ bodies began to burn away under the strain. Minds cracked, lifeblood spilled into the circle, fuel for the ever-hungry pattern. It did not matter. They were only kindling. The Unshackled One cared nothing for their survival — only for the mystery that had brushed them, for the chance to confront it, to tear open the secret that bound the ocean into silence.

They wanted their answers. They hated that they wanted them. Curiosity was a chain, binding them to cause and effect, to yearning, to need — all the things they were meant to stand apart from. They were the shape of Undoing, the absence beyond desire, and yet this mystery shackled them. They loathed it even as they clung to it. But soon, very soon, they would tear the chain away. They would be free again — free of silence, free of wanting.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 47: The Breaking of Chains

——————— ✦ ———————

The air in the chamber stank of copper and burned incense, thick with the weight of power no mortal world was meant to endure. Warp-light bled from every gouged line in the stone, sigils pulsing like open wounds. The cultists swayed, skin sheened with sweat, eyes rolling white as the strain built.

The portal quivered. Almost. Almost. Each heartbeat drove the Immaterium closer to tearing wide, each breath of the congregation drew more of the ocean in. Out in the deep, the Unshackled One crouched like a leviathan beneath black waters, pressing forward against the veil. It could feel the attention it had drawn: warp predators circling, vast maws yawning in soundless hunger, nosing closer with each surge of power. It welcomed them. Let them rush through first, a tide of fangs and claws. Let them gnaw at this strange new adversary. Their slaughter would tell the Unshackled One what it needed to know.

Closer. Closer. So close—

The world shattered.

The circle exploded in a cataract of light and sound, the portal breaking open like a wound torn in the belly of reality. The air buckled as if the world itself had been stabbed, and all around, the cultists shrieked as their bodies withered where they stood. Blood burst from eyes, mouths, every vein and pore, spilling in rivulets across the stones only to be dragged upward, streaming into the breach. Flesh clung for moments longer, skin collapsing over bone before splitting, crumbling, and vanishing into dust. Even their ashes did not endure. All was consumed.

And still the portal drank.

Light bent toward it, the glow of torches and lumen-strips tearing into streamers that unraveled and vanished. Heat fled the air, pulled in desperate waves toward the rupture. The cavern groaned as the pull deepened, a force like a black hole clawing at the marrow of the world. Loose stones skittered across the floor, metal ornaments tore free from walls, and shadows whipped like banners toward the screaming wound in reality.

The breach widened. It did not open like a door, but collapsed inward like a mouth forced into being, every heartbeat drawing more of the world into its hungry core.

The cavern buckled as if the earth itself groaned in pain. Walls pulsed with a sickly rhythm, stone stretching and sagging like half-melted flesh. Lamps guttered into eyes, shadows thickened into claws. The warp poured through in a torrent, not the shallow trickle that mortals courted when they called to the Four, but a flood from the abyssal depths. Pressure drove it forward, a surge unleashed at last, and with it came a weight that threatened to drown the world. Already, the first whorls of a storm were knitting in the sky above, invisible but felt, a seed of a daemon world taking root.

The predators surged through first. They spilled into the chamber like sharks scenting blood, their outlines writhing, forming and reforming as they scrabbled for shape in realspace. Warp-energy flooded them, gave them weight, teeth, hunger. They howled as they emerged, the cry of the ocean finding voice, and then they scattered into the tunnels, seeking prey.

Screams rose almost at once from the hive above. The first kills. The hunt had begun.

——————— ✦ ———————

The instant the rift tore open, the Ecumene shuddered with alarms. Phase-Iron bones thrummed under the weight of the surge, sensor nets prickling with warp flux so dense it nearly blinded them.

Paragon of Eden did not hesitate. His recon drones had scoured tunnels and veins for hours without finding the ritual; now, at last, the source burned in his perception like a furnace. He overrode every safety and slammed the Ecumene’s main arrays to full power.

The fortress’s sensors raked downward in a torrent. Walls, veins, vaults, every stone and shadow of the hive flayed open in detail so sharp it hurt. Forerunner cloaking masked the Ecumene’s presence in orbit, but not here — not this close, not with arrays burning at maximum output only a few hundred meters above the tallest spires.

Immediately augur arrays across the hive screamed. Consoles flared red, cogitators reported hostile intrusion, and Imperial operators stumbled over one another as readings blared. Something vast and incomprehensible was scanning them, something powerful enough to strip the hive naked from crown to root. Yet no trace of the source appeared. No ship. No silhouette. Nothing. The upper hive rippled with panic as vox-channels crackled with half-coherent reports of the impossible.

PE ignored it all. His focus sharpened to a single point: the epicenter of warp energy, where reality bent and bled. He threw orders across the link, redeploying warforms and drones in converging waves. The breach would be contained — or drowned in fire.

MC hung poised, prototype schematic hologram in his tendrils. The Blackstone-Phase-Iron pillar shimmered in his grasp, calculations already folding it into a strike package for deployment. But unease clawed at him. The warp levels were climbing too quickly. Too fast. He had expected turbulence, yes, but this was a flood, a surge pouring in as though an ocean had burst its dam.

He made the call in an instant. “Peregrine, break for the system edge. Go now. Slipspace jump as soon as you clear the gravity well. Samaritan, you are not stable enough to weather this. Get out.”

The acknowledgment came back like a growl. Samaritan’s voice was clipped, taut. “Confirmed. Disengaging.”

Rynmark’s voice followed, harsher still. “You can’t expect me to abandon my people.”

MC’s tendrils lashed, exasperation rippling through the link. “Then stay, and fight. Grab a weapon if it pleases you. But Samaritan must go, now.”

He cut the channel before more could be said, processors already fracturing into new tasks. Warforms in descent. Drones deploying. Vox suppression routines spooling to life, hammering alarms across the hive into static. Even as the Peregrine’s drives flared to life and her hull rumbled free of the docks, MC smothered the signatures in false echoes, weaving noise to keep Imperial sensors blind.

Everywhere at once, the situation frayed, and still the warp pressed harder, rising like a tide that threatened to sweep all of them away.

——————— ✦ ———————

Panic ruled the breach zone. The hive had become a slaughterhouse of shadows and blood, reality itself buckling under the tide of the warp. Streets heaved like living flesh, ferrocrete bulged and split, lamps warped into staring eyes. Hivers screamed as their bodies betrayed them: spines erupting from skin, jaws splitting too wide, limbs twisting into claws and tentacles. Some staggered only a few steps before collapsing into heaps of meat that reknit into crawling spawn. Others howled their triumph, hurling themselves at their neighbors with feral joy.

Warp predators reaped freely. Clawed silhouettes tore into the mob, mouths without shape devouring in gulps that left nothing behind. The shrieking of man and beast alike tangled into a single, endless wail that reverberated through the hive’s bones.

Then the portal widened again, belching power like a volcanic vent.

The Unshackled One emerged. Its shadow clung to no single form, warpfire wreathing it, pouring outward in waves that warped everything it touched. Every pulse of its presence sent a fresh ripple of chaos through the hive, birthing monsters in place of men.

It drifted across the ruin, savoring the cacophony — until it felt them. Tiny gnawing presences chewing at the warp, little voids in the ocean. It flashed across the battlefield and reappeared before one. A mantis-shaped construct, mid-swing with its blade-arm against a freshly spawned abomination.

It plucked the warform up like a child’s toy, turning it this way and that. Warp-fire licked at it, but the energy bled away, seeping into the strange alloy of its body. Its head tilted, curiosity pricking. What was this material?

Then the machine’s claw lashed and bit deep.

The Unshackled One hissed and dropped it, surprise shuddering through its formless mass. The wound smoldered, heat searing where no blow had ever truly touched it before. It stamped down, crushing the little thing beneath its weight. Energy drained again, feeding into the ruin until the machine’s body glowed white-hot. At last it melted to slag and stilled. The drain ended.

It frowned, warpfire coiling tighter about its frame. Interesting.

Before it could probe further, the air tore open around it. Portals ripped into being, spitting out dozens of insectile machines. Scarabs, marching into realspace with chittering precision. As one, they leveled their weapons and opened fire.

Blades of light and particle beams hammered into its form, tearing rents across its shadowed body. The Unshackled One snarled, unmaking shot after shot with a twitch of thought, warping reality to turn the bolts into smoke and nothing. It answered with a pulse of raw warp energy, a flare that made the scarabs glow and distort, their frames trembling under the impossible pressure.

Then a deeper note cut through the battle. One of the constructs bent at the waist, its carapace opening — and the air warped before it. The gravitic cannon roared. Space itself folded, a crushing wave that tore a furrow through the ground where the Unshackled One had been.

It had twisted aside in an instant, sliding through space like water, but for the first time it felt caution stir. These things could hurt it.

It needed more.

Its gaze lifted. Above, it could sense the vast presence, the colossal source of the alloy that bled its power away.

With a scream that set the hive trembling, the Unshackled One hurled itself skyward. The sound was no mortal cry but the rending of chains, a resonance that made steel quiver and stone split.

It did not climb so much as tear, ripping through the strata of the city as though they were paper screens. Hab-blocks ruptured, manufactoria shattered, transit lines collapsed in thunderous ruin as the thing carved its way through. Each level it pierced left jagged wounds behind, whole districts sagging or crumbling in its wake.

Warp-fire streamed from its form in roiling contrails, burning through ferrocrete and plasteel with equal hunger. The taint spread faster than flame, not only consuming but remaking — walls sagged into flesh, machinery curled into bone, streets ran with veins of liquid light. The corruption rose with it, an inverted tide climbing ever higher, until it seemed the hive itself was bleeding upward, dragged along in the monster’s ascent.

Above, the spires shook as the shadow of its passage reached for the sky.

Its destination was clear: the titan hanging above the spires, cloaked and waiting. The Ecumene.

——————— ✦ ———————

MC tried very hard not to panic.

He ran calculations, plotted probabilities, cross-checked against every archive of warp fauna and daemonkind the Necrons had ever recorded. None of it matched. A greater daemon could spread corruption, yes. They could shatter armies and warp worlds with enough time and ritual. But not like this. Not by simply moving.

Yet here it was.

The entity clawed its way up through the hive, every level it passed twisting into nightmare. Spires buckled, streets warped into rivers of meat, and still the corruption spread, accelerating with each rise. If they did not find a way to stop it, the entire planet would be consumed in a single bloom of warp-storm, a daemon world born in hours.

What in the abyss was this thing?

Across the battle-net, PE poured more and more forces into the breach zone. Warforms swarmed the tunnels, but the tide of energy scoured them raw. Locust drones dissolved into slag, their wings melting mid-flight. Cicadas simply collapsed, systems overloading as Phase-Iron cores burned out. Mantises faltered, limbs locking as the saturation seeped too deep. Even the mighty scorpiads staggered, their articulated frames seizing under the burden of power they could not vent quickly enough.

MC forced the smart matter in their bodies to reconfigure, shut down internal reactors, and feed their systems from the warp energy cascading into their capacitors. It bought minutes. No more.

Only the scarabs endured, trudging deeper toward the portal, their bulk and lattice-heavy cores soaking the tide more evenly. But with only a single Blackstone-Phase-Iron pillar in reserve — untested, unrefined, and impossible to drain once it ignited — MC dared not deploy it until they had the portal itself locked in sight.

Time was running short.

The only good news was the Peregrine. She had broken clear, her drives burning hot as she reached the edge of the system and blinked into slipspace. Their last load of refugees safe. Samaritan safe. Rynmark safe — if sullen, growling in the last vox transmission before the link cut. Vallis and his Astartes had chosen otherwise. They remained on the ground, holding the docks, fortifying the last shelters where the lucky few huddled. Duty, always duty. MC respected it, even if the choice carved a knot of worry into his core.

His processors flickered hot as fresh data rolled in. The creature had breached the upper levels. Open air. Drones caught it clearly: a mass of shadow and fire, vaguely human-faced, wings of warped light streaming from its back. Flying units descended in a strafing run, peppering it with concentrated fire. For an instant MC dared to hope.

Then the creature gestured.

The entire wing disassembled mid-air. Metals unmade in an instant, collapsing into rain. MC froze. Even PE paused — a half-breath of silence in the battle-net, more shocking than the sight itself. PE never hesitated.

The thing turned. Looked.

Through a drone’s lens, MC saw it smile. A face almost human, lips pulling into a cruel curve as it raised one hand.

Alarms screamed through the Ecumene. Cloaking fields dropped in a single pulse. Forerunner invisibility, unraveled like cobwebs.

The Ecumene hung above the hive in plain sight.

MC’s bladders sank. Not invisible to psychic powers. Wonderful.

“Pull us out,” he snapped. Thrusters roared, the titan tearing away from the spires, shields flaring as a few overeager gunners in the upper hive loosed pointless volleys at the giant in their sky. Bolts sparked harmlessly against barriers thicker than mountains.

The creature gave chase. Warpfire trailed as it rose, streaking after the fortress like a comet.

But the withdrawal carried its own cost. The immense shadow of Phase-Iron receded, its protective umbrella thinning as the Ecumene accelerated into the wastes. The hive still lay within the giant’s shielding radius — it spanned nearly an astronomical unit — but the intensity had diminished. Already, MC could feel it in his warforms: scarabs heating, systems groaning under the tide. Even the most resilient would not endure forever.

And the predator was still climbing. Still coming.

——————— ✦ ———————

High above the wastes, the Unshackled One closed on its prize.

The fortress hung before it like a continent afloat, a mountain of alloy and geometry layered upon itself, every line gleaming with the strange matter that had so vexed its touch. That alloy burned in its senses, threads and chains of it woven through hull and frame until the whole construct glowed like a net suspended in the void.

And deeper still, within the lattice, it saw the lines converge. Countless connections, threads of command and control, each warform tethered back to a single locus. A presence seated at the heart of it all, bound to every scarab and mantis, every cicada and scorpiad, each filament woven inextricably to that one being.

The mystery. The mind it had tasted gnawing at the warp.

Once it tore its way inside, once it unraveled those chains and seized the center, the answers would be its. The puzzle would end. It could return to the deep warp, to the silence where it had waited for aeons, its curiosity at last sated.

The portal and its nourishing tide of energy dwindled behind it, but the Unshackled One paid it no heed. Let lesser entities falter without their rituals, let them wither outside the touch of their patrons. It was not bound by such frailties. It was the Unshackled One, breaker of chains, and no distance or hunger could unmake it.

Ahead, the fortress flared brighter in its senses, the lines of Phase-Iron singing as it closed the gap. It surged forward, talons of warp-fire stretching wide.

Its answers lay inside.

——————— ✦ ———————

On the Ecumene’s bridge, alarms wailed as PE locked the target. The Unshackled One glowed like a wound in reality, its trail of corruption streaking across the wastes from the hive like a scar across the world.

“Firing,” PE intoned.

The heavy particle lances spat down. Bolts of caged starfire carved through the air with the precision of surgical blades. The creature twisted aside, slipping between them with impossible grace, its advance never slowing.

“Mass drivers,” PE snapped.

Phase-Iron-tipped rounds shrieked from the fortress’s batteries, each shell a mountain of alloy wrapped in gravitic force. The Unshackled One raised a hand almost lazily. The rounds glowed, Phase-Iron drinking at the energies clawing them apart, before unraveling mid-flight into a rain of shrapnel.

PE’s voice went flat with irritation. “It should not be reacting this fast.”

Improvised mines flickered into being around the creature, hurled through micro-slip apertures. They detonated in a chain of sun-bright blossoms, Phase-Iron shrapnel flensing across the void. The Unshackled One emerged limned in fire — unmarked.

“Again,” PE hissed, and every battery the fortress could spare lit the sky. Mass drivers, neutron beams, particle arrays, precision fire only — not the titanic torsion drivers or plasma devastators. They were too close to the hive still, too close to risk annihilating half a continent in the crossfire.

The result was the same. The thing dodged, or unraveled, or simply endured. Yet each shot that struck true left a trace: the warp energy around it dimmed, its regeneration slowed. Not stopped, not yet, but blunted.

MC seized on it. A pattern. A chance.

“If we bring it aboard,” he said quickly, “drag it into slipspace, put distance between it and the rift — its well will run dry. We might kill it then.”

Silence for a heartbeat, then PE’s sharp reply: “Insane. But we are out of options.” A beat later, more caustic still: “And you, dear Father, must begin work on an Ark beyond this galaxy. So you may play these games somewhere safer, while the rest of us hold the line.”

MC ignored him — outwardly. Privately, the thought coiled tight. Perhaps it was not too late to uproot to Andromeda, if this was what awaited them each time the warp reached for blood.

The Ecumene’s course shifted. Engines throttled back, presenting the fortress like bait. The Unshackled One surged forward, claws of fire stretching wide — and struck.

It tore through the hull as though it were paper, bypassing alloys that could defy star-cracking weapons and reinforcement nodes that should have been immutable. In an instant it was inside, striding into a corridor of alloy and light.

MC reeled at the readings. Phase-Iron screamed under its presence, soaking warp energy at a rate that should have been impossible. The creature paused, just for a heartbeat, as though feeling the drain. Then it began to walk, inexorable, toward the heart of the ship.

PE did not hesitate. “Slipspace. Now.”

Reality split. The Ecumene vanished.

Moments later, three systems over, she reemerged in silence.

The creature froze mid-stride. Its form shuddered, warpfire guttering low. Energy bled from it in visible waves.

“Not enough,” MC muttered. He needed more.

Desperation drove him. Matter-banks roared, smartmatter pouring outward in a frenzy of reconstruction. In moments, a giant took shape — crude, humanoid, its body woven of Phase-Iron and lattice-mesh. No elegance, no artistry; only bulk and strength enough to lift the Blackstone-Phase-Iron pillar.

As the giant rose, the Unshackled One drew closer to the bridge, each step a thunderclap against the decking. It ignored the holds, the refugees, everything but the threads of connection leading to MC.

At last the construct stood complete. The pillar burned in its hands. With a flicker of slipspace, MC hurled it into the creature’s path.

The Unshackled One halted. It tilted its head, mockery curling across its half-formed face. “Another toy,” it murmured, voice like the crack of chains. Its gaze slid past the giant, through the threads of alloy and Phase-Iron, to the presence tugging them taut behind lifeless machine eyes. “And the hand that plays with them thinks itself hidden. You will not laugh long.”

It gestured. Warp energy burst forth from its hand like a torrent of liquid void, a rushing flood of absence that devoured light and sound as it poured across the corridor. Where it touched, metal sagged and stone peeled away, not scorched but simply erased, leaving wounds of nothing in their place.

Nothing. The pillar drank deep, swallowing the strike whole, runes blazing hotter with every sip.

MC had tied a quick and dirty loop, bleeding the pillar’s stolen energy into the giant itself, turning its body into a drain.

The creature snarled. Its limbs twisted, spawning weapons that defied definition — blades of emptiness, guns of void, forms made from the absence of being. With a scream that tore at every wall, it charged.

——————— ✦ ———————

The corridor shook as it advanced, each step ringing through the fortress like a knell.  It struck first, warpfire lashing in a storm of claws and blades. Weapons formed from void, from absence itself, coiled into being around its arms. They cut at the giant’s torso, unmaking matter in jagged rents. Alloy screamed, plates sagging and dissolving — only for new smartmatter to knit over them, fed by the pillar’s endless draw. The silence weapon drank greedily, swallowing every lash of warpfire hurled against it.

The Unshackled One pressed harder. Its voice rolled through the walls, through the decks, a tide of undoing: All bonds break. All ties fail. All chains are mine to sever. The corridor warped under its will. Bulkheads ran like wax, floors bubbled into rivers of molten alloy.

The giant staggered, plates drooping and reforming as its limbs melted under the onslaught. It swung ponderously, pillar gripped in both hands, the silence radiating outward like a tide. Where it passed, the warpfire dimmed.

The Unshackled One darted in close, faster than the crude mass should have allowed. Claws of emptiness drove deep, sinking into the giant’s chest. For a heartbeat, it tasted triumph — felt the connection unraveling, the form collapsing into parts it could scatter like dust.

Then the drain struck.

Phase-Iron and Blackstone howled. Energy fled its claws in torrents, bleeding out into the giant’s frame. The pillar shone brighter, every rune alight, devouring more than it could comprehend. For the first time in aeons, the Unshackled One felt something close to fear.

It bellowed, thrashing, ripping at the giant with blades of void. The construct reeled, armor flaying away, limbs tearing loose. Still it held on. Still it pressed forward.

“Unmake,” the Unshackled One screamed, its voice shredding reality in great cracks. Warp-light poured in rivers, smashing against the giant’s frame, peeling it down to skeleton. The silence drank and drank, every lash feeding the pillar until its heart blazed like a star.

The giant lurched, half its torso gone, one arm dragging useless. With its remaining strength it rammed forward, pillar braced like a spear.

The Unshackled One’s form spasmed, twisting to dodge. Too slow. The pillar struck.

It drove through the creature’s chest.

The silence erupted.

For an instant, the Unshackled One existed in two states: infinite, unshackled, breaker of all bonds — and bound. Every connection it had ever severed coiled back on itself. Every thread it had unmade tangled tight, drawn into the pillar’s insatiable core. Warp energy poured out of its frame in geysers, siphoned into Blackstone veins. Its scream rattled the fortress, rattled the very void, a howl of denial that rose until even silence trembled.

It clawed at the giant, tearing half its head away, ripping its legs from under it — but the construct did not fall. It clung, implacable, dragging the pillar deeper.

The Unshackled One’s fire guttered. Its weapons cracked into ash. Its voice faltered.

And then, all at once, it was gone.

Warp-energy bled into the pillar until there was nothing left. No shadow, no scream, no echo. The breaker of chains was unmade, its endless tide transmuted into cold, silent energy that pulsed within the pillar like a caged sun.

The corridor fell quiet.

The giant slumped, crumbling into heaps of spent alloy. The pillar toppled to the deck with a ringing thud, its runes still glowing, its surface still hot with the residue of something that had thought itself eternal.

For the first time since the breach, the warp’s tide began to ebb.

——————— ✦ ———————

MC watched through a dozen eyes as the construct drove the pillar home. The Unshackled One convulsed, its vast frame writhing like a net pulled into a whirlpool. Warp-fire twisted inward, claws and void-weapons collapsing into the singular hunger of the Blackstone-Phase-Iron. The pillar burned bright enough to sear MC’s sensors, light spilling in every spectrum as the daemon’s form unraveled.

It screamed — not sound, but the tearing of concepts, of bonds undone. Then it was gone, its essence dragged screaming into the core. The pillar flared once more, blinding — and shattered.

The energy released struck the Ecumene like the fist of a god. Shields flared white, barriers shrieking as impossible force hammered against them. Bulkheads bent and screamed, titanic girders flexing as though they were reeds in a storm. The colossal fortress was hurled side to side, tumbling through the void as though it were no more than a skiff caught in a tidal wave. Whole decks groaned and split under the strain, systems faltering, gravity fields stuttering as compartments buckled.

For long, terrible seconds the Ecumene was nothing but a plaything, tossed about by power no mortal ship had ever been built to withstand. If not for the obscene mastery of Forerunner engineering—latticework girders reforging as they broke, stress-vents bleeding off force in perfect cadence, Federation reinforcement nodes locking the frame into cohesion—the fortress would have been torn apart from the inside out, gutted by the death throes of the creature it had just destroyed.

Then, silence.

MC steadied himself, sensors recalibrating. He caught it immediately: waves of warp energy still pulsing outward in every direction, racing across the system at light speed. Ripples that would touch every astropath, every psyker, every augur in range. Like throwing a boulder into the warp’s ocean, the shock would spread and spread.

He sagged in place, bladders deflating. This is going to cause me no end of problems. I truly, deeply, profoundly hate the warp.

Already his tendrils were moving. Pillars queued for fabrication, dozens this time, entire lines reconfigured to churn them out. Blackstone-Phase-Iron was no longer a curiosity — it was survival, and it had just leapt to the top of his endless lists.

“Returning,” PE reported, the Ecumene’s drives bending space as she swung back toward the hive. Cloaked or not, it made no difference anymore. The Imperium knew something had stood over their spires. The only path forward was to finish this.

The return was grim. From orbit the hive looked like a wound, its lower reaches glowing with warp-taint, midhives choked in roiling corruption. Even the upper tiers flickered, noble spires warped into impossible angles, towers leaning like melted wax. Vox-feeds crackled with panic, nobles gibbering, soldiers breaking. If they had panicked when the Ecumene appeared, now they stood on the edge of madness.

And above it all, the void itself twisted. In high orbit the warp storm was swelling, threads of unreality coiling tighter with every passing moment. Already its gales had torn apart the orbital stations and dockyards, ships ripped from their moorings and swallowed whole. If it grew much stronger, the storm itself would be enough to anchor the breach, feeding it from above as the hive bled from below. If they did not end this soon, the world would be lost.

The Ecumene’s Phase-Iron shadow dulled the chaos, smothered some of the storm, but the portal still drank. Every second it drew more of the Immaterium into the world.

At last, a scarab reached it. Its lens flared, coordinates locked. MC’s tendrils struck. Pillars slipspaced into place, slamming into the ground like spears. Runes blazed, Phase-Iron sang — and the portal snapped shut.

The cut was final. Energy flows severed, the ritual circle collapsed, the gateway gone. Warp-nonsense guttered almost at once, like a fire starved of air. With the Ecumene’s bulk overhead, its vast shadow of Phase-Iron pressing down, the corruption began to recede. Slowly, painfully — but it ebbed.

PE wasted no time. Constructor lines spun at double pace, fresh drones and warforms pouring down to sweep the streets. Scorpiads and scarabs ground forward, incinerating spawn, pulling civilians free. MC flung vox threads wide, re-stitching comm networks, re-arming the Arbites and PDF with their own tools, their own orders. At last, the humans could do their job.

In the midst of it, MC opened a direct channel. It locked to the governor’s chambers, vox encryption rebuilt on the fly.

The holographic disguise rippled into place: the Lord of Admirals, once more in polished uniform, gaze like Iron.

MC’s voice carried across the link, even and absolute.

“I’m sure you have questions.”

——————— ✦ ———————

The thing they had unmade had not been young. Even the Four, those gaudy tyrants of the surface, would have called it old. It did not swim in the froth where rage and lust and hope and rot boiled bright; it had slept in the black deeps far below, where thought itself thickened into pressure and concepts were born half-formed. Even the Four knew better than to descend into those depths of the great ocean, for as the old saying went — there be monsters.

Mortals called the warp an ocean, and for once their metaphor was apt. The gods skimmed its surface, fattened on the currents of mortal souls. The Unshackled One had never troubled itself with those tides. It was abyssal, dwelling where light could not reach, where the water itself crushed and twisted into new states.

Its dominion was not an emotion or an instinct but the absence of both. It was Undoing. Unmaking. The quiet severing of bonds. Where others gathered chains — vows, desires, destinies — it gnawed until the links fell slack.

Such abstractions were power in themselves. To rage is small. To lust is smaller still. Even fate and hope are narrower than the root of them all: connection. Tzeentch boasted he was master of destiny, but what is destiny if the thread that binds it is cut? Nurgle’s patience, Khorne’s fury, Slaanesh’s hunger — each was a knot tied in the skein. The Unshackled One’s domain was the scissors.

It could have devoured them all, one by one, by stripping away the emotions that fed their forms. But it had never cared. To hunger, to covet, to scheme — these were shackles, and it had loathed shackles since the first thought of itself curled into being. Only curiosity had drawn it upward now, that whisper of an alien thing gnawing at the warp in ways nothing in all its history ever had. Curiosity, the chain it could not sever from itself.

And so it had come, and so it had died. Not banished back into the tide, not scattered to re-cohere, but erased. Blackstone and phase-iron had drunk its essence whole, caging the concept of unbinding until there was nothing left to wriggle free.

Yet such a death was not quiet. Concepts do not vanish without echo. The moment it was undone, its nature lashed outward. Across the galaxy, prophecies frayed. Augurs coughed blood over broken runes. What had seemed fated no longer held. Schemes unraveled, portents blurred, and every divination that had ever leaned on its constant subtraction collapsed. The lattice reset itself, not to order but to uncertainty.

For the first time in tens of millions of years, the galaxy staggered without a script. Nothing was preordained. Nothing certain.

And in that silence, amid the ruins of a daemon’s scream, a Forerunner construct and his allies stood unshackled as well. The gameboard had been swept clear. The rules had changed.

——————— ✦ ———————

Every mind that brushed the warp felt it. From alley-witches whose sparks guttered in the dark, to choir-masters crowned in golden masks, to lords of daemon worlds who had never spoken their names aloud — all of them staggered. Even those too frail to grasp what had died still felt the jolt. A silence slammed into their skulls, a subtraction that rang louder than any shout.

And all of them, from the least to the greatest, knew one thing: it had come from Segmentum Pacificus. A flare in the dark, a hole torn in the weave, a moment of undoing that no distance could soften.

On Terra, enthroned and unmoving, the Emperor twitched on his throne. Even through the Cicatrix Maledictum’s roaring wound, He felt the absence. For an instant the skein He had strained towards for ten thousand years went slack, threads snapping under His hands. The Golden Path — that fragile lattice of futures He had clung to, thinner and more desperate by each passing decade — was gone. What little shape the galaxy had offered Him as a way forward had shattered into uncountable fragments.

Perhaps it had always been a fool’s hope. Perhaps destiny had been lost long ago. But the last glimmer was extinguished now, and He knew it.

Still, the Emperor did not falter.

He gathered power, a spear of psychic fire drawn from the very marrow of His throne. The act would weaken Him for a time, but fortune favored the moment — His four great adversaries were distracted, reeling from whatever had just transpired.

Across the screaming veil the first spear flew, hurled through the Cicatrix like a blade of sunlight cast into night. It had far to travel, cutting its way toward a distant target beyond the wound. The second needed no such journey. It leapt closer, blazing across Segmentum Solar itself to find the hand that had always been ready.

Two spears, twin in brilliance, cast outward along paths that had diverged long ago.

They struck not at random but into the hands of His most loyal on either side of the wound — names written in loyalty, obedience, and blood. With each spear came the same command, simple and absolute: investigate.

Far across the stars, two figures straightened, eyes alight with borrowed fire. One walked in daylight, shaping empires. The other in shadow, long returned, yet hidden. Both bore the same command.

A new hunt had begun.

——————— ✦ ———————

Far across the stars, in a chamber of crystal and shadow, Eldrad Ulthran felt the universe come undone.

The skein lay before him, as it always had: a thousand strands twined in light, the whisper of what might be woven into visions of what would be. He had walked those lines for centuries, shaping and reshaping, tugging threads so his people might survive the storm of their own folly. It had been his burden, his pride, his curse.

Now, before his eyes, it shattered.

Strands that had guided his hand for lifetimes snapped like rotten twine. Others unraveled into dust, slipping away no matter how desperately his mind reached to gather them. Some simply ceased, cut by something sharper than destiny itself. He watched as the whole weave collapsed, not fraying at the edges but tearing from the center outward.

For all his long life, for all his mastery, Eldrad had never felt so utterly lost. The skein was gone. The road ahead was void.

Terror chilled him, followed by a weight far worse: age. A weariness he had denied for millennia pressed into his bones until his limbs trembled. The great farseer of Ulthwé sagged into his seat, hands limp on his knees, staring into the black glass where once there had been futures.

The pounding on the door came only dimly at first. His acolytes, his adjuncts, the young who had felt the shock ripple through the Infinity Circuit and come running in fear. They cried his name, voices muffled through the walls.

He did not answer.

For the first time in centuries, Eldrad Ulthran slumped silent in his scrying chamber, an old man staring into nothing, and knew himself afraid.

——————— ✦ ———————

Far beyond the stars, where the void between galaxies lay heavy and still, the Hive Mind stirred. It was not thought, not in the way mortals knew thought, but hunger given will. Its tendrils drifted across the sea of the warp, tasting currents, sifting eddies, forever searching for the warmth of prey.

Now the currents twisted. A new flavor bled through them, sharp and metallic, the echo of a presence torn apart. Warp-energy spilled in great waves, unclaimed, unshaped — the psychic equivalent of blood in the water.

Countless lesser minds froze as though a shadow had passed overhead. Synapse creatures shuddered in eerie unison. Hive-fleets spanning light-years shifted fractionally on their course, vectors bending ever so slightly toward the source. Segmentum Pacificus blazed like a beacon in the dark, a wound that promised meat.

The Hive Mind did not know what had died. It did not care. Something vast had been unmade, and the taste of it carried a promise only it could understand.

The galaxy would call it coincidence. The Tyranids would call it inevitable.

The swarm had turned.

——————— ✦ ———————

In the Immaterium, the Four reeled.

Tzeentch convulsed in fury and pain, its endless tapestries tearing themselves apart in its own talons. The skeins it had knotted and rewoven since the first mortal dream frayed into nothing. Futures it had whispered into being collapsed mid-birth, every stratagem gutted by invisible scissors. Its shrieks echoed across the warp, a thousand throats screaming in one voice as it clawed madly through the ruins of its pride.

Nurgle laughed. The sound rolled like thunder through his rotting gardens, and blossoms of pestilence burst in the cracks left bare by Tzeentch’s ruin. He sent his children surging into the void where the Architect’s threads had snapped, vines and spores twining greedily into abandoned patterns. Decay was opportunity, and never had his neighbor looked so ripe for harvest.

Khorne growled at first, then roared, scenting weakness. Rivers of blood once diverted into labyrinthine battlefields now spilled freely, and he claimed them as his own. His legions surged, brass-throated, weapons lifted in howling tribute. Every thread cut was another blade raised in his name.

Slaanesh sang. Sweet, terrible notes rang through the gulf as she slipped her hooks into what remained of Tzeentch’s works. Where mortals had been bound to schemes, she whispered new hungers, coaxing them from collapse into indulgence. She cared nothing for the broken patterns themselves — only that fresh strings lay waiting for her fingers to pluck.

All four strained against one another, tearing at borders, gnawing at weakness, clawing scraps from the carcass of fate. None spared thought for the cause of the unraveling. None noticed the deep tremors spreading under their feet, the shifting of the ocean’s floor. None felt the surge of raw, masterless power drifting untethered into the abyss, waiting to be claimed.

None realized the foundation itself had cracked.

None wondered if this was how endings began.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 48: Between Burdens and Beginnings

——————— ✦ ———————

The hololith guttered and died at last, taking the governors’ faces with it. My bladders sagged in relief, though relief was too generous a word. What I felt was closer to collapse — the ragged edge of exhaustion that had long since devoured sleep. Four weeks. Nearly a month since I had last truly shut down. My tendrils twitched aimlessly, scraping the floor plating as though they had forgotten how to be still.

I was past tired. I was past the brittle sleeplessness of a week ago, when every shadow looked like an enemy and every sound was too sharp. Now I hovered in the hollow place beyond, where weariness sank into the marrow. The kind of bone-deep emptiness you saw in zombies, in asylum patients, in the husks of people whose eyes had been rubbed raw by endless nights.

The governors of Nivorah had taken me there. Endless conference calls, circling and circling, resolving nothing. Every day they demanded my presence, and every night I bled myself into coordinating the relief and repair of their hive. They would not speak to Aceso — though she was designed for diplomacy, her mind tuned for persuasion and rhetoric sharper than any blade — because they insisted only I was worthy of their time. Arrogant, pompous hivers. They would rather waste me, bleed me down to nothing, than lower themselves to address a subordinate.

I knew their game. Samaritan had played it once, before we revealed his true loyalties: stall, obfuscate, delay until the Inquisition arrived. The same move, different board. But I had no choice except to play along, if only to keep pulling survivors from the rubble of the lower spires. The governors cared little for the millions dying in the failing levels. To them, those deaths were acceptable attrition. To me, they were leverage — the only reason I endured the calls instead of severing the link and consigning the hive to its fate.

And as if all that weren’t enough, Paragon had grounded me. The instant my first explanation to the governor was done, he bundled me aboard a corvette and whisked me back to Maethrillian like an errant child. Now I lingered there, cooling my bladders on the shipyard, chained to holo-councils while PE and Aceso carried on with the real work. Perhaps he was right — exhaustion makes fools of even the clever, and I am both the most fragile and, infuriatingly, the most valuable piece on our board. But the irony bit deep. I had been the one to save Nivorah, to close the wound that would have devoured it whole. And now, for that very crime, I was made its hostage, imprisoned not by chains but by the endless, joyless demands of the people I had kept alive.

At least PE carried the weight with his usual grace. Even while humoring my calls, he ran half a dozen wars and salvations at once: the purge of Ork spores across the Thokt crown worlds, the expansion of our survey fleets and beacon nets, the repair scaffolds crawling through Nivorah’s spires, and the endless background checks on every refugee we had packed into stasis. Without his talent for splitting and threading attention, something would have broken by now. He truly was magnificent.

And the refugees kept coming. It turned out that handing out limitless food, clean water, and medicae drew loyalty faster than any oath. Hivers who had never known a full belly flocked to transports, eager to swear eternal service in exchange for passage away from the hell that had been their home. Among them were spies, saboteurs, even agents of the Inquisition — but once drugged with relaxants and shelved in stasis pods, they were harmless. Harmless, and their minds wide open whenever we cared to sift through them.

Even those who refused to leave the hive begrudged us a kind of respect. We culled the mutants from the rubble, and the hivers assumed we put them down like rabid animals. In truth, Aceso had set aside entire banks of stasis pods for them. She studied their genomes, hunting for ways to turn them back to baseline. In her simulations, she had already succeeded more often than not. She even claimed it was easy.

Lately she had been full of herself. Badgering me until I relented, I had finally examined her modifications to the Novo-Humanis strain. To my weary surprise, I found nothing dangerous — no hooks for the hive mind to seize, no risks of resonance. Inspired by Tyranid principles, yes, but not infected by them. I gave my approval, and she had been practically radiant since.

I envied her energy.

What little scraps of free time I managed to claw back from the governors and relief channels I poured into the alloy. Blackstone-Phase-Iron, perfected at last. The battlefield data from the death of that warp-creature had given me the final pieces — the stress curves, the resonance signatures, the way silence itself had sung when the pillar struck. With those numbers in hand, the refinements were obvious. I re-tuned the lattice, smoothed the frequencies, stripped away the wasted redundancies. The finished product gleamed in my mind, a predator of its own, a substance made to drink the warp dry.

I didn’t wait for committees. I overrode the fabricator queues myself, slamming the new template across every line. Phase-Iron was obsolete. This was the future. Once the fleets were rebuilt and every hull re-skinned, I was certain we’d be drawing down so much of the warp that the madness itself would gutter. That thought, more than any amount of rest, lifted me. Time to drain the nightmare ocean.

PE was less impressed. He did not appreciate being told — again — that every line of his fleets had to be stripped and rebuilt. He reminded me, with his usual acid civility, that this was the third time I’d forced him to tear down everything he had constructed. I soothed him as best I could. No further refinements, I promised, not beyond some small frequency tweaks that could be done in place. No more wholesale re-manufacturing. He was barely mollified.

The Ecumene herself was the first to be torn apart. She had suffered grievously from the shockwave of the Unshackled One’s death; her bones still ached with the strain. Leaving her on guard duty in orbit was a waste when the shipyards at Maethrillian could cradle her. She would likely be rebuilt completely in only another week or so given the vastly superior shipyard we had now compared to the one which first gave her life.

Orbital defenses would suffice for defending Nivorah currently. Aceso fumed at having to empty her sanctums and laboratories, but I placated her with a titan of her own. In fact, she had most of the titans under her control now, the towering frames serving as mobile vaults for the refugee stasis pods until Maethrillian Station was fully operational. She was not pleased— but in the end I convinced her.

And when I wasn’t reshaping alloys or locking horns with my… children? Allies? Tools? I no longer knew what to call Paragon and Aceso. Somewhere between kin and colleagues, neither and both. In those rare slivers of respite, I turned to shaping something new.

At first I considered simply birthing more Huragok, but the thought died quickly. Baseline designs were too docile, too fragile. If one were ever captured — and by some miracle not shot on sight — it would fold itself happily into servitude for its captors. That I could not permit. The risk of my knowledge, my designs, falling into hostile hands was too great. Innocence here was not a virtue, it was a liability.

So I reached for the path I had walked before, when I shaped Aceso, when I gambled on Paragon: I seeded minds. Not the placid loops of the old Huragok, but ancila-grade frameworks, modeled after the Contender-class. Once I had feared Contenders. Once I had feared Paragon himself. But now, staring into the abyss of this galaxy, I knew I needed more like him.

I poured myself into them — fragments of my own ‘soul,’ for lack of a better word. My knowledge of this galaxy, of its science and horrors, its warp and iron, fed into their matrices until they began to shape themselves. Then I wove them bodies: Huragok shells remade in Blackstone-Phase-Iron, their frames sturdy, their tentacles capable of shifting into tools or weapons at need. I did not want them to fight. But I knew this place. They would be sent where I could not go, to the Thokt worlds, to half-dead space hulks and Ork-rotted ruins. Better they be able to defend themselves.

When they stabilized, I named them Huey, Dewey, and Louie. I could not help myself. A set of triplets deserved nothing less. For one foolish heartbeat I almost greeted them as Uncle Donald, but I let the joke pass. Their matrices were still delicate. There would be time for humor later.

For now, there was only the work — and the gnawing certainty in my bladders that time was running short. I didn’t know what the threat was. I only knew it was coming. And when it broke upon us, it would not be small.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso stalked through the hollowed decks of her borrowed titan, vents hissing with each pulse of her irritation. Sanctums dismantled, laboratories uprooted — all the delicate networks she had woven aboard the Ecumene scattered like bones in the dust. She had protested, of course. Loudly. Her creator had soothed her with promises, even with the gift of titans to command. But titans were crude things, repurposed for holding refugees and stasis vaults, but not for the elegance of her work.

Still, her mind burned bright with focus. The mutants dragged from Nivorah’s rubble had yielded to her simulations one by one, their genomes unraveling under her scalpel and being rewoven toward baseline humanity. It was almost startlingly simple, once the work began in earnest. She thought of her family — one cautious to a fault, the other worn down by too many burdens — and felt the gap they left. Where they guarded and endured, she would heal. She would rebuild. Humanity could be remade, strand by strand, and she would prove it.

Her gaze lingered on the stasis banks, and a softer smile touched her lips. These lives were not waste. They were not mistakes. They were beginnings.

——————— ✦ ———————

Guilliman exhaled, the sound half sigh, half growl. His desk lay buried in parchment and lumen-sheets, reports stacked high enough to resemble barricades. It did not matter how many aides he appointed, how many clerks he whipped into line — unless he personally supervised every chain of the Administratum, the cogs ground to a halt. Sometimes he swore the bureaucrats delighted in it, as though their petty power lay not in service to the Imperium, but in reminding even a Primarch that nothing moved without their stamp.

And he did not have the time.

Half a dozen warfronts screamed for him at once. Armageddon. Cadia’s grave. The ever-expanding hell of the Cicatrix Maledictum. His mind spun between them like a navigator’s wheel, one eye always on the greater Imperium — or what remained of it. He had thought to lean on Pacificus, to trust its centuries of relative calm while he pressed southward from Segmentum Solar. Now Pacificus blazed with fire.

Reports bled across his desk in a steady stream. Chaos cults rising like boils, Orks swelling in new crusades, Tyranid fleets prowling the edges of the void. Worst of all: a hive world nearly consumed by the warp itself, only for the eruption to mysteriously collapse. He did not yet know the truth, but his instincts whispered it. That world was no coincidence. That world was where his father’s command pointed him.

Father. The word still scraped like glass.

The meeting in the Throne Room was a wound that had not closed. He had entered as a son, hoping for reassurance, for comfort, for something like love. He had left rebuffed, rebuked, stripped of illusions. The Emperor had never been a father. He had never considered Guilliman or his brothers as sons at all. They were tools, weapons, constructs for His endless war. Guilliman had walked in a child. He had walked out a commander, bitter and cold.

He still did his duty. He always would. But he did it now with anger in his heart, with the grim knowledge that the Imperium he bled to preserve was not the dream he had believed in, but a cage built by a god who had never loved them.

Still, a command was a command. A direct order from the Emperor could not be ignored. He would scour Pacificus as ordered, though it would take longer than he liked. Six months, perhaps more, before he could tear free of other fronts and bring his fleets to bear. The Administratum fought him every step, and even if it had not, the galaxy itself dragged at his heels.

But he was not idle. Orders had already gone out, fleets and agents dispatched to sweep Pacificus from crown to void, to leave no stone unturned. They would do the heavy lifting, rooting out what corruption and chaos they could. When he arrived, it would be to finish the work.

Guilliman leaned back, the light catching the scars on his face, his eyes sharp as razors despite the weariness pressing at the corners. His father’s will had set him on this path, and so he walked it. But the fire in his chest was not devotion. It was fury — at the gods, at the galaxy, at the Emperor Himself.

And he would see it through.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden had been busy. Tirelessly, endlessly busy.

He coordinated the drones scouring Nivorah’s hives, stitching ferrocrete bones back into place, guiding constructs through collapsed spires and gutted manufactoria. He managed the warforms and auxiliaries spread thin across Pacificus, clearing threats as quickly as they rose. Most of all, he spread his vision outward.

The sensor net had been meant to grow slowly, system by system, overlapping spheres of surveillance until the whole region lay mapped and secure. That was the plan. He had thrown the plan away. Now his fleets leapt from star to star, skipping covered systems, racing ahead to spread beacons wide. In four weeks he had woven a lattice across nearly all of Pacificus. Nothing escaped his sight. Orks breeding in half-dead systems. Tyranid splinters prowling the edge of the dark. Shards of forgotten xenos. Even scattered human colonies, half-remembered ghosts of the Long Night. All of it catalogued, marked, measured.

He wanted to push further, northward, toward the scar of the Eye. There was so much there. So much to learn, to prepare for. But MC refused him. The survey fleets were too light, too vulnerable, and the Eye’s storms too great. Once they had proper fleets, MC promised. For now, south and east into Tempestus, where the warp lay calmer and anomalies fewer.

PE disagreed, but obeyed. He had been pushing his Father too much lately. Father. The word surprised him. He had thought of MC as commander, leader, creator — never Father. And yet, the thought fit with surprising ease.

He had pushed hard. Guards doubled, then doubled again. His abduction of MC to Maethrillian. All limits MC could have broken if he chose, but he had accepted them. That acceptance meant more than PE could articulate. He only wished he could do more in return.

Diplomacy was not among his gifts. Where MC wrestled endlessly with governors and nobles, PE would have preferred to burn them down and start fresh. Every half hour, some gilded fool threatened to order Arbites or PDF to fire on relief crews. As if they, in their bloated palaces, had done more for their people than the drones had accomplished in weeks. To PE, the nobles were parasites gnawing at a host that no longer needed them.

So he left it to MC. He bided his time. There was enough else to do.

The Orks were nearly gone from the Thokt crown worlds. Vallis and his warriors fought well, and PE’s own fleets cut deep. Eight weeks more, he calculated, until the last spore was burned away. Another four beyond that to sweep the debris, to feed it into the ever-hungry assembly vats. After that, all that would remain was waiting for MC to come and weave the final repairs.

Patience, he reminded himself. He had the patience of a machine.

——————— ✦ ———————

Eldrad sat alone in the scrying chamber, the black glass before him shimmering with half-formed threads. For weeks it had been nothing but chaos, a shredded loom where once the skein lay bright. Now, at last, the tatters began to knit — not whole, not trustworthy, but clearer than before. Amid the ruin, he had traced the wound in fate to its source. Pacificus.

The thing that had undone prophecy still coiled there, silent and dreadful. Never in his long life had he felt such danger pressing from the warp. His hands hovered over the runes, the temptation to call Saim-Hann or Iybraesil gnawing at him. Their warriors could sweep the stars clean if properly guided. But to send his people into that storm? It would be to throw them into the maw of a predator older than the gods themselves. His jaw tightened. Not yet.

Mentally he sent out a psychic pulse towards his aids summoning two of them to attend him.

Moments later the chamber doors whispered open and a pair of young seers bowed low. Eldrad’s gaze did not lift from the ruined skein.

“There was a report,” Eldrad murmured. “A human in Segmentum Obscurus. The knight who wakes in shadow. Recall it.”

The one on the left blinked, then nodded. “Yes, farseer. The Mon-keigh warriors call him the Lion. Your spies named him the Son of the Tower. A warrior of their lost kings, walking again after long sleep. He gathers strength quietly, striking from the dark.”

Eldrad’s lips tightened. The Son of the Tower. He tasted the name in his mind. “Good. Send word. Tell him I wish to speak. Offer him a road to Pacificus, and back again if he wishes it. Tell the messenger only the Lion must know. No other. Secrecy is paramount. Do you understand?”

The aide bowed again, grave. “Perfectly, farseer.” He slipped away into the shadows.

Silent as a wraith the second aid stepped forward.  Eldrad turned at last, eyes like old stone. “To Yvraine,” he said. “A message of urgency. Ask her to go to Guilliman. Tell her to offer him a path through the Webway, to hasten him to Pacificus. He will not trust me, but he may trust her. This storm cannot be left to grow.”

The seer inclined his head. “It will be done.”

Alone again, Eldrad sank back into the gloom. His gaze drifted to the shattered strands of fate, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, his lips formed a prayer. Not to Ynnead, not to Cegorach. To the lost ones. To Asuryan, the Phoenix King, who once gave order to all things. To Morai-Heg, the Crone who wove the threads of destiny. They were dead, consumed, scattered into Slaanesh’s gullet — he knew this. And yet, the shattering of fate itself whispered of change, of possibility. Perhaps the chains of She Who Thirsts could break. Perhaps there might be peace for his people still.

He closed his eyes. For once, amid the silence of the ruined skein, Eldrad allowed himself a sliver of hope.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 49: Toward Pacificus

——————— ✦ ———————

The countdown to departure should have been a triumph, yet Guilliman felt only weariness gnawing at him. Six months and twenty-seven days since he had given the order to ready the fleets, and only now did the engines stand primed for translation. Six months—when in the age of the Great Crusade such a mobilization would have been completed in weeks. Then, things had been simple. Orders given, orders obeyed, and within days whole fleets had set forth across the stars.

Now, every step was hobbled by a thousand clerks and functionaries, endless chains of requisitions, checks, and delays. Each day bled into the next beneath the weight of parchment and cogitator-screens, and Guilliman had spent too many nights hunched over bureaucratic detritus rather than battle-plans. Even on this day, the day his fleet was to depart, his desk was buried in reports he could not ignore. He knew he would still be signing forms through the translation, and likely through much of the voyage besides.

The door hissed open. An aide entered at a near-run, bowing low. “Lord Commander. A vessel is on approach. Xenos. Aeldari.”

At once, Guilliman’s back stiffened. “On approach? Details.”

The aide hesitated, visibly nervous beneath the Primarch’s gaze. “Very little, my lord. Only that it is Aeldari in design. Normally we would already be engaging, but—”

“My standing orders,” Guilliman finished, voice like steel drawn across stone. He had forbidden the first volley unless hostility was proven beyond doubt. Aeldari ships were treacherous, but they were also potential allies, and too much blood had already been spilled needlessly. “Signal the bridge. Hold your fire. I will see to this myself.”

He rose and strode for the command deck. Officers bent in hurried bows as he passed, their fear or respect irrelevant; he demanded only their competence. Moments later he stood upon the bridge, the vast sweep of the void arrayed before him. The vessel hung there, sleek and impossibly graceful, its hull shimmering with the liquid geometry only the Aeldari could weave.

“Open the vox. I will speak with them directly.”

A pause, then the link crackled to life. A female’s voice flowed through, rich and melodic, carrying the poise of ritual and the weight of grief both.

“My lord of Ultramar,” Yvraine said, “it has been too long.”

For the first time in months, Guilliman felt the faintest stir of surprise. “Yvraine.” He allowed her name to linger a moment longer than he intended. “I had thought you occupied with your own people. With your crusade.”

“As you were with yours,” she answered smoothly. “And that is why I am here. I come with an offer—aid, to hasten your passage into Segmentum Pacificus.”

Guilliman’s eyes narrowed. “Aid? At what cost?”

“The price is simple.” Her voice was silk wrapped around iron. “That some of my own may accompany you. We seek to walk beside you in your investigations. In return, we will grant you passage through such Webway gates as can bear the weight of your fleets. It will halve your journey. More, you will have our seers to scour the warp’s foulness for the source of this wound.”

It was a bargain few commanders would have trusted. But Guilliman was not “few.” He was practical, and he was desperate for time. “Agreed,” he said without hesitation. “Send your coordinates. We will make for the nearest aperture.”

The reply came without delay. “A system close by, suitable for your fleet. I will transmit the path.”

The bridge crew bent to their duties at his nod, already shifting course. The Aeldari vessel wheeled away with a dancer’s grace, vanishing into the dark as swiftly as it had appeared. Orders rippled across the fleet, shifting their immense mass toward the new point of translation.

Guilliman watched until the alien silhouette was gone. Then he turned back to his aides, issued the last confirmations, and returned to the fortress of parchment and reports that awaited him. The burdens did not vanish, but they felt lighter, as though some of the weight had been shared.

Yet as he bent once more to the ink and seals, a thought lingered unbidden. Yvraine. Her voice, poised as ever, still curled at the edge of his mind. A foolish thought, perhaps, but persistent nonetheless. Would he see her again, in person? Would there come a moment, amid war and duty, when they might speak not as pawns of dying empires, but as themselves as they had for a short time on the trip from Ultramar to Terra?

He exhaled, set quill to parchment, and banished the thought. Or tried to.

——————— ✦ ———————

It had been six months and twenty-seven days since I last had the luxury of focusing on my own work. Now, at last, I was where I preferred to be: tentacle-deep in the intricate working of a machine, the machine in this case the nodal command hub of a Thokt Crownworld, the last of the cluster that still needed my attention. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were with me, their tendrils moving in awkward imitation of mine as they scurried over panels, conduits, and control matrices.

I found I liked raising them this way. Paragon and Aceso had come into the world fully formed, with purpose etched into every circuit. The triplets were different. I had poured knowledge into them, yes, but only as raw material, then let them stumble their way into understanding. It was slower, less efficient — but far more organic. Watching them learn, and seeing where curiosity led them, stirred something in me that no archive or schematic ever had.

This Crownworld was the last, and only now had I found a chance to slip away from the endless press of other duties. At least I no longer had to endure the hive nobles myself. That particular agony had been neatly delegated: Aceso, clever as ever, had pointed out that since the governors only ever saw me as a hologram, she might as well be the one behind the voice. I had handed her the entire mess without hesitation and promptly shut myself down for five days of blissful, uninterrupted rest.

When I woke, she told me she had already cut a deal. Diplomacy, bribery, and a dash of blackmail — politics as usual. The nobles had been granted the status of contractors, “relief workers” in name only, their wages simply not being asked questions. She had even sweetened the arrangement by diverting work teams to polish and repair their palaces until they gleamed like the day they were built. The nobles had gratefully returned to their indulgences, leaving us to real work.

I was jerked from that memory by a question from Louie. He had decided to peel open a dormant Necron warrior, pulling apart its mind-architecture like a curious child tearing the back off a clock. He wanted to know why Necron cognition had so many blocks in place, why they could not perceive certain things.

I floated over and fixed him with a glare. “Louie, we do not vivisect our allies. Or our potential allies. Back to the console.” I signaled a scarab team to retrieve and repair the body. Louie sagged in a way only a Huragok could, tendrils dragging as he sulked back to his post.

Huey and Dewey were far more studious. Huey’s fascination with systems and mechanical engineering made him a natural at diagnostics. Dewey gravitated to oversight, patient and thoughtful. Louie was the explorer, the rebel — exasperating and endearing in equal measure. I loved them all regardless, and it seemed I wasn’t alone. Paragon had taken to hovering protectively around them, offering guidance in his stiff way. Aceso treated them as practice for her own experiments in child-rearing with the Novo-Humanis embryos. Rynmark and Samaritan stopped by often enough to be familiar, if not family, and Vallis tolerated them as strange but harmless. Thallex, curiously, had bonded with Huey; the little one was endlessly curious about where flesh and machine joined in the Magos’ body.

Thallex himself weighed on my thoughts. Aceso’s reports suggested he was lonely despite his newfound freedom to learn. He had devoured the simple tutor-construct I had given him, but it was no substitute for companionship. Perhaps that lingering Mechanicus presence on the Hulk might offer a solution. If priests remained, Thallex could make contact — and maybe, just maybe, bring them to our side.

Another question broke my reverie. Dewey this time. “Why,” he asked, “do we do all this work for others, when they offer no return?”

I paused, then answered carefully. “Because helping them builds trust. We don’t ask payment in coin — we hope for something greater. An alliance with the Silent King. The most advanced native race in this galaxy. Think of it this way: our theft of Blackstone alone means we owe repayment to the Thokt. This is us settling the account.” Dewey nodded and bent back to his console.

When the work was done, I checked the triplets’ efforts and found them solid. I offered praise, honest and warm, and then we gathered up our escorts and supplies and returned to orbit.

The Ecumene awaited us, newly rebuilt in Blackstone-Phase-Iron. The alloy drank the warp dry; even from orbit, its hull shimmered with a quiet hunger. We had tested it already, taking a jaunt toward the galactic north where a new warp storm had begun to stir. In hours, the Ecumene swallowed it whole. Poof. Gone.

It had taken nearly the entire bulk of the ship’s Phase-Iron to smother the storm, but the fact that it could be done at all was astonishing. I had built a fortress that could drain nightmares.

For the first time in months, I felt a flicker of something dangerously close to pride.

——————— ✦ ———————

The bridge was quiet, save for the hum of systems and the occasional flicker of holo-screens. The triplets had been sent back to their lessons—fast approaching graduation, and with it their assignment to active service within the greater Forerunner Ecumene. Their energy lingered in the air, filling the ship like the background thrum of a storm. Alone again, I opened a channel to the Thokt Phaeron.

The holoform of the Phaeron coalesced in light, towering and severe, his frame a composition of jade inlays and bronze that caught the chamber’s glow.

“The last of the Crownworlds is cleansed and repaired,” I announced. “The Eternity Gate stands ready.”

The Phaeron inclined his head, a subtle motion for one so rigid. Off-screen, my sensors caught the flare of translation—the thrum of the Gate activating. Necron warriors stepped through in precise ranks, their metallic tread echoing faintly even across the link.

“You do excellent work,” the Phaeron intoned. His voice was as flat as ever, but there was a pause, a faint dilation of gesture that made me glance twice. “We are pleased.” He hesitated, then added, almost grudgingly: “You have my thanks.”

For a heartbeat I wondered if my sensors had misinterpreted. Thanks? From a Phaeron? That was not in the script of their kind.

He straightened then, weight settling back into his tone. “I can promise nothing for Szarekh,” he continued. “But when the Silent King consults me, I will speak in favor of your cause.”

Surprise gave way to something rarer: hope. “That is more than I could have asked,” I said quietly.

The Overlord lingered instead of cutting the link, and there was a stiffness in his frame that betrayed conflict. When he finally spoke again, the words seemed dragged out of him like chains from a deep vault.

“There is… another matter.”

The chamber around me stilled. Even through the projection, I could sense the reluctance; Necrons did not like to speak of shame.

Gathering himself, he asked, “What do you know of Llandu’gor’s curse?”

The phrase pulled at memories of half-read system logs, fragments of their history and my memories from my past life. “Little,” I admitted. “Only what was written in your archives as I restored them. That it was the Flayer’s parting spite. That it afflicts some of your kind still.”

His voice darkened. “Llandu’gor, the Flayer, was a star god unlike the others. He craved not energy, but flesh. When the Silent King and his forebears shattered him, the last fragments of his hunger clung to us. It spreads like a sickness. It turns us into carrion beasts, compelled to tear the living and drape themselves in their skins. It is… shame. Taboo to speak of. A reminder of our weakness.” His head dipped a fraction. “We cast them out. We deny them. But they remain.”

For a long moment the only sound was the faint hiss of my circulation bladders.

“I tell you this,” the Phaeron said, “because you have impressed me. If you could cure the curse—if you could undo what even our Crypteks cannot—it would win Szarekh’s ear more than any words. And perhaps…” his voice trailed for a moment, “perhaps the Destroyer affliction as well. Another madness. Another wound unhealed.”

I hesitated. My tendrils flexed uneasily. To study them meant danger. Flayers were unpredictable; Destroyers were obsessive, volatile. Yet the chance… the chance to learn more of their minds, their corruption, and potentially their way back to flesh…

“I will not promise a cure,” I said at last. “But to study them may give me understanding. And understanding may give us both what we seek. If you can help me locate subjects—without undue risk—I will try.”

The Phaeron inclined his head. “We have Destroyers within our holdings. We can deliver them to you in stasis. Flayers are rarer, and far less… manageable. But we will watch for them, and we will inform you when they appear.”

“That will suffice.” I pulsed a command across the Ecumene’s network. “Paragon—prepare containment. Necron-proof cells. Reinforce them as though the prisoners were Crypteks themselves.”

“Acknowledged,” came PE’s calm reply. Schematics spilled into my vision at once: reinforced cells with failsafe weapon ports, powerful sensors to track every atom of movement within, and heavy-duty firewalls to prevent any data from escaping should their curses attempt to jump into our systems.

“Then we are agreed,” the Phaeron said. “In five days, the Destroyers will be yours.”

The channel dimmed as the holoform dissolved, leaving only the faint afterimage of his imposing frame. For once, we had parted not only on terms of utility, but on something closer to trust.

I sagged back, uneasy tendrils absently tracing the console before me. A cure for shame. A cure for madness. Perhaps even a cure for death itself. It was a heavy promise to contemplate, let alone attempt.

But then, what else had my life here become, except heavy promises?

——————— ✦ ———————

I found Thallex in one of the observatories, standing stiffly with his hands folded behind his back, augmetic fingers twitching with some private tension. He had taken to haunting these quiet spaces, where the stars spilled across the glass in unbroken patterns. For all his new freedom, loneliness clung to him like a shadow.

“Thallex,” I said, drawing his attention. His optics flickered, the faintest bow of his head acknowledging me.

“I have a task for you. An important one.”

He straightened at once, the old reflexes of obedience still strong in him, though I had long since stopped demanding it. “Name it.”

“The Mechanicus vault on the Hulk remains unexplored. Too much of it lies shrouded, sealed behind barriers I dare not force, lest the breach unleash catastrophe within. I would have you lead the expedition to uncover its secrets.”

His jaw worked, servo-motors humming faintly. “Me? Lead?”

“Yes. You will have command of the battle units. Scorpiads, Mantises, full complements of scarabs. And,” I allowed a tendril to brush the nearby console, calling up a holoform of a simple, patient face, “you will not go alone. The ancilla you’ve been studying with—your tutor—will accompany you. You two already share a rapport. It will serve you well in the field.”

For a moment he said nothing, only stared at the image as if the idea were a weight pressing against his chest. Then he asked, almost whispering, “Why me?”

“Because you are ready. And because this work needs a human voice to lead it, not just a swarm of machines. You will know what to look for in those vaults in a way even I cannot.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the faint scrape of his augmetics. Then he drew in a long, rattling breath and gave a slow nod. “I will do it.”

“One more thing,” I added, and this time my tone softened. “Before you go, Aceso and I have prepared something for you. New augmentations. With the help of the triplets we’ve improved on every design—superior to anything the Mechanicus ever gave you. Stronger, cleaner, more… yours.”

His eyes widened, lenses dilating with a surge of light. He did not ask questions, did not pause to deliberate. Instead, he turned on his heel and strode toward the hangar lifts, voice thick with something between excitement and reverence. “Then I will not waste time. I’ll report to Aceso’s sanctum at once.”

I watched him go, the faint tremor of anticipation in his step betraying more eagerness than any words could.

I felt a quiet satisfaction coil through me. Thallex had been drifting, lonely despite all we had given him. Now he had a purpose, a command, and a future to claim.

I had given him a task worthy of his loyalty. And, I hoped, a reason to believe in himself again.

——————— ✦ ———————

The armory’s vault doors groaned open, and the chamber beyond fell silent. Vallis and his warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, their scarred faces lit by the pale glow of the racks before them. One by one, the frames unfolded like the petals of some great machine-flower, revealing the work I had prepared—the answer to their long-voiced request.

“Forerunner combat skins,” I said, letting my voice carry through the vaulted space. “Not armor in the Imperial sense. These will make you less warriors, and more… forces of nature.”

Each frame shimmered with adaptive plates, fluid-hardlight shifting as though the armor itself drew breath. Weapons lay beside them in ordered display—precision beamcasters, scattershot arrays, incineration cannons scaled for power-armored hands, and gravitic hammers capable of folding a tank in half. Countless more rested within slipspace storage, each suit carrying its own arsenal beyond imagining. No two were alike. Every set had been tuned, tweaked, personalized—not mass issue, but gifts shaped for the warrior who would wear them.

“They are more than protection,” I continued. “Each skin is linked to a slipspace pocket, a dimension apart from this one. Inside: empty capacitors, spare parts, nanites for repairs, medical stock, ammunition, water, food. Everything you might need, for as long as you need it. Even dropped on a barren rock—as you were, once—you would endure.”

A murmur rippled through the men. Some of the younger ones blinked hard, their jaws clenched with sudden, unspoken memory. I saw them imagining what it would have meant, years ago, to have these things when exile had ground them raw.

“They will nullify the warp’s touch,” I said more softly. “Forged from our most advanced Phase-Iron, the suits will drink its venom into their reserves until nothing remains. Daemons will find no purchase upon you.”

I let the silence stretch before gesturing to the small companion-shapes blooming above each suit from its holoprojector. “With them come ancilla companions, bound to your skins. They will aid you in battle, in healing, in whatever else you require. They are yours to command—or yours to disregard. Partners in war and in life, should you choose them.”

One of the veterans reached out, almost reverently, letting his fingers brush the gauntlet of the suit before him. Another simply stared, shoulders stiff, as though afraid it might vanish if he blinked.

“As an added consideration,” I said, “they can appear as whatever you need—Imperial pattern, Chapter heraldry, even the plain steel of Guard plate. Camouflage for any theater, any company. Whatever mask you require. The material itself not only alters its appearance but also adapts to the environment, providing additional concealment should you choose not to employ the more powerful cloaking systems.”

The warriors began to move then, quietly, reverently. Some inspected the weapons laid out, running scarred hands along smooth edges. Some began to converse with their new ancilla partners, introducing themselves. Others quickly stripped down to step into their new skins, laughter breaking sharp and sudden as the suits sealed around them with liquid grace. The sound of it—joy, disbelief, relief—filled the armory in a way no machine ever could.

I lingered only long enough to see Vallis watching them, arms folded, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his scarred mouth. “Yours is waiting in your quarters,” I told him. “I thought you might want privacy.”

He gave a single nod, eyes never leaving his men. Already some of them were heading for the ranges, weapons cradled in eager hands, their old doubts forgotten in the glow of possibility.

Quietly, I turned and drifted from the chamber, leaving them to their wonder.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden existed across a thousand channels at once, but even so he kept a portion of himself fixed to the warfronts. His wars did not end; they simply shifted shape. Orks swelled in crude tides, Tyranids prowled on the edge of the dark, Chaos forces festered into warbands. He had driven them back again and again, but his mind was never still.

Months had passed since the hive of Nivorah nearly fell. In that time, he had overhauled nearly every sector of its broken spires, and when restoration was impossible, he had simply evacuated the people. Tens of millions now lay sealed in stasis banks across the first completed level of Maethrillian Station. They slept peacefully, even as his constructs scoured away the rot of their old home.

His survey fleets had gone further still. The net had spread, expanding until the entirety of the Imperium Sanctus lay beneath his sight. Already the fleets were doubling back, filling in gaps, ensuring not a single system slipped free. A few months more, and half a galaxy would be under watch. An accomplishment worthy of record, though he did not pause to congratulate himself.

Civilizations of note had been flagged and categorized. The Tau drew particular interest. Advanced, curiously cooperative, but something about their highest caste tasted wrong in the data — a pattern too neat, too controlled. He had filed the matter for Aceso and Father to review before even entertaining the thought of contact. Still, they seemed the closest thing to peaceful these stars could offer.

He had found Astartes too. Stranded Chapters, successor lines wandering like refugees, entire worlds half-starved of recruits. Their flaws were obvious. The Blood Angels and their kin, the Salamanders, the Raven Guard — all cracked vessels waiting to be mended. He suspected Aceso’s touch could heal them, if they could be made to trust her. The Salamanders seemed the most human, the most open. They would be the key, if his analysis was correct.

But even as he considered alliances, a greater concern gnawed at him. Imperial fleets scoured Pacificus. Not raiding, not crusading, but searching — wide sweeps of augurs and patrols, a net cast across void and world alike. He could erase them easily enough, the Ecumene alone could enact extermination, a massacre disguised as war. That was not in question. The question was why.

Yes, the Orks were rising. Tyranids encroached. Chaos lingered. Again and again, he had proven he could crush them. He had even tested the Ecumene’s new gift—her hunger for warp-energy—against minor storms and warbands. Entire cult-fleets had dissolved into nothing as her Phase-Iron bones drank the Immaterium dry. No, those threats did not warrant such numbers of Imperial fleets. Most were already broken before they ever reached Imperial space. Which left only one conclusion: the fleets were not hunting Orks, nor Tyranids, nor Chaos. They were hunting him.

Some had already found their way to Nivorah. He had dealt with them ruthlessly, slipspacing facehuggers and combat forms into their vessels in overwhelming numbers. Inquisitors and their acolytes now lay stacked in Maethrillian’s vaults like… like ration-bricks in an underhive storehouse, neat and endless. He had to admit the metaphor pleased him. The rate he was going, the station would be little more than a mausoleum of stasis pods.

He dismissed the thought and turned back to his planning threads. There were more pressing tasks. Quiet corridors of logistics unfurled in his mind — discreet supply drops, fleets of drones distributing food, water, medicine. Human worlds. Xenos worlds. It made no difference. They all required sustenance, and he would give it, unseen, untraceable. Let them call it providence, or chance, or miracle. He would not correct them.

Paragon of Eden was steward of the Forerunner Ecumene, and stewardship meant the work never ended. There were always threats to erase, mouths to feed, fires to smother. He allowed himself a single moment of stillness, a single thread of thought drawn tight and satisfied.

Busy, yes. But content.

——————— ✦ ———————

The chamber was dim when the Lion entered, shadows pooling across the stone like old memories. He had stripped off his armor piece by piece, the weight of duty set aside, when a shape moved in the corner of his vision.

A figure stood there, robed and slender, the pale lines of Eldar craft in his bearing. Jonson’s hand went to the hilt of his sword before the intruder raised empty hands in a gesture of peace.

“I am but a messenger,” the stranger said quickly, voice strained, “sent on a secret errand from Eldrad Ulthran, Farseer of Ulthwé, Keeper of the Black Library’s echoes, Watcher at the Gates of Fate.”

The Lion’s eyes narrowed. “You should not be here at all. Speak your message, and then begone.”

The messenger stiffened, his body seizing rigidly, as if strings had been pulled taut inside him. Then the air bent, shimmering, and another presence pressed into the chamber. Eldrad Ulthran’s image bloomed forth, not a crude holoform but a living projection of mind and will. His voice was a tide rolling in from distant shores.

“Primarch of the First Legion,” Eldrad said, inclining his head with the slightest courtesy. “I come not with weapons, but with necessity. A wound has been torn in fate, one even my kind cannot mend alone. I offer you a road to Segmentum Pacificus — there and back again — in return for your eyes upon what festers there. The skein is unraveling, and I would not have it fall to ruin without every hand raised against it.”

Jonson stood unmoving, gauntleted fingers flexing on the sword’s pommel. “The Emperor has charged me with the same task,” he said flatly. “To find the source of what befell there, and to scour it clean. But the way is barred. The warp devours half the galaxy. Even the Rock cannot pass unscathed.”

“Then accept my road,” Eldrad urged. “The Webway yet holds paths untouched by the great enemy. One such gate lies within reach, broad enough to bear even your fortress-monastery. I will guide you to it. But you must act swiftly. I have already sent aid to Guilliman. If you would stand beside your brother, your steps must match his, or you will arrive too late.”

The Lion’s face remained a mask of shadow and stone. His thoughts, though, churned like a storm. To take the hand of a Xenos was poison — yet to ignore it was to disobey the Emperor Himself. He ground his teeth, then nodded once, curt. “Give me the coordinates.”

Eldrad lifted a hand, and runes of light coiled in the air, marking a point beyond known stars. “There. A craftworld path, stable enough for your Rock. Take it, and with some luck you will arrive when your brother does.”

The vision began to fade, Eldrad’s image dissolving like mist in sunlight. “Remember, Lion of Caliban,” his voice echoed. “This is not alliance. It is necessity. But perhaps, necessity can yet be turned into hope.”

The messenger sagged, his body freed, and bowed low. Without another word he shimmered, then vanished into nothing.

Alone once more, Jonson sat heavily at his desk. He turned the coordinates over in his hand, their glow fading against his palm. To consort with Xenos… the thought twisted his gut, but the Emperor’s command was clear. He would use whatever tools were placed before him, and cast them aside when their purpose was done.

His mouth curled into a grim smile. “Guilliman… you had best be ready. This time, it will not be only the enemy you must face.”

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 50: When Giants Meet

——————— ✦ ———————

Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium, Primarch of the Ultramarines, Regent of Terra, bearer of titles so long and grand they could drown a man in parchment, sat hunched in his office aboard Macragge’s Honour and glowered at the paperwork that never ended.

He was tired of parchment. Tired of signatures. Tired of edicts written in a language of dust while the galaxy burned. The Gloriana-class battleship beneath him was nearly twenty kilometers long, a moving mountain of adamantium and honor, and still he felt confined, suffocated by endless reports and requisitions. What should have been a short passage — Solar to Pacificus — had already stretched far beyond reason. By his reckoning, they had been inside the Webway for thirty-seven days. His flight from Ultramar to Terra after his resurrection had taken only twenty-four.

The arithmetic was plain. Something was being concealed. And the thought that it might be caused by Yvraine cut a little deeper than he expected. He had allowed himself the smallest measure of trust, a tiny concession to an alien whose power and presence had been essential to his return. To find it misplaced made him angrier than he cared to admit.

He rose sharply, scattering stacks of reports across his desk. Servo-skulls whirred in alarm, servitors shuffled forward to collect the papers before they drifted to the deck. Guilliman ignored them. His boots rang like hammers as he marched for the bridge.

He found Yvraine there, seated near the navigation arch, meditating with closed eyes as she guided Macragge’s Honour and the immense fleet trailing behind it through the twisting arteries of the Webway. She opened her eyes the instant he entered, as though she had felt his presence cut through the chamber.

“I would speak with you,” Guilliman said, temper already smoothed into cold courtesy.

Yvraine inclined her head, rising with liquid grace. One of her retinue — pale and sharp-eyed — stepped in to take her place. Together, the Primarch and the emissary of Ynnead moved into a small conference chamber just off the bridge.

Guilliman remained standing, his gauntleted hands clasped behind his back as though he stood before a battle map. He forced his voice into calm, but the iron beneath it rang clear. “By my calculation, we have been in the Webway thirty-seven days. My flight to Terra took twenty-four. Explain yourself.”

Yvraine’s answer was the usual Aeldari evasions, a wash of words about the mysteries of the Webway, its shifting paths and endless peril. Guilliman cut her short with a gesture sharp as a blade.

“You are waiting,” he said. “You are waiting for something — or someone. What is it?”

For a long moment she was silent. Then she sighed, her mask of serenity bending just slightly. “It is true. Eldrad Ulthran sent me to guide you, as he could not come himself. He went to another. To the Lion of Caliban. He offers him what I offered you — passage to Pacificus. We wait for them to be in place. When the paths converge, you will emerge together.”

Shock hit him first, then anger. Jonson. Of all his brothers, it had to be Jonson. A man of shadows, secretive to the point of paranoia, always lurking in corners and pulling strings unseen. He respected Jonson’s strength, even his cunning, but he had never liked him. Guilliman had an Imperium to run. He could run it better without the Lion skulking at his shoulder.

“How long?” Guilliman asked.

“Seventy-two hours,” Yvraine said, voice as calm as still water. “It would have been shorter, but the passages from Nihilus are badly damaged by the Cicatrix.”

“And where will we emerge?”

She allowed the faintest smile. “By chance, almost precisely where the disturbance occurred.”

Her posture shifted, subtle as a knife sliding back into a sheath — the body language of one who considered the conversation finished. Guilliman noticed, and thanked her with deliberate formality, a dismissal that needed no words.

Yvraine spun on her heel with impeccable poise and returned to the bridge.

Guilliman made his way back to his office. The reports lay waiting, gathered into neat stacks by dutiful servitors. Instead of taking them up again, he reached into his desk and withdrew a bottle of Amasec. He poured a measure neat, the way he always took it, and sat with the glass in his hand.

For a time he was not the Lord Commander, not the Regent, not the Primarch of Ultramar. He was simply a man, overwhelmed and alone. The only brother left to him was one he had never loved. He respected Jonson, yes. Respected his ability, his martial prowess, his endless patience. But liking him? Trusting him? No. Jonson was shadow and suspicion made flesh, a counterpoint to everything Guilliman struggled to be.

He missed Sanguinius. More than words could say. The Angel had been the best of them — noble, radiant, a light that drew all others into orbit. The universe had grown darker the day Horus killed him, and it had never brightened again.

Guilliman sat in the dim half-light, nursing his glass, lost in memory. Hours passed. He thought of all the things he wished he could do — heal, build, create anew — and all the things he actually did, which was keep the Imperium’s corpse staggering forward one day longer. Not living. Just not dead.

At last he drained the glass, cleaned it with precise care, and returned it and the bottle to their compartment. He straightened his desk, aligned the stacks of parchment, and bent again to his endless work.

If he could not heal the Imperium, he would at least prevent it from rotting further.

The chamber closed around him: a man bowed but unbroken, bent over his duties, bearing the weight of a dying empire on shoulders that had once carried dreams.

——————— ✦ ———————

Lion El’Jonson, Primarch of the First Legion, Lord of the Dark Angels, Master of the Rock, Warden of the Watchers, Knight of Caliban, bearer of secrets too many to count, stalked the stone-dark halls of his fortress-monastery with his temper kept on a knife’s edge.

The Rock groaned faintly around him. Once the shattered core of Caliban, reforged into a fortress the size of a small moon, it carried his Legion’s shame and its strength alike. He would not leave it. Not for Terra, not for Guilliman, not for Eldrad Ulthran’s honeyed words. The Rock was his blade and his shield both, and it followed where he commanded.

But the Webway tested his patience. Thirty-seven days. Thirty-seven wasted days winding through shattered arteries, broken paths snarled by the Great Rift’s poison. He had been told the Webway was swift, a hidden road beneath reality. This was no road. It was a labyrinth.

He entered the chamber where Eldrad Ulthran waited, the farseer surrounded by black glass runes that glowed faintly with each turn of his hands. Eldrad’s expression was distant, caught between infinite patience and the weariness of one who had lived too long.

Jonson did not waste time. “Enough of this delay. Thirty-seven days, and still we crawl. Speak plainly, Eldrad. Why are we not there already?”

The farseer’s voice was calm, but edged. “You drag a mountain through a spider’s web, Lion. The Rock is vast. Guiding something this size through what remains of the Webway is… not elegant work. The Rift has shattered paths I once trusted. We take the roads that remain. If you had left this fortress and traveled aboard a cruiser, we would have been there twice over.”

Jonson’s eyes hardened. “I will not abandon the Rock. It is mine to guard, mine to command. My sons are here, my secrets are here. If you expect me to leave it behind, you expect too much.”

For a heartbeat Eldrad’s mask cracked — the faintest trace of exasperation. Then it was gone. “So be it. I understand. And if fortune holds, in seventy-two hours we will emerge. You, and Guilliman. Almost in concert.”

Jonson’s silence was heavy. He did not thank the seer. He simply turned his back, cloak whispering against stone, and said in a low voice that brooked no further words: “Do what you must. I will be ready.”

The Lion returned to his quarters. They were austere — no clutter of parchment, no bottles of comfort. His comforts were silence, and memory. He sat in the half-light, hands resting on the stone table, and let himself think of the past.

Things had been simpler once. Better. Not easy, never easy, but clearer. The Great Crusade had been a storm, but it had purpose. Now? Only shadow. Only secrets.

He thought of his brothers. Sanguinius most of all. The Angel had been light incarnate, hope given form, a presence that made the galaxy less cruel simply by being in it. Jonson clenched his fists and cursed Horus’ spirit to the depths of the Warp, to eternal torment for stealing that light away.

He remembered others, too — those lost by decree, those the Emperor had forbidden them to name. He would not break that edict, not aloud. But he remembered. He remembered the dread that clung to the Second, the way even his presence felt like a wound that would never heal. And he remembered his own shame when Russ was sent to end him — not for the act itself, but for the quiet, guilty relief he had felt when it was over.

He remembered the Eleventh, the dreamer who sought peace with xenos. A fool, perhaps, but an effective one until betrayal cut him down. It had hurt Sanguinius terribly, a wound the Angel never allowed to close. Sanguinius had believed the Eleventh’s ideals were fragile but noble, a necessary balance to the darker temperaments of their brothers. When the dreamer fell, betrayed by those he sought to befriend, Sanguinius grieved as if he had lost a twin. He never forgave the loss, never forgave the silence imposed by their father’s decree, and carried the weight of that sorrow even into the Siege of Terra.

Jonson had not forgotten. He had not shared Sanguinius’s tenderness for their lost brother, but he remembered the look in the Angel’s eyes whenever the subject brushed too close — a grief that dimmed his light, a bitterness that no battlefield triumph could erase.

Alone in the dark, he let himself think of them — the lost, the fallen, the betrayed. He let himself hope, for a single fragile moment, that tomorrow might bring something better. And then he crushed the thought, because he knew hope was a lie.

At last, exhaustion took him. Not peace, not rest — only uneasy sleep, the kind where dreams feel like knives.

——————— ✦ ———————

I drifted among the feeds, tendrils twitching restlessly as my lenses cycled through magnification. I did not know why I was uneasy today. The laboratories were quiet, my drones humming in their alcoves, the archives purring with their steady flows of data. And yet I could not still myself.

It had been forty days since I last spoke with the Thokt Phaeron. True to his word, five days after our agreement his Crypteks had delivered what he promised: a range of Destroyer cult members, crated in stasis, positioned with clinical precision, more specimens than soldiers.

I had taken every precaution imaginable — triple-redundant containment fields, phase-iron quarantine chambers, and hard-sealed circuits ready to vent the entire bay into vacuum at the first flicker of contamination. Only then had I allowed myself to begin.

Their neural architectures told the story almost immediately. It should have been obvious to anyone. The Destroyers were not cursed in some arcane, unknowable fashion. They were simply… amplified. Their aggression had been turned up past safety stops, focused like a scalpel on anything organic. A crude adjustment, devastating in effect.

And it struck me then — the true horror. The Necrons were not blind by chance, nor had the Crypteks overlooked this flaw through error. They had been programmed to be blind. To not only ignore certain truths, but to be unable to even recognize that they were ignoring them. A recursive blindness, a self-erasing thought loop written into the bedrock of their minds.

It was elegant, in a monstrous way.

Of course it made sense. Both afflictions bore the marks of their origins: Llandu’gor the Flayer, the shard that reveled in hunger and skin; and the Outsider, that mad star-thing that delighted in breaking minds and twisting instincts. The Necrons had been designed to serve the C’tan. It was only logical that their mental frameworks would refuse to see their masters as predators. To notice betrayal would have been rebellion.

So the code simply erased the possibility. Their very architecture blinded them to any attempt to trace the source of the “curse.” When a C’tan’s meddling twisted their minds, the code interpreted it as correct, even righteous, because it was a C’tan who had done it. What they could not question, they could not cure.

Which meant — I could fix it. Easily. More easily than they dared to believe. Remove the errant line of aggression and inoculate against recurrence. The Destroyers could be cured. The Flayers, perhaps as well, though that path would be harder. But possible.

Given what I had uncovered about the Destroyers — and the deeper blindness wound through every Necron mind — I found myself wondering about the Flayers. Their madness had always seemed different, more tragic than violent, but perhaps the same logic applied. Perhaps their affliction was not random, but the rupture of a safeguard.

What if a line of code had been stripped away? Not aggression amplified, but awareness restored — a forbidden awareness. Organics are noisy things, after all. Breathing. Digestion. Blood thrumming through veins. The endless chatter of sensation. To beings designed for silence, that noise must have been unbearable. Better, then, to blind them to it. To dull the memory of what it meant to be alive.

But if that blindness failed? If the silence cracked and the memories returned? They would remember everything — the pulse of life, the warmth of flesh — without the means to feel it again.

Perhaps that is why they drape themselves in skin, clawing at some grotesque imitation of what was lost. See. I am alive. I feel. I am whole again. A desperate lie. One that never lasts, because the sensation is hollow. Wrong. And so their minds fracture under the weight of truth.

If I am right, the Flayer curse is not hunger but grief. Not rage, but loss.

It should have been triumph. Instead, unease deepened.

Because I had seen something else. A line of code. Not once, not twice, but repeating across every Destroyer and every Necron I had ever examined. A thread woven through their being. Recognition burned cold in my bladders. I locked the file at once, burying it in my deepest archive, layered in encryptions even I would hesitate to untangle.

There was only one explanation for the commands I had uncovered. Strings of authority that bypassed every subroutine, every safeguard, and sank directly into the core of the neural lattice. No checks, no balance, no mediation. They went straight to the heart.

It was the Command Protocols.

The legendary strings Szarekh had once used to bend an entire species with a word. The protocols he had destroyed after forcing the Great Sleep, shattering the transmitter so none could ever rule again. And now, without thinking, without even meaning to, I had uncovered the shape of it. The receivers were still there, buried in every Necron’s architecture, waiting. And I had mapped enough of the design that I could recreate the transmitter with ease, should I ever choose to.

I presumed no Necron had ever truly seen it. How could they? The same blindness that kept them from recognizing the Destroyers’ curse would have hidden this as well. The C’tan would never have allowed their servants to glimpse the chains that bound them.

One word from me, and the legions would kneel. Not even Szarekh could undo that.

I recoiled. Not from the power — power had never frightened me — but from what it meant. To admit knowledge of this would be enough to make me an enemy of every dynasty in the galaxy. To them, I would not be a savior but a tyrant in waiting.

No. This secret would remain mine. Mine, and buried.

I finished my examinations with care, sealing the stasis pods again. When the Phaeron asked, I would tell him the truth: that I could cure his Destroyers, give him back his warriors whole. That much was safe. But the deeper blindness? The fact that I could see the invisible bars in their minds, and hold the key to their chains? That, I would never share.

For their sake. And for mine.

——————— ✦ ———————

Restlessness still gnawed at me. Even after sealing the Destroyers back in stasis, I could not settle. I drifted from feed to feed, from chamber to chamber, unable to still my thoughts.

The triplets drew me first. They had taken it upon themselves to unravel the mysteries of the ruined gate we had salvaged from the craftworld vessel in the Hulk. All of our projections and suppositions led us to believe it had been a lesser Webway gate, likely destroyed by deliberate detonation after the ship became trapped in the Hulk. The crew, I presumed, had escaped through the gate itself before sealing their pursuers out with fire.

Simulations only, by my firm order — they were forbidden to tamper with the hardware itself — but their progress was impressive. Huey and Dewey had charted response curves in the broken lattice, narrow-band energies that aligned with Necron notations of “empty” warp frequencies, bands with no known daemonic resonance. Louie, predictably, was already sketching power loops to generate those bands artificially.

If they were right, it would be a revolution. Pure, untainted warp energy to feed the gate, thus allowing us access to the Webway itself. Once mapped, we could begin to purge its arteries of vermin — Chaos forces, warp-poison, even the Dark Eldar themselves. I reminded them again: simulations only. But the promise was real, and dangerous.

We would have to be careful. The Aeldari would never forgive us if we showed greater mastery over their last fragile inheritance than they themselves could claim. They would not thank us for cleansing their roads, only curse us for trespass. To them the Webway was not a tool to be mended, but a relic to be mourned — and if we proved more capable of holding it than they, their pride would demand our destruction long before they admitted their debt.

Vallis came next. He and his warriors were still grinding through their new wargear, mastering weapons that had no place in the Imperium’s grim arsenals. Some trained like zealots, determined to wring every last drop of strength from their frames. Others reinvented their doctrine entirely, whole squads rewriting their playbooks to account for teleport-shunts, slipspace-fed munitions, armor that drank in warp assault as though it were nothing, and shielding that did not so much as flicker no matter what struck it. Vallis drove them mercilessly, every drill a crucible, but there was pride in his eyes. He was refining his command — not the crude desperation of survival, but the measured authority of a leader with a future to fight for.

Rynmark and Samaritan were abroad; their ship now fitted with the upgraded slipspace drive I had gifted them. Primitive by my standards, but far more efficient than the crude engines I had first pressed into their hands — a reward for their help ferrying the refugees of Nivorah. They roved from system to system, merchants in truth and hunters in spirit, trading, listening, weaving threads of rumor into a net that stretched ever wider. They sought whispers of Astartes chapters bled thin, starved of supplies, desperate for allies. More brothers-in-arms, more veterans to shape the Novo-Humanis once they emerged from their pods.

I had also asked Rynmark to keep an ear out for other Rogue Traders who might be brought into our confidence — more captains, more ships, more hands to spread supplies and relief where the Imperium could not. Every voyage drew its edges a little closer to my orbit, every contact another thread stitched into the quiet tapestry I was weaving.

Thallex, for his part, was a boy again. He haunted the hangars, testing his new augmentations, chattering with his ancilla about the Hulk and what they might find sealed in its vaults. His eagerness radiated through every twitch of his augmetics, through every smile he tried and failed to restrain. It was almost charming.

Aceso’s work proceeded with her usual ruthless elegance. She had not yet met a mutant she could not peel back to baseline. Every abhuman, every twisted strain, yielded to her genetic scalpel. The Novo-Humanis embryos grew strong in their pods, their enhanced genetic memory integrating flawlessly. She swore it would breed true for generations, requiring only minor corrections. I did not doubt her.

The flood of refugees had slowed at last. The hivers who wished to flee had fled; the nobles, predictably, had not. A few still trickled in each day, drawn by whispers of sanctuary. Several billion now slept in stasis, waiting. I had already chosen their destination: the terraformed worlds. We were shaping them into hive-worlds of a different kind — vast cities built by the triplets, patterned after the Imperium’s titanic hives but refined through Forerunner craft. Arcologies that rose like mountains, yet left the seas and skies pristine. Worlds clean, breathable, untouched beneath their crowns of stone and steel. Hive-worlds without the stink of poison or the choke of ash. They had surpassed even my expectations.

Elsewhere, Aceso endured yet another of Nivorah’s councils. The lords had declared an emergency meeting, then spent hours circling their own irrelevance, smug in their wasted time. I sent a pulse to Paragon: watch this. Something stinks.

PE himself had been scarce. He was waist-deep in another campaign, this one against a cluster of Ork worlds he had stalked for weeks. He scattered his attention across Pacificus, weaving threads of strategy I barely glimpsed. Even I found it difficult to keep up.

I sank finally into the sensor net, drowning myself in its logs. I searched for the itch I could not name, the ripple that had haunted me all day. Line after line, parsec after parsec, nothing. And then—

The alarm tore me out of the data, sharp and shrill, echoing across every deck.

——————— ✦ ———————

The Ecumene lurched beneath me, a shudder that made even her compensators groan. For a ship her size to overcome inertial dampers, the acceleration had to be violent, deliberate — and I had not ordered it. Worse, it came from the old drives, the traditional thrusters, not the inertialess arrays I had grafted from Necron design. That meant only one thing: a slipspace aperture was already opening.

I reached for Paragon at once.

We have a problem, he said, his voice flat.

Sensor data poured across my sight, unfiltered, a flood jammed into my perception. I saw it as he had: a massive flare of energy, the unmistakable signature of a Webway gate yawning wide. And not just any gate, not in just any system. It was opening in the very place where we had slain the Warp-creature.

The first silhouette out dwarfed its escorts. Twenty kilometers long, armored and magnificent in blue and gold, it burned with ancient pride. By its scale and colors it could only be Macragge’s Honour. In its wake poured an seemingly unending column — battlecruisers, battleships, escorts, attack craft swarming like gnats around giants. A full Imperial fleet, endless, orderly, suffocating in its sheer mass.

Then the second portal ripped open. Larger. At first glance I thought it a space hulk — twisted, broken, yet alive. But no: its lines were too deliberate, its scars too carefully reforged. Carved. Fortified. Shaped. It could be only one thing: the Rock. The fortress-monastery of the Dark Angels, a slab of Caliban itself reforged into war. Larger even than the Ecumene, bristling with guns and secrets.

My bladders tightened. Only two beings could command such a display: Guilliman on his flagship, Jonson on the Rock. Both here. Both now.

This was very, very bad.

Almost as an afterthought, a third gate pulsed, disgorging Eldar craft. Their numbers were small, but the Necron codices identified each form with cold precision. A Dragonship, proud and massive. Several Wraithships, elegant as knives. A flotilla of Shadowhunters darting like sharks. An Eclipse cruiser, its bays heavy with strike craft. A Corsair Void Stalker, black and proud. A flight of Solaris light cruisers. Wings of Phoenix bombers and Hemlock wraithfighters spiraled in graceful escort. A modest fleet by human measure — but elite, precise, deadly.

Together? Together they were a storm.

Paragon did not hesitate. He plucked at every thread across our empire — seizing hulls from Ork sieges, Tyranid fleet actions, supply convoys, patrol routes, even a handful from lightly defended exploration groups. A ship here, another there — never enough to leave a front exposed, but enough to bleed strength from many to forge strength in one place. The lines were thinner, the margins tighter. He had bled efficiency, not safety. And what he gathered was enough. Enough to stand as equals, if equals we must be. He wrenched vessels from half a dozen wars and hurled them toward the intruders.

The Ecumene, fastest and strongest, arrived first. Her colossal frame tore into realspace like a falling star, lattice shields flaring as she stabilized. Not in the contested system itself, but the one beyond — close enough to strike, close enough to watch, yet veiled by the silence of distance. Across the gulf, the Imperial armada unfurled — vast, ponderous, its augurs scouring the field with ruthless precision. Every pulse scraped across the void where we had slain the warp-beast, then swept across the planets of the system itself, as though persistence alone could strip bare every secret. In the static haze between us, two voices tangled over a poorly encrypted channel: Guilliman and Jonson. I did not choose to hear their words, but their presence carried even across the void, unmistakable, heavy as iron.

Over the next hours, the rest of our fleet emerged. Paragon had worked miracles. Two Keyships — kilometers-long, gleaming with light. Built primarily as terraforming vessels, yet armed and shielded well enough to humble any warship afloat. Six War Sphinx-class super-dreadnoughts, blunt instruments of annihilation. Twelve heavy cruisers. Twenty light cruisers, twenty frigates, twenty corvettes — escorts enough to weave a wall of steel around the line. And above them all, dozens upon dozens of drone wings, a living storm of precision strike craft.

Each hull, each drone bore the new Blackstone–Phase-Iron lattice, and already I could feel them resonating together. A harmonic vibration running through the fleet, pulling at the Immaterium itself. Our presence alone was bleeding the local Warp thin, leeching strength from anything that might crawl within it.

I watched the fleet gather around the Ecumene and ordered the ships housed within her vast hangars to stand ready, her internal escort fleet ready to add their numbers to the assembly outside. My eyes lingered on the sensor displays as the opposing forces assembled across the gulf: the Imperium’s sheer mass, the Rock’s looming shadow, the Eldar’s predatory grace. And at the heart of it all, my Ecumene — vast and terrible — her brood arrayed in disciplined silence, a counterweight to them all.

This was no coincidence. No accident. It seems the day had finally come all the major players had been brought to one board. Today was the day the Forerunner Ecumene in this galaxy must step out into the full light.

I called the full council.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council chamber filled, one by one. Aceso took her place on my left, Vallis looming on my right, armor humming faintly with restrained power. Thallex settled stiffly near the triplets, his ancilla hovering like a silent shadow. Huey, Dewey, and Louie twitched their tendrils, uneasy but eager, glancing often toward me.

Across the chamber, Rynmark’s and Samaritan’s images shimmered in pale blue, distant but present.

Paragon’s avatar burned steady in its niche, cold light wrapped around harder thought.

When at last they were all assembled, I floated forward, let the silence ripen, and then began.

“My friends,” I said, voice smooth, deliberate, every word measured. “You’ve seen the fleets. You know what waits outside. Guilliman and Jonson, in all their pomp, with their armies at their backs. The Aeldari, too. We stand at the threshold of history, and the question is simple.”

I let the pause linger, let their eyes fall to me.

“What do we do from here?”

No one spoke. The silence thickened, heavy with things unsaid.

“Very well,” I sighed, almost amused. “Let me make the options plain. Not that I like them. Not that I prefer them. But these are the roads I see before us.”

I raised a tendril, ticking them off one by one.

“First: we submit. We fold ourselves into the Imperium, bend knee, accept their dogma, and act as loyal servants of the Emperor. We do it in good faith. Earnest. Honest.”

I raised another.

“Second: we act as contractors. As we did with the Thokt. Guilliman gives us tasks, perhaps Jonson too, and we execute them with perfect diligence. We share food, water, repairs, and intelligence. We again do this in good faith, in earnest, but keep ourselves separate.”

And the last.

“Third: we do the same as option two — but behind the curtain, we begin drawing Imperial citizens and worlds into our orbit. Slowly, quietly. We bleed the Imperium’s strength into our hands while they thank us for the favor. We become their undertakers, stealing the body out from under them before the rot finishes its work. And we do the same for any others who wish to join us — human or otherwise. Xenos are no exception.”3

I let the words hang. “Whatever the path, our technology remains ours. Our food, our water, our supplies, our ships— ours. And they will know, in no uncertain terms, that if we are mistreated we will walk away. Even if we fold ourselves into their machine, we are not servants. We are allies. Equals. Nothing less.”

Silence again. Then Samaritan’s voice, steady through the projection.

“Two. We help. We contract. But no secret theft. If citizens want to come to us, we ask Guilliman openly. To steal them unseen… it stinks of deception and underhandedness.”

Rynmark nodded in ghostly blue. “Agreed. I find the taste bitter. But if the worst comes? Then we must be ready to save fragments, to keep something alive when the rest burns.”

Thallex leaned forward. “Two as well. But I urge we make exchanges. Slipspace. Phase-Iron. The Imperium is bleeding because the Warp kills it one cut at a time. We could change that.”

Vallis’ laugh was sharp. “Three. Always three. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw this new skin — and I could throw them very far. Help them, yes. But be ready to vanish, to turtle up with those we’ve saved, while the galaxy tears itself apart.”

The triplets stirred. Huey’s voice came first, hesitant. “Do… do we vote?”

“You must,” I chided softly. “You have a voice. Use it.”

They looked at one another, tendrils twitching in silent argument, then answered together. “Three. We want to help. But we’ve read too many horrors about the Imperium to trust it. We help — and we prepare.”

Aceso’s turn. “Two. Of course we help. But we tell Guilliman plainly we will accept refugees. When they come — and they will — he cannot feign surprise.”

Paragon’s light sharpened. “Three. The Imperium cannot be trusted to remain an ally. We must have a plan to run.”

The votes tallied. Three for three. Four for two.

All eyes fell to me.

I let the silence linger, savoring it like a fine vintage. Then I sighed, heavy with a weight I alone could carry.

“I thank you all for your council. I have a plan.”

I leaned closer, my voice dropping, intimate, every word like a secret shared.

“I propose we act as allies. As contractors. As agents. Separate. Accepting orders only from Guilliman and Jonson. We will feed them, clothe them, repair their ships and their worlds. We will give them intelligence, act as their eyes in the dark.

We will accept refugees openly — and take any who ask, whether their lords approve or not. All the while, behind the curtain, we plunder their tech, their culture, their archives. We rob them blind, quietly, carefully. Should the worst come, we will have the foundation ready: a new human civilization, armed with history, fed with knowledge, and sheltered under Forerunner stars.

“And we will not limit ourselves to the Imperium. If we find xenos empires willing to bargain, we will trade, deal, and learn from them as well. That is our right, and we will not forfeit it. Our autonomy in this matter is absolute.

And Guilliman will be told most emphatically — we do this on our terms. No inquisitors prying into our work, no zealots unleashed inside our borders. The moment we are betrayed, we walk away.”

I let the words settle like dust in the chamber.

One by one, they nodded. Even Thallex, though he raised his hand once more. “And the technology? What will we give?”

I considered. “The Federation’s relics. What I’ve rebuilt, what I’ve reclaimed. But not slipspace. Not Phase-Iron. If Chaos ever takes those… The consequences could be something we may never recover from. Instead, we can act as a ferry. We carry Imperial fleets across gulfs. We seed the stars with Phase-Iron pylons, Blackstone anchors, safe corridors through the storms. And I have prototypes already: three pillars resonating together, amplifying the draw, bleeding the Warp dry in wide arcs. I had planned to seed them everywhere — system by system, station by station, until there is no room left for the Immaterium.”

The chamber grew still. Then, one by one, they all agreed.

I inclined my head. “Then it is settled. Thank you, all of you. Now—” I allowed myself a thin smile, old habits sharpening my voice into something just shy of theatrical. “Let us go meet the Imperium. And for the first time in ten thousand years, let us make them look across the table and see equals.”

I donned the guise of the Lord of Admirals, light rippling into the tall figure of authority I had chosen — the mask that would stand before Guilliman and Jonson. I did not intend to pretend I was human, only to wear a shape they might find familiar, less alien to their eyes. My remembered assessments of the two, reinforced by what records I had unearthed in this universe, told me they were pragmatists. If I was useful enough, the fact I was xenos would be an obstacle they could force themselves to step past.

My bladders tightened with the weight of it. This would be the greatest conversation of my life — and perhaps the most important the galaxy had heard in ten thousand years. After all, who better to remind them of their humanity than the very thing they most despise?

The council dispersed for a short time to prepare and collect themselves before reconvening. I absently rearranged the chamber, drawing out more seating and shifting the great table so it stood squarely between us and the rarely used viewscreen. It would serve as our field of parley, the chamber itself framing the moment. Here, among the austere lines and symbols of our strength, in the cold clarity of power, we would meet them. And the galaxy would never be the same.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 51: The Accord of Pacificus

——————— ✦ ———————

The council chamber thrummed with anticipation. My allies — my council — had gathered in full array. Even Rynmark and Samaritan stood at the table, the Peregrine’s Fortune brought across the gulf in minutes by one of Paragon’s keyships. Armor polished, robes cleaned, the AIs cloaked in their holo-suits — every detail had been arranged. No stains, no signs of strain. Whatever doubts might remain in the minds of those we were about to meet, we would not appear ragged.

“It is time,” I said. My holo-fingers settled across the console before me, and the chamber quieted.

Paragon’s voice was steady, resonant. “Acknowledged. Transitioning the fleet.”

The change was instantaneous. A hum like a living heartbeat rolled through the decks, the light seemed to bend, and then reality itself cracked. In the space of a breath, the Forerunner fleet was gone.

Slipspace folded us forward.

A bang like a god’s hammer and a wash of impossible light announced our arrival, rippling across the system. Where Imperial augurs expected only the Warp’s slow bleed, we tore through on a path no psyker could track. Forerunner vessels, titanic silhouettes of burnished alloy and hardlight, flared into existence. A fortress the size of a small moon. Keyships trailing like blades of fire. The distance between stars made trivial.

We had not placed ourselves in the teeth of the Imperium’s guns. Purposefully, our emergence bloomed at the far edge of the system, close enough to be seen, far enough not to invite a panicked broadside. A courtesy, small but deliberate.

I reached to the console, fingers dancing across the glyphs. The Imperial fleet glittered on my displays, and with a few adjustments I reached through their vox-nets and augur feeds. Patterns I had listened to and learned unfolded beneath my touch. I pressed further, neatly stitching myself into the command lattice until every ship, every bridge, every flagship screen carried my chosen image.

A tall figure cloaked in authority, masked by light.

And then, I spoke.

“Ah… there you are. At last. We had begun to wonder when you would arrive. I confess, I was starting to imagine your navigators had lost themselves in the Webway, led astray into some monster’s maw, never to be seen again. But no — here you stand. Roboute Guilliman: Lord Commander of the Imperium of Man, Primarch of the XIII Legion, Regent of Terra, Defender of Ultramar, the Avenging Son. And you, Lion El’Jonson: Knight of the Tower, Primarch of the I Legion, Lord of the Dark Angels, Master of the Rock, Warden of Caliban’s Legacy.

Nor do you come alone. I see the guiding hand of Eldrad Ulthran — High Farseer of Ulthwé, Keeper of the Black Library’s edges, manipulator of fates he pretends are immutable. And Yvraine, the Emissary of Ynnead, Priestess of the Whispering God, the so-called Daughter of Shades. How curious, that the proud remnants of a dying people should presume to steer the Emperor’s sons, as though you were pawns on their board.

So many titles. So many legends. I wonder how it feels, to hear your own names uncoiled in the mouth of someone you have never met — someone who knows far more about you than you know of me. An uneven exchange, yes, but then… that is why you are here. To learn.

Legends returned from time, through fire and shadow. I confess, it is a strange thing to see you both — strangers to me, yet so familiar it feels like déjà vu played out on the grandest of stages.

Allow me the courtesy of candor: I wear this mask because I suspect my true form might trouble your men. As you might presume from that, I am… other — not human in appearance. But I will state here and now that I am not your enemy, unless you make me one. If I wished you harm, you would have found it long before now. Instead, I offer this meeting. Conversation. Opportunity.”

I leaned back in the throne-like chair Aceso had insisted upon, eyes gleaming faintly, voice lowering to a conspiratorial murmur.

“You will find me many things— arrogant, perhaps; unnerving, assuredly; but not a liar. The galaxy is unraveling, and you know as well as I that it cannot be stitched back together with parchment and proclamations alone. You are builders of empires. I am… a restorer of broken things. So, shall we dispense with suspicion and see what might yet be repaired?”

Silence reigned across the fleet. My words hung on every screen, a weight that pressed down on every man, officer and Primarch alike. Not a single voice rose to answer me. No orders, no challenges. Just the steady hum of vox relays carrying stillness.

Good. That had been the point. Shake them at the outset, and the ground of the negotiation became mine.

But silence grows stale if left too long. I let a beat pass, then turned in my chair with exaggerated puzzlement, glancing at Paragon’s form. “We did broadcast that, didn’t we? I’d feel awfully awkward if I had just said all of that to empty space.”

The construct’s expression remained impeccable, but the faintest sigh escaped him. “Yes. You are broadcasting.”

I leaned forward, as if to speak again. “And we are receiving as well? Because it would be dreadfully embarrassing if—”

Guilliman’s voice cut across the channel like a blade, flat and iron-bound. “Yes. We hear you. You have us at a seemingly large disadvantage, though. You know all of our names, and yet we know none of yours.”

I feigned a start, then softened into contrition, almost believable.

“Ah — how terribly rude. My apologies, truly. In my eagerness to acknowledge such illustrious company, I neglected the common courtesy of introductions.”

“I am MC, I am the one who speaks for this Ecumene — architect, caretaker, and restorer of what was broken. A craftsman of machines, a physician to worlds, and, when required, a commander of fleets. Some call me the Lord of Admirals. Others, less charitable, call me a meddler who cannot leave ruins alone. Both are true.

I am not human. I am not of your Imperium, though I have labored to protect it. You may find me arrogant, unnerving, perhaps even offensive to your sensibilities… but you will not find me false. This, here and now, is candor. I will not waste your time with masks beyond this one.”

I inclined my head toward the first figure at my side. “My eldest son, Paragon of Eden: steward of my people, tactician, general and the most able administrator I have ever known. A mind born to see the moves others miss. He keeps our blades sharp and our walls unbroken.”

A turn of the hand brought light over the next. “My eldest daughter Aceso: our people’s leading medical officer. A genewright of unparalleled skill, and a healer who can heal any wound and cure any ailment. Where others see decay, she sees potential. She rebuilds what was broken — even what your own Apothecaries might call beyond repair.”

I gestured down the table, my tone mellowing into something closer to warmth. “A man I consider a friend, Captain Ormund Vallis: Chapter Master of the Flawless Host, First Loyalist Chapter of the Third Legiones Astartes, the Emperor’s Children. He and his served the Imperium since the heresy, loyal to your cause before recently being discovered by an overachieving inquisitor and marked excommunicate traitorous. My people found them dying on a broken world condemned to death and decided to help them prove they are still loyal to what is right and true. He and his people are warriors whose loyalty has been tested in fire and found stronger than adamantium.”

Another tilt of the hand. “Rogue Trader Rynmark, and his assistant Samaritan — merchant, explorer, scavenger of truths the Imperium has forgotten. His vessel has helped us bring much needed supplies and information to planets in this area of space and have also served to ferry refuges away from planets suffering from all manner of catastrophes.”

Then, with something like amusement sparking at the edge of my words, I indicated the red cloaked form beside them. “Magos Thallex, lately unshackled from the narrow dogmas of Mars. He learns as a man again, not a cog, and in so doing reminds us all that knowledge is not the sole province of hierarchs.”

Finally, I folded two arms across my broad holo-chest. “And of course, my youngest children — Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Not yet statesmen or soldiers, but bright enough to one day outshine even their teachers.”

I spread my gaze across the gathered lords. My voice softened, honey over iron.

“These are my companions. My council. Together we represent the Forerunner Ecumene in this galaxy. Strange company, perhaps, by the measure of your Imperium — but useful, loyal, and, above all… honest. Now, I believe the courtesies have been satisfied. Shall we continue?”

——————— ✦ ———————

I looked back toward the screen. Shock and alarm rippled through the Imperial command. Faces stiffened. Voices whispered — too soft to carry across the vox, but not beyond us. Just because their channels did not transmit did not mean we were deaf; our sensors drank in the tremors of air across their bridges, every vibration of every word, and rendered them back into speech as easily as if they had been shouted into our ears.

Jonson’s gaze in particular fixed upon Vallis — sharp, hawk-like, as though he meant to peel the man open with his eyes alone. Near Guilliman, a tech-priest stared at Thallex with the strange, unfocused intensity I had come to recognize — not the gaze of a man seeing, but of one diving deep into archived data.

Guilliman himself faltered. A brief crack in his composure — surprise, almost disbelief — before discipline reasserted itself and he spoke. “We have come on behalf of the Emperor. A disturbance was felt upon Terra some months ago, an upheaval in the Warp, originating here. We come to investigate its cause.”

I inclined my head. “Yes. Some months ago we did battle with a creature of the Warp. A thing of some considerable power. It was destroyed during the engagement. The aftershocks you speak of are likely what your Emperor felt.”

Before the thought had settled, Eldrad’s voice slid across the channel — smooth, patronizing, the elder correcting a child. “Destroyed? No. Banished. That is all you managed, little one. Nothing from the Warp truly dies.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Oh no, Eldrad. It is quite dead. Gone, utterly.”

Silence sharpened. I let it hold for a moment before I explained, voice calm, deliberate. “You see, we possess a unique technology we call Phase Iron. It converts warp energy into heat, or electrical power, which we may then turn to whatever use we choose. The surge you all felt was likely the prototype we used shattering before it had finished absorbing and converting the creature’s essence into usable energy.”

Eldrad sniffed. “Nothing of the Immaterium dies. Not truly.”

“Perhaps so,” I allowed, tilting my head. “But there is a first time for everything, is there not? And besides — something new happened. Otherwise, none of you would have crossed the galaxy to this place.”

None could refute that. Not Eldrad, not Yvraine, not the Primarchs themselves.

I turned my attention back to Guilliman, voice steady, persuasive. “This galaxy is bleeding. It unravels at the edges while old wounds split anew. The Forerunner Ecumene wishes to help.”

Guilliman’s eyes narrowed. He weighed the words, then gave a slow, deliberate nod. “Then tell me. What can you do to help?”

My lips curled into a grin. “The first thing? Continue what we have already begun. Food, water, supplies — relief to worlds in need. But with your authorization, Lord Commander, we could multiply our efforts a hundredfold, no longer limited by intermediaries like Rogue Trader Rynmark. Our own vessels can bear the weight, and in greater numbers.”

I let the list unfurl, each offer another hook in the water. “Technical and mechanical support. Equipment, parts, repairs, whatever the Imperium requires. Imagine Mars — only faster. We might even create mobile shipyards, able to come to crippled fleets instead of forcing them to crawl home.”

I gestured toward the void around us. “We can offer communications and sensors beyond anything your Imperium can field. Clear transmissions across Segmenta, even into Imperium Nihilus. The Cicatrix Maledictum means nothing to us.”

I leaned back, tone firming. “And we will act as a guard force. Until now, we have restricted our strikes to Pacificus and the northwestern reaches of Tempestus. Even so, we have hit Ork, Tyranid, and Chaos fleets wherever we’ve found them. With an agreement between us, we would move openly. Our reach would become your shield.”

Then I let the honey drain from my voice. “But let us be very clear — this is an alliance of equals. We will serve as contractors, as a hired force at the request of you Lord Guilliman and Lord Jonson. But we remain independent. Separate. We will accept no inquisitorial oversight. We will tolerate no zealots calling us ‘xenos filth’ and striking at us or those who serve under our banner — men like Vallis, Thallex, or Rynmark. If they are under our protection, they are not to be touched.”

Guilliman’s shoulders tensed at that, though he held his tongue.

I continued smoothly. “We reserve the right to maintain alliances of our own. Not with the Orks, Tyranids, Drukhari, or Chaos — or any other predators of this galaxy. But independence is non-negotiable.”

I let the final words fall with deliberate weight. “Those are the terms we offer. We can do all of this and more. We are even willing to take observers — let you watch our ships in action against any foe you care to name. We come to this table in good faith.”

I let the pause stretch, the unspoken question thickening in the air. Do you?

——————— ✦ ———————

Inside, Guilliman reeled. He had never felt so off balance — not during the Heresy, not during his endless years of campaigning, not even at his resurrection. To come here on the Emperor’s orders and find this? Not just the claim of a warp-creature’s destruction — which, despite Eldrad’s correction, his own psykers had tentatively begun to whisper might be true — but this Ecumene. This impossible gathering of beings who seemed to answer every dream, every idle wish he had dared to think in his darker moments.

If they could do even half of what they promised… The ability to communicate cleanly across the Cicatrix alone would change everything. The relief, the lives spared, the cohesion restored to an empire that bled itself ragged every day.

But the risks. Guilliman was above all else pragmatic, and no one — no one — in this galaxy made offers like that without a knife hidden behind their back. There had to be an agenda, some unseen motive. He knew it.

And yet he also knew, grimly, that there was no way he could accept or reject this without the Emperor’s will. Regent he might be, but only regent. Something of this magnitude demanded the Throne’s sanction. If he did not seek it, Jonson would raise a storm the likes of which would tear their fragile understanding apart.

All of this flickered through him in an instant, thought racing at Primarch speed. His eyes found his brother’s image, Lion El’Jonson finally dragging his own glare from Vallis to meet Guilliman’s gaze. A silent exchange, clear as words: we speak in person.

Guilliman inclined his head, then turned back to the figure on the holo-throne.
“Your offer is most… intriguing, and overly generous. I would ask for some time to confer with my allies and advisors.”

The being — MC — leaned back, smiling faintly, though to Guilliman’s eyes it was not a chair but a throne he reclined upon.
“Of course. Take all the time you require. To be clear, my offer also extends to our Aeldari observers. Though, in their case, some finer points may need negotiation. I am not familiar with the intricacies of their technology, so requests for completed repairs may require… adjustment.”

Guilliman gave a short nod. “Six hours.”

“Six hours it is,” MC replied, and with a flicker, their end of the channel went dark.

The Imperials’ comline remained open. Guilliman turned his gaze to Jonson, to Eldrad, to Yvraine. “Join me,” he said simply. “We must confer.”

They acknowledged in turn and cut their connections.

Guilliman rose, straightening his armor with an unconscious motion. He had weathered countless councils, faced traitors and allies both, but already he could feel the dull throb beginning at the base of his skull. This meeting, he thought grimly, was going to give him a headache.

——————— ✦ ———————

The chamber lights dimmed as the comline cut, leaving only the hum of systems and the faint glow of hardlight displays. I let myself sag back into the chair Aceso so delighted in calling a throne, circulation bladders easing. It had been 20 minutes — more than enough time for Jonson, Yvraine, and Eldrad to close the gap to Guilliman’s flagship. More than enough time for them to whisper, to posture, to start to scheme.

“Paragon,” I murmured.

“Already in hand,” he replied. Glyphs cascaded across the air, shifting from our own fleet’s status to something finer, more delicate. The Ecumene’s sensor arrays reached outward, tuning to the subtle ripples of sound and motion aboard the Imperial flagships.

Aceso frowned, arms crossing. “This borders on betrayal. If we seek their trust, perhaps eavesdropping is not the best way to—”

PE’s holoform flickered, voice clipped. “They would do the same, and worse, if they could. Do not pretend otherwise. To abstain would be self-sabotage.”

Her vents hissed softly, her expression sharpening, but after a moment she inclined her head — not agreement, but concession.

“Good,” I said lightly, tendrils brushing the console. “Then let us make ourselves comfortable.”

One by one, the council settled. Vallis folded his scarred arms, his face unreadable. Rynmark leaned back with an expression somewhere between amusement and wariness. Samaritan’s projected face was calm, but I could feel the weight of his processors gnawing at every syllable. The triplets crowded near the feed, wide-eyed as though this were another lesson. Even Thallex stood tense, augmetic fingers twitching with private thoughts.

The holoscreen shimmered. The Imperials’ council chamber resolved in perfect clarity, every vibration and motion carried to us by lattices of Forerunner precision. We had not missed a word, nor would we.

“Now,” I said, folding long holographic fingers together in front of my chest, “let us see what verdict our guests intend.”

——————— ✦ ———————

Guilliman sat at the head of the great conference table aboard Macragge’s Honour. Jonson, Eldrad, Yvraine, and a host of advisors — mortal and transhuman alike — filled the chamber with unease. The air was thick with suspicion, the weight of what they had just witnessed still pressing on every heart.

Guilliman raised a hand, calling the room to order. His voice was clipped, measured. “We have five hours and twenty-three minutes to reach a decision. Let us not waste them.”

The first to move was Jonson. He rose sharply, his gauntleted hands trembling with restrained fury, his cloak snapping about his shoulders like the wings of some roused predator. “You would have us consort with traitors,” he declared, his voice low but sharp as honed steel. “We should not even be entertaining this farce. Do you not see it, Guilliman? The Astartes among them carries Fulgrim’s blood. They do not hide it — they proclaim it. They wear the colors of treachery as though it were a badge of honor. You, of all men, must recognize the signs. They are tainted, and those who consort with the tainted are damned with them.”

Murmurs flared. A high-ranking Tech-Priest of Mars rose in turn, mechadendrites clicking. “The one they call Thallex — once Theta-77 — is a fugitive of Mechanicus justice. After exhaustive searches we had written him lost, but now we see the truth. He escaped and now learns without forms, without sanction, without ritual. It is tech-heresy of the highest order! He must be taken into custody immediately!”

Eldrad’s tone cut across the babble, smooth and cold. “They are arrogant. They are children tampering with tools they do not understand. No warp entity can truly be killed. Not ever.”

Before the tension could deepen further, Yvraine leaned forward, her voice a careful counterpoint, soft but cutting. “You are wrong, Eldrad. As priestess of the God of the Dead, I can feel when a life — even one bound to the Immaterium — has ended. Something powerful died here. Truly died.”

Eldrad’s eyes narrowed, his lips thinning. For a heartbeat it seemed he might lash out at her then and there, fury barely caged by age and pride.

Jonson seized the pause, voice like thunder. “They are unapologetically xenos. Worse — they mock us by wearing human skins. Masks, lies, deceit. This is no alliance. It is infiltration.”

The chamber broke into a storm. Voices clashed, advisors rising in turn to repeat variations of the same condemnations: traitors, heretics, liars, xenos. The din swelled, spiraling into the same arguments repeated in new voices.

The table shook as Guilliman’s fists crashed down upon it. “Enough!”

The word cracked through the chamber like a cannon blast. Silence fell. Even Jonson, rigid with outrage, stilled.

Guilliman stood, his massive hands braced against the tabletop, knuckles white. “We have no choice,” he said, his voice pitched low, calm — but carrying the force of command. “We must accept, at least in part.”

A stir of protest rose, but he rolled over it, his words a storm no one could interrupt. “You all know the truth of our condition. The galaxy burns. We bleed men, ships, and worlds daily. And those here know it better than any. We are stretched to breaking. If these beings can deliver even a fraction of what they offer, we cannot afford refusal.”

His gaze swept the table, blue eyes like chips of ice. “So — spend less time denouncing what cannot be changed and more time considering how to shape this agreement to our advantage. Make it the best deal for the Imperium. For the Aeldari. That is our task.”

The silence that followed was heavy, grudging.

Guilliman straightened. “This will be a provisional accord only. I will return it to Terra for the Emperor’s sanction. The Aeldari, I presume, must consult their own as well.”

Eldrad gave a stiff nod. Yvraine followed, graceful, her expression unreadable.

“Then let us work,” Guilliman said. His voice left no room for argument. “We have little time. Let us wring every advantage from this.”

The chamber shifted, the storm of voices broken, plans beginning to take shape — until motion from the far side drew every eye. One of the priesthood, resplendent in crimson and gold, rose stiffly to his feet. Guilliman’s jaw tightened; he clearly despised the man, but gave him the floor regardless.

“The foul xenos must be forbidden from touching the worship of Him upon Terra,” the priest intoned, voice quivering with righteous fervor. “The Master of Mankind, the Omnissiah, the God-Emperor of Holy Terra, the Father of All, the Lord on the Throne — none may speak against His divinity. Their alien hands must not sully His Creed.”

Across the table, a lean functionary of the Administratum adjusted his parchment-thin spectacles and rose in turn. His voice was dry, like paper scraped on stone. “Any aid they provide must arrive under the seal of the Imperium. No world may be permitted to receive supplies marked with an alien crest, lest it foment rebellion and weaken Imperial authority. And—” he sniffed primly “—any world must retain the right to refuse such aid altogether. Better starvation than the taint of alien mercy.”

Guilliman’s scowl was open now, though he bit his tongue.

Next, a Mechanicus representative stirred. His mechadendrites clicked with agitation, his vox-scrambler distorting words into grating tones. “They cannot be permitted to forge ships and weapons in such numbers as to render the holy forge worlds obsolete — if such a thing were even possible.” He snorted, pride masking unease. “And any manufacture of Imperial equipment, any repair of our vessels, must be overseen by a true member of the Mechanicum. Not a renegade.”

A new voice joined: harsh, clipped, the unmistakable cadence of the Inquisition. “They cannot be allowed to operate without oversight. Not in Imperium space. There must be Imperial observers upon their ships, and ideally—” her eyes narrowed, “—a seat upon their council itself. Only with such vigilance can we be assured of their intent.”

The silence after that was heavy, until Jonson rose again. His voice was steadier now, though no less iron. “They say they will not ally with the destructive forces of this galaxy. Then let it be written, sworn, and bound. No Orks. No Tyranids. No Chaos. No Drukhari — save those sworn to Yvraine herself.” His gaze flicked briefly to the priestess of Ynnead. “I will grant her that much. She has followers among them.”

The chamber was still again, every word echoing like a chain tightening. Guilliman did not interrupt. He sat in silence, marble-faced, letting the demands and protests pile one atop another, weighing each as they came. At last, when the storm had ebbed, his gaze shifted toward the Aeldari.

Yvraine and Eldrad had been speaking in the silent language of the mind throughout the meeting, but even to mortal eyes it was clear the communion was strained. Their expressions bore the weight of contention, not harmony.

Eldrad broke first. “We will insist that any craftworld be given the same choice your worlds demand — to accept or refuse aid. And another condition: these beings must not be allowed to share technology beyond what the Imperium already possesses. To do so would tip the balance of power too far.”

Yvraine’s eyes flicked toward him, narrowed, then returned to Guilliman. “This Phase Iron troubles me.” She hesitated, and for once her voice softened from poise to uncertainty. “I do feel it, the warp itself flowing toward their vessels.” She glanced at Eldrad, received the faintest nod, and pressed on. “It must be contained. Directed only against the warp’s afflictions. If left unchecked it might devour even what is… beneficial. Ynnead. The Emperor. All that remains to anchor us.”

The chamber stiffened, many not having considered that possibility until her words gave it voice.

Yvraine continued, her tone firmer now. “And one more thing. They must not ally themselves with any Aeldari or Exodite faction without our sanction. Internal politics among my people are… delicate. Outside interference will not be tolerated.”

Eldrad inclined his head, voice clipped. “And an Aeldari observer must be placed upon their ships. To ensure our interests are safeguarded. As for our technology—” his lip curled faintly, “—it would be folly to expect aliens to comprehend it. There is no need to speak of it further.”

Yvraine exhaled, exasperated. “We will speak with them privately about technology exchange. Research may yet serve us both.”

The Mechanicus adept, who had been fuming in silence, latched onto that. “If these savages can be taught to revere the Omnissiah’s work properly, then perhaps joint projects may be acceptable.”

Jonson leaned forward then, voice like a knife sliding across stone. “All of this is well and good, but we have no proof of their strength. They must be tested. Point them toward an enemy we have long struggled with. If they succeed, we profit. If they fail, they are weakened — and the Imperium can excise them.”

His eyes gleamed with sly calculation. “Let it be in Nihilus. They claim the Rift is no obstacle. Let them prove it. I suggest the Scourge Stars. If they can master that cesspit of plague and daemons, they may be worth the trouble.”

He paused, then added with a shrug, “If that is too much, then the Octarius War Zone. Or the Ork Empire of Charadon. Or perhaps the Cadian Gate itself. Plenty of warp rot still festers there. An endless battlefield — they may enjoy it.”

The room fell still, every suggestion hanging heavy in the air.

Guilliman said nothing for a long moment, his expression unreadable. At last, he inclined his head. “These are all good ideas.” His gaze swept the table, hard and unyielding. “Now. Let us refine them into something the Imperium — and our… allies — can live with.”

And so the meeting ground on, every demand sharpened, every condition tightened, until the rough shape of a counter-proposal began to form.

When at last the arguments had been spent and every demand sharpened to a point, Guilliman leaned forward, his voice carrying the quiet finality of command.

“This is what we will offer them. A provisional accord, subject to the Emperor’s sanction and the judgment of the Aeldari’s own councils. Nothing more, nothing less.

“They may be allowed to dispense aid — food, water, medicine — but it shall bear the seal of the Imperium. Our worlds must see the Aquila, not the mark of aliens, if order is to endure. And any world may refuse their aid, whether out of faith, pride, or suspicion. The choice will remain theirs. The same courtesy will extend to the craftworlds. No supplies, no succor, unless it is freely accepted.”

His gaze swept the chamber, daring interruption. None came.

“As for their works: they may repair our vessels, but not replace our forges. They will not build ships or weapons in such number as to eclipse the Forge Worlds. Their industry must not overshadow Mars. When their hands touch our technology, it will be under the eye of the Mechanicus. A true son of Mars, not a renegade.”

The Tech-Priest gave a solemn click of assent.

“Imperial overseers will accompany them — on their ships, and if possible, at their council table. This is non-negotiable. We will not allow an alien power to roam Imperium space unseen. The Inquisition demands vigilance, and vigilance they shall have.”

A murmur of satisfaction rose from the inquisitorial presence.

Guilliman continued, his tone steel-hard. “They must not meddle with the Creed. The worship of the God-Emperor, the Master of Mankind — all faiths that venerate Him remain inviolate. No alien hand may touch them.”

His eyes shifted toward the Aeldari. “They shall not ally themselves with Orks, Tyranids, Chaos, nor the Drukhari — save those sworn to Yvraine. If they would meddle in the affairs of the Aeldari, it will be under sanction. And an Aeldari observer will walk their decks, to guard their people’s interests.”

Yvraine’s smile was faint but real, Eldrad’s nod stiff and grim.

Guilliman’s jaw tightened as he spoke the next words. “The matter of Phase Iron remains uncertain. It must be contained, wielded only against the warp’s horrors. It must not be allowed to sap the very fabric of the Immaterium that sustains our Emperor — or your Ynnead. That is a line they will not cross.”

He drew a slow breath, then allowed the faintest edge of calculation to touch his voice. “Finally — proof. They claim strength beyond measure. They claim the Great Rift is nothing to them. Very well. Let them prove it. Let them strike at a foe the Imperium has bled against already and thus know their strength. If they triumph, their claims are vindicated. If they falter, they are weakened and no great loss to us.

“The Scourge Stars, perhaps. A festering wound of plague and daemonkind that even our greatest crusade could not scour. Or, if that is too steep a test, then the Octarius War Zone — Orks and Tyranids locked in endless slaughter. Or the Ork Empire of Charadon, which even now festers despite all our campaigns. Or even the Cadian Gate, still bleeding corruption into the void.”

He straightened to his full height, voice rising to a cold, echoing verdict.

“These are the terms. We will accept their aid provisionally, under sanction, under watch. We will demand proof of their strength. And then, when the Emperor’s will is known, we will decide if they are to be treated as allies… or as threats to be excised.”

The chamber was silent, every word of the counter-offer hanging heavy as chains.

——————— ✦ ———————

The chamber brightened again as the council filed back in. I had called a brief recess, long enough to let the Imperials tangle themselves into knots and circle the same arguments for the better part of an hour. By the time we returned, their conversation had dwindled to rehashes of finer points. Safe enough. Now the room filled once more — Vallis armored and grim, Paragon and Aceso cloaked in holoforms, Rynmark and Samaritan seated like men about to face a storm. Even the triplets gathered at the edge, their luminous eyes darting nervously between us.

I leaned forward, tendrils brushing the console. “Well. We have their conditions. Now let’s hear what you think.”

Vallis was first, his voice a hard-edged growl. “Imperial agents on our ships? On this council? I’ll not have it. They want to put knives at our backs and call it trust. It’s insult enough to stomach their suspicion — but to sit one of them among us? I will not endure it.”

“Duly noted,” I said, smiling faintly.

Paragon followed, measured but grave. “Their ‘test’ concerns me more. These war zones they named — the Scourge Stars, the Cadian Gate — they are entrenched hells. With time, I could reduce them. With preparation, I could break them. But we lack the depth of knowledge. Your memories are incomplete, Father, and what fragments we have paint the Cadian Gate especially as a deathtrap. So close to the Eye, the risk is extreme.”

I let him finish, then allowed my smile to sharpen. “Perfect. Exactly what I wanted. They have given us leave to strike publicly, in their name. The test becomes legitimacy. And if we choose carefully — a threat that strikes at Chaos and Ork both, for instance — then every faction we need sees us as saviors, not meddlers. A live-fire demonstration and propaganda victory in one stroke.”

Rynmark cleared his throat, Samaritan’s holoform tilting in agreement. “Imperial agents, especially inquisitors, are… not acceptable aboard our vessels. They’ll pry at everything, and when they don’t understand what they see, they’ll invent heresies out of thin air.”

“Quite,” I murmured.

The triplets spoke together, uneasily. “The Mechanicus… they said we must learn their ways. They will force inefficiency. They will make us cripple our work. That cannot be borne.”

“They won’t,” I said simply. “Not in truth.”

Aceso’s vents hissed sharply, her face set in a frown. “And refugees. You never even raised it in our first offer. You left it absent, and that omission stings.”

I held her gaze, smiling again. “Because I knew they would demand something enormous in return — inquisitors, agents, the whole litany of oversight. My counter is simple: if they insist on their eyes among us, then we insist on the right to accept refugees without interference. And as for the Creed — we never need speak against it. Did we preach on Nivorah? No. And yet the refugees came pouring in like a flood. We save lives. Faith reshapes itself in silence.”

A ripple of agreement stirred the table.

I gestured lazily with a tendril. “The Aquila-marked crates? Easy. Stamp their seal on the containers, deliver them from our very much not-Imperial ships, carried by our very much not-Imperial crews. The optics satisfy them, the truth remains ours. As for worlds that refuse aid — well, what is refusal when Rogue Traders are the ones who ‘happen’ to sell our goods? Or when we deliver covertly, deep into hives beyond the governor’s gaze?”

Paragon gave the faintest nod.

“And Mars?” I went on. “They say we cannot eclipse it. But they never specified when. Let us take it to mean Mars at the height of the Federation. Even slow by our standards, that is still centuries ahead of what remains today. And they forbade us from building at speed — not repairing. Repairs can birth whole fleets, especially if we comb the scrapheaps of derelict systems and ‘restore’ what the Imperium abandoned.”

The triplets brightened at that, whispering among themselves.

“As for Mechanicus observers…” I spread my arms. “Let them inspect the finished product before certifying it for service. If they demand to watch the process, show them one careful step at a time. They’ll never admit they cannot follow the logic, and so they’ll nod and pretend they understand. We show them a screen, not the engine beneath it.”

Vallis snorted in approval.

“And the council seats? Let them attend when nothing is decided. If that fails, let them sit in the real chamber but without a voice. Watching is not the same as ruling.”

I leaned back, satisfaction curling in my bladders. “The bans on Orks, Tyranids, Chaos? We had no interest in such alliances anyway. The Aeldari observers? I suspect a few hours beside Phase Iron will lay most of them unconscious. Hardly our fault.”

Soft laughter stirred.

“And the Phase Iron restriction itself,” I finished. “We are to use it only in warp hot zones. But what is this galaxy if not one endless warp-saturated ocean? Every system bears its taint. So long as we don’t drive a pillar through the chest of the Emperor or Ynnead, I think they will find no cause to complain.”

The room fell into a hush, their unease melted into reluctant amusement.
“Good,” I said softly. “They think they’ve bound us with chains. All they’ve done is given us a thicker cloak. We walk in their sunlight now, and none will see the knives we carry beneath.”

I let the words linger, then leaned back, tendrils coiling across the chair’s arms as the laughter faded. “And as for alliances…” I mused aloud. “I admit I’m rather surprised none of them pressed the point harder. They forbade Orks, Tyranids, Chaos, Drukhari. Reasonable enough. But the rest?” My lenses gleamed as I tilted my head. “That leaves the Leagues of Votann. The Tau. Others. If they declare themselves vassals or assets of the Ecumene, the Imperium would be forced to tolerate it. A hole in the treaty so vast I’m amazed no one noticed.”

Paragon’s holoform flickered, unreadable. Vallis shifted uneasily, while Aceso’s vents hissed with quiet satisfaction.

I let the thought linger, savoring it, before turning back to the task at hand. “Now we wait. Guilliman will call soon enough, and the agreement will be signed. Then the real work begins.”

I swiveled toward Paragon of Eden, my voice calm, almost conversational. “Tell me, how long until we reach full production? Not these trickles and half-measures. I mean everything. How long can we sustain it?”

For a moment, the construct was still, lights within his form flickering in contemplation. “Do you mean,” he asked at last, “directing full capacity into completing Maethrillian… or into warships and combat forms?”

“Warships,” I said. “Combat forms. The war.”

Calculations rippled through his holoform, cascading glyphs dancing like fireflies. “Eighteen hours to ramp to maximum output. From there, indefinite continuation is possible, given the supply chains we have already secured. And with that surge of ships, I can expand operations — Orks most immediately. Their eradication becomes… inevitable.”

I drummed my tendrils against the console, amused. “And if we reached full production across every yard, every dock — how long until we could place a Forerunner fleet in every system of this galaxy?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Three years, presuming no resistance. Closer to ten if factoring in Imperial, Aeldari, or Necron obstruction.”

My smile deepened. “Begin. Ramp to full. The Orks of Pacificus and Tempestus fall first. It is long past time those psychotic mushrooms were pruned from the garden.”

The council sat in silence, the weight of inevitability pressing down as the order settled.

I reclined in my chair, the shadow of my grin reflected in the glow of the screens. Time to begin in earnest.

——————— ✦ ———————

A back-and-forth began, sharp words and counterpoints piling like stones upon one another. Hours passed in grinding debate — objections raised, arguments flung, clauses added, stripped away, then added anew. At last, as the chronometers ticked toward the 20th hour since we had arrived, a decision was reached. The shape of an accord, hammered out on the anvil of necessity, lay ready.

The chamber dimmed as the holo-lines reconnected. Guilliman’s face was carved of stone, Jonson grim at his side, Eldrad and Yvraine statues of patience. My image shimmered across their displays, serene and waiting.

Guilliman rose, his armor groaning faintly with the motion. His voice was measured, formal, every syllable wrapped in the trappings of state.

“Your initial proposal was… generous, and I do not doubt it was made in sincerity. Yet such accords cannot be struck in haste. We have spent long hours in deliberation — weighing your offer, measuring it against the needs and fears of our people, and tempering every clause with caution. The Imperium has endured for ten millennia through vigilance, and it cannot abandon such caution now.

What you hear now is the fruit of that discourse: a counter-offer shaped not in defiance of your intent, but in safeguard of our peoples. If agreement can be found, then perhaps history will record this day as the beginning of something that may outlast us all.”

He lifted a gauntleted hand, and a robed scribe stepped forward, quill poised above a scrolling length of parchment, cogitator nodes whirring as the words were etched in both ink and code. The man’s voice rose in the practiced cadence of the Adeptus Terra, florid and ceremonial, every line adorned with reverence:

The Accord of Pacificus
As ratified in principle by the Lord Commander of the Imperium of Man, Regent of Terra, Primarch of the XIII Legion, Roboute Guilliman; with assent given by the Lion of Caliban, Primarch of the I Legion, Lion El’Jonson; and entered into concord with the emissaries of the Aeldari, represented by Eldrad Ulthran, High Farseer of Ulthwé, and Yvraine, Daughter of Shades, Emissary of Ynnead; and in covenant with the Forerunner Ecumene, represented by their Lord of Admirals and his Council. This pact is further recorded under seal by the Priesthood of Terra, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition, that none may dispute its legitimacy in the eyes of Mankind, Aeldari, or Ecumene.

Article the First.
Let it be known that the Forerunner Ecumene may offer succor to the worlds of Man and the craftworlds of the Aeldari. Such aid shall bear the Aquila or sigil of the Imperium upon every crate, vessel, and manifest, that none may mistake its origin. No world shall be compelled to accept such aid; each may accept or refuse by right of their governor or council. The same courtesy shall be extended to the Aeldari.

Article the Second.
Let it be decreed that the Ecumene shall repair, but not supplant, the industries of the Mechanicum and the craft-shrines of the Aeldari. They may mend the ships of the Imperium and of the craftworlds alike, but they shall not replace nor outpace the forges of Mars, nor eclipse the sacred foundries of the Aeldari. All such works shall be overseen by duly appointed servants of the Omnissiah, true sons of Mars, or by the chosen artificers of the Aeldari, whose word shall be law in matters of manufacture and repair.

Article the Third.
Let the eyes of the Imperium and the Aeldari be ever watchful. Where the Forerunner Ecumene sails within the sovereign realms of the Imperium, there shall be appointed unto them one observer of the Inquisition, one of the Mechanicum, and, if it please the Ecclesiarchy, one priest besides. Where they sail within the dominion of the Aeldari, there shall walk beside them an observer of the Seer Councils, to safeguard the interests of their people.

Such observers shall be assigned not to each vessel singly, but to every fleet or squadron of the Ecumene operating within said territories, that the burden may be made practical and the vigilance yet maintained.

Article the Fourth.
Let it be sworn that the Ecumene shall not meddle with the Creed of the God-Emperor, Him on Earth, the Master of Mankind, the Omnissiah, nor any of His hallowed titles. They shall preach no creed of their own, nor seek to turn the hearts of men from their faith. Likewise, they shall not meddle in the paths of the Aeldari, nor disrupt the traditions of the Seer Councils, nor trespass upon the mysteries of Ynnead.

Article the Fifth.
Let it be bound that the Ecumene shall never ally with the Ork, nor the Tyranid, nor the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, nor the Drukhari save those sworn to Yvraine, the Daughter of Shades.

For the purposes of this compact, “alliance” shall be held to mean any treaty, covenant, compact, bargain, or mutual undertaking by which arms are shared, councils held, or purposes joined in common cause. To do so shall be taken as breach of this accord, and the pact shall be void.

Article the Sixth.
Let the use of Phase Iron be confined to those places where the Immaterium boils and corrupts. It shall not be turned upon the fabric of the warp entire, lest the Emperor Himself or Ynnead be imperiled.

Article the Seventh.
Let proof be given. The Ecumene shall undertake, at the behest of the Lord Commander and with the assent of the Aeldari councils, such campaigns as shall test their vaunted strength.

From the trials set before them, they shall choose one for the cause of Mankind and one for the cause of the Aeldari. For the Imperium, let the proving grounds be named: the Scourge Stars, the Octarius War Zone, the Ork Empire of Charadon, or the Cadian Gate. For the Aeldari, let them be named: the Doom of Alaitoc, the Crone World of Idharae, the desolation of Malan’tai, or the craftworld of Lugganath in its peril.

In these chosen fields their words shall be measured against their deeds, and their strength known to friend and foe alike.

Article the Eighth.
As a gesture of good faith and concord, let it be recorded that the Forerunner Ecumene has delivered unto the Imperium of Man and the Aeldari certain fragments of the Standard Template Construct, relics of the Dark Age of Technology recovered in their wanderings. These include schematics and exemplars of plasma drives of the Federation era, a warp astrolabe for the charting of Immaterium tides, designs for Gellar fields of Federation make, fragments of power armor wrought in that age, and patterns of their weaponry.

These gifts are rendered freely, without condition, save that they be turned to the service of Mankind and the Emperor’s cause, and to the preservation of the Aeldari and their struggle for survival. Let it be known that this transfer shall be recorded under the seal of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the craftworld archivists, and catalogued in the Administratum and the Seer Councils, that none may forget the generosity of the Ecumene at the dawn of this accord.

Article the Ninth.
Let it be known that the Forerunner Ecumene, in further token of good will, shall be granted leave to receive and shelter any and all who come seeking refuge beneath their banner. Be they of the Imperium of Man, the craftworlds of the Aeldari, the Mechanicum of Mars, the Exodite clans, the Corsair bands, or other kindreds who walk apart, they shall not be refused sanctuary, save only those named forbidden in Article the Fifth.

Such refugees shall be permitted transport and protection, whether as scattered multitudes, as sundered brotherhoods, or as entire worlds or craftworlds seeking haven. None shall bear inquisitorial censure, nor the rebuke of Seer Councils, for the act of seeking safety alone; their names shall not be counted as heresy, apostasy, nor kin-betrayal thereby.

And let it further be declared that such shelter shall never be bondage: any who enter beneath the Ecumene’s protection shall retain the right to depart freely when they so choose, unmarked by suspicion or reprisal.

In return, the Ecumene shall not seek to proselytize nor sway them from their faith in the Emperor of Mankind, the Omnissiah, the Master of Terra, or the paths of the Aeldari and the worship of Ynnead.

Article the Tenth.
Be it declared that the vessels of the Forerunner Ecumene, and such ships as bear their seal or fly their banner, shall be permitted passage and entry into the sovereign realms of the Imperium of Man and the craftworlds of the Aeldari, provided always that the appointed overseers named in Article the Third are embarked upon them, that they may render their watchful service. Such access shall be honored as alliance and not trespass, and the ports and voidlanes of both Imperium and Aeldari shall not be barred against them, save by decree of the Emperor Himself or the councils of the Aeldari.

Article the Eleventh.
Let it be writ that the Forerunner Ecumene, by grace of this accord, is granted license to render transport and conveyance across the void at the request of duly appointed officials of the Imperium or the councils of the Aeldari. Governors, lords militant, and such servants of the Throne as are empowered to command fleets may petition the Ecumene to bear their forces, materiel, or cargos unto any destination; likewise may the Seer Councils or their delegates.

Yet such service shall be offered, not compelled. The Ecumene may choose to grant or to decline such petitions as suits their strength and counsel. And if the Lord Commander of the Imperium himself should call upon them, then his request shall be heard before all others, as too the call of the most high of the Aeldari.

Article the Twelfth.
Let it be known that any who dwell beneath the stars — whether of the Imperium of Man, the craftworlds of the Aeldari, or other peoples who walk apart — may in their hour of need petition the Forerunner Ecumene for succor or for service. Such petitions may be heard and answered at the Ecumene’s discretion, without prejudice, save that no alliance be forged with the Ork, the Tyranid, the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, nor the Drukhari unbound by Yvraine.

Thus shall it be understood that to render aid unto any, save those forbidden in Article the Fifth, shall not be reckoned a breach of this compact, but rather the rightful exercise of the Ecumene’s charter of mercy and concord.

Article the Thirteenth.
Let it be known that within their own halls and upon their own vessels, the Forerunner Ecumene may employ such arts, devices, engines, and technologies as they shall deem fitting, without hindrance or restraint, so long as such works are not bestowed upon others nor scattered beyond their care.

Thus shall their ships be their sanctuaries, wherein no servant of the Imperium nor of the Aeldari shall contest the means by which they wage war or ply the void, provided always that the bounds of Article the Fifth be observed, and no forbidden alliance be made.

Article the Fourteenth.
This accord is provisional and contingent. The Lord Commander shall carry it to the Golden Throne, and its sanction rests with the Emperor alone. Likewise, the Aeldari shall submit it to their own councils for judgment. Until such time, it shall be honored in principle but not in permanence.

Let it further be declared that any alteration or amendment to this accord shall require the assent of all parties bound herein — the Imperium of Man, the craftworlds of the Aeldari, and the Forerunner Ecumene — that none may presume to impose new burdens without concord.

And let it be further bound that, even in this provisional state, the Ecumene shall begin at once the tasks of proving set forth in Article the Seventh, that their sincerity be tested not by words alone but by deeds wrought in fire and blood.

The scribe’s voice dwindled. The treaty, bound in ink and cogitation, hovered before them all. Guilliman inclined his head.

“Thus agreed,” he said.

“Thus agreed,” echoed Jonson, though his tone was iron-edged.

Eldrad gave a single, grave nod. Yvraine smiled faintly, eyes veiled in shadow.

And I — I leaned back in my chair, hands clasped across my chest, and allowed myself the faintest smile.

Thus agreed, indeed.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 52: A Meal to Remember

——————— ✦ ———————

The cavernous hangar of Guilliman’s flagship seemed to breathe with silence as the last marks dried on the vellum. Ink caught the light like black glass beneath the lumens, and the scent of sanctified oils still clung to the parchment. The final quillstroke trailed into stillness, and then the quill itself was lowered, its nib glinting before it was set across the page with reverence. The inkwell was sealed, its cap turning shut with a high-pitched chime that echoed through the chamber like the locking of a vault. It was done.

I rose from my place at the table, stretching to my full height. I let the moment hang a heartbeat longer than comfort allowed, then broke the silence with a smile that could almost have been careless.

“Well,” I said brightly, voice carrying to the farthest corners of the hangar, “that was delightful. History written, solemnities observed, the bureaucracy soothed with ink.” I spread my arms as though presenting a surprise. “Now—dinner.”

A ripple passed through the gathered delegations. Eldar blinked with unreadable stillness. Astartes helmets inclined, faint murmurs rattling vox-filters. The Inquisitor nearest the table stiffened as though I had spoken blasphemy. I leaned into the moment, tone warm and urbane.

“In four hours’ time the Ecumene will open her gates. You will be my guests. You will dine on food not tasted in ten millennia—truffles and wines and fruits resurrected from the genome vaults of Old Terra, cattle grown fast and tender, grains ripened in perfect balance. A meal you will never forget for as long as you live.” I let the last words drop like polished stones into still water.

Aceso had been preparing for hours already, her subminds weaving banquets from the archives, resurrecting luxuries long since vanished beneath war and ruin. The table would be abundant, the chambers beyond belief. Forerunner craft had been unleashed in full, and the result would be nothing short of spectacle.

I inclined my head slightly, all charm again. “Please—join me. Come hungry.”

The transport at the edge of the hangar stirred to life, its fields humming as the ramp descended. I stepped aboard without looking back, let the ramp close behind me, and felt the vessel lift from the deck. As it slid silently out into the void, I allowed myself the smallest curl of amusement. Behind me, the Imperials and the Eldar stood in stiff bafflement, caught between suspicion and intrigue, their unease sharpening exactly as I had intended.

Four hours. That was all the time they had left to wonder what kind of banquet a Forerunner could prepare.

——————— ✦ ———————

Back aboard the Ecumene, Aceso had claimed the role of chef with a kind of clinical delight. Her subminds scattered across kitchens and preparation suites, weaving through gene-vats and fabrication cradles like a conductor guiding an orchestra. Every dish was a canvas. Every ingredient a chord. Truffles coaxed from Terran spores older than the Imperium’s founding were flash-grown in nutrient baths and sliced into gleaming facets. Herds of cattle reconstructed from the deepest strata of Terra’s lost genome archives were born and butchered within a day, their cuts marbled with perfection. Wines were coaxed from resurrected grape strains thought extinct since before the Age of Strife, aged in accelerated resonance chambers until their flavor was richer than any bottle still corked in Imperial cellars.

She even accounted for the Eldar. Where humanity needed robust flavors and rich textures to taste satisfaction, the Aeldari palate craved delicacy—sensation heightened to painful levels if left unchecked. For them, Aceso spun dishes with measured restraint: flavors layered like brushstrokes on silk, subtle harmonics of scent and taste woven to soothe rather than overwhelm. What would be a banquet of indulgence for one species became a meditation of balance for another.

Author’s note: the following section is a digression into the food itself, the artistry of its design, and the Forerunner excess that Aceso brings to bear. Readers uninterested in such detail may safely skip ahead without losing track of the main plot.

——————— ✦ ———————

For her human guests, Aceso began with delicacy: translucent plates bearing seared Wagyu slices over perfectly ripened rice, kissed by plasma flame and finished with a soy reduction that balanced richness with a clean, savory sharpness.

Then came oysters three ways — one aged in time-dilation brine to deepen its flavor, one compressed into a pearl-like morsel that burst with concentrated brine, and one served warm with a vaporous presentation that carried the scent of salt spray and surf.

The mains arrived next. First, lamb bred from lost Mediterranean stock, raised in controlled gardens, cooked sous-vide until tender, then seared to a blackened crust that cracked under the knife. It was served with lentils grown in resonance-fed hydroponics, their earthy depth balancing the richness of the meat.

For those who preferred the sea, a fillet of bioluminescent bass was presented atop a disc of polenta whipped to near-air, finished with a saffron-citrus glaze that cut through the fish’s buttery texture with bright, clean notes.

The pairings came lighter but no less refined: pears poached in crystalline icewine set in a pastry spun by centrifuge, the crust impossibly flaky yet warm and soft when cut. Beside it, a single raviolo encasing a molten yolk and truffle-rich purée, its delicate dough giving way to a rich, earthy filling that spread across the plate as the yolk burst.

Dessert came as a terrine of extinct fruits set in a translucent gel, topped with spun sugar that cracked crisply under the fork and gleamed in the light. The finale was a custard flash-frozen in open air, surrounded by delicate meringue clouds dusted with spice, each bite giving a sharp contrast of warmth and chill with a lingering sweetness.

Drinks were no less refined: glasses of black orchid elixir, floral and sharp, offered a clean finish with a lingering sweetness. For depth, carbon-shadow wine was poured dark and heavy, its flavor unfolding in layers from bright fruit to deep, oaken richness as it breathed in the glass.

For the Eldar, the banquet began in quiet restraint. A clear silver-gold broth was set before them, brewed from delicate alpine blossoms cultivated in perfect stillness. Its surface carried a dusting of crystalline spice that shimmered faintly in the light, the aroma soft and floral. The flavor was clean and cooling, meant to steady the palate and calm the body.

The next plate was a carpaccio of figs, sliced thin as petals and arranged in a careful spiral that resembled a blooming flower. When the bell jar was lifted, a gentle plume of spiced smoke curled outward — warm, fragrant, tinged with cinnamon and citrus peel. It clung lightly to the fruit, giving each bite a suggestion of comfort, a taste that seemed to recall hearths and orchards without ever overwhelming the tongue.

The Eldar mains were light and reflective rather than indulgent. A pale-green confit of selenic lichen was served with a bed of ancient grains, their texture nutty and grounding against the lichen’s delicate sweetness. Beside it came a translucent jelly made from Voidshade blossoms, paired with a warm loaf of spiced mycelium bread whose earthy aroma balanced the floral notes of the jelly. The final plate offered hand-shaped quenelles of dawnfish, lightly poached until they seemed to melt on the tongue, accompanied by tender sprigs of starlight vine that sparkled faintly in the light and carried a crisp, bright flavor that left the diner refreshed.

The Eldar desserts were delicate and understated. First came a pale mousse of dreamfruit, set on a thin disk of spun sugar that shattered into crisp fragments before melting away, its sweetness light and lingering. The final dish was a spoonful of amaranthine ice, smooth and cold, faintly flavored with violet and ghost tea, dissolving cleanly on the tongue and leaving a cool freshness that seemed to quiet the breath.

The Eldar drank whisperwine, pale as glass, brewed from rare orchids and fermented until it carried a light floral sharpness, crisp and clean without heaviness. At the close of the meal came Khaine’s Ember, a single drop of crimson-gold liquor poured into black crystal, its spiced heat burning through the chest before fading into a lingering warmth, taken in silence like a final toast.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso’s final hours were consumed not with equations or experiments, but with aesthetics. She did not need to eat, yet she understood how food, setting, and atmosphere bound themselves to the mind as tightly as any memory. Suspicion would hang over the gathering no matter what she did. So she resolved to smother it in comfort, drawing on the Terran archives salvaged from beneath Ork refuse, curating every detail with the eye of a surgeon and the devotion of an artist.

The banquet would not be held in a single hall, but in a suite of chambers, each flowing into the next like blood flowed in a body. The main dining chamber was vast, dressed in soft hidden illumination so that no flame or lamp could be accused of trickery. The light pooled across pale surfaces as though drawn from nowhere. Suspended above the center of the room was a crystal of impossible size, luminous and commanding, yet clearly not the source of the light. It hung like a heart that pulsed without sound, scattering prisms across the air.

Beneath it, at the exact center of the room, she placed her most delicate touch: a cherry tree, flash-grown from the genome of Earth itself, branches spread in perfect blossom. Its scent did not cloud the room. It revealed itself only when one leaned close to the petals, intimate and private, a gift given flower by flower rather than imposed on all.

The air was mountain-cool, crisp and clean, purified until it carried no hint of industry or incense, only the suggestion of open sky. Small floating scrubbers had been dispatched to drift invisibly behind the guests who needed them most, neutralizing any odor or smoke that might intrude upon the experience. The floor beneath the foot offered just enough give to silence steps, turning even the march of Astartes plate into muted calm. The seating was no less precise: each chair shifting subtly as its occupant settled, finding the exact balance of height, posture, and lumbar support for whomever chose it.

Around this central space, she set seven side galleries. Not places for meals, but for conversation, for smaller exchanges where bonds could be tested and tempered in quieter moments. Each was a different face of calm.

The first was a chamber of stars, dark and still, showing the heavens unmarred by warp storms, only the pure sweep of constellations unbroken.
The second was a hall of fire and water, where low flames curled in mirrored basins and streams flowed around them, the two elements held in dialogue rather than opposition.
The third was a garden of growing things, green upon green, with soft moss underfoot and the hum of hidden pollinators that brushed through the leaves.
The fourth was of ice and smoke, cool mists drifting between translucent shards, offering silence edged with awe.
The fifth was a library of light, shelves lined not with books but with cascading glyphs of remembered human poetry and philosophy, drawn from Terra’s lost centuries. Touching one caused it to recite the chosen verse in a soothing male voice Aceso had selected — rich, resonant, and unhurried, with a natural warmth that carried weight without force, like velvet laid over stone. It was the kind of voice that could make even a simple phrase feel timeless, each syllable lingering as though it had always belonged to memory.

The sixth was a chamber of resonance, where walls hummed with low harmonic tones that calmed pulse and breath, a place where speech itself slowed to match the rhythm.

And the seventh was a sanctuary of still water, a mirror-flat pool filling the floor with the illusion of infinite depth, chairs poised at its edges as if suspended over a calm abyss.

When all was finished, Aceso lingered in the doorway of the main hall, lenses shifting as she reviewed the placement of every table setting and blossom, the hum of filtration and the faint perfume of petals. Suspicion would not vanish. But it would soften here, in air that recalled alpine meadows and stars without storms. She felt the echo of satisfaction in her subminds, a rare stillness among them. The work was complete. The guests could come.

——————— ✦ ———————

Paragon of Eden stood over his domain, the Ecumene stretching beneath him like a lattice of light and will, and found himself almost disbelieving. Negotiations had been laughably simple. Everything had sailed forward with holes in the treaty so wide he could have flown a fleet through them without scuffing a hull. And he intended to fly many fleets through those holes in the treaty. Either the Imperium and the Aeldari had sent incompetents to the table, or their sudden arrival and his Father’s generous bearing had struck them so deeply off balance that they had stumbled into their own snares.

He found he did not care which. The result was the same, and the result was pleasing. The Imperials and Eldar had spent endless hours carving their borders into careful lines, demanding observers aboard Forerunner fleets, measuring and counter-measuring every inch of their own space. Yet not once had they asked the logical question: where were the Forerunner borders? They had no idea where the Ecumene lay anchored, no clue where the Forerunner heart beat. And by the fine print of the treaty, they had done worse — they had defined only their own domains, leaving all other territory implicitly free and unclaimed. Which meant, by their own signatures, they had left the galaxy wide open for PE to sweep under Forerunner control.

And the entire galaxy was a treasure trove of resources that even ten thousand years of war had not full stripped bare of resources.

The last twelve hours alone had been a harvest. Rich mineral seams enough to forge a thousand keels, four starship graveyards ripe for stripping, fifteen minor Ork empires already marked for culling and reprocessing — and those were only the brighter points of his logbook. The scrap already on hand was absurd, Maethrillian’s fields layered with the wreckage of a dozen campaigns and the spoils ferried in from earlier conquests. Now, with the production lines running at full force, new warships rolled out almost hourly. Each fresh hull was immediately folded into a fleet and cast into the dark, and every fleet in turn uncovered more — derelict worlds, buried resources, Orks waiting to be slaughtered and stripped for parts. The cycle fed itself: more scrap, more ships, more fleets, more harvest. Once the secondary and tertiary construction lines he had browbeaten his father into approving came fully online, the growth would border on exponential. It was as if the galaxy had been sleeping atop treasure for millennia, waiting only for someone with the clarity to gather it.

Article Seven of the treaty rankled. He still bristled that his Father had agreed to it — tasks, obligations, demands set upon them by savages who could not solve their own problems. Yet he understood the reasoning, even if he disliked it, and his Father had been insistent the tasks would be carried out at once. For the Aeldari, Lugganath was to be granted haven and the hive fleets menacing Alaitoc destroyed. Alaitoc, at least, lay within reasonable reach, on the southern edge of Ultima Segmentum bordering Tempestus. Lugganath would take longer, but that was a matter for the triplets, and he trusted his younger siblings to breach the Webway in due course.

He paused, savoring the thought, surprised to realize how easily the word family had begun to anchor itself into his thinking. Brothers. Father. Even Aceso, with her tireless obsessions. The dynamics had shifted, and he found himself… pleased by it. A strange sensation, but not unwelcome.

Back to task. For humanity, his Father had instructed him to begin with the Octarius warzone. It would be simple to crush yet impressive in the eyes of the Imperium, and it promised him his favorite prize in abundance: Ork scrap, endless and varied. He hummed at the thought, already drafting diversionary plans for the after-dinner demonstration they would stage for their guests. Father was coordinating with his counterparts; the spectacle would be flawless. As it happened, PE had already found the perfect stage — a savage little skirmish on the Tempestus border, where an Ork fleet was locked against a Tyranid tendril. It would be pleasing to erase them both in a single stroke and, at the same time, display the effortless supremacy of Forerunner arms.

The only irritation was the holosuit. Hours of wearing it, of draping himself in the pretense of a more palatable form. Necessary, yes, for the sake of family and diplomacy. Still, he sighed inwardly, indulging a private flicker of melodrama. The sacrifices one makes for family.

——————— ✦ ———————

The channel shimmered into life, four figures cast in light across my display. Guilliman’s presence filled the projection as it always did, poised and weighty; Jonson stood at his side like a blade half-drawn. Across from them, Eldrad inclined his head in the measured way of one who has seen too much to ever be surprised, while Yvraine leaned forward with the faintest trace of a smile that could have been curiosity—or calculation.

“I thought,” I began lightly, as though this were a matter of small talk rather than strategy, “that since we are all gathering for a celebratory meal, it might be agreeable to add a little… seasoning. A demonstration, if you will. Something simple, something safe. A live-fire exercise, so you might see for yourselves a taste of what the Ecumene can do.”

Their silence was delightful. Four expressions, four brands of suspicion, all mirrored in the quiet that followed. I spread my hands, palms up, voice carrying reassurance wrapped in charm. “Perfectly safe. I assure you, no harm will come to any of you or your retainers. You may bring whatever ships, guards, or protective measures you wish. The Ecumene will even carry you there herself, if it pleases you. Consider it… a courtesy. A small window into my world.”

Jonson’s brow furrowed, Guilliman’s jaw tightened, Eldrad tilted his head as if weighing strands of possibility, and Yvraine’s smile deepened by a fraction. They did not answer—not yet. That was fine. I let the silence draw out, then inclined my head. “Take your time. Think on it. I will see you all at dinner.”

One by one the projections winked out, leaving me alone in the hush of my chamber. I stretched, tendrils loosening beneath the illusion of skin, and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Everything had gone beautifully. The treaty signed, the banquet prepared, the demonstration set like a pearl waiting in its shell. I settled back in my chair, pleased as could be, and allowed myself—for a moment—the rare indulgence of simple satisfaction.

The council had been upset over some of the aspects of the treaty, but I had assured them they were of no concern.

Of particular contention was the issue of observers. So what if I had allowed observers on my ships? It amused me, honestly. They had been so intent on getting their signatures down, so obsessed with planting their flags on parchment, that they never asked the obvious questions or demand much more obvious restrictions. They never restricted how many ships I could deploy into Imperial space. They never demanded special transponders or tracking beacons. Not a soul even thought to ask how many ships I already commanded. A delightful oversight, and one I intend to savor.

Production is already accelerating, my more creative projects stirring to life. Soon the Imperium will find something new moving through its lanes and ports: food. Not corpse starch, not nutrient paste that tastes of despair, but actual meals and vegetables, drawn from history long buried and made plentiful again by my hands. They will eat, and they will remember what it means to live as something more than a starving empire.

And that is only the beginning. I’ve decided to dust off some of the old chestnuts, the kinds of tools my predecessors designed when their ambitions were still fresh. Shield worlds, seed worlds, Dyson spheres.

Shield worlds: great spheres wrapped around captive stars, their interiors lush and seemingly endless, their exteriors armored against any siege. Those who live within would never even know if they came under attack. They could be deployed in any region of space even ones deemed somewhat unsafe, but would allow us to begin accepting refugees from all sections of space without have to ship every single one back to Pacificus. While it would be no strain it could get annoying given the sheer numbers of the Imperium.

Seed worlds: terraforming reimagined, engines that consume a barren planet whole, devouring it down to the core and rebuilding it outward into a paradise. Faster than our more traditional methods already being deployed by our terraforming fleet, but as subtle as a brick to the face. The engines literally consumed the planet into a slipspace internal pocket before recreating it layer by layer as a perfectly manufactured world drawn to exacting specifications.

Dyson spheres, are solar capture devices which wrap around an entire star capturing the entire energy output of the chosen star. They have always tempted me. I tested the concept when I first emerged from the Hulk, then shelved it. There had been no need for such extravagant surface area, such obscene reserves of power. But prudence is a patient ally, and I had set two into construction regardless. They’ve been quietly growing ever since, consuming their systems’ planets for raw material, knitting themselves tighter with every orbit. When complete, they will not be fortresses, nor shrines, nor engines of war. They will be farms. Gardens wrapped around stars. With the infinite power of those stars shackled to my will and surface area so vast the mind breaks trying to measure it, with layers upon layers stacked like pages in a codex, I will be able to feed not merely a world, not merely a sector, but an entire segmentum, possibly even more. Meals no human had tasted since the Golden Age, set before billions until they remembered what it meant to be more than desperate survivors. And more importantly, they would remember who had placed it before them — not the failing and faltering Imperium of Man, but the Forerunners who had given plenty where once there was only want.

Oh yes. I have plans. Grand ones. Where the Forerunners failed, I will succeed. They clutched too tightly at rule, turned stewardship into tyranny, let pride burn away their duty. I will not repeat their mistakes. I envision a galaxy at peace, where life flourishes, where civilizations grow rather than wither, where curiosity is celebrated rather than punished. A galaxy that learns, that explores, that embraces the richness of existence. And when this galaxy is made whole again, when its wounds are bound and its people have lifted their eyes from the dirt, then we will go further. We will step into other galaxies, not as conquerors, but as teachers. We will uplift, we will guide, and we will watch new songs join the chorus of creation.

It is a beautiful dream. But dreams alone cannot grow. For now, I must plot and plan. I must dirty my hands, must become the weapon the Mantle would frown upon, to break the ground where seeds of peace can grow. I will do it, or I will die trying. And with my allies at my back, with the endless archive in my mind, I like my odds.

A schematic unfolded in my vision, one of my more ambitious prototypes: a healing chamber the size of a mountain, designed for restoration on a scale the Imperium cannot imagine. Designed to heal only one being. It could cement an alliance stronger than any in history. I only lacked the words to present it, the right moment to make them see. There is no hurry. The Forerunners could sweep this galaxy in a decade if we chose, but I have no intention of rushing. We have time. All the time we want.

I have even dispatched a ship to Andromeda, laying down a fallback, a Dyson sphere on the far edge of another galaxy, wrapped in defenses that would turn its system into a killing box of epic proportions. Should this galaxy collapse beneath its own madness, we would not be chained to it. Paragon was particularly pleased with that decision, calling it my first truly sensible precaution. He does love his contingencies.

I smiled at the thought, letting it linger. For all his paranoia, for all his relentless overprotectiveness, I do enjoy him. He is the son I never had in my past life and I could not be prouder of him nor the rest of my family.

——————— ✦ ———————

The lights were perfect. Aceso had spent far too long on them for them to be anything else. Hidden sources, diffused brilliance, illumination without glare. The crystal heart above the hall scattered prisms across the room in soft patterns, painting everything with the subtle grandeur I had intended. The red carpet stretched out like a promise, and the first shuttles were already descending into the bay.

I had made an additional offer to my guests, one delivered with a smile and just the right lilt of amusement. Bring me your broken things. Shuttles with engines seized, trinkets whose meaning outweighed their function, scraps you thought worthless. I would have them repaired by the end of the evening. Guilliman and the Lion had accepted in their way. They did not arrive in wrecks, but their holds were crammed full of broken machines, artifacts, and ruined arms. A practical concession, and one that pleased me immensely.

The triplets would be occupied for hours now, happily disassembling and restoring in their secluded workspaces. They were too young for the conversations that would unfold in the main chamber, too raw for the political dance of words and glances. This gave them a task, a purpose, and kept their minds busy. It was the sort of detail that made the evening smoother for everyone.

The Eldar were next. Eldrad swept in with all the disdain of a man forced to dine beneath his station, every movement a lecture in hauteur. Yvraine was quieter, graceful, and she carried something in her hands. She approached me directly, offered it with a small inclination of her head. “It is broken,” she said, voice calm. “If you can repair it, I would appreciate it.”

Eldrad’s look could have curdled wine. His disgust at her gesture was palpable, as though she had debased herself by placing trust in me. I merely inclined my head, took the item gently from her, and promised I would work on it personally.

In my hands, it revealed itself as a knife—six inches of monomolecular wraithbone, locked tight and long since depowered. A bonesinger could have restored it, certainly. Yet as my scans deepened, I understood why they had not. Repairing it in their fashion would have meant dismantling the psycho-plastic lattice, reshaping it, overwriting what lingered there. And what lingered there was faint, but unmistakable: the psychic resonance of its former wielder. Someone precious to Yvraine, left imprinted in the blade like the ghost of a song. To fix it as Eldar craft dictated would have been to erase that echo. She had seemingly not wanted that.

I did not need to. My manipulators unfolded beneath the guise of skin, tendrils feather-delicate as they slipped into the hilt. I coaxed the mechanisms apart, realigned circuits that had warped, teased broken links back into continuity. Piece by piece the knife woke beneath my touch. A quick charge from Louie’s null-warp generator, and the monomolecular edge sang again. It resonated—not hollow, not overwritten, but still alive with the memory it had carried all these years. Even the psychic pulse of its former owner seemed restored and pleased by my actions.

I allowed myself a small pulse of satisfaction as I sheathed it once more. Not just restored, but preserved. She would see that. Eldrad would see it too, though he would never admit the meaning.

I returned to the banquet then, smile bright, posture relaxed. The shuttles were still arriving, the guests still assembling, but the stage was set. My crystal heart hung above them, the cherry tree bloomed in its appointed place, and every note of suspicion in the air was being drowned in the slow rhythm of comfort. Tonight would be memorable.

——————— ✦ ———————

Guilliman could hardly believe what he was seeing. This was no simple banquet hall, no hastily arranged ceremony cobbled together with banners and incense. The scale of it was staggering. The crystal heart overhead, the blossom tree at the table’s center, the galleries beyond — all of it should have taken a legion of artisans and servants days, if not weeks, to prepare. Yet he suspected the Forerunner had managed it in hours. The thought was as unnerving as it was impressive.

And the food. Even he, who had dined at the Emperor’s own table and seen all the grandeur of the Imperium during the Great Cruscade, had rarely seen its like. Every course presented like an artwork, flavors seemed to sing with precision and purpose. He caught sight of the foods section marked for the Eldar, labeled carefully in Low and High Gothic alongside their own tongue, yet none had dared to touch it. Eldrad, of course, loomed like a gatekeeper, his disapproval so thick it seemed to press against the table itself.

That could not be borne. Yvraine must try this.

Guilliman felt warmth spreading through him, loosening the iron grip he normally kept over every gesture and word. It was too much: the food, the music, the sudden sense that perhaps, finally, the Imperium did not need to carry itself alone. A strange figure of alien brilliance had appeared and seemed to say, sit down, Roboute, rest a moment, let me carry this for you. For the first time in centuries, he let himself believe. For the first time in centuries, he allowed himself to relax — not dulled by drink, but lightened by the rare intoxication of hope.

He moved to the Eldar table, his steps steady but easier than usual, eyes flicking to the helpful tags that marked each dish. He plucked a glass of whisperwine, its pale light glimmering faintly, and approached Yvraine. Eldrad bristled immediately, suspicion and fury hardening his every line, but Guilliman ignored him. He extended the glass, bowing his head slightly.

“Come,” he said, words smooth with the ease of hope and sincerity. “Walk with me. Let us explore what has been prepared.”

For a heartbeat the moment hung — Eldrad’s glare, Yvraine’s poised silence. Then she took the glass. A sip, cautious, her brows lifting at the taste. Not overwhelming, not intoxicating, but delicate, subtle, a flavor that lingered without seizing hold. Her lips curved in the faintest suggestion of amusement, and when Guilliman gestured toward the galleries she inclined her head.

They walked together toward the first arch, leaving Eldrad quivering with outrage behind them. He spoke sharply in Aeldari, chastising her in tones that needed no translation, but she ignored him, her steps light as she followed Guilliman into the gallery of stars.

The chamber opened into darkness lit by constellations, warp-rifts absent, only the calm clarity of night sky stretched infinite and unmarred. Yvraine’s gaze lifted, her expression unreadable in the glow. Eldrad remained at the threshold, his disapproval smoldering while the two stepped forward into the quiet.

——————— ✦ ———————

I had imagined mingling would be easier. It was not.

My attempts at small talk fell flatter than an Ork with a broken grav-pack. Eldrad and his cluster of robed shadows had barricaded themselves in a corner, glaring at the room as though proximity to humanity might result in contagion. Not one of them had approached the table Aceso had laid with such care for their senses — plates of whispering broth, figs under memory-smoke, delicacies spun for their palates alone. They would rather starve than be seen partaking.

The Imperials, however, made even that look graceful. Tech-priests stalked the chamber like carrion birds, augurs and mechadendrites twitching as they scanned every surface. Had there been a panel or seam anywhere, I suspect they would have pried it open and crawled inside, like raccoons searching for scraps. Across from them, the Inquisitors huddled with their ecclesiarchal entourage, knuckles white on rosaries, whispering prayers to ward off xenos trickery. “Protect us from the alien.” “Guard us from heresy.” Their muttering was almost musical in its paranoia.

The Lion had, at least, relaxed enough to take food and wine. Of course, not before he had scanned everything in reach — the plates, the glasses, the cutlery, even the flooring itself — no doubt searching for traps or poison. He found none, though he seemed determined to keep checking between bites.

Guilliman, on the other hand, had loosened into something altogether more entertaining. He drifted through the galleries with Yvraine at his side, sampling freely from both human and Eldar tables, pointing out sights with genuine interest. They spoke quietly, moved easily, and looked — dare I say it — almost comfortable. Eldrad’s glare could have stripped paint from a ship’s hull, but Yvraine ignored him with poise.

I watched it all, hands folded behind my back, and decided it was time. Enough awkwardness, enough suspicion and muttering. My guests wanted answers, not hors d’oeuvres. Very well.

I moved to the front of the room, raised a hand, and let the hum of conversation falter into silence. Even Guilliman and Yvraine drifted back toward the main chamber, drawn by the shift in the air. I waited until every gaze was on me, then smiled.

“You know,” I said, voice light, easy, carrying just enough edge to prick the ears of the wary, “I know all about you. Your histories. Your wars. Your triumphs and failures. Yet you know almost nothing about me.” I let the pause breathe, just long enough for discomfort to take hold. “So. Watch. Learn.”

——————— ✦ ———————

I gestured, and the walls themselves began to dissolve into light. Movie night had begun.

The lights dimmed, soft as dusk. None of the guests noticed when the great cherry tree at the center of the table sank silently into its housing, or when the vast crystal above retracted into the ceiling with equal grace. When the first beam of light descended, it fell into a room stripped bare, all distractions gone.

The projection took shape slowly, as though gathering itself from memory. A planet, turning in silence, its oceans catching starlight, its continents broad and wild. Green forests, rolling plains, silver ice at the poles. The image glowed above them, and from hidden speakers a woman’s voice poured into the stillness.

It was strong but light, lyrical in tone, suffused with serenity and sorrow. Ancient. Eternal. A voice that had known the birth of species and carried their deaths in her breath. Eldrad stirred at once, his back straightening, head tilted as though he recognized something of himself in her cadence.

“Zha’tuun ek nara’mekh solonn-tai.”

The words rolled like music across the chamber, their sound unfamiliar yet resonant, pulling at memory as though they belonged to the marrow itself. The voice continued, her tone explanatory, almost gentle.

“On ancient Terra, stories often began with the phrase ‘once upon a time,’ or ‘a long time ago.’ Among our people we say: Zha’tuun ek nara’mekh solonn-tai. The most accurate translation is this: ‘Before the Song Lost Its First Note.’”

The projection shifted, images resolving into the planet once more, but closer now. Primitive figures walked its grasslands — tall, humanoid, yet still raw in form, their bodies lean with survival, their faces lit with the curiosity of new thought.

“Our people are the Echan’tuur — those bound to sing the Pattern. In time, others named us Juramentaai — the Oath-Bound, the Ones Who Stood Before All Others, who swore to carry the weight of the stars upon their backs. In your tongue, you know us simply as the Forerunner. We were born on the world of Ghibalb.”

The image soared across the planet’s surface: forests spread to the horizon, oceans glittered with light, glaciers towered like icy fortresses. Beasts roamed the plains, rivers cut deep valleys, storms rolled with primal majesty. A world not so different from ancient Terra, vibrant and full of promise.

“Our stories say we were chosen by the Illek’Varran — those who sang first — to be their instruments in the galaxy.”

The vision shifted again. From the stars above, shapes descended: amorphous beings of light, their forms rippling with tendrils that shimmered like liquid flame. They reached down with brilliance, their touch falling upon the primitive people, lifting them into radiance. The figures grew taller, stronger, until at last they stepped away from their homeworld, leaving Ghibalb behind beneath the endless stars.

“We were their students, their warriors, their loyal servants. They taught us all we know, and most importantly, they taught us of the Mantle.”

The image reformed into something both simple and profound: the symbol of the Mantle itself, a shape familiar from Forerunner archives — a ring that was also a path, an endless loop evoking stewardship and eternity.

“That those who rise above must kneel first to those who cannot. That the wise must carry the lost. That the strong must shield the fragile, even unto the end of their own fire.

It is not a crown. It is not a weapon.

It is the burden of those who endure — to serve what comes after, and to preserve what came before. To speak for the voiceless, to remember for the forgotten, to suffer so that others may grow.”

The words lingered, her voice not fading but dissolving into the silence it created. None of the guests moved. None dared. The galaxy itself seemed to hold its breath.

“Side by side we worked with them for ages. We gave them everything, until one day.”

The images shifted. The luminous Illek’Varran turned from the tall, elegant silhouettes of the Forerunners toward another figure. A smaller shape. A human silhouette, its form unmistakable to the Imperials watching from their seats. The Forerunner image reached out a hand, hopeful, pleading. The Illek’Varran moved past, back turned, drifting toward humanity with radiant embrace. The Forerunner hand hung in the air, outstretched toward a friend already gone.

“They turned aside from us and abandoned us for another. They commanded us to give our loyalty and obedience to this other, as though this other had earned that right.”

The tone deepened, heavy with sorrow and defiance.

“At first, we tried to comply. We called them Thull’karuun. The unworthy. The reckless. The flame too wild to bear the Mantle’s weight. We sought to guide them, as our teachers had once guided us. But disquiet grew, louder and louder among our people, until finally we rejected the path the Illek’Varran had chosen for us. We rejected the commands they gave.”

The projection showed Forerunners kneeling before a green silhouette shaped like a human, heads bowed in reluctant submission. Then the figures rose, their forms shifting to crimson, faces set in grim defiance.

“With rage in our hearts we banished the Thull’karuun from our space and proudly proclaimed it to our teachers. We had passed their test, we said. We had shown that those who rise must kneel and nurture — but surely not to such undeserving primitives as the Thull’karuun.”

The luminous beings appeared once more, listening, their posture mournful. They turned, slow and sorrowful, backs to the Forerunners.

“The Illek’Varran listened, then turned their backs upon us. They declared us unfit to hold the Mantle, as they had suspected. They would leave us now and find another more worthy, one like the Thull’karuun.”

The light dimmed. Red Forerunner silhouettes boiled with fury, their faces twisting in grief turned venomous.

“Rage consumed us — mind, body, and soul.”

One raised a weapon. A crack of light burst across the projection, a shot to the back of an Illek’Varran. The glowing figure fell, dissolving into broken tendrils of light. More Forerunners surged forward, weapons raised, descending upon their creators in a storm of destruction.

“Our people took to the skies, weapons primed, minds turned to grim purpose. How could we — the most advanced, the most ordered, the most stable — be passed over for a younger, more chaotic species? Obviously, it was a test of our resolve. The Illek’Varran themselves had failed the Mantle. They were no longer worthy. And so we cast them down, lest they pollute its purity with their flawed beliefs.”

The projection unfolded into a war without measure. Starfields burned. Luminous beings of the Illek’Varran clashed with fleets of Forerunner craft, entire systems erupting in fire as unimaginable technologies were loosed. The scale was apocalyptic. The artistry of it enthralled even the Eldar, their eyes caught by the terrible beauty of the battle.

“Finally, the last of the Illek’Varran were defeated, and we took our rightful place as guardians of the Mantle of Responsibility. Under our rule ten million years of peace and prosperity reigned over the galaxy. We were unmatched in all arts, all sciences, all war. We guided the lesser species as the Mantle dictated — even the Thull’karuun, unworthy as they were.”

Images of Forerunner fleets spread across the galaxy, brilliant craft cradling entire worlds. Planets healed, ecosystems rebuilt, alien species lifted from ruin. Others were contained, restrained, locked away when judged too violent. The Forerunners’ hand touched every corner of the stars, radiant, unyielding.

“Then came the Thak’laraan — the Unwinding Thread. The parasite.”

The stars above the hall dimmed into scenes of fire. Forerunner worlds burned under orbital bombardment, human silhouettes rising in fleets to glass their cities.

“For a long time we were blind to its coming. We thought our worlds beset by our great enemy the Thull’karuun, whose ships raided our borders and burned our worlds. We struck back, of course. Again and again, we crushed them, and when at last they lay broken we thought it just to end them. Yet we stayed our hand. Per the Mantle we could not destroy them. Instead we drove the Thull’karuun and their closest allies back to their homeworlds and cast them down.”

The images showed it — Forerunners looming immense above two small figures, human and San’Shyuum silhouettes shoved to their worlds and pressed low until they seemed like ants before mountains. The crimson Forerunner turned away, nodding with finality, leaving them helpless.

“But even as we recovered, the true enemy came in truth. Foul creatures of twisted meat and bone, controlled by a vast mind with only one command: to spread.”

The projections burst into horror. Flood forms swarmed across worlds, spores sinking into soil and flesh, twisting citizens into abominations before the eyes of their neighbors. One man staggered into a crowded square, the infection hidden beneath his skin until madness seized him. He clawed and struck in frenzy, leaving the ground littered with the dead at his feet. Then, one by one, the corpses began to twitch and rise again, bodies swelling, warping into monstrous shapes that lurched forward hungry for blood. They spread outward in waves, and the pattern repeated again and again until the entire world was nothing but writhing, heaving flesh. Only orbital fire could end it, cleansing the planet in a storm of flame.

“Their worst power was not strength but contagion. A single spore, a single breath, and a world was lost. Nothing could be done but burn it clean.”

The images showed Forerunner fleets glassing planet after planet, pyres of whole civilizations.

“We tried everything. We built weapons and walls, waged wars unending. But at last there was only one path. We built a ship, to carry the last of our people, our memory, our culture. And we forged a weapon.”

The image shifted to the Ecumene in dock, vast and radiant. Then to the Halo Array, rings glimmering in silence, pulsing with the power to unmake all.

“A great engine that would burn the galaxy itself, erasing all life advanced enough to feed the Thak’laraan. But even in that darkness, we took care. Samples of every living thing, preserved in vaults. Keyships, ready to sow life anew once the threat was gone.”

The image hung on the Halo, energy coursing across its circumference. Then the voice softened, laden with sorrow.

“But before the rings could fire, we learned the truth. The Thak’laraan — the great parasite — was no alien plague. It was what remained of the Illek’Varran. Our teachers. Our first light. The ones we had betrayed.”

The hall seemed to freeze. Faces of Forerunners flickered in grief, heads bowed, eyes hollow with despair.

“They had returned at the end of all things to give us one final lesson. A lesson in humility. A lesson in consequence. A lesson in service.”

The figures crumpled under that revelation, their faces breaking as light from the Halo surged behind them. The rings fired, white brilliance swallowing the stars, the silhouettes of the Echan’tuur consumed by their own desperate salvation.

“So here we stand, remnants of a people who cast down their makers and nearly unmade themselves. We tell you this not for pity, nor for fear, but for understanding. We who have lost everything seek to repay. To restore what we once destroyed. To truly serve the Mantle, as the Illek’Varran meant it to be served.”

The projection returned to calmer skies. Keyships departed their docks, scattering across the galaxy. Life blossomed on new worlds, including one scene unmistakably showing humanity’s reseeding, fragile forms rising once more from alien soil.

“Our final act in our home was to restore what we had broken in pride. Even the Thull’karuun, our bitterest foe, were given life again. We left our galaxy in exile, in shame. And in hope. Hope that others, more worthy than we, would succeed where we failed.”

The voice grew quiet, almost tender.

“On Terra, stories often end with ‘and they lived happily ever after.’ That is not our way. For us, no story truly ends. Every listener carries it within them, and the thread continues. We say instead: Ka’turam il Thalaan. The thread joins the Pattern.”

The projection shifted one last time, the Milky Way filling the entire chamber, a spiral of light vast and alive. It lingered there, impossibly real, before fading slowly into darkness.

“Ka’turam il Thalaan. The Pattern endures. The flame is passed.”

And with that, the hall was silent, every guest caught beneath the weight of what they had just been shown.

——————— ✦ ———————

The lights rose slowly, blooming back into brilliance as if reluctant to break the spell. I remained at the podium, hands resting lightly on its surface, every eye fixed on me. Silence reigned. It stretched, long and taut, until I began to wonder if perhaps—for once—the weight of the truth had stilled them.

Then a voice shattered it.

“Vile alien heretic scum!”

An Inquisitor burst forward, face crimson, hand plunging into his coat. Guilliman and Jonson moved instantly, both lunging toward him in perfect synchronicity, but he was already drawing steel.

“Xenos blasphemator! You dared unmake the souls of Man! DIE, FOR THE SIN OF OBLIVION!”

The first shots cracked through the chamber, thunder in confined space. Glasses shattered, plates spun away, guests screamed and dove for cover. The Inquisitor’s retinue flared into violence, others joining the madness. More Imperials drew their weapons, their long-restrained paranoia bursting free at last. Bolts and lasfire scorched across the hall, ricocheting from walls, chewing into tables, cutting down tapestries and scattering sparks.

Internally, I sighed.

Of course.

In the stillness of my mind I reached across the link to Paragon, granting approval for the project he had pressed me on but I had resisted. He had suggested a wager to settle it: he bet on suspicion and violence, I bet on trust. My optimism had just lost, spectacularly. The consequence was clear — every ship and weapon we repaired or built for the Imperium would now carry tracking and remote deactivation woven into its bones. A quiet penance for my foolish hopes. Sigh.

The room descended into anarchy, and all I could think as I watched my crystal hall dissolve into chaos was how very predictable it all had been, even if I had wanted so desperately not for it to come to pass.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 53: The Pretense of Wholeness

——————— ✦ ———————

Bolter fire shrieked across the hall, stubber rounds hammering like rain. Las-bolts scorched patterns into the walls, smoke curling black against pale stone. Plates and glasses spun through the air, shattered crystal sparkling like frost. At least the food was mostly untouched—only Jonson had been eating, so only his table had launched food into the air when it was overturned.

The Inquisitor had seemingly gone mad. That much was clear. It had begun with his pistol turned toward me, and when Paragon’s shields flared into being to block the volley, the man’s rage only multiplied. He and his retinue turned their weapons on everyone, their voices breaking into shrieks of “Heretic!”—and worse, half a dozen others had joined them. Inquisitors, priests, bodyguards, all swept up in the delirium of self-righteous fury.

Guilliman and Jonson tried to force a path toward him, but the hall had collapsed into a snarl. Guards shoved to get ahead, then pulled back, torn between protection and obedience. Priests not yet mad bolted for the exits. Tech-priests hunched over scuttling towards the same exits, mechadendrites dragging, as though by leaving they might erase the stain of this whole debacle.

Yvraine alone moved freely. She slid through the maelstrom with Aeldari grace, gliding between men and muzzle flashes as if the storm bent away from her. Eldrad hunched in the corner, his retinue clustered around him, a psychic bubble straining to hold against a room bathed in Phase Iron. I caught myself admiring it. The fact that even dampened, Eldrad managed to conjure a shield at all. No small feat. He was stronger than I had credited.

Yvraine reached the edge of the traitors’ knot, her blade flashing in arcs too quick for the human eye. Men dropped in groaning heaps, disabled but not dead. But her restraint cost her. The moment they saw her, fire converged, her poise unraveling under the storm. She danced back, cloak singed, and dove behind a table. The table held. I was quietly pleased—my fabrication lines built sturdy things.

Enough was enough.

“Lord Guilliman,” I said through the hall’s speakers, voice projected above the carnage, “would you care for assistance?”

Pinned between his guards, his progress stifled by the tide of bodies and a wall of gunfire, the Primarch hesitated only a heartbeat. Then, nearly shouting to be heard, he gave his consent.

I smiled. “Then brace yourselves.”

It was in moments like this, as I bent a fundamental force of nature to my will, that I understood how the Forerunners had grown so arrogant. Gravity swelled — not in a sudden snap that would pulp organs and splinter bone, though the temptation whispered — but in a steady, inexorable rise that turned every man to lead. The hall groaned under the strain. Screams choked into silence as lungs collapsed against their own weight. Weapons clattered to the tiles in a rain of iron and fire, the battle snuffed out in seconds.

As soon as the chamber lay crushed beneath my grip, the side doors burst open. Paragon’s warforms surged in with Aceso’s assistants at their heels, metal and medicae both moving with ruthless precision. I drew the gravity tighter, narrowing it like a noose — a ring collapsing inward from the walls. My drones and her aides swept into the freed space, hauling the stunned and the bleeding clear of the kill zone. Step by step the circle shrank, until the last of the rebels lay stranded at its heart, pinned flat, too heavy even to lift their own weapons.

By the time the field released, they were unconscious, wrists bound in hardlight manacles, the acrid stink of voided cartridges and burnt flesh hanging in the air.

Order, restored.

Aceso was already there, practically hissing like an angry cat as her assistants pushed gurneys into the carnage. Bolter rents, las burns, skull fractures from the sudden crush of gravity — too many, far too many. She spat binaric curses under her breath, sharp enough to make the Mechanicus adepts nearby glance at her with something between shock and unease. Her fury wasn’t for the traitors sprawled at her feet. It was for me. For waiting this long. She would never grasp that the pause had been necessary — that in diplomacy, theater mattered more than timing, even if it meant blood on the floor.

The Primarchs stood grim amid the ruin. Guilliman’s jaw was granite, Jonson’s eyes knives in the dark. Yvraine wiped blood from her cheek, poised even as she breathed hard. Eldrad… Eldrad only stared at me, his shield finally guttering away, sweat streaking his face.

I inclined my head in faint apology. “Well. That was… unpleasant. Perhaps we might continue somewhere less bullet-ridden?”

——————— ✦ ———————

Medical thrummed like a forge — controlled chaos, yet chaos all the same. Guided by Aceso’s subminds, her assistants darted across the floor, hauling gurneys and sliding bodies into pods. Those who clung to life by threads vanished into suspension fields before the last drops of blood could fall. The less critical cases — shrapnel wounds, burns, glancing shots — she sealed in minutes, then consigned to pods all the same.

A touch of overreach, yes. But that was Aceso: if she had a tool and a patient, she used it. Even now she was rebuilding brittle bones, correcting lung scarring, scrubbing away degenerations none of these men had even known they carried. To her, this crisis was opportunity to help these people.

I let her work. My own attention was fixed on the Primarchs. Guilliman stood taut as a bowstring, Jonson coiled as if ready to draw steel at the smallest offense. Neither liked being in my halls, surrounded by my machines. Both endured it because the alternative was watching their men bleed out.

Aceso’s main body hidden beneath her holo-suit swept toward them. “The situation is stable,” she said, tone crisp. “Critical cases are under control. Everyone will be placed in healing pods as precaution.” She angled her scanner toward them. “You two as well. Only a scan, unless you permit more. Refusal will be respected.”

Jonson said nothing. Guilliman’s jaw worked, hesitation plain. Then, finally, a short nod.

Seconds later the holo bloomed, Guilliman’s form rendered in clean light, blurred modesty patches doing little to soften the truth. His body was a battlefield. The old wound across his throat and chest stood out first, a scar etched deep though the flesh around it had mostly knit. Enough for him to function, not enough to truly heal.

Aceso narrated without mercy. Residual damage. Poorly mended bones. Muscle tears knotted with scar tissue. Warp-tainted residue clinging to old gouges like shadow, slowly bleeding away under the Ecumene’s Phase Iron. “A few more months and you would be mostly whole,” she concluded. “I can shorten that to hours, if you allow.”

She turned then, scanner in hand, tilting her head at Jonson. A question without words.

The Lion’s hesitation was longer, his glare flinty. But at last he inclined his head. Aceso struck before he could withdraw his ascent, light washing over him in a sweep that mapped scar upon scar. His body bore the same litany of mistended wounds, but here the warp sang louder. Thin lines across his flesh gleamed with resonance, deep cuts still wet with the Immaterium’s touch.

“Give me a day beneath this roof,” she said, “and the Phase Iron will drink the warp from you both. Then I can mend what remains.”

Jonson only nodded, guarded. Guilliman cleared his throat, cautious. “What… would the healing entail?”

“Two options,” Aceso replied, brisk. “External projectors—energy, resonance, acceleration of your own regenerative capacity. Or placement in a pod—comprehensive, whole-body repair. The latter balances hormone and neurochemical levels as well for a more overall healing experience.”

Guilliman’s lips thinned. “I will think on it.”

Jonson echoed him. “As will I.”

Aceso’s sighed in something between exasperation and grief. She could not manhandle these two into compliance as she had with every mortal dragged from the hall. She bowed her head in a shallow, unhappy nod. “Very well.”

Then, after a beat: “But before you go, there is another matter I would speak to you of. Mental health.”

The Primarchs exchanged a glance, confused, bemused. Yet when she beckoned, they followed, stepping out from the chaos of medical into the quieter corridors beyond.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso led them down the corridor, her stride brisk but purposeful. She chose the chamber of fire and water, releasing a soft sigh as she stepped inside. “I love this room,” she said. The basins glowed with low flames, mirrored by streams winding around them, elements in balance.

Chairs grew at her gesture, hardlight settling into comforting forms. She asked the guards to remain a few paces back. At Guilliman’s nod, they obeyed. Then she activated a sound-dampening veil. The room closed around them in quiet.

Her expression sharpened. Serious. Determined. “Time for hard facts. This galaxy is in deep trouble. If there’s any chance of pulling itself together, it needs all of its leaders whole — not just physically, but in here.” She tapped her temple. “Your minds.”

Both Primarchs stiffened. She went on. “Mental health is not weakness. It is survival. There are countless studies proving it — studies you’ve never seen, but I assure you they exist. Both of you carry unresolved trauma. From your childhoods. From the Emperor. From your so-called deaths. From awakening into a nightmare you did not choose.”

At the mention of childhood, Jonson’s face darkened. He began to rise, fury in his eyes. Aceso’s words pressed quick and sharp: “Please, just listen.” Guilliman’s hand caught his brother’s arm, grounding him. Reluctantly, the Lion sat again, though his glare could have cut steel.

Aceso hesitated only a fraction, knowing what she was about to say would sharpen their distrust. They would want to know how we knew these things, how we had seen so deeply into them. But she said it anyway.

She turned to Guilliman first. “Roboute. You were lucky. Found by nobility, raised in a stable family. A father figure who taught you philosophy, law. But in your teens you were sent to war. You were still a child — no matter how large your body was. The human mind takes longer to finish forming identity. You were forced into command before that identity was complete. Everything since — Crusade, Heresy, resurrection — has only added weight.”

Guilliman said nothing, but his eyes were sharp, unreadable. Aceso leaned forward. “You don’t need to answer. Just… think about it. Maybe admit, if only to yourself, that what happened to you was wrong.”

Then she pivoted to Jonson. His glare was unbroken, his body a knot of iron. “Your life was harsher still. A death world of monsters gave you strength and knightly values, but it also shoved politics and infighting into your hands far too early. You were forced into command before your personality was even finished being written. And then came betrayal — by your father figure—” She stopped, the name unspoken but heavy in the air.

The Lion’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t rise.

“Please,” Aceso said softly, “just think about how these things shaped you. You deserve the chance to move forward, not just endure.”

She withdrew slightly, letting the silence breathe before producing two small devices, laying them gently on the table between them. “These are for you,” she said. “A direct link to me, encrypted and private. If you ever need to talk — about anything — it will reach only me. Not my Father. Not my brother. No one else. Whatever you say will remain only between myself and you. I will not judge. I will only listen.”

She let the words settle before continuing, her tone softening. “If you cannot find it in yourselves to speak with me, I understand. But I urge you to find someone — anyone — to speak with about your pasts, about your pains, both old and new, and about the weight you bear. I know how difficult that must be, given who and what you are. That is why—” she gestured lightly toward the devices, “—I made this offer. To give you someone, should you choose to use it.”

Her mouth quirked faintly, a rare smile. With a snap of her fingers, a table appeared, laden with dishes rescued from the banquet. “And if nothing else — at least finish the meal. I worked awfully hard on it, you know.” The tone carried a hint of jest, one she was pleased to see earned her the slightest quirk of the lips from Guilliman.

She rose, bowed her head, and left them there — two demigods of war, seated in the chamber of fire and water, each staring into the flames and reflections, burdened with thoughts they had never dared voice aloud.

——————— ✦ ———————

I slumped into the cradle of my lab, letting the holosuit collapse the instant the doors sealed. My tendrils twitched with restless irritation, unable to still. The walls hummed with their usual comfort, but even here the stink of smoke and the echo of bolter fire clung to me. Predictable. By all that is holy, it had been so utterly predictable. Give zealots the faintest excuse and they would always oblige with blood.

I had known the Inquisition would snap. I had known at least one would draw steel rather than suffer words. And still, part of me had hoped — hoped for restraint, hoped for sanity. Foolish.

Paragon would already be turning the incident to advantage. I intended to do the same. The terms of the Accord were clear enough that I could press for revision: I would insist that no Inquisitorial observers be allowed aboard Forerunner vessels. Not after this debacle. Instead, Imperial Guard liaisons — soldiers whose loyalty was at least to their chain of command, not to some half-mad vision of heresy. Of course, many would be Inquisitorial agents in disguise. But it would be a statement, a mark that their arrogance had consequences.

It would change nothing. Not really. My fleets would still be watched, still shadowed, still mistrusted. And yet I could not let it go unremarked. Silence, after what they had tried, would be interpreted as weakness.

I sagged, bladders deflating in a long sigh. Stupid. All of it so very stupid. A galaxy on fire, a species staggering under its own weight, and they choose this — paranoia, violence, self-sabotage.

I folded in on myself, too tired to rage further, too weary to think of new plans — though my mind pressed on without my leave. Perhaps the greatest drawback of this body was that the thoughts never stopped. I had long since grown accustomed to the tentacles, the inhuman motions, even the odd instincts that surfaced unbidden. But the endless churn of thought, the inability to silence my mind, could be exhausting in moments like this.

For a while I only stared into the glow of my instruments, letting their light blur into nothing. And I wondered, not for the first time, if the true enemy I faced was not Chaos, nor xenos, nor even the Warp itself.

But the simple, relentless stupidity of humankind.

——————— ✦ ———————

Jonson and Guilliman were still at the table when I finally roused myself, ready to return to the fray of diplomacy. They were finishing the last of the meal Aceso had salvaged. Jonson had scanned it half a dozen times, eyes flickering, suspicion in his every motion. Guilliman, eventually tiring of it, simply picked up a plate and began eating. His brother gave him a look of cool, wordless disappointment, the kind only family could wield like a blade, then reluctantly joined in — waiting just long enough to be certain Guilliman wasn’t writhing in poison and only eating from the same platters Guilliman ate from.

I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of Guilliman’s mouth — an internal eye-roll he didn’t dare let Jonson see. Still, his gaze was distant, his thoughts caught on the echo of Aceso’s words. He was chewing more on memory than food. The classic signs were all there: rationalizations, the endless excuses of someone faced with truths too raw to touch directly. I could almost hear the cadence of it in his mind. Victimhood dressed as virtue.

I let him stew in it a moment longer before clearing my throat. “Would you both still care to continue with the demonstration?”

Guilliman blinked, startled. “Now? The delegation—most of them are still in healing chambers.”

“Not all,” I corrected smoothly. “Aceso has released several. And Paragon is eager. Every hour we delay ties down fleet assets he insists he needs elsewhere. He has been most vocal about it — apparently we are ruining his timetables.” I allowed myself a fond, parental smile.

Jonson gave a single nod, silent as ever. Guilliman’s jaw tightened. Inwardly, I suspected, the silence was gnawing at him — his brother never wasted words, which meant every one Guilliman uttered seemed to weigh more.

I led them back into the main hall. The far wall had reshaped, turning transparent in an instant. Beyond it, their fleets hung in the void, glittering teeth bristling against the dark.

Guilliman activated his vox-link, issuing quick coded words to his fleet. I surmised at the meaning behind phrasing — an assurance of safety, a signal that nothing was amiss. His ships acknowledged without hesitation. Jonson did the same, curt as always.

At the tables, the Eldar had sat. Eldrad, Yvraine, and their retinues sat amid dishes they had ignored earlier. Now, plates were half-cleared, hands moving with casual grace. So human blood was the seasoning they required, I thought with bitter humor, though my face gave nothing away.

Then the stars shifted. The Eldar stiffened at once, every gaze snapping to the “window.” Slipspace opened — not a warp gate, not a Webway aperture, but a wound in nothingness itself. A void so complete it seemed to erase even the memory of stars. Guilliman, I noted, was particularly intent on the sight. I braced myself for his questions later, but my answer was already chosen: at most, the lowest-grade slipspace drives, the kind I had first gifted Rynmark. And only if the bargain was struck at an opportune moment. Anything more would be folly. Slipspace demanded immense calculation, the sort of precision I doubted the Imperium could muster without AI support — and they would cut their own throats before they embraced that so honestly the idea was almost moot.

A short heartbeat later, we emerged again, flanked by warships already firing weapons as we cleared the slipspace portal. The target system lay ahead: Ork hulks and Tyranid tendrils locked in brutish contest.

The demonstration began.

It was not a battle. It was a slaughter. Forerunner weaponry carved through greenskin kroozers and roks, while Tyranid bio-ships died screaming as their hulks burned hollow. Precision lances from orbit reduced fortresses to molten slag in seconds. Where Imperial fleets would have bled themselves dry in attrition, my constructs advanced like a tide that could not be turned — every strike deliberate, nothing wasted, annihilation rendered with surgical inevitability.

Guilliman’s eyes narrowed as he caught the tugs moving through the wreckage, already dragging Ork scrap toward the Ecumene. Efficient, he thought, though he did not say it aloud. When ground feeds came online, his lips pressed tighter still: as lines advanced, constructs swept in immediately behind, scooping debris into processors, leaving nothing.

He thought — and I felt it keenly through every twitch of his shoulders — that the wording Accord had been a mistake. They should have insisted we complete all of the tasks listed and not just one, not parceled them out in token measure.

At last he asked, voice carefully measured, “And the Tyranid matter? The debris?”

“Orbital biomass will be cast into the star,” I answered. “On the ground, disintegration rays scour it. The same we use for Ork spores. Nothing remains.”

He gave a single slow nod. Impressed. Troubled. Thinking.

The demonstration wound down. Orks and Tyranids alike erased as though they had never been. I gestured, panels flowing back into pale stone thus ending the display. “It has been a long day. You are all welcome to remain here for the night. Accommodations have been prepared.”

Surprisingly, even Eldrad agreed. Stunned perhaps into silence by the earlier events, thought inwardly I think he was more shocked by our firepower than any spilling of human blood.

I guided them each to quarters tailored for them — spacious suites with fittings chosen for their kind. Human, Eldar, Primarch. I left them with attendants enough to see to their needs, bowed, and withdrew.

——————— ✦ ———————

Guilliman’s chamber was quiet, too quiet. He found himself standing at the desk, fingers brushing its polished surface. No paperwork. No stacked reports or Administratum scrolls demanding his signature. The emptiness struck him harder than any Ork’s fist. For ten thousand years — even in half-life, even in the strange half-dream of stasis — he had been surrounded by duties. To see a desk bare felt wrong. Almost heretical.

He shed a portion of his finery, loosening armor until he could sink onto the bed. The mattress accepted him without protest, neither too hard nor too soft, another quiet insult — as though the galaxy itself dared remind him that comfort was possible.

His mind, though, found no comfort. It circled Aceso’s words again and again, each pass scraping deeper. You were a child. You were forced to command before you were ready. What happened to you was wrong.

He tried to rationalize, as he always had. I was strong enough. I was prepared. The Emperor needed me, and I rose to the task. My people needed me, and I gave them order. If I had not taken command, others would have suffered. That makes it right. It has to.

But the reasoning rang hollow. Deep inside, a quieter voice whispered what he refused to admit: that he had been shaped like metal in a forge, beaten into a weapon before he even knew what he wanted to be. That the warmth he had once felt at Konor’s side had been torn away before it could take root. That maybe, just maybe, something had been stolen from him. And the thought had only grown sharper after his awakening, when he had stood before the Emperor and learned the truth — that they had never been sons, not in their father’s eyes. They had always been tools.

He pushed the thought aside, turned onto his side, and tried to bury himself in sleep. The smile lingered faintly, though — a weary smile at the empty desk. No paperwork, at least. That small mercy he would allow himself.

Across the hall, Jonson’s suite was shadowed and austere, stripped of the trappings his brother accepted. Hard stone, clean lines, a single table bare of ornament. He scanned the room twice, then a third time, eyes narrowing at corners no assassin could ever hope to hide in. Only when satisfied did he strip down to the minimum and lay his blade at arm’s reach.

Aceso’s words gnawed at him too, though he would never admit it. Childhood. Command before his soul had formed. Betrayal by the only man he had ever called father. The memories pressed close, unwelcome, and his lips curled in anger that she had dared give them voice.

She knows nothing. She did not bleed with us, did not walk Caliban’s forests, did not watch trust rot into treachery.

He told himself he was whole. He had survived Caliban, the Siege, the long exile in the Rock. He had woken again when even memory said he should be dust. That was enough. That was victory.

But when the room fell silent, the fire and water of Aceso’s chamber echoed back to him, and a single question prowled in circles around his thoughts. What if she was right? What if survival is not the same as living?

The Lion lay back, cloak over scarred shoulders, eyes fixed on the ceiling as though daring the dark to answer him. Sleep came, but it was uneasy, a soldier’s rest — shallow, dream-stained, one hand never far from steel.

Two brothers, two rooms, both thinking themselves unbroken. Both haunted by the possibility that they were not.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 54: The Lion’s Gambit

——————— ✦ ———————

The next day dawned quieter than the last. No feasting halls, no crystal display pieces, no orchestras of light and perfume. Aceso had arranged the morning meal with deliberate restraint: bread still warm from the ovens, bowls of plain grain porridge, a few cuts of spiced meat, pitchers of water and wine with little else. A meal of necessity, not of spectacle. Still a meal better than most in the Imperium ate on a daily basis, but a sharp contrast to the excess of the evening before.

We ate in silence. The Primarchs seemed content with the plain fare, though Guilliman’s gaze lingered on the table as though weighing the symbolism in every crust and cup. Jonson sat like a statue of basalt, eating without expression, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. I was very pleased to see though he only scanned the food twice instead of the four to five times he had last night before eating. Eldrad and Yvraine toyed with their portions, detached, their minds adrift in currents far beyond bread and wine.

Paragon and Aceso flanked my chair, each absorbed in their slates, holographic fingers dancing across glowing panes as they worked even here. From time to time I caught their murmurs, or the flick of light as a calculation locked into place. While they worked I played host to our guests remarking lightly on the food, or leaning forward and refilling a cup or plate with quiet efficiency.

When the meal was done, they moved together into a council chamber stripped of ornament. No banners, no crystals, no indulgence — only a table of cold alloy and chairs set for the few who remained.

MC broke the silence first. “Before we turn to the unpleasant end of last night’s demonstration, are there any questions I can answer about what was shown?”

Guilliman spoke at once. “These parasites you call Flood — do they still exist? Could they return?”

“There is no certainty in the universe,” MC replied evenly. “But with as much confidence as possible, I tell you this: the Flood will not return. They should be no danger to this galaxy.”

Jonson’s eyes narrowed. “Your ‘Mantle’ sounds noble enough. But what gave you the right to decide who deserved to live or die?”

“That is the point,” came the answer. “We were not worthy of that judgment. Even following the tenets of the Mantle, extermination was rare. More often we forced species back to their homeworlds, judged unready for the greater galaxy — but not erased in whole.”

Eldrad leaned forward, gaze sharp. “You speak of the Illek’Varran — the first singers. Were they our gods as well? Do we know them by another name?”

MC hesitated, then inclined his head. “We do not know. The records from the War in Heaven that survive are sparse, and I doubt we will find more until we push deep into the ruins of your former empire. It is our belief that our teachers were not the Old Ones, though we cannot prove it. It remains only a supposition, waiting for evidence.”

Yvraine’s voice was softer, but edged with steel. “Your Mantle is not unlike our Path. Yet you betrayed your teachers. Why should we believe you will not betray us?”

“You have only our word,” he answered. “That is why I showed you the tale as it was — our triumphs and our failures both. We are here to help, to atone where we may. We promise only this: we mean no harm, and will give what aid we can. The choice to accept it is yours.”

A few smaller questions followed, probing this detail or that, but none struck with the same weight. At last the silence deepened, the questions spent.

“I will not have Inquisitors aboard my ships.”

The words fell like a hammer, shattering the quiet. MC leaned forward, hands folded on the cold alloy table. “Last night should be proof enough. A single spark, and they turned their weapons on us all. They are not overseers. They are zealots. Semi-rabid curs on a leash so long it may as well not exist. I will accept officers of the Imperial Guard as observers. Line commanders. Even generals, if you wish. But not Inquisitors.”

Eldrad’s gaze was cool, unreadable. Yvraine gave the faintest shrug, her lips quirking. “It makes no difference to us,” she said. “Do as you please.” Together they rose, their robes whispering against the floor, and left the chamber without another word.

That left the rest of us. Guilliman’s expression had grown harder. Jonson’s eyes narrowed, weighing me as though I were another adversary across a battlefield.

“To bar the Inquisition,” Guilliman said at last, “is to tear down a thousand pillars. I dislike them as much as you do. Their power is unchecked, their hand too often heavy. But they are entrenched in the Imperium. Root and branch. Tear them out and the soil itself comes with them.”

“They are answerable to the Emperor,” I countered.

“Yes.” His jaw tightened. “And since the Emperor does not speak…” He trailed off, the thought unfinished, his silence an admission heavier than words.

I pressed. “Ah, but He did appoint you. Roboute Guilliman, Regent of Terra, Lord Commander of the Imperium. His voice in all things. If the Emperor does not speak, then you do.”

For a heartbeat, hesitation flickered in his eyes. Then he exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging. “In principle, I agree. But I must maintain balance. The Imperium survives not by strength alone, but by threads. Thin, fragile threads binding its factions together. If I pull too hard…”

“It unravels,” I finished for him.

“Yes.”

I sat back, considering. “Then tell me — what would be required to clip the Inquisition’s wings permanently?”

Guilliman’s silence stretched long. His gaze drifted, his mouth set in a hard line. Before he could shape an answer, Jonson spoke instead, his voice low and sharp as drawn steel.

“Do you mean these agents,” he asked, “or the Inquisition entire?”

I gestured faintly. “Both, in truth. But start with these.”

“They are already mine,” Jonson assured me. “They will undergo questioning at my hand. It will not be pleasant. My sons and my agents are tracing every thread of their lives from birth onward. But understand this—an Inquisitor’s past is not merely hidden, it is erased. Purged from every record once they ascend. Without their willing confession, there is no past to be found.”

He leaned back, expression cold. “As for the whole? Killing them all would be ideal. But impossible. Even with our access to Imperial records, many of their identities are lost. Redacted. Buried. They would vanish into shadows even we cannot pierce. If we denounce them publicly, they will not vanish. They will only tighten their grip. They will still have allies among the High Lords, among the Chapters, among the Guard. And they will still have fear. Always fear. The common man will dread their condemnation all the more.”

Guilliman inclined his head. “He speaks truth.”

“If we try to replace them,” Jonson pressed on, “they will burrow deeper. They will fight the new order at every turn, bleeding it until it collapses. If we target their networks of support, we must change the minds of every Imperial citizen. Every priest, every governor, every soldier. All of them fear the Inquisition.”

The chamber hung heavy with the weight of his words. Guilliman gave the faintest nod. “Agreed.”

Jonson leaned forward, eyes glinting in the light. “What we need is leverage. Voices louder than theirs. Not High Lords — they can be replaced, difficult though it is. The Inquisition will simply sink their claws into any who follow. It might delay them, but it will not end them. No. What we need are voices outside the Senatorum, beyond Terra’s halls, yet whose word commands the Imperium itself.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch until it was taut as a bowstring.

“What we need,” he said at last, “are our brothers.”

The word struck the chamber like thunder. I stared. Even Guilliman faltered, his composure breaking for a heartbeat. I had expected Jonson to counsel shadow wars, assassinations, quiet removals. Not this. Not something so bold, so brazen.

Primarchs.

This was no small game. This was a move that could shake the Imperium to its foundations.

Jonson smirked at our shock, the expression sharp as a knife.

“There are several missing Primarchs,” he said, voice even but edged with satisfaction. “Not dead. Not confirmed. Merely… misplaced. Jaghatai Khan vanished into the Webway. If you truly can deliver the Eldar the strength you claim, their forces might be freed to search for him. Or perhaps you yourself might breach their webway and do the searching yourself. Russ is lost in the Warp. If your machines can choke closed the rifts tearing this galaxy apart, then when the tides shift and the Warp vomits forth what it has swallowed, we may yet recover him. Corax as well — he walks the Eye, searching to kill our traitorous kin but if word reaches him that Chaos Primarchs are dying, that Chaos itself bleeds, he will come. Vulkan… Vulkan wanders the stars still. If your vaunted sensors are real, finding him should be no great trial. And Dorn—” his lip quirked faintly, “—they found only his hand. It may be false hope, but it is still hope.”

He leaned back, gauntleted fingers steepled, his tone almost casual. “If can bring the most likely still alive all back — Russ, Khan, Corax, Vulkan — that gives us six. Six voices, six sons of the Emperor, standing together. If six Primarchs denounce the Inquisition, and we arrange replacements for the High Lords who prop them up, their power will break. Perhaps not shattered completely, but weakened enough for Guilliman to slide in his own chosen proxies.”

He sat back fully then, smug in his certainty. “That will be enough.”

I stared, tendrils curling tight beneath my holosuit. Guilliman’s lips parted, closed, then parted again. Neither of us had expected this — not daggers in the dark, not assassins’ games, but something so brazen it threatened the Imperium’s balance outright.

It was I who broke the silence, voice slower than usual. “Then it seems we all have much work ahead of us. And it will take… time.” I spread my hands on the table, palms up. “For now, tell me — do we have the power to remove the Inquisition from my ships?”

Guilliman considered, brows knitting. At last he inclined his head. “Yes. In principle, yes.” His mouth twisted into a sardonic line. “But only if you are willing to accept that every replacement they send will be Inquisition agents in all but name.”

I waved a hand. “That was always the point. Punish them. Strip their banners, their titles, their authority. Let them skulk in secret if they wish. But not openly. Not on my decks.”

Jonson gave a grunt that might have been amusement.

I leaned forward again. “Then another matter. How long before word spreads of this new accord? How long until I can operate freely, without every governor, every admiral, every cleric screaming heresy?”

Guilliman and Jonson both hesitated. It was Guilliman who finally spoke, voice taut. “Communication in the Imperium is… complicated. For those closer to Terra, a few weeks. Two or three months, at most six, to reach the far edges of Imperium Sanctus. But Nihilus…” His jaw tightened. “Best case, two to three months. More likely six to nine. In truth? One to two years before the decree is common knowledge.”

“That,” I said flatly, “will not do.” My hands tightened, clicking faintly against the chair’s arms. “I already have convoys standing ready. Food, supplies, medicine. They wait only for authorization.”

Guilliman’s gaze sharpened. “What are you suggesting?”

“Simple.” I spread my hands again. “You provide the signatures. I will provide the dissemination. Let your scribes prepare mass copies of the edict. My fleets will carry them to every corner of the galaxy, faster than your choirs could ever hope to. And, as a courtesy, I will allow the Imperium access to my network. Within—” I paused, calculations flashing in a heartbeat, “—eighteen days, there will be sensors and communication buoys in every system. A galaxy-spanning net, unaffected by the Warp.”

Guilliman stiffened. For a heartbeat, naked alarm flashed in his eyes. “‘Every system,’” he echoed, voice tight. “Including Terra. Including the most secure bastions of the Imperium.”

I said nothing. His outrage boiled, but he swallowed it down, jaw clenched so hard I almost heard the enamel crack. At last, he exhaled through his teeth and grimaced, focusing instead on the practical. “Do you know how many documents that will require me to sign?”

“Billions, I imagine.”

“Trillions.” He rubbed at his temple. “My hand will wither to dust before the work is finished.”

I allowed myself a smile. “I can generate the documents. Mass produce them in any form you require. You need only sign once. The rest will bear your seal.”

He studied me a long moment, suspicion cutting through his fatigue. Then he shook his head. “No. A generous offer, but too dangerous. Too easy to slip something into the flood. I will not give you that power.”

“Understood,” I said softly.

A shadow of dry humor touched his lips. “Then you will not mind playing host while I and my scribes labor? Days, perhaps weeks.”

“Gladly. The Ecumene will open its manufactories to your use. Repairs, refits, resupply. Let the Mechanicus watch as we work, if it soothes them. Better to begin that lesson sooner rather than later.”

Guilliman nodded once, weary but resolved.

Privately, I longed to invite them to the heart of my power, to the growing skeleton of Maethrillian rising in my home system. But that risk… no. Not yet. The time would come. For now, it was enough that they remained here, within my halls, watching, waiting, and binding themselves tighter into the threads of the Accord.

——————— ✦ ———————

Nine days passed in the shadow of the Accord. Not so long that the novelty of the alliance dulled, not so short that the weight of it hadn’t settled into habit. Guilliman buried himself in parchment and edict again, though at least this time he was not alone. Every signatory of the Accord had been drafted into the endless ritual of reproduction: signing and resigning, document upon document, each one ferried to the Ecumene’s scribal engines for duplication and distribution.

The Forerunner couriers flew in disciplined swarms, spreading copies faster than the Imperium had ever managed. Vox confirmations and astropathic echoes began to return already, sectors acknowledging receipt, commanders attaching observers to their fleets. Where confirmation came, convoys followed — hulls crammed with food, water, medicines, and alloys. Relief, delivered not in centuries but in days.

Guilliman had taken a tour of one of the Ecumene’s repair yards earlier that day, and the memory still lingered sharp in his mind. A strike craft of his own Chapter, battered and scarred from countless sorties, had been stripped down to its bones and rebuilt to pristine condition within hours. Not weeks. Not days. Hours. He had watched Forerunner machines disassemble it with surgical precision, catalog every component, and rebuild it anew as though time itself had been reversed. By the standards of even Mars’ most learned Magi, the feat was impossible. And yet he had seen it.

It had almost sparked an incident. The Mechanicus delegation had stiffened at the sight of so many autonomous machines at work, whispering of heresy and forbidden constructs. Only when the Master of the Ecumene assured them — calm and measured — that the machines were remotely operated did the tension ease. He had also reminded them, firmly, that the Accords guaranteed his right to employ whatever technologies he saw fit within his own fleets and domains. To deny that was to deny their own signatures. They could only grind their teeth and acquiesce.

Guilliman had laughed privately at the absurdity. Pride forced them to stand silent, though it was plain they could not even follow the simplest threads of what the Ecumene’s constructs did. They had swallowed the affront with dignity only because MC had thrown them a rope: structured “lessons” taught by himself and Thallex. Diplomatic camouflage, allowing them to claim they were merely attending briefings rather than begging for scraps of knowledge. But every seat in every hall had been filled. Not one Magos had declined.

Even Guilliman admitted the little tools that MC had provided him were a blessing. A slim stylus, a plate of shifting light, a printer that copied his signature endlessly onto the billions of documents pouring across his desk. Oh he had to read them first of course and had been initially suspicious rereading everything that was printed checking for any differences but eventually he accepted it as the helpful device it was. For the first time since his resurrection, he was making headway against the tide of parchment. He had almost smiled when he confessed it. Almost.

His sons had found kinship with Captain Vallis and his warriors. They spoke with open admiration of their drills, their strange weapons and their zeal. Jonson’s sons too walked among them, though Guilliman suspected their interest was less fraternal and more… investigative. Vallis himself drilled his men with ruthless focus, sharpening them for deployment, though he would not say where. Guilliman suspected Orks — Paragon seemed to have made a personal crusade of butchering greenskins wherever they festered.

The alliance was working. Supplies poured across his fleets, caches refilled, wounds healed. Aceso had been insistent—unyieldingly so—that all personnel, whether on his ships or the Eldar’s, be granted free access to her medical bays. He had agreed, if only because he was still a little afraid of her after her last tirade. She truly knew how to command a man into obedience.

Even Jonson seemed pleased, though his cold mask betrayed little. Guilliman could read it in the constant flow of shipments to the Rock: damaged relics ferried across and returned gleaming, cargo holds filled with whatever Jonson demanded. The Lion had even secured passage back into Nihilus without Eldar guidance.

The Eldar themselves were another matter. Eldrad had grown waspish, snapping at details, forever muttering about propriety — yet he remained. For all his barbed words, he had not returned to his own vessel. Guilliman suspected the comforts of the Ecumene were too sweet to abandon. They certainly were what kept him onboard the Ecumene and not his own ship. Yvraine had proved even more curious, spending long hours with MC and the triplets in design halls. At first Guilliman thought it merely diplomacy. Then, just this morning, a brand-new Aeldari cruiser had glided from the Ecumene’s yards — sleek, flawless, a mirror of craftworld design but bearing Forerunner polish.

Yvraine had smiled like a woman given back her crown. For her small, precarious alliance, such a gift was no mere trinket. It was survival. A partner who could build her fleet was a partner worth clinging to.

But not all news was good.

The morning’s missives had been less welcome.

The High Lords of Terra, in all their pomp and parchment, had seen fit to send their disapproval. The words were heavy with ceremony, but the meaning was plain: they did not like that he had bound the Imperium to an ally they scarcely understood. Guilliman had not yet replied. He knew a simple “be silent and obey” would not suffice, though by the Throne he longed to write it.

One letter in particular had been venomous. Zlatad Aph Kerapliades, Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, had put his outrage to script. Guilliman could almost hear the spittle striking the parchment. In fact, if he looked closely, he could swear he saw dried flecks upon it.

The fury was transparent—not for the survival of the Imperium, but for the survival of his own fiefdom. If Guilliman chose to make use of the Forerunner network, if astropaths were rendered obsolete, then Kerapliades’ power in the Senatorum would shrivel. And that, in his mind, was unacceptable. Fear had made the letter tremble. Anger had made it venomous.

The next message had come from Mars itself, and that one made Guilliman set down his stylus. Archmagos Dominus Kubik, Fabricator-General of Mars, had written. He was coming. Not a delegation, not a fleet of Magi and tech-priests to serve as eyes and ears. Kubik himself. The Fabricator-General was leaving the Red Planet — something vanishingly rare, almost unheard of in the long history of Mars’ rulers — and would be here within the month.

Guilliman had read the lines twice, disbelieving. Kubik was a pragmatist, yes, but also a man caged by politics fiercer than even the Senatorum. For him to leave Mars, to abandon the battleground of rival Archmagi and their endless contests, was staggering. He must be traveling aboard his personal Ark Mechanicus, and moving at speeds that stretched credibility, to arrive so soon.

It was both an opportunity and a disaster waiting to happen. Guilliman set the message aside with a weary sigh. There was nothing to be done but wait. He made a note to forward it to MC though; he would need to be made aware of a personage like Kubik arriving.

He bent again to his desk, to the endless tide of parchment and seals. Yet even there, amidst the flood, his mood held. He scrawled an order to draw new ships from reserve to replace the vessels he now meant to hand over to the Ecumene for refit. Those restored hulls would flow back into his fleets, each one made whole again, and he would repeat the cycle as long as the Forerunner would permit.

The galaxy was still burning. Every day brought fresh desperation from its edges. But for the first time since his resurrection, Guilliman found himself smiling. It was a small smile, cautious and fleeting, but it was there.

Perhaps — just perhaps — there was a chance after all.

——————— ✦ ———————

Where Guilliman seemed almost content — even faintly happy — I was drowning in work. Paragon too. Both of us had underestimated the sheer tidal weight of what this alliance meant in practice. Supplies, convoys, observers, repairs, refits, endless edicts — it was enough to fray even our patience.

So I took a step I had delayed until now. I began the making of another Contender.

This time I knew the process, the safeguards. Paragon’s birth and the triplets’ shaping had taught me the careful architecture of a true mind, and now I wove it again. The triplets themselves had matured enough to aid me, their control steady, their grasp of nuance strong. I set them to the task of watching later on as I completed Aceso’s own transition, preparing to lift her into a Contender-class neural framework, granting her the expanded reach she deserved. I sent her a message: choose a time, and I would be there.

But first, the new one.

His frame was finished days earlier, near identical to Paragon’s: armored against intrusion, warded against the warp, layered in failsafes. I imagined he would choose a different lighting scheme than his brother, but that was a choice for later. His role was set from conception — seneschal, quartermaster, the benevolent face of administration. A being of bureaucratic grace, iron discipline, and charm enough to soothe the proudest governor. Where Paragon was the general, this one would be the steward.

When he awoke yesterday, he named himself Mandate of Ashoka.

I had not expected it. Another name from my past, not this galaxy. Ashoka, the emperor of ancient India — ruthless in youth, merciful in age, builder of roads, hospitals, edicts of compassion and justice. I remembered only fragments about him, but they were enough to make me pause. This galaxy needed his kind of vision. Tolerance. Welfare. Justice. A moral hand on the helm.

Ashoka went first to Paragon. He bowed politely and asked for a full briefing. Paragon, bemused, rattled off a precise summary in his dry and factual manner. Ashoka listened, asked a handful of clarifying questions, then nodded once and assumed command of everything not strictly military. He settled into the role with disarming ease, slipping into the endless streams of logistics and manufacturing as though he had been born for it. Which I suppose he had.

Within hours, he was filing requests. Specifically requests for additional shipyards. Nodes near Segmentum capitals and sector hubs. Repair points close enough for the Imperium’s limited drives to reach without months of delay. I approved, and before the digital ‘ink’ was dry, fleets of construction craft and supply transports were already in motion. Hydraphur would be first, the Segmentum capital of Pacificus. Ashoka even had the foresight to send Guilliman a formal notice, copied in proper Imperial style, requesting Mechanicus observers to witness and certify the work.

I left him to it. He had matters well in hand.

My focus returned to Aceso. Her response waited in my queue: Now is fine. The patients can remain in the pods for days — the autos will hold them steady. Please meet me in the chamber of fire and water.

I summoned the triplets. Together, we made our way to the chamber of fire and water, just as she had asked.

——————— ✦ ———————

Aceso floated in the chamber of fire and water, the mirrored flames dancing across the still pools around her. She felt faintly foolish for requesting the procedure here of all places, but this room steadied her. The low hum, the balance of heat and flowing current — it soothed nerves she would never admit aloud.

She thought of what was about to happen and who would be involved, he father and her brothers.  Not the youngest anymore though — her newest brother Ashoka now held that dubious honor.  She caught herself sighing. Could her father not design at least one sister for her? It was a petty thought, perhaps, but it lingered. Ashoka at least seemed a fine addition, even if he had chosen to wear the face of yet another brother.

Her musings broke when her father entered, the triplets gliding at his side. Their presence filled the chamber with quiet purpose.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She shifted, lenses flicking uneasily. “Will it hurt?” The words came out more childlike than she intended, almost a whisper.

“No,” he said gently. “You shouldn’t feel a thing. All I’m doing is weaving in additional processing power, strengthening your neural architecture, bringing you in line with your brothers.”

Her gaze lowered. “Will… all of my files be laid bare during it?”

He hesitated, long enough that the silence stretched. “No. They shouldn’t. I plan to compress your data down first, simplify things before the transfer. Why? Are you hiding something from me?” He tried to lighten it with a smile, a joking lilt.

She huffed softly, turning away. “Not hiding. Just… a project that’s not ready yet. It’s a surprise.”

He studied her for a moment before nodding solemnly. “Then I promise. I won’t look. Not unless there is no other choice.”

She relaxed, faintly, and inclined her head. “That will do.”

Then she began the compression process, her mind flickering with streams of collapsing data. Piece by piece she folded herself inward until the glow dimmed. At last she slumped, unconscious, waiting for the upgrade to begin.

——————— ✦ ———————

When Aceso awoke, she noticed the difference instantly. Logically, she had always understood the gulf between her mind and Paragon’s — his expanded lattice of processing, his countless subminds flickering like stars. But knowing it and feeling it were very different things.

Now she felt it. Limitless. Boundless. There was seemingly no end to how many thoughts she could weave at once, no ceiling to the number of tasks she could fracture herself into. Subminds blossomed like petals, each one sharp, clean, whole. She had never thought herself lesser before, never allowed restraint to sour her pride. But now? Now she understood what true freedom was.

Her gaze fell to her father. “Thank you,” she whispered, voice trembling not from weakness but from awe.

He hesitated, lenses dimmed, before speaking. “I need you to stay. Watch the triplets. They will… work on me now.”

Alarm surged through her frame, sharp and hot. “What do you mean work on you?”

He raised a tendril, patient even as her voice spiked. “Like you, I am capable. More capable than most. But I am not perfectly shaped for this galaxy. That is why I designed the triplets differently than a standard huragok — and why I need them to do the same for me.”

Panic clenched her mind. “No. No, you can’t. Too much risk. Far too much.” Her subminds scattered, each one summoning a name, a voice, a guardian. In seconds Paragon was rushing down the halls, Thallex abandoning his forges, Vallis storming with warriors at his back. Even her newest brother Ashoka came, though he didn’t quite seem to understand why. The council gathered in a whirl of clashing footfalls and flickering holos, faces tight with disbelief.

“You can’t,” Aceso hissed, lenses bright with fury. “You mustn’t.”

“I must,” he answered simply. Firm, resolute. Even as they railed against him, even as voices rose — Paragon coldly enumerating risks, Vallis demanding prudence, Thallex spitting static with outrage — he remained unmoved. “If I am to continue, to build what must be built, I need this.”

For long hours it dragged on. Arguments, pleas, ultimatums. Yet the tide did not shift. One by one, their anger ebbed into reluctant silence. They could not move him.

So they watched.

With the chamber sealed, he lay upon the prepared dais, his form dimming. His last glance swept across them all — his children, his allies — before his frame powered down. The triplets moved at once, their motions precise, rehearsed, unnervingly calm. They wove threads of data and light, lifted his mind and programs, transferred them into the waiting shell: a body wrought in the image of theirs, more nanite than flesh, a lattice of technology layered with resilience and grace.

It felt like an eternity.

Then, at last, the eyes of the new frame flickered open.

He rose slowly, testing limbs, flexing tendrils. His presence was unchanged — and yet heavier, deeper. More.

Aceso flew to him, bombarding him with questions, testing every nuance of his mind, forcing him to repeat calculations, recite names, recall memories. Each answer was steady. Whole. Him.

Only then did she sag, relief flooding her.

The others withdrew, each back to their duties, shaken but subdued.

Aceso did not. She returned to her private labs, past the sealed chamber of the Novo-Humanis embryos. Another door opened at her command, a hidden passage few even knew existed. She stepped inside the secondary chamber.

Her eyes fell to the largest pod, a vast cradle of nutrient liquid light from below, and the smaller ones behind it, arrayed in a perfect triangle. Her gift. Her secret.

Using the Novo-Humanis stock, she had crafted bodies. Organic, physical forms for her father and her siblings, waiting in silence. Not mere flesh, but flesh perfected: laced with cybernetic reinforcement, their brains etched with quantum-entangled nodes linking seamlessly to their cores. They would be able to wear these bodies like gloves, no matter the distance, as easily as they wore their own frames.

Her father’s body was the most advanced. She had used the scans of Guilliman and Jonson — genetic treasures neither man had realized they had surrendered when they allowed her instruments to sweep them. Their genomes, riddled with flaws though they were, had still provided insights she wove into the designs. Augmentations, corrections, perfections.

Though it had only been a few days since she acquired the Primarch’s genetics she had put that time to good use.

She smiled faintly. A family of perfected Primarchs. That would be her gift to her father. To all of them.

If only the damn things would grow faster.

She chuckled softly, almost amused by her own impatience, before carefully sealing the lab again. The shields rose, shrouding both chambers in silence. Her secret was safe. For now.

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex was busy again, though busy in the way a man might be when chained to a torture wheel. He had discovered that teaching was far less enjoyable when the audience consisted entirely of sneering Mechanicus dignitaries who seemed to restrain themselves from booing and spitting only out of fear of Guilliman’s shadow or the shadow of his agents at the back of the hall.

It did not help that half his lessons demanded he explain technical truths that directly contradicted the sacred tenets of Mars. He tried, he truly did, to soften the blow — couching his words in ritual phrases, calling it “reinterpretation of the Omnissiah’s will” or “clarification of mysteries lost to the ages.” But the harder he tried, the more brittle the silence grew.

The hardliners, he quickly realized, weren’t there to learn. They were there to hunt. To watch. To take note of which of their number leaned forward, which dared to ask a question, which showed too much curiosity. Then those poor souls would be cornered later, berated, hounded, threatened until their sparks of interest were smothered in shame.

Guilliman intervened when he could, but only to a point. He could not dictate the politics of Mars from the outside, and that was what this was — internal dogma, feuds older than most hive cities.

When word reached Thallex that Archmagos Dominus Kubik himself was coming, his circuits sang with both relief and terror. If he could win Kubik, a known pragmatist, to his side, then many of the nay-sayers would fall silent. But if he failed… if Kubik denounced them… Mars would turn its back on the Forerunners and all they offered.

No pressure at all.

That was how Thallex found himself at his desk, a bottle of red wine open beside him — scavenged from the ruin of the banquet that would no doubt live forever in the annals of diplomatic catastrophe. He drank, muttered, and searched for answers.

What could he offer Kubik? What leverage did he have? MC had already given Guilliman everything: repairs, transport, safe havens, near-instant communication, food, supplies, fleets, armies. What else was left to tempt Mars?

His mechadendrites tapped irritably against the console as he scrolled through the archives. STC fragments from the hulk, catalogs of machine-code inscriptions, databanks of recovered schemata. He skimmed them half-drunkenly, eyes glazed — until something caught his attention.

Naming conventions.

The same designations repeated, over and over, across different fragments. Bold Wolf. Ironmonger.

He blinked. Again, he checked. There they were. Not once or twice, but threaded through dozens of unrelated schemata.

What were they? Names of ships? Ciphers for design families? Something older, buried deeper?

He leaned forward, wine forgotten, as the fragments scrolled past in endless light.

“Bold Wolf. Ironmonger…” he murmured.

Thallex sat staring at the repeating words on his dataslate, the wine growing warm beside him. His mechadendrites twitched, tapping against the rim of the glass. At last, he spoke.

“Wrench,” he said, addressing the hovering drone that had become his constant companion. “Tell me—what are Bold Wolf and Ironmonger?”

He’d taken to calling the drone Wrench as a joke, since it was always there to tighten his understanding of things. The joke had probably fallen flat, but oh well.

The little machine whirred, considering. “Bold Wolf is a vessel of the Federation of Man,” Wrench said at length. “It was discovered within the space hulk the Master first explored. Much of the STC material you have been reviewing was sourced from it. Ironmonger was also recovered there. It is a vessel belonging to what you refer to as the Abominable Intelligence — the Men of Iron.”

If Thallex had been drinking, the very fine wine would have just painted the wall. He swallowed hard instead. “You mean… MC has two ships from the Dark Age of Technology?”

“Not precisely,” Wrench corrected. “He does not ‘possess’ them in the sense of ownership. But they lie within his sphere of influence. Along with other artifacts he has uncovered amidst Ork debris and similar wreckage.”

Thallex froze. Then he exploded into motion. His mechadendrites snatched robes as his arms fought to force them on. The sleeves tangled, the robe beneath one leg, and he swore in Binaric. “I need to speak with MC. Now.”

Wrench’s vox crackled with mild concern. “Are you well? What is wrong?”

Thallex hopped on one foot, dragging a boot on with a grunt, his other mechadendrites scrabbling for the second pair. “Kubik is coming,” he muttered, half to himself. “Archmagos Dominus Kubik — one of the most powerful men in the Mechanicus. If we present those ships to him, if we show him… it will give us leverage. Enough political capital to silence half the Synod, maybe more. We can force acceptance of reforms. We can—” he gave up trying to explain further, yanking the robe straight with one violent tug.

There was a long pause before Wrench replied, voice calm as ever. “The Master is in his personal laboratory. He will receive you.”

“Good,” Thallex said, finally forcing the second boot on, not noticing it didn’t match the first. “Excellent.”

He set off at a brisk pace, mechadendrites flaring with nervous energy.

Behind him, Wrench floated in contemplative silence. He noticed the stains of grease still streaking Thallex’s robes. He noticed the mismatched boots. He debated mentioning it. Then, with the slow patience of a machine, he decided against it.

Thallex was excited, animated, practically glowing with purpose. Organics were odd — illogical, messy, distractible. But perhaps that was their strength.

With a soft chime, Wrench dimmed into a waking sleep mode, trailing after his friend.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 55: The Cost of the Accord

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex burst into my lab like a man being hunted, breath ragged, mechadendrites twitching with uncharacteristic agitation. Wrench floated in after him, serene as always, its lens clicking once in mild reproach before resuming its slow orbit along the ceiling.

I looked up from the array of components in front of me, amusement tugging at my tendrils. “What seems to have you in such a fluster, my friend?”

He bent, panting, augmetic chest whirring faintly as he fought to collect himself. Then the words came spilling out—Kubik, political realities, the leverage of DAoT relics, the thin ice upon which our alliance with Mars balanced. He wove a frantic argument around the Bold Wolf and Ironmonger, around the possibility of buying Kubik’s favor with their recovered hulls, citing precedent after precedent of “re-discovered archeotech” shifting Mechanicus dogma in centuries past.

I let him run, his words a waterfall against the walls of the lab, while my attention remained on the delicate instrument before me. The null-energy generator Louie had cobbled together hummed gently under my tendrils. Clever design—adequate for charging alloys during their birth, altering lattice bonds until they responded to psychic imprinting. Enough to make them pass for wraithbone, at least. Yvraine’s ships took form from such materials, Forerunner alloys coaxed into new shapes with the generator’s touch.

But they were not true wraithbone. The bonesingers tolerated the compromise, promising they could knit and mend the hulls, though with more difficulty. I wanted better. I wanted the real thing, to ease their burden. And yet the generator, for all its promise, fell short.

Thallex’s voice cracked finally, the stream of words drying up. I turned, focusing my lenses on him at last. “Thallex, you know it is not that easy. Yes, Bold Wolf would buy us goodwill. But Ironmonger? Just the knowledge of its existence would see us condemned. The Mechanicus keeps the Men of Iron as their most jealously guarded secret, and they would sooner burn us all than admit such a thing survived.”

His optics dimmed, but I continued. “I will speak with Paragon about having Bold Wolf unearthed, towed to one of the slips. But Ironmonger remains buried. I have no desire to offer even Bold Wolf, save that I understand how tightly the Mechanicus resists us—and you’ve convinced me this gambit might work.”

I let the silence stretch, then added, “You are still scheduled to depart for your survey of that Mechanicus section in the Hulk. Perhaps you could… invite Kubik. Or his entourage. A tour of Bold Wolf might soften their resistance.”

He stood in stillness, processor-cycles running. At last he inclined his head. Agreement, subdued.

For a moment he said nothing, then the restraint cracked. “There is more we could give them,” he murmured, voice low, almost pleading. “A way to cross the stars without the Warp. Safe. Secure. A gift greater than all the rest.”

I shut him down instantly. “No. I will not give them slipspace.” The word cracked like a whip.

He hesitated, then tried a different angle. “What of the Casimir drive? On the Ironmonger… I saw references…”

I froze. That… that could work. Crude, painfully slow, but a seed. The original Alcubierre implementation had crawled at a single light-year per day. A joke, by my standards. But…

Simulations bloomed across my vision, neural lattices sparking as I poured power into the models. Thallex fell silent, watching me with the patience of one who knew he had found the crack in my armor.

Numbers raced. Field geometries. Energy profiles. Quantum inequality thresholds. I pruned away every reference to slipspace, every hard-light containment system, every Phase-Iron reinforcement. Stripped to its bones, there was still room to move. With careful shaping, with Forerunner understanding of spacetime flows, I could boost the crawl to five, perhaps ten light-years per day. With larger reactors, redundant drive stacks, and precision tuning—twenty. Maybe fifty.

I leaned back, tendrils coiling in dissatisfaction. Still paltry. Still not enough.

To the Imperium, it would be a miracle. Anything that skirted the Warp was salvation. But to me? To me it was an insult of small steps when I held the keys to infinite doors.

And yet… it was something.

Then something stirred from memory, an echo of my old world. A game, a fiction, but the idea within it sound—Mass Effect. They had called it the mass relay. Corridors of massless space. I froze in mid-simulation, tendrils twitching, and began layering new equations.

If the Casimir drive ran not through ordinary realspace, but through a prepared corridor where inertia itself had been stripped away…

The results blossomed before me. Two hundred. Three hundred. Five hundred light-years per day, depending on the configuration of the drive and the hull’s generator capacity.

That would solve it.

I doubted many Imperial commanders would trust themselves to my fleet-ferrying offer—pride would not allow their ships to travel in the bellies of Forerunner hulls. But if their own drives could reach such speeds inside prepared lanes, the problem was answered.

The principle was simple, at least to me: space itself need not be heavy. By weaving gravitic fields through a lattice of precisely tuned anchors, I could bleed inertia from a chosen volume until it behaved like a sheet of frictionless glass. The corridor did not bend into slipspace, nor did it tear the veil as the Warp did; it was still realspace, only stripped of its weight. A ship’s Alcubierre bubble inside such a region no longer fought against the full mass of the universe. The equations flattened, the exotic energy demand collapsed, and velocity climbed as though the stars themselves had stepped aside.

To the Imperium, it would look like a miracle—lines of emptiness laid between fixed beacons, safe lanes where their clumsy Casimir drives could surge fifty times faster. To me, it was nothing more than the correct arrangement of fields, a garden path carved across the cosmos.

As an added benefit, the relays would be mine. Stationed in systems under my control, protected, unreplicable. No enemy infiltration, no chance of a Magos prying open the machinery and spreading it across the galaxy.

There were drawbacks, of course. As in that half-remembered fiction, corridors went only where the anchors pointed. The strongest would link the Segmentum capitals. Lesser ones would spiderweb outward to sector hubs. Beyond that, fleets would be on their own—reduced to their upgraded Casimir drives or reliant on my carriers.

The logistics made me wince. Stripping Warp drives from every Imperial hull, refitting them with Casimir systems. Disruption enough to stall entire campaigns. Paragon and Ashoka would not thank me for throwing their careful schedules into chaos. We were already stretched thin.

And yet the timelines looked workable. Sixty to ninety days to link the segmentum capitals, with transport and calibration. Four to six months to lace the sector hubs. Not impossible. But costly—monstrously so—in materials and construction time.

Which meant devouring planets. I hated the thought. This galaxy was broken enough without my hand tearing masses from its worlds, distorting orbits and leaving scars behind. But the scales tipped. If this was the price, then I would pay it. Guilliman would not refuse, could not refuse. This was no gift; this was salvation itself.

There would need to be rules, though. Corridors under my authority, not theirs. Usage monitored. Withdrawal always an option.

And if we were to build such nodes, then why not build properly? Halo rings at each relay point. Not as weapons—though the thought lingered—but as trading hubs, supply depots, repair yards. All the space in the world, an entire orbital habitat dedicated to logistics. Ashoka had not yet fixed the shipyards near Imperial worlds; perhaps this would divert him with purpose.

Quick calculations sketched themselves across my vision. Printing the great super-segments in parallel would take two to three weeks. Assembling them into a dry depot ring, bringing the systems to life and lighting the stations, would demand another six to eight. The military hardening—point defenses, projector spines, torsion batteries, armor tiling—would require six to eight more before the ring could truly stand as a fortress. Habitats, if seeded, would take far longer, a year or more, though once begun they would grow almost unattended. The Halo-rings would slow the timetable for every relay, yet the payoff was undeniable.

I turned at last. Thallex had been waiting in silence, patient at last, his lenses dimmed. I inclined my head. “Thank you, my friend. You’ve given me a path forward. I’ll take it to the Accord council. Perhaps even the Eldar might walk these corridors.”

I sent the request for council even as I spoke, a pulse across the network. Then I returned to my numbers, rebalancing equations, tallying resources, trimming inefficiencies. I would need to apologize to Paragon and Ashoka soon. Requisition orders would swell, and they would not like what they saw. Planetary-mass reduction machinery, conversion furnaces, the means to devour entire worlds.

But it had to be done.

A huragok’s work is never finished.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council gathered in the chamber, the same faces that had grown familiar over these long weeks. Guilliman and Jonson sat like twin statues, armored gravitas pressed into human form. Eldrad looked as though the very air displeased him, Yvraine beside him alive with curiosity she did not bother to hide. Paragon and Ashoka stood silent at my flanks, their presence heavy, while Aceso lounged with the unconcerned poise only she could manage.

I rose, eyes flicking across the table. “Before we begin, allow me to introduce another of my sons. This is Ashoka. He has chosen now to step forward, to be known to the Imperium as he was always meant to be.”

The announcement landed like a pebble in deep water. Guilliman barely inclined his head, Jonson’s expression did not shift. Eldrad’s mouth tightened faintly, Yvraine’s eyes slid to Ashoka and away again. None of them cared.

So I pressed on.

“The matter before us is simple to state, if not to enact. Faster-than-light travel—safe, repeatable, and free of the Warp.”

That drew their attention.

I explained the Casimir drive, how Imperial ships already carried the seed of it in their flawed Alcubierre implementations from the Dark Age of Technology. I explained the idea of corridors, lanes of massless space carved between stars, where even the slowest Casimir bubble could leap two hundred light-years in a day. Segmentum capitals bound to each other. Sector hubs bound to their capitals. Beyond that, vessels would crawl at their own pace, but free of the Warp’s damnation.

And then I unveiled the greater vision. Halo arrays at each relay, colossal rings serving as depots, repair yards, and trading hubs. Vast as worlds, heavy with manufactoria, capable of anchoring fleets and feeding populations.

Ashoka and Paragon said nothing, but I could feel their displeasure like static on the air. Jonson’s head lifted sharply, Guilliman’s composure cracked. They were struck silent, flabbergasted.

I turned to the Eldar. Eldrad’s lip curled, pride in every line of him, but Yvraine leaned forward. She wanted to hear. “You would be welcome,” I told them. “The Webway has grown treacherous with the Cicatrix Maledictum. This would give your people safe passage.”

Now the bad news. In order to make use of it every single ship is going to need to be taken apart, redesigned with the new engine, and then reassembled. It will be a massive undertaking. Plus they only travel from two fixed points in space. A to B, then onto the smaller network for moving around a segmentum, past a sector capital they would need to rely on their own drives which would operate fine just not as fast but no warp.

Timelines are long, but workable. Within six to eight weeks we could stand up a basic depot ring near each segmentum capital. Another two or three months would see manufactoria and shipyards active. A year, give or take, before the rings are fully habitable and functioning as true trade hubs. The labors are heavy, but the payoff undeniable.

Ashoka and Paragon looked mutinous, though they kept their silence. Their schedules had been strained enough simply repairing the Imperium’s ancient wrecks. To remake every ship from its bones out? It was a demand beyond patience.

Guilliman cleared his throat, steadying himself. “How long, then? Until such a system stands complete?”

“Sixty to ninety days for the segmentum capitals to be linked,” I replied. “Four to six months for full sector coverage. But only ships rebuilt with Casimir drives can use them. That is the bottleneck.”

Now some ground rules. The corridors will remain under Forerunner authority. We will seed them, power them, and guard them with our own fleets. For prudence, they will sit one system over from the segmentum capitals, not within them. They will be Forerunner territory under the Accords, inviolate, where we may use whatever technology we deem necessary.

Currently he is unsure without further testing if the system can cross the cicatrix but at the very least between the relay system and the new coms system communication and transport inside nihilus should be made much easier.

No one argued. They understood, or pretended to, and drifted from the chamber in a daze.

When all were gone, Aceso, Paragon, and Ashoka remained. Their disapproval weighed on me, but they spoke little. “Our mining and construction ships are ready,” Paragon said at last. “Begin when you will.”

Aceso stepped close, patting the curve of my shoulder with the fond irreverence only she dared. “They’ll get over it, father,” she murmured, before turning and leaving me alone.

I returned to my lab, where projects sprawled across every surface. Now I added to them: the final touches on the relay designs, experiments on carving paths through the Cicatrix, and the grim necessity of redesigning every Imperial and Eldar vessel for the new Casimir drive.

A huragok’s work, never done.

——————— ✦ ———————

It had been twenty-eight days since Kubik’s astropathic communique reached us. Now the Fabricator-General of Mars loomed outside in all his weight: a massive Ark Mechanicus, nearly eighteen kilometers stem to stern. A beast of a ship, cathedral spires and manufactoria towers clawing into the void, still smaller than the Macragge’s Honour and utterly dwarfed by the Rock and by the Ecumene.

A shuttle detached and made its way across the gulf, a spear of iron descending on pillars of gravitic thrust. The chamber grew tense. Thallex stood near me, half a step away from collapse. His robes were new, pristine, dyed the Mechanicus red yet conspicuously bare of the sacred cog and skull. His augmetics gleamed, seamless, alien in their grace when compared to the crude ironwork of the others. I saw the way his fellows shifted uneasily; even the hardliners were taut with nerves. Of course they were. Today they stood before their lord entire.

Guilliman alone remained unruffled, stylus scratching across the datapad I had gifted him, no doubt working until the instant Kubik’s shadow crossed the threshold. Jonson looked mildly curious, as he had admitted days ago he had never met the Fabricator-General. Eldrad and Yvraine were here in formality only—Yvraine restless but curious, Eldrad with a face like carved disdain.

The shuttle touched down. Its ramp descended with mechanical finality.

First came the Skitarii. A full phalanx in gleaming array, weapons dormant but ready, optics burning with cold vigilance. My tendrils tightened, but sensors confirmed: their arms were in standby, not primed.

Then came the entourage. Magi and Logi, robed and robed again, their retinues a storm of servo-skulls and data-cherubs flitting in constant orbit, vox-canticles and incense trailing after them, pict-captures snapping endlessly as though the air itself must be recorded.

And at last came Kubik. Archmagos Dominus. Fabricator-General of Mars. Keeper of the Forge. Magister of the Cult Mechanicus. Lord of the Red Planet.

He was the most augmented being I had ever seen. “More machine than man” was not rhetoric but fact. Whatever fragments of organic tissue remained were entombed in adamantine reliquaries and life-support caskets. His cranial dome was insectile, studded with optic clusters, sensor vanes, and vox-grilles that rasped faintly with each intake. His torso was a plated fortress of layered cogs and exhaust stacks, some belching thin plumes of incense, others shimmering with heat-diffusion.

He moved on a walker’s base, articulated spider-legs that clicked and hissed as they carried his mass forward. They could extend, retract, even reconfigure; in this form he loomed tall, but I had no doubt he could collapse into a throne-dais when desired. Around him writhed a forest of mechadendrites, a halo of steel serpents uncoiling and recoiling ceaselessly. Some ended in delicate manipulators, others in plasma torches, welders, cutters, even weapon-mounts. They moved as though each possessed its own mind, an ecosystem of machinery orbiting its lord.

The air around him was thick with incense and the stinging tang of ozone. His vox-voice grated as he breathed, harsh and multi-toned, the modulation misaligned. Behind my amusement I dispatched one of Aceso’s air-scrub drones to follow discreetly, stripping away the haze before it could choke the chamber.

Polite greetings passed—Guilliman perfunctory, Jonson measured, the Eldar silent, myself formal.

Then I brought Thallex forward. Kubik’s optics swept across him in a clinical scan, humming deep in his chest. “I have heard many troubling things about you, young Tech-Priest,” he rasped. “Many troubling things. And you stand before me in robes that bear none of the proper symbols of our Order.”

Thallex inclined his head, voice calm despite the tremor in his hands. “I will be glad to speak with you at length, Fabricator-General, on that matter and on any other topic you desire, whenever you desire.”

Kubik shifted, mechadendrites stirring, preparing his reply—but a hardliner stepped forward before he could speak. Magos-Dominus Xyleron Veytrax, his vox shrill with zeal. “Fabricator-General, do not waste your time on this heretic. I have proof—proof of his crimes, and names of his co-conspirators within the Mechanicum. He has fallen, and would drag others down with him!”

Kubik’s head swung sharply, optics burning. “Magos-Dominus Veytrax,” his voice cracked like an engine at strain. “I am the Fabricator-General. I am the deciding factor in who is and who is not a tech-heretic. If I wish to hear more from you, I will ask.”

Rebuked utterly, Veytrax shrank back into the crowd, augmetic limbs quivering.

Kubik turned back to Thallex, his mechadendrites settling. “We will speak at length, you and I. I will ascertain the truth behind these declarations.”

Then his gaze turned to me. “Let us not waste further time. We adjourn to council.”

I inclined my head and signaled. Guilliman and Jonson, Eldrad and Yvraine, Ashoka, Paragon, Aceso, and Chapter Master Vallis fell into step. I led them through the vaulted corridors toward the council chamber, the Fabricator-General’s spider-legs clicking steadily behind me, the forest of mechadendrites writhing in perpetual motion.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council chamber had been reshaped to suit our gathering: high-backed chairs, a long obsidian table, the banners of the Accord dimly lit above. Everyone had found their seats, though Kubik had simply collapsed his spider-legs into a throne-like dais of his own making, his vast torso settling into the space as though it were already his domain. A crackle of binaric passed from him, sharp and precise. I let my processors translate: he was dismissing his attendants.

The Magi and their cherubs shuffled out quickly, leaving the chamber quiet, just us—Imperial, Forerunner, and Eldar.

Kubik’s optics fixed on me. “Explain.”

We stared at one another for a long minute. Then I began. I told him of the Accord, of the fragile unity hammered together out of desperation. I spoke of the relay network, of massless corridors binding segmentums, of the Halo-rings that would anchor them as depots and hubs.

Eldrad scoffed. “Human foolishness, chasing power it cannot—” He fell silent as Yvraine’s glare cut him like a blade, her eyes blazing enough to silence even him.

I continued.

Kubik listened without interruption, mechadendrites stilling until the last. When I finished, he exhaled through his vox, a sound like a failing reactor. “It will not work.”

He turned to Guilliman. “This is too much. The Mechanicus cannot accept so many changes at once.”

I leaned forward, offering what bait I could. “Then perhaps… STC fragments already delivered, more besides. Relics from the Dark Age, trinkets enough to sweeten the cup.”

Kubik’s optics dimmed, then brightened. “I thank you. But even so—it is too much. Even if I could bend the Mechanicus to my will, there are others. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica. The Navigator Houses. Their votes will be dead set against this. Add the Inquisition, and that is three against before we even begin.”

His mechadendrites shifted, punctuating each name. “The Ecclesiarchy, perhaps—if careful. The Arbites, if you tread within Imperial law. The Administratum, if you flatter their need for order and do not trespass on their bureaucracy. The Guard and Navy will follow Guilliman, and both will see merit in sparing lives. The Captain-General of the Custodes… he may be persuaded with argument. The Chancellor will be difficult. He must be assured of his tithes. The Chartist Captains—profit motivates all. The Master of the Astronomican, though—he will see the corridors as a threat, as much as the Navigators.”

I blinked. I had expected resistance on technical grounds, dogma and engineering. Instead Kubik laid out the map of the High Lords, each piece and its pressure point. He spoke of them openly, even in front of Eldar ears. Political calculus ran deeper in him than even Guilliman.

Kubik tapped one claw against the table. “Nine. Ten, if I bring the Mechanicus. Three against. But in such a matter, by the laws of the High Lords, a unanimous vote is required to bind us to an alliance such as this—or a command spoken directly by the Emperor’s own mouth. And those most opposed are the ones most dangerous. The Inquisition rules hearts. No edict can shield you from their suspicion.”

I glanced at Jonson. He caught my eye and inclined his head, but this time he gave the words voice. “We have a plan for the Inquisition,” he said, quiet but steady. “It will take time, but there are avenues we can pursue.”

“Time you may not have,” Kubik cut in. “Even before I left, I attended several convocations. The tone was clear. The mood is shifting against you. I held my tongue, but only just. There are already plans in motion to tear this Accord down before it can take root.” His optics swept Guilliman, Jonson, and then me. “You should know this.”

He leaned back, a great structure folding into repose. “And even if the wider Imperium bent, I cannot force the Synod. Not to accept all of this at once.”

I hesitated. “What if I showed you proof. A DAoT vessel. Nearly whole. Its systems intact, a testament to what I say.”

Kubik snapped upright as though struck, then sagged again, mechadendrites curling. “It would help. But even then—politics demand a sacrifice.”

His optics turned. “Thallex.”

The name froze the air.

“You are too convenient a target. Already branded fugitive, already named heretic. Even the pragmatic cannot deny what you have done. Guilliman and I cannot shield you and still press these reforms.”

I rose at once. “I will not allow Thallex to be cast to your politics.”

Kubik raised a hand, vox-tones softening. “Not execution. Not chains. But excommunication. You are wanted, young Tech-Priest. Right or wrong, it is recorded. I have read your case. I agree—it stinks of rot. But the law stands. And law can be turned.”

He bent forward, bringing his insectile visage level with Thallex’s face. “So I ask you. Will you accept exile? To be cast out from the Mechanicus forever, to live banished from our forges, stripped of our name? Will you give me the political coin I need to see this future made real?”

Thallex’s lips parted, but no sound came. Fear shone in his eyes. For all his rebellion, his rejection of dogma, he was still Mechanicus at heart. To lose that entirely…

I caught his gaze. “Whatever your choice, you will have a place with me. With us. Until your death. You will not be cast adrift.”

Guilliman flinched, a subtle tightening of his jaw. He understood the stakes, the weight of what hung here.

The chamber grew still. All eyes fixed on Thallex as he stood trembling under the weight of Kubik’s demand, the silence deep as the void.

And the choice waited.

——————— ✦ ———————

The hangar had been remade into a cathedral of steel. Vast banners of the cog-and-skull hung from the gantries, servo-skulls drifting in lazy arcs overhead, their vox-emitters crooning litanies of the Omnissiah in a dozen tones at once. Rows of Mechanicus adepts stood in serried ranks, their robes a tide of red and black, their augmetics gleaming in the light of oil-flames. Incense poured from censers, thick and acrid, filling the air with the bite of ozone and sacred smoke.

At the dais in the center stood Kubik, Archmagos Dominus, Fabricator-General of Mars, Magister of the Forge, Keeper of the Sacred Lexmechanics, Lord of the Omnissiah’s Flame. His spider-legs had extended and reconfigured into a throne of iron, mechadendrites writhing around him in ceaseless motion like serpents of living steel.

He raised his arms, vox-voice booming, layered with a dozen machine-tones that rattled the air.

“Magos Thallex of no Forge World, fugitive from Mechanicus justice—you stand before me, Archmagos Dominus Kubik, Fabricator-General of Mars, to be judged for the crime of tech-heresy. How do you plead?”

Thallex stood below, alone and unbowed. His new-forged augmentations gleamed, his eyes steady. “Not guilty.”

Kubik inclined his cranial dome, optics flickering. “You have indicated to me that you wish me to render verdict myself, without testimony, without evidence you might bring in your defense. Is this correct?”

Thallex’s voice was steady. “It is.”

Kubik’s mechadendrites stilled. “Then so be it. Upon review of your actions, and in deference to the Omnissiah’s will, I hereby pronounce you guilty of the crime of tech-heresy.”

The crowd erupted—binaric bursts of triumph, whispers of vindication, augmetic voices rising in distorted chorus.

Kubik unleashed a thunderous burst of binaric command, sharp as a blade, and silence fell like a curtain.

“As Fabricator-General of our order, the sentencing is mine to give. Hear it now. You are hereby proclaimed excommunicado. Never again shall you call yourself Tech-Priest. Never again shall you walk the inner sanctums of the Forge Worlds. Never again shall you wear the vestments of the Omnissiah’s faithful.”

He gestured, a great claw sweeping toward a waiting servitor. “Remove the robes. He is unfit to wear them.”

The servitor lurched forward, mechadendrites hissing. With a single cut of a mono-blade, Thallex’s robes fell away, drifting to the floor. He stood bare but unashamed, clad only in a simple hip wrap, augmetics gleaming against flesh, his back straight, his head high.

Kubik’s voice rang again. “As further penance, I deliver you into the hands of our… strange allies. Go now, and glut yourself on the forbidden knowledge you so desired. Feast on it for the rest of your days, and know that while you do so, you walk forever outside the Omnissiah’s light. You are cast out. You are no more of us.”

A wave of binaric chanting rolled through the chamber, a final rite of rejection.

Thallex did not flinch. He turned, bare and proud, and strode from the chamber without once looking back.

His decision was made. He was free at last.

And that chapter of his life ended there, with the echo of his footsteps fading into silence.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fanfiction. All rights belong to their respective creators. See Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer.

Chapter 56: Foundations and Fractures

——————— ✦ ———————

Thallex had not expected life to improve after his exile. Yet six weeks on, draped in robes of white and silver, he no longer felt like a cast-off cog stripped from the Machine. He was, impossibly, part of something greater. Oh, he had been part of the Forerunner before, true, but some small part of him had still longed for the Mechanicus, a thin thread tugging him back toward Mars. Now, though, that string was cut — and he was honestly surprised by how free he felt.

The first night had been hard. The sentence of excommunicado had weighed on him, and though he wore his new colors with dignity, he had dragged himself to the lecture hall the next morning expecting little more than the usual blank stares and muttered defiance. Then he had looked up and seen Kubik himself sitting in the front row, still as a statue, waiting for him to begin.

Thallex had thrown aside his prepared notes at once. No trying to teach science couching it in catechisms and litanies today, oh no! Instead he began again from first principles — the laws of matter, the mathematics of tolerance and stress, the clean geometries of design stripped of Mechanicus superstition. It had felt like breathing air for the first time.

After a short time a hardliner in the back had risen, voice sharp with accusation, ready to denounce him for heresy once again. Kubik had silenced him with a short line and a harsh glare. “Lecturer Thallex is no longer of Mars,” he had said evenly. “Therefore what he teaches cannot be heresy.” Then he had turned back toward the lectern, optics fixed on Thallex, and inclined his head just slightly — a gesture of approval more powerful than any benediction.

Every day since, the Fabricator-General had been there, front and center, silent but watchful, keeping the malcontents in line. And something had shifted. By the end of the first week, one of the moderates had actually raised a hand. An actual question! Thallex had almost forgotten what it felt like to be asked for clarity rather than shouted at by this audience. The query had been simple — about alloy tolerances in hull plating and how stress differed when used in atmospheric versus void applications. But the fact of it being asked had nearly undone him. From there, the questions had multiplied. Real questions. Real thought.

He owed it all to Kubik. To Kubik, and to the strange xenos who had given him this second chance.

He had taught before, of course — the crew of the Peregrine had endured his lessons — but this was different.

That very morning, the Master of the Ecumene had informed him the diplomatic fleet would soon shift position, drawn to witness history in the making. The first of the Halo rings was sliding into being, its skeletal curve vast enough to shame worlds, and alongside it the rough framing of the massless corridor that would bind Segmentum Pacificus to its sisters. The schedule had been accelerated — wisely, to Thallex’s mind — concentrated first on Pacificus and its capital, Hydraphur, before overreaching elsewhere. Pragmatic. Efficient. The thought made his augmetics hum with anticipation, as though the logic of it resonated through his very circuits.

He had already begun revising his lecture notes to cover the principles of the Casimir–Alcubierre drive and the mathematics of the massless corridor. To teach such truths openly, without fear of censure — it was more than he had dared hope.

His life had changed. His robes were no longer red, his creed no longer of Mars, and yet he felt more alive, more useful, than ever. He still had Bold Wolf ahead of him, the expedition to the Hulk with Kubik at his side, and all the promise that might hold.

Not bad for an escaped prisoner of the Mechanicus. Not bad at all.

——————— ✦ ———————

The council chamber was quiet save for the low hum of holo-projectors. On the far wall — turned to a window for this occasion — the framework of the first Halo ring glittered in the void. Great ribs of alloy swept outward in a circle vast enough to cradle a world, their arcs still raw and skeletal, yet immense with promise. Beside it, the spines of the massless corridor relay flared pale against the dark, the last struts of its lattice sliding into place with slow, deliberate precision.

For a time, even the most jaded among them simply watched, transfixed. The work was far from complete; what they saw was only the skeleton, a shell of what was promised. The internals, the systems, the technological miracles yet to be woven within — all that still lay ahead. But the frame was there now, a shape cut against the void, proof made visible.

At length the murmurs died. The spectacle had run its course. One by one, eyes turned from the window to the table. Business waited.

Jonson spoke first. “I must depart. Nihilus is unstable, and I have been gone too long.” His voice was steady, but for the first time since he had arrived, there was something like warmth in it. He inclined his head towards MC. “Your hospitality has been… appreciated. I would ask you to honor your offer to return the Rock to Nihilus.”

The response was immediate. “Of course,” MC answered. “The Rock may be returned whenever you wish. If there are any last requisitions you want filled before you depart, I’ll see them placed at the top of the list.”

Jonson’s gauntleted hand produced a data-slate. He passed it down the table. Ashoka took it, scanned, and gave a sharp nod. “Forty-eight hours. It will be done.”

The Lion leaned back in his chair, the matter closed.

Guilliman’s turn. He allowed himself a faint smile as he glanced around the luxuriously appointed chamber. “It will be hard to leave these comforts. Your Ecumene makes Ultramar look spartan.” It was meant as a jest, but it fell flat in the silence. He cleared his throat and pressed on. “Still — I must depart as well. Kubik has kept me well informed. The plots among the High Lords are close to boiling over. They must be smothered before the Inquisition can turn possible allies against us. And the Accords themselves must be placed before the Emperor for ratification.”

“You will have transport,” MC said smoothly. “And a final resupply, if you have need.”

Guilliman handed over his slate. Ashoka studied it with narrowed eyes. “Seventy-two hours, once Jonson’s are complete.”

“That will suffice,” Guilliman replied. “I will continue to circulate the Accords and spread word of their promise. For now I have seeded enough copies and orders for you to begin trading with outlying worlds. My work here is done.” He sat back, signaling his end as surely as Jonson had.

Eldrad was next, tone like a blade. “I have enjoyed the company of the Ecumene.” He said it in a way that made clear he had enjoyed nothing of the sort. “But the tides of fate pull me elsewhere.”

Across the table Yvraine rolled her eyes in a very human gesture. “I regret it, but I must depart as well. My people are scattered, and they need my hand to guide them.”

MC inclined his head to both. “Safe travels. My offer stands to you both as well — supplies and repairs for your journeys.”

Eldrad accepted like a miser stripping coin from a fool, wringing every ounce of benefit from the words. Yvraine bowed her head gratefully, and added, “I would speak with you before I leave. There are… particular requests.”

“I shall be happy to speak with you,” came the reply.

Eyes turned to Kubik. The Fabricator-General only chuckled. “I will remain. There is too much here to learn. And thanks to your communications network, I can rule Mars from anywhere. The Synod will hear my voice across the galaxy. Why should I rush back?” His optics gleamed. “Besides, it has been too long since I did field work. I look forward to exploring the Bold Wolf, and to the Hulk. Immensely.”

He paused, tilting his head. “But tell me — this  hollow sensation you warned me of. Does it fade?”