Shadows in the Sand (Warhammer 40k, story)

[Talon88.1]

Chapter One

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the desert sands turned to molten gold in the dying light. Elissa pushed the creaking stove door closed, a faint hiss escaping as the heat met the cool evening air. Inside, slices of roasted dustjackal meat sizzled—a rare treat for the night's meal. The aroma mixed with the dry, earthy scent of the small home carved into the rock.

From the adjoining room came the sound of water splashing and the occasional burst of laughter, the chaotic noise of her daughters still holding a comforting familiarity. They were no longer children, but there was something undeniably innocent about the moments when they let their guard down, even at their age. She wiped the sweat from her brow, her sun-kissed skin streaked with a layer of fine dust that seemed to cling no matter how much she scrubbed. A strand of deep crimson hair slipped loose from the braid trailing to her hip, and she tucked it back with a practiced motion.

Elissa reached for the roots and berries she'd set aside to complete the meal when the sharp chirp of the vox headset broke the quiet. She sighed, rubbing her hands clean on a threadbare cloth before settling the battered device over her ear. "This is Elissa. What now?" Her voice carried a tone of weary authority, already braced for whatever nonsense Riggs and his crew had stirred up this time.

"Jacob here." The young man's voice came through, tight with a tension that made her pause. "Sorry to bother you, Mayor, but there's... a situation at the gate."

"What kind of situation?" she asked, her brow furrowing. Jacob was new to gate duty, but he wasn't prone to overreacting—not in Dusthaven, where survival depended on keeping a level head.

"There's a traveler out here," he said, his voice dropping slightly, as though the man might overhear. "Hasn't said a word. Just standing there. And, ma'am... he's..." Jacob hesitated, the silence stretching thick and heavy over the vox line.

"Spit it out, boy," Elissa snapped, her pulse quickening. "What's the problem?"

"He's wearing armor I've never seen before. And he's got a... uh... a bike. It's hovering. No wheels or anything. Real fancy."

Her hand froze mid-motion, a knife hovering over the roots. For a moment, she was back on the lumpy old couch with her family, watching ancient holovids of sleek machines and soldiers in impossible armor. Memories of laughter and warmth tugged at her before she pushed them aside.

"Alright," she said, her tone sharp now. "I'll be right down. Don't do anything stupid. If he tries something, shoot. Don't stop until he's either down or you're out of ammo."

"Yes, ma'am."

Elissa tossed the knife aside and snatched up her revolver. The weapon was heavy in her hand, its grip worn smooth after years of use, the intricate carvings nearly faded. It wasn't elegant, but it could punch a hole clean through a man—and that was all that mattered. Shrugging into her thick leather duster, she locked the door behind her and called up to the girls.

"Girls! Situation at the gate. Close the curtains and stay inside until I say otherwise!"

"Got it, Mom," called Tara, her tone slightly strained as though she had just been in the middle of something.

"Stay inside," Elissa repeated, her voice firm but not unkind. "And for the love of the Emperor, don't get the guns until you hear gunshots."

There was a long pause before the second voice spoke. "Alright, alright," Kala answered, her usual rebellious edge still present, though tempered by adulthood. "We're not kids anymore, Mom. We'll be fine."

Elissa gave a small nod to herself, then turned to leave but hesitated at the door. "And if I'm not back in twenty minutes, take the roast out of the oven. Don't burn it like last time," she added dryly.

The voice of Kala replied from upstairs, more amused than anything. "We won't. Promise."

Shaking her head, Elissa closed the door with a soft click. The revolver's weight in her hand felt reassuring as she strode toward the gate, the desert winds stirring her coat as the shadows lengthened around her.

-

Worn leather boots crunched over the sand as Elissa hurried down the town's main road toward the gate. Above, the solid stone of the mountain under which Dusthaven was carved loomed, blocking out the stars. Only to the far south, where the town's sole gate stood as a bulwark against the horrors of the desert, did the night sky peek through. There, the harsh beams of floodlights illuminated the rugged, sand-blasted walls.

The buildings around her were low and stout, sunken into the rock to weather the relentless sandstorms. Their design served dual purposes: conserving heat during the punishing flood season and offering some relief when Little Red-the angry dwarf star of the planet's twin sun's-was brought close by the planet's orbit to bake its surface.

Here and there, townsfolk lingered. Some loitered near the watering hole, others relaxed in the cooling air as the heat of the day began to dissipate. Yet, as Elissa strode with determination, she felt their gazes following her. As mayor, she was always under scrutiny, but the purposeful set of her shoulders and the sharp glint of her emerald eyes heightened their interest tonight.

Whispers rose in her wake. Small groups began to trail after her, curiosity driving them to see what trouble was brewing. A few, sobered by the urgency in her stride, slipped home to retrieve rifles and cobbled-together armor, shepherding their children indoors.

Dusthaven's residents were no strangers to danger.

The wooden stairs leading to the top of the wall creaked under her boots as she ascended two at a time. At the summit, she found the night's watchmen: Jacob and Milo.

Jacob stood near the parapet; his tanned face drawn tight with nervous tension. His brown eyes darted constantly toward the figure beyond the gate, his unease almost palpable. Milo, in stark contrast, leaned against the wall with a cigarette perched between his lips. His lasgun rested casually across his lap as he nodded toward Elissa.

"Evenin' El," he greeted, his voice gravelly with age. "Hate to trouble you, but Jacob here's worried sick."

Elissa flicked a glance at the younger man, who opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a curt wave of her hand. "Doesn't matter. Let me see."

Stepping forward, she peered through the slats of the watchtower's armored window. Her breath caught slightly at the sight below.

Standing bathed in the harsh beams of the gate's lights was a lone figure. Tall and lean, his body was encased in sleek black armor that gleamed faintly under the artificial glow. His stance was rigid, unnaturally still. Her sharp eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him further, realizing his arms were longer than normal. Cybernetics, she concluded, noting the mechanical hands that extended down to his knees.

But what truly caught her attention was the vehicle beside him. Smaller than she had expected, the bike hovered effortlessly a foot above the ground. The quiet hum of anti-grav plates filled the stillness, and its design was mesmerizing. The chassis tapered to a smooth, aerodynamic point, while the rear carried short stabilizer wings, flanked by a pair of compact thrusters.

A small dome, positioned just ahead of the driver's seat, was the only feature disrupting its seamless lines.

Damn. That is a nice ride, she thought wryly, her lips quirking into a brief, humorless smile. Wonder who he stole it from?

Turning from the slats, she waved to the gathering crowd below, signaling them to take defensive positions. At once, they scattered to the prebuilt cover along the road, lasguns raised and trained on the gate.

Satisfied with the precaution, Elissa turned back toward the figure outside the gates. Raising her voice to carry over the distance, she called out, "You're a long way from home, stranger. What brings you to Dusthaven tonight?"

The figure's head tilted up toward her, the glossy black faceplate of his helmet catching and reflecting the harsh light. For a moment, he simply stood there, unmoving, and the silence stretched uncomfortably long.

Then, he responded—not with words, but with action.

Raising his right hand, palm upward, a shimmering projection flickered to life above it. The display made Elissa's breath catch. The casual use of such technology was startling. Sure, Dusthaven's town hall had a holo-emitter, but it was part of an ancient cogitator bank, a hulking machine the size of her daughters' shared bedroom.

To see a projection emanating from something smaller than her hand? It was unsettling. If he has that kind of tech, she thought grimly, what else might he be hiding?

"Looks like he's askin' for shelter," Milo's gruff voice broke through her train of thought, pulling her back to the present.

Her eyes snapped to the display, now hovering in the air above the stranger's palm. The image was simple but clear: stick-figure representations of the man, the town, and the people within it. In the scene, the stick figure of the gate opened, allowing the stranger to enter. The final frame showed him stepping into a small, rectangular home.

Elissa frowned, her mind racing as she processed the message. The crude clarity of the hologram was oddly disarming, but she kept her face impassive. She couldn't afford to show hesitation, not with the entire town watching and this stranger's intentions still unclear.

"Can't speak, or just not in the mood?" Elissa called down, her voice carrying a mix of curiosity and irritation. The man remained silent; his reflective visor turned towards her like an unblinking eye. She crossed her arms. "We're not a charity. You got something to pay for a room, at least?"

In response, the hologram shifted. The stick figure disappeared, replaced by a glowing blue-white "X." Before she could interpret it, the display transformed again, this time into an icon of a wrench crossed with a screwdriver. The stick figure returned, moving through a wireframe model of the town, stopping at various structures where the same symbol hovered overhead.

"You're saying you're a tech-priest?" Elissa asked, suspicion curling through her tone. "Trade repairs for room and board?" The man didn't respond, not even a gesture of acknowledgment.

Her patience waning, she raised a finger sharply. "Hold on a second."

Turning to Milo and Jacob, she found Milo speaking first, his gravelly voice steady despite the situation. "El, I've seen my fair share of those cogboys. That fella out there don't look like no priest I've ever seen."

Elissa shifted her weight, her emerald eyes narrowing slightly. "And what would a cogboy be doing out here alone, anyway?"

Jacob chimed in hesitantly, his youthful nervousness apparent. "And where's his robes? I ain't never seen a cog without those red robes. It's like…their whole thing."

Elissa raised an eyebrow at the younger guard. "Fair point. He could just be some merc with fancy gear. Wouldn't be the strangest thing to show up on our doorstep."

Milo shrugged, his hands resting on the stock of his lasgun as he kept his gaze locked on the stranger. "Could be. But, El, here's the thing: if he's offering to fix stuff in exchange for a bed, we might as well let him take a shot at the reactor. She's on her last legs. Worst case, he fails, and we kick him out. Best case? We get a few more months outta her before she bites the dust for good."

Elissa considered the thought, her braid swaying as she nodded slowly. "And if he decides to fight instead?"

Milo's lined face hardened, his wrinkled eyes narrowing into slits. "Wouldn't be the first time this town's handled trouble."

Satisfied, Elissa turned back to the edge of the wall and called down to the gathered townsfolk below. "Open the gate! Keep an eye on him. Says he's a cogboy and willing to try fixing the reactor. If he pulls it off, he gets to stay the night. If he doesn't, he's gone by morning. And if he so much as twitches wrong, you know what to do."

The crowd murmured their assent, some taking positions behind cover, others raising their lasguns to keep watch.

With a groan of ancient gears, the gate began to creak open. Dust spilled from its edges, carried by a faint breeze that whispered through the town. The harsh scrape of metal on stone echoed through the quiet night as the opening yawned wide.

The stranger moved at the sound, stepping back to mount his bike. Its thrusters emitting a soft hum as he eased it forward with deliberate slowness. The idling engine barely made a sound, but every eye in the town remained locked on him.

Elissa's hand hovered near the revolver at her hip as she watched him approach, the dim gate lights glinting off the polished surface of his armor.

-

The crowd followed closely behind the stranger, with Elissa leading the way as she escorted him toward the mountain's more secure areas—the northern side, deep in the bedrock that shielded the town from the dangers of the desert. Up close, she couldn't help but notice once more just how tall he was. At her own five-foot-five hourglass frame, most people seemed tall to her, but this man… he was likely a full foot taller than she was.

A chill breeze washed over the town, suddenly reminding her that she had rushed out of the house wearing nothing but a thin shirt. The wide neckline was the kind she preferred when relaxing at home, always leaving plenty of room to let her big girls breathe, but out here, it was a poor choice.

She huffed, pulling the jacket tighter around herself as she cursed her mother under her breath. Glancing over at the stranger, Elissa realized with a sinking feeling that she'd likely been giving him an unintended show.

Her face flushed with irritation, and she silently cursed the situation, wishing for once she could just turn invisible. Her steps quickened, eager to get this done, one way or another.

Reaching the heavy metal door, she entered the code passed down from the prior mayor and spun the wheel, swinging it open with a low groan. The passageways echoed with their footsteps as the group—now only a dozen rough-looking men, herself, and the stranger—continued forward.

The control room opened before them, and Elissa felt that familiar, uneasy disconnection as she gazed at the strange machinery. No matter how many times she had been here, trying to help the local engineers keep it running, it still felt alien to her.

The reactor, stuck on a low power setting for stability, had been so for longer than Elissa had lived there, barely producing enough power to run the primary lights and recharge electronics.

"Well, here it is." She gestured broadly with one arm, the other resting casually on her revolver's grip. "Do what you can." Realizing the coldness in her tone, she swallowed her pride. His work might make or break the town's chances. "Please," she added, more quietly.

The armored man stood still for a moment, scanning the room with quiet intensity. Then, without a word, he moved. His mechanical hand rested lightly on the central console, producing a slight grind of metal against metal as he traced the ancient machinery's contours.

A few seconds later, he nodded, and to her astonishment, his armor plates shifted, his fingers and forearms unfolding into a series of intricate tools. He moved with surprising speed and ease, working rapidly, his movements fluid as he accessed the internal components of the reactor's controls. Console to console, his hands were a blur of motion—replacing parts, rewiring, tightening, loosening. He seemed entirely at home in the ancient, disordered space, a stark contrast to her own unease.

Roughly ten minutes passed as she and her men watched him work, her eyes slowly widening as each console began to light up, cogitator screens flickering back to life, the screens spitting out letters and numbers she had no meaning for beyond knowing they were the language of the machine spirits.

Finally, he closes the panel of the last console, wiping his hands on his armor, adding to the layer of dust that covered several chunks of it. He points towards the door leading downstairs, towards the reactor core itself.

Quirking an eyebrow, she followed his hand before the realization dawned. "You need to get to the core itself?"

Suddenly, the man spoke for the first time, his voice carrying a mechanical precision, the words clipped, short, as though being read by a servitor. For Elissa, it was unnerving as hell.

"Core…dormant. Needs…jump." The words, slowly spoken, were at least clear. Nodding, she gestures for him to proceed. The group followed as the man descended several flights before coming to a stop outside the reactor airlock.

The keypad, which should have required her passcode to open, had already opened when she reached it, the man already inside as the airlock cycled.

The chill that ran down her spine at the realization that the stranger had somehow gotten her authorization code did not sit well with her. But, with the reactor primed and the airlock cycled, she couldn't exactly follow him into the reactor chamber.

It hit her then.

He was inside the reactor core.

Without a suit.

Her eyes widened as she suddenly began jabbing her code into the lock, her other hand pressing the voxline. "Hey! Hey you, you're not wearing a suit! Don't start up the core! You'll fry in there!" Her voice rose, panic flooding her veins as she screamed all the louder into the line.

However, the man seemed to ignore her, his focus entirely on the components within the reactor core. The faint hum that had filled the air as they descended began to die down, and with it, the light from the reactor faded, leaving them in an oppressive darkness.

One by one, the men flicked on their lamp-packs, their harsh, white light cutting through the gloom. A low murmur spread through the group, beams of light from their weapons trained on the stranger as he worked, their tension palpable.

"Do you think he broke it?" one of the men whispered, his voice barely audible.

"Might've needed to power it down to fix it," another suggested, but the uncertainty in his tone was clear.

Elissa stood frozen, her hand tightly gripping the handle of her pistol, her eyes never leaving the man. A quiet prayer whispered in the back of her mind: Emperor, please. Let this work. Let your light shine on us, driving away the dark.

The stranger was still, a lattice of some strange crystal now in his hands. He carefully inserted it into the reactor's inner workings, his movements swift and precise. His arms moved with a fluidity that seemed almost mechanical as he replaced several components, his focus absolute.

Then, as the final panel slid into place, he reached for a length of wire. With practiced ease, he stripped the insulation away, and suddenly, Elissa felt it—something in the air, a tension that prickled her skin. Goosebumps erupted along her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. What is that? she thought, but she couldn't quite grasp what was happening.

There was a dull, muffled pop, and in an instant, the reactor sprang to life. The lights, which had been dim and flickering, surged back to life—brighter than they had ever been in all of Elissa's years in the town. The whole room seemed to hum with renewed energy, the dark receding as the harsh glow of the lights bathed the space in an almost blinding brightness.

The stranger rewrapped the wire with deliberate care and tucked it away before stepping back into the airlock's cycle.

When he reemerged, he looked down at Elissa. Her astonished expression was reflected in the opaque surface of his faceplate, a mirror to the disbelief that filled her heart.

"Fusion… stable. Reactor…online," he stated flatly, his voice still as mechanical as before, though a hint of finality underscored his words.

---

The room they gave the stranger was cramped, little more than a broom closet hastily tidied by Yannek, who had apologized profusely for the lack of proper accommodations before rushing off to tend to the bustling tavern. The entire town, save for a few, had poured out to celebrate the return of light, of life, now flooding the town with warmth and illumination.

Where once the darkness had swallowed the streets, now they blazed with light. Some had rushed home, eager to indulge in the first hot bath they'd had in years, while others relished the first hot bath ever in their lives. But most had gathered in the tavern, clamoring to catch a glimpse of the stranger who had restored their power.

Elissa watched from a distance, her own tankard of N'kasha in hand. The local drink, brewed from the unique flora of Morrak, was rare, and she had taken an immediate liking to it. But her attention was divided, constantly returning to the man at the center of the room.

The stranger appeared incredibly uncomfortable with all the attention. His shoulders were tense, his helmet constantly flicking between the crowd and his tankard. The townsfolk, who had been raucously celebrating their newfound light, clapped him on the back, pushing a drink into his hands. The thick purple liquid glowed faintly, its light sliding over his faceplate in ripples that didn't quite follow the curve of the metal.

So, Elissa thought, her gaze drifting over him. There is a person behind that helmet.

He removed it slowly, as though unwilling to reveal himself. The sound of the helmet's heavy metal landing on the table caught her attention, and she couldn't help but stare.

He was… striking. His height alone—easily a foot taller than her—was enough to command attention, but it was his features that truly stood out. His blonde hair fell in short, shaggy waves around a face that was youthful but well-shaped, almost too well. His skin held a faint, even tan—too even—and the sharp planes of his jaw caught the lamplight like machined alloy, making him both more and less than human.

But it was his eyes that disturbed her the most.

They were startlingly intense, locking onto hers for a moment, and a wave of something unfamiliar surged through her—a quick, sharp pang she couldn't quite place. There was something about his gaze that felt so… familiar. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Her stomach twisted as a sudden jolt of realization hit her.

They reminded her of someone—someone long gone. Her late husband.

A wave of sorrow gripped her chest, suffocating the air in her lungs. She had learned to push those memories down, to bury them as deep as she could. But those eyes, that familiar intensity, the same blue… It hit her all at once, and she recoiled inwardly, unwilling to acknowledge the emotions rising within her.

Quickly, Elissa looked away as she brought the mug up to hide, feeling exposed, vulnerable, her chest tightening with the memory of her husband's face. But as she turned, she couldn't help but notice something else. The others in the room had also noticed him. Several stared at the stranger as though he were an omen made flesh, their eyes wide in that uncertain space between reverence and fear.

Her gaze flicked to the corner of the room, where a few of the younger women stood whispering to one another, their faces flushed from the drink. She could hear snatches of their conversation, voices hushed.

"Have you seen him?" one woman whispered; her eyes wide. "He's tall, isn't he? I can't believe how human he looks."

Another woman, a bit older, raised an eyebrow, lips pursed in thought. "Yeah, I was expecting alot more metal for a cogboy. He's handsome even, but…somethin about him twists at my gut."

They're not wrong, Elissa thought wryly, though she couldn't deny the knot that flared within her. There is something odd about him.

As the stranger took a careful sip from his drink, he seemed to relax slightly, his shoulders slumping as he let the weight of the crowd fall away. He was still, however, the subject of every eye in the room, the center of attention. He took another sip, his hands closing around the tankard with natural ease, though it was hard to ignore how large those hands were, the metal fingers flexing.

He wasn't like the others. No, there was something… more to him. Something that kept her staring long after she meant to look away. Something she couldn't put into words but would find herself trying to understand all the same.

The unease wasn't from the stranger in her home—it was from the sense that the stranger might not belong to any home at all.

-

The man excused himself after finishing his drink, his voice still halting as he spoke in the broken Gothic tongue, as though he were testing the words for the first time. Standing, Elissa cleared her throat and called out, her voice carrying over the low murmurs of the tavern, "Alright, that's it! It's late, and you all have work in the morning! Finish up, pay Yannek, and get the hell home."

Good-natured groans echoed through the room, but there was no real fire in them. Most of the crowd had already drained their tankards, their spirits lifted by the unexpected surge of power in the town.

Elissa caught the stranger's arm as he began to rise. To her surprise, his metal prosthetic felt warm to the touch, not the cold she had expected from the heavy, mechanical appendage. "Hold on a second," she said, her grip firm but not aggressive. "I want to talk to you."

A shadow flickered across his features, his expression unreadable, before he nodded and retook his seat without a word.

As the last of the townsfolk filtered out, offering one last round of grateful thanks to the man who had brought their lights back, Elissa waited until the bar was nearly empty. Yannek, always sharp, took the hint and disappeared into the back, leaving them alone in the quiet space.

Elissa leaned on the counter, her fingers tapping lightly against the edge as she focused on the stranger's nose, determined not to meet his eyes. The silence stretched between them for a moment before she finally spoke. "So…" Her voice softened, but there was a thread of sincerity behind it. "Thank you. What you did here tonight... it means a lot to me."

A long moment passed, and he gave a subtle nod. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his eyes, almost imperceptible, but there. "Thank… you. For… room. Sand… everywhere." His words were still halting, but there was a warmth to his voice, as if he were trying to connect.

Elissa's lips twitched, and despite herself, a soft burst of laughter slipped out. She quickly stifled it, though, her eyes softening as she shook her head. "So, you have jokes now, too?"

A soft whirring sound came from his arm as he shrugged lightly, the motion smooth despite the heavy metal joints. "Some."

"Well…" Elissa nibbled at her bottom lip, her fingers tracing the edge of the counter as she leaned slightly across the table to offer her hand. Her short reach meant she had to stretch just a little, but the gesture itself was what mattered. "Elissa Brandt. Mayor of Dusthaven. If you're willing to stick around, we sure could use the help."

For a long heartbeat, a dozen emotions flickered across his face—uncertainty, hesitation, maybe even a touch of something softer—but before she could second-guess herself, he reached out. His metal hand engulfed hers, its weight and strength obvious, but there was a surprising gentleness in the way he shook it.

"Koron," he replied, his voice carrying a subtle edge—something that Elissa couldn't quite place but felt, nonetheless.

"Welcome to Dusthaven, Koron."

After a moment, she stood, nodding with a smile that felt like both a greeting and a farewell. "Good night, then."

Koron gave a slight nod, his figure retreating toward the stairs to his small room. As Elissa turned to leave, a sense of quiet relief washed over her, the weight of the evening finally beginning to lift. The tavern was empty now, its warm glow reflecting off the wood and stone.

She stepped into the cool night air, the first breeze of the evening tugging at her hair, and sighed, letting the tension drain from her shoulders. As she made her way home, her steps slow and deliberate, a sense of peace began to settle over her.

Then, with a sudden, horror-stricken gasp, she froze in her tracks.

"Oh shit— the roast!"

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Two

Morning broke gently over Dusthaven, sunlight filtering through threadbare curtains to pool in uneven patches across the worn wooden floor. Elissa stirred, the faint hum of power coursing through the settlement coaxing her from sleep. The sound was steady and rhythmic, a far cry from the erratic groans and sputters that had plagued their old systems for years.

Stretching, Elissa swung her legs over the side of the bed, tugging her thin tunic down to cover more of her sun-bronzed skin. The dawn's chill prickled her arms and legs, and she muttered about needing to mend her worn sweatpants as she padded across the floor.

Faint voices drifted from the main room. Kala was perched against the counter, her long, deep red braid swaying as she gestured animatedly, every movement exuding far too much for the early hours. By contrast, Tara sat cross-legged at the small table, her crimson hair spilling down her back in soft waves. She was hunched in concentration, delicate hands steady as she soldered wires inside a disassembled vox unit.

"Morning," Elissa greeted, her voice still husky with sleep.

"Morning, Mom," Tara replied softly, her focus unwavering as the soldering iron hissed against the circuitry.

Kala turned, her freckled face lighting up in a wide grin. "Morning! Guess who didn't trip over the stairs today?"

Elissa raised a brow, her lips twitching in amusement. "A miracle worth noting. However, caffeine first."

Kala snorted and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that accentuated her already maturing figure, a mirror of Elissa's own. "You know, Tara's been going on about the power coming back all morning. She's acting like it's the Emperors arrival."

Tara glanced up briefly, her green eyes cool and steady. "It's not just the power, Kala. It's the reactor. It hasn't worked in decades, and now it's running. That's a big deal."

Setting her tools aside with careful precision, Tara added, "I'd like to know how it was even possible."

Kala rolled her eyes, but a flicker of interest betrayed her curiosity. "Yeah, yeah, reactors and wires. I just want to know when we're getting proper lights in the tavern—or a fridge that doesn't smell like rotted gritroot."

Elissa chuckled, pulling a mug from the cabinet and pouring the bitter sunfrond leaf tea that passed for coffee in Dusthaven. "Well, if you must know, it's thanks to the new guy, Koron."

Both girls froze mid-motion.

"Who?" they asked in unison.

Elissa leaned against the counter, savoring the moment before replying. "Koron. He's a cogboy—showed up last night. Remember when I said there was a situation at the gate?"

At their nods, she continued, "He's got a bike like something out of an old holo-drama, and armor to match. Said he needed a place for the night and offered to fix it for room and board."

"And he fixed the reactor?" Tara asked, her eyes narrowing as her mind raced through the implications.

Elissa nodded. "The man's got skills, I'll give him that. Didn't even blink when I told him the thing hadn't worked since before you two were born. Took him about twenty minutes to figure out what the rest of us couldn't in twenty years." She gestured toward the faintly glowing overhead lights. "So yeah, be sure to say thank you if you see him."

Kala's grin widened, her emerald eyes practically glowing with excitement. "So, where is he now? Does he have one of those helmets with the glowing eyes? And is the bike as cool as you say?"

Elissa gave her a pointed look. "He's staying at the tavern, Yannek cleaned up the storeroom for him. And don't you go pestering him about his bike, Kala."

Tara, however, had set her tools aside entirely, her expression thoughtful. "Do you think he'd let me watch him work? If he can fix a reactor, he probably knows things I've only read about. I could learn from him."

Kala snickered, tossing her braid over her shoulder. "You mean I could get a ride on that bike while you nerd out over his tools."

"Kala," Elissa said, her tone sharp but not without humor. "Leave the man alone. He's done more for this town in a day than most manage in years, but I don't want you hanging around him until I know more about him."

Kala shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "Fine, fine. I'll keep it casual. But if he's got stories, I want to hear them."

Elissa sighed, setting the kettle to boil. "Look, you can meet him later—together—but keep your heads on straight. He's not here for our entertainment, and I doubt he's staying long."

Tara nodded, already deep in thought about what questions she could ask. Kala, however, was practically vibrating with anticipation.

"So," Kala said, leaning closer with a mischievous grin, "do you think he's single?"

Elissa choked on her tea, coughing as she glared at her daughter. "Out. Now. Both of you."

Kala laughed, grabbing her gear as she darted for the door. "Alright, alright, I'm going! But seriously, Mom, if he needs a guide, you know where to find me!"

Tara rose more deliberately, pausing at the doorway to glance back. "I'll head to Mr. Gibbon's place after breakfast. I want to pick through his scrap for anything that might help stabilize the grid."

"Good thinking," Elissa said, her tone softening. "But don't forget to eat first. You'll need the energy."

Tara nodded and disappeared out the door, leaving Elissa alone in the quiet house. She shook her head, muttering, "Teenagers."

As the kettle began to steam, she allowed herself a small smile. For all their differences—Kala's bold, impulsive charm and Tara's quiet, meticulous determination—they were good kids.

Still, the thought of them meeting Koron made her stomach twist. He'd brought power back to Dusthaven, but his presence carried an air of danger, something deeper and more complicated than the twins could possibly understand.

But that was a worry for another time. For now, there were pumps to repair, meals to prepare, and a town to keep running. Small victories would have to do.

-

Doc's clinic stood near the heart of town, one of the largest structures aside from the town hall and the emergency shelter carved deeper into the mountain. Like the other buildings in Dusthaven, it was squat and utilitarian, its entrance a set of double-wide doors marked by an aquila symbol that swayed faintly in the desert wind.

Pushing inside, Elissa called out, "Doc?" Her voice carried over the faint hum of machines as she stepped into the cool, sterile air. A muffled reply came from deeper within, prompting her to glance around while she waited.

The walls, once a soft beige, now bore the scars of decades weathering Dusthaven's unforgiving desert climate. Scuffs, dents, and stains created a patchwork of wear, with faded posters clinging stubbornly to the walls, their edges curling from age. One depicted a smiling family, with bold letters encouraging regular health check-ups, though its colors had dulled to near monochrome. Another bore a grim warning about local water contamination, reminding residents to boil their water—a stark reflection of the settlement's daily struggles.

In the center of the room, a polished metal examination table gleamed under flickering fluorescent lights, its cold, clinical appearance standing out against the worn, rustic surroundings. Beside it, a stainless steel tray held a neatly arranged array of instruments: sterilized scalpels, stacked bandages, and glass vials that caught and refracted the artificial light. A compact holo-terminal rested on the table's edge, it's modern design clashing with the clinic's antiquated charm.

Hovering silently above the table, a servitor floated with eerie precision. Its single mechanical eye rotated in lazy arcs, surveying the room with detached efficiency. Tool-laden limbs hung at its sides, softly humming as though waiting for orders to stir them into action. Around the room, servo-skulls drifted like spectral guardians, their faintly glowing blue optics flaring intermittently. Some bore holographic recorders, while others carried diagnostic sensors that pulsed with quiet purpose, projecting ghostly vitals or treatment notes into the dusty air.

The scent of antiseptic dominated, sharp and sterile, mingling faintly with the omnipresent aroma of sunbaked sand—a reminder that the desert was never far away. Against one wall, a sagging shelf overflowed with patient records, a chaotic blend of yellowed paper files and fragile data-slates, each a testament to the myriad injuries and illnesses suffered by Dusthaven's hardy inhabitants. Nearby, a faded curtain hung limply, separating the exam area from the cramped waiting room. There, battered plastic chairs lined the wall in a row, their once-bright hues faded to a uniform gray. A rusty water cooler gurgled in the corner, its tank clouded with sediment, a dubious promise of refreshment.

The sharp clatter of boots on tile announced Dr. Lucia Malinov's arrival. She emerged from the back, a striking figure of contrasts. Her left arm and leg were augmetics, sleek and functional replacements for limbs she had lost battling an Ork Nob—a tale she often recounted with a wry grin and the phrase, "You should've seen the other guy." Her remaining arm, muscular and deft, moved with practiced confidence.

Despite the weight of her past, her smile was warm as she saw Elissa. The dull thunk of her augmetic leg accompanied her approach, its sound a subtle testament to her history. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, her pixie-cut hair still styled in the manner of her former life as a Hospitaller of the Sisters of Battle. Yet her eyes, heavy with experience, seemed far older.

"Mornin'. What brings you here so early?" she asked, her voice a smooth blend of humor and concern.

Elissa returned the smile. "Morning, Doc. Notice anything… different today?" She gestured toward the clinic lights.

Doc's lips quirked in mild amusement. "Different? No, not at all. Just some old machinery suddenly springing back to life after years of sitting idle. Can't imagine why. Heard through the grapevine we've got a visitor. Some cogboy, right?"

Taking a seat in the waiting room, Elissa spun the chair around to sit backward, her arms draped over the backrest. She adjusted slightly, stifling a grimace as her figure proved less cooperative with the old chair's design. "That's what it seems like. But he's not like any cogboy I've ever seen—no red robes, no tech-priest 'look.' His face actually looked… human. Only cyberware I saw was his arms, and they're… different. Streamlined, smooth. If he wore long sleeves and gloves, I might not have noticed."

Doc frowned, her organic hand rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "That's… more worrying than I expected. Augments like that aren't just rare; they're incredibly expensive, even for the Admech. And I heard something about a flying bike? Hovering tech, right?"

Elissa nodded; her expression intrigued. "Yeah. It didn't just hover; it floated. Smooth as silk. Never seen anything like it."

Doc's brow furrowed further. "That kind of machine… it's not just rare—it's practically unheard of outside the Mechanicus or the Astarte's. Last time I saw anything like it, an Astarte's squad was passing near my camp."

Elissa's eyes widened, emerald bright with fascination. "You saw Angels of Death?"

Doc chuckled softly, shaking her head. "Saw, yes. From a distance. Didn't exactly sit down for a chat, though."

Leaning back in her chair, Doc shakes away the memories. "Anyway, no sugar coating, I would be very leery of having him around. Someone with that kind of money, the kind of connections to get that level of gear? Makes me wonder why he's out here on his own."

"Agreed. That said, if he's willing to fix our reactor and our water supply in exchange for staying here, assuming he plans to, then I'm willing to use him. If he turns out to be a problem with whatever's in his past, we toss him out to the wolves." Snapping her fingers, Elissa pointed towards Doc. "Also, something else was weird. He didn't speak for a while, but after a bit he started speaking really broken gothic. You have any ideas about that?"

Shrugging, Doc only gave a slight shake of her head. "No idea. Might be a noble, never actually used the common tongue? Maybe a busted bit of cyber in his throat? I got no way of tellin honey."

A weary smile tugged at her lips. "Fair enough. Just figured I should ask; you and Milo are the only two who I know of that have been off-world before. Was kinda hoping one of you might have some recollection."

"Tell ya what, have him come by to fix some of my equipment, I'll run some discreet scans, see what we're dealing with and get a feel for the boy."

"Sounds good. Thanks Doc."

"Anytime."

----

As she emerged from Docs office, she stopped, several dozen of the townspeople rushing by. Grabbing one, Dalton, his salt and pepper mustache standing out against his leathered, tanned skin, she asked "Whats wrong?"

"Word is that cogboys down in the aquifer, doing something with the pump. People are right nervous about anybody messing with the water, and I heard whispers some boys got him at gunpoint."

Cursing, Elissa grabbed the older man shoulder, pushing him towards Docs. "Tell doc to prep, we might have some injuries coming in!"

Her short legs still covered the ground well, duster coattails flapping behind her as she approached, shouting ahead for the people to clear a path.

Making her way through, she flew down the steps, deeper than the reactor, down into the depths of the mountain. If the reactor was the heart of the settlement, then the mountains' depths held its lifeblood.

Dusthaven's aquifer lay hidden deep within the mountain's rugged embrace, a guarded lifeline for the settlement. Enclosed within a natural cavern, it's still waters shimmered faintly in the dim light of hanging lamps, their glow casting rippling reflections across the stone walls. The air here was cool and heavy with moisture, a stark contrast to the arid desert above. Stalactites dripped steadily, their rhythmic plinks echoing softly, blending with the low hum of pumps and filtration systems installed to draw the precious resource to the surface.

Massive stone pillars, remnants of ancient tectonic forces, framed the aquifer's edge, their bases partially submerged. Signs of human intervention were evident—reinforced walkways crisscrossed the chamber, allowing workers to inspect equipment or access testing stations. Pipes snaked along the walls and ceiling, gleaming with maintenance despite their patched and mismatched appearance, evidence of the settlement's resourceful spirit. The filtration hub stood at the far end of the cavern, a squat, boxy machine with blinking indicators and softly churning mechanisms, tirelessly purifying the water.

The aquifer's surface was deceptively calm, its depth hinting at unseen complexity. Occasional bubbles broke the mirror-like stillness, rising from fissures far below, a reminder of the geological forces at work. A faint, mineral-rich scent hung in the air, mingling with the sterile tang of maintenance fluids used to keep the machinery operational.

As for the water pump and purification systems? They were a patchwork of ancient design and desperate ingenuity, a mechanical testament to the settlement's will to survive. The original system, installed long before the current generation, bore the marks of age and neglect. Faded manufacturer sigils and worn Mechanicus engravings hinted at it's once-pristine origins, but now, its glory days were long past.

The pump itself was a hulking monstrosity of corroded metal, its bulk riddled with rust, dents, and makeshift repairs. Layers of mismatched plating bolted over fractures and missing panels gave it the appearance of a lopsided beast. Hoses and pipes jutted out at awkward angles, some thick and reinforced, others thin and brittle, their surfaces coated in grime and mineral deposits. Blackened patches showed where welds had sealed critical leaks, and a tangle of wires dangled precariously, their insulation frayed or missing entirely.

The purification unit, adjacent to the pump, was in an even worse shape. Its boxy frame was pockmarked with holes and cracks, with duct tape and resin plugs barely keeping the system intact. A cluttered control panel sat on its side, its buttons and levers sticky and worn, while a jumble of glowing indicator lights flickered erratically. On one edge of the unit, a makeshift cooling system—little more than an ancient fan jury-rigged with scavenged parts—whirred weakly, its uneven rotations accompanied by the occasional sharp clank.

Water trickled through a labyrinth of filters cobbled together from salvaged materials. Layers of wire mesh, cloth, and other improvised media had been inserted where proper components were missing. Maintenance tools and supplies, ranging from proper Mechanicus-crafted spanners to crude wrenches hammered into shape, littered the surrounding area, ready for constant adjustments. The faint odor of chemical disinfectants clung to the system, barely masking the tang of metal and machine oil.

The entire assembly groaned and hissed like a dying beast, coughing and sputtering as it forced water through its failing mechanisms. Despite its precarious state, the system somehow persevered, delivering a trickle of life-sustaining water to the people of Dusthaven. It was a fragile lifeline, held together more by hope and determination than sound engineering, a constant reminder of just how close the settlement was to calamity.

Now, standing in a tense circle around the stranger, the local engineers gripped their tools tightly, holding them up like makeshift weapons to defend their temperamental lifeline from the outsider who dared approach.

Behind them, the settlement's guards aimed their battered lasguns squarely at Koron, whose hands were raised in what seemed like a gesture of surrender.

No… not quite.

A sudden sense of unease pricked at the back of Elissa's mind. Years of hostile negotiations had trained her to sense danger when it loomed, sending alarm bells clanging through her thoughts. Her steps faltered as a chill ran down her spine. Pieces of her earlier conversation with Doc slammed together in her mind like teeth snapping shut in a trap.

Cybernetics like that are expensive. He must have connections high up.
Might be a noble, never had to speak the language before.
Nobles have enemies. Lots of them.

Her gaze dropped to Koron's hands. They weren't raised in surrender after all. No, they were out, facing the engineers and guards who threatened him.

This wasn't submission.

He's not unarmed.

Her pulse quickened. She scanned the room: the engineers, unarmored and exposed, clung to their tools like life rafts. Behind them, the guards held their lasguns, their mismatched armor more patchwork than protection. And then there was Koron, standing apart, encased in seamless armor that radiated a quiet, deadly lethality. She had already seen the cybernetics at work—tools unfurling from his limbs with unnerving speed and precision.

What else is in there?

The thought unsettled her, tugging at her instincts with a low, insistent pull.

"Stand down, everybody!" Her voice cracked like a whip, sharp and commanding, its echo amplified in the water-soaked space, making it feel like she was standing above them, towering.

If it had been just her, she might have shouted a few more times just for the sheer rush of it.

But before she could process, the sharp crack of a lasgun shot shattered the fragile quiet. The poor guard, startled by the reverberating sound of her voice, fired, and the crimson bolt surged forward, streaking through the air with sizzling heat.

Time stretched.

Then—

A blinding burst of blue-white light exploded around Koron. The air pulsed with the sudden activation of a barrier, a shield of energy materializing in an instant. The lasbolt struck the barrier's surface with a crackling burst, its energy scattering into shimmering, electric tendrils. Ripples of cyan light spread outward, arcing like threads of lightning, coursing through the lattice with an eerie, almost sentient precision.

The crowd gasped, a collective sound of horror that quickly gave way to stunned silence. The hum of the barrier resonated through the space, low and thrumming, casting long, eerie shadows over the onlookers. Someone stumbled backward, wide-eyed, muttering, "The Emperor's mercy…"

Elissa's breath hitched in her chest. Her eyes widened as she stared at Koron, who remained still, his hands still raised, unmoved by the blast. He didn't flinch. He didn't look at the barrier—he just stood there, as though the shield's activation was second nature to him.

The guards faltered, lasguns shaking in their hands. One muttered, "What the hell was that?" while another recoiled, the weapon clutched tightly to his chest as if it might protect him from whatever had just transpired.

But Elissa's attention was fixed elsewhere. As the barrier rippled and hummed, Koron's right arm suddenly moved with a terrifying speed. His hand extended outward, and arcs of electricity crackled between his fingers, surging with violent intensity, the lightning-like tendrils dancing over his hand, snapping and sparking as if alive.

Elissa's pulse raced as her instincts screamed at her.

Her eyes darted to the young guard who had fired, panic wide on his face, his lasgun still raised, unsure of what to do next. Koron's arm was aimed, crackling with deadly energy, ready to unleash some unknown force.

Without thinking, Elissa's body reacted before her mind could fully process the situation. She moved with a speed born of instinct and experience, cutting across the space between the guard and Koron. She slid into position, placing herself squarely between the two, her body blocking the crackling energy that now surged from Koron's raised arm.

"Elissa!" The young guard's voice wavered, his gun trembling in his hands.

She didn't look at him. Instead, her eyes stayed fixed on Koron, her voice low but fierce as she spoke to the armored figure. "Don't." She commanded, her voice low, calm, but focused.

Koron's arm hovered, crackling with unspent energy. There was no immediate movement, but the tension in the air was palpable, the sheer heat generated by whatever she was staring down the barrel of making her sweat.

Her heart pounded in her chest, and she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. But she kept her stance firm. This wasn't the time for rash moves, for rash decisions.

"Stop," she repeated more firmly, her voice unwavering.

After a moment that stretched out like an eternity, the lightning slowly dissipated, fading from Koron's hand, though the energy still hummed beneath the surface. His arm lowered, but his posture remained stiff, unwavering.

She stepped aside, turning to face the young guard. "Put the damn gun down," she growled. Her hand shot out, slapping the rifle away from the guard's trembling grasp as she moved past him to face Daniel, the lead engineer. His eyes were wide with disbelief, still locked on Koron and the smoldering aftereffects of the barrier.

"Daniel, why are we turning him into roasted dustjackel?"

Daniel sputtered, his hands still tight around his wrench, but his voice faltered. "He just came down here and started undoing the panels! Ripping seals, messing with wires! He was going to destroy the filters!"

Elissa nodded, turning fully to face Koron, her arms crossed tightly under her chest as she forced her tone to be casual. "Okay, and your side of the story?" Keep it cool girl. Be the rock they need right now.

Koron did not reply immediately. The faint hum of his weapon finally died down, and for a moment, the tension hung heavy in the air. Then, Koron removed his helmet with a fluid motion, the black armor hissing faintly as it disengaged.

Elissa watched him closely, her eyes narrowing slightly. The gesture was unexpected, yet somehow it struck her as an attempt to make himself clearer, to bridge the chasm of distrust that still hung thick between them. She appreciated that, even if her mind couldn't quite ignore the faint distortion rippling around the edges of the barrier, little more than a faint heat haze now.

"Last night I found the water to be brackish. Full of silica, carbon, and a dozen other elements, including oxidized iron and plasteel. Such elements are extremely harmful to ingest, especially for children. I came to fix the pump. Pieces must be removed to complete the repairs, medication distributed to the populace." Her surprise at his much more eloquent speech was quickly pushed aside, for the moment as she considered his words.

Such words cut through the murmurs of the engineers like a knife. The group fell into shameful silence, the weight of his statement sinking in. The water… brackish. Damaging. Everyone had known the water was going bad, that the filters were breaking down. But to hear it put so clearly by someone not of their town…it cut.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Elissa fought to keep her irritation in check. She had to maintain control of the situation. Deep breaths.

"Koron, next time you have something you want to fix, come talk to me first," she said, doing her best to keep the annoyance out of her voice. "We don't know you, and while you fixed the reactor, that was you getting something out of it. Why would you just come down here and start fixing things on your own?"

For a moment, she thought he might hesitate, maybe offer some form of explanation that would sound reasonable, human even. But then his answer came, blunt, simple, and honest—a slap to the face.

"Because I can help. What other reason do I require?"

Elissa's gaze dropped briefly, trying to steady herself. Her instincts screamed at her to dig deeper, to find the hidden motive, the secret angle she knew had to be there. But as Koron stood before her—his clear, unyielding azure gaze never wavering, his body bristling with the power to destroy if necessary—she realized with a sickening clarity that maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth.

And that truth wasn't something she was ready for.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth, but for a moment, Elissa simply stared back at him, weighing the sincerity in his eyes against the deep-rooted skepticism that had always kept her grounded.

Finally, she exhaled, feeling the weight of the realization pressing down on her.

"Fine," she muttered, rubbing her temple. With a sharp exhale, Elissa stepped back and gestured to the engineers. "Alright. Everybody just… calm down. We'll talk about the water pump. Just—don't touch anything else unless I say so."

She turned to Koron, her eyes narrowing. "And you—no more surprises, understand?"

Koron didn't respond. But the flicker in his eyes, something between curiosity and impatience, suggested that he would abide by the rules, for now. He had already made it clear he didn't see the need for permission.

A lingering sense of unease gripped her as she watched him, but she forced herself to push it aside for now. One problem at a time.

And, as always, it was her job to make sure things didn't spiral out of control.

-

The tavern's worn walls were a welcome sight as Elissa pushed through the heavy metal door. The smell of stale ale mixed with the sharper scent of grease and something faintly floral. Yannek looked up in surprise when he saw her so early. "El," he said, his voice tinged with surprise, as he slid a glass of sunfrond tea across the bar. The rich, bitter brew—a dark, caffeine-packed concoction—would help settle her rattled nerves. "Busy day?"

"You could say that," Elissa replied, picking up the glass and taking a long sip. She let the warmth spread through her, steeling herself before meeting his gaze. "You want the good news or the bad news?"

Yannek raised an eyebrow, his hands resting on the polished surface of the bar. Before he could answer, Milo barged through the door, rifle slung over his chest, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "I'm always partial to good news first myself," he cut in, eyes flicking between the two of them. "Makes it easier to deal with the bad. Like wrapping meds in sugar."

Yannek grumbled, grabbing the teapot and pouring another mug for Milo. "Please. An ass like you couldn't stand the taste of sugar. It'd melt your bitter black heart."

Milo shrugged, taking the seat next to Elissa with practiced ease, resting his rifle beside him. "True, true. How about it's more like getting drunk before the servitor staples your leg shut?"

"That's more like it."

The lighthearted banter faltered, though, as Milo noticed Elissa's demeanor. She wasn't joining in. Her gaze remained locked on the steaming tea before her, distant and troubled.

"Hey," Milo asked, his voice softening as he leaned forward. "What's got you down in the dumps?"

"You didn't hear yet? About what happened at the pump?" Elissa replied, her tone flat.

Milo's posture stiffened at once, that old edge in his voice creeping in. "No. What happened?"

"The new guy, Koron," Elissa began, her fingers tracing absent circles along the rim of her mug. "Damn near—actually, shit, we did have a gunfight, technically."

Milo's brows furrowed, concern flashing in his eyes as she waved a hand to cut him off before he could ask too many questions. "Sit down, let me explain. The cogboy—Koron—he went down to the pump on his own after seeing the state of the water in his room last night. Started messing with the filter system without saying a word to anyone. So, naturally, everyone freaked the hell out. Daniel's whole team, and the security detail, pulled weapons on him."

"Shit... is everyone okay?" Milo's voice was tight with concern.

"Yeah, that's the scary part," Elissa replied with a sigh. "The new kid, I forget his name, shot him." She mimed pulling a trigger, her finger pointing at her temple. "Pow. Right in the face. And Koron didn't even flinch. No damage. Some kind of... field ate the shot like it was nothing." She paused, her expression still taut with disbelief. "Oh! And, to top it off, the guy's armed with some kind of energy weapon. Looked like it was about to spit a lightning bolt or sear my face off."

Milo sat back, his face hardening as he processed the information. His mind raced, trying to reconcile this with anything he'd seen before. Finally, he spoke, his voice quieter now, as though trying to make sense of the absurdity. "I've seen some of the cogboys back in the service, out in the field a few times, helping recover armor and the like. They had some wild stuff, sure. But what you're talking about?" He shook his head slowly, disbelief etched on his face. "Never. Not once in forty years did I see anything even remotely like what you're describing."

Yannek leaned casually on the counter, his arms crossed, listening intently. He nodded as Elissa finished her account. "So… is that the good news or the bad news?"

Elissa took another gulp of tea, the warmth steadying her, before wiping her lips on the frayed sleeve of her duster. "Neither, really. That's just what happened." Setting the mug down with a muted clink, she clapped her hands together and turned slightly to face both men. "Now, for the good news."

Both men perked up, leaning closer as she spoke.

"A massive chunk of the filters are replaced, most of the cogitators are back online, and nearly all the leaks—along with several busted pipes—have been completely restored." She gestured broadly, her tone lightening with the relief of progress. "Our water should be a lot cleaner now. Doc still says we should boil it, but based on what I saw on those slides? A massive amount of pollutants have been removed."

Yannek's face broke into a wide grin, the lines around his eyes crinkling with joy. "That's great! Clean water! That's amazing news!"

Milo's expression, however, shifted into something more thoughtful, his brow furrowing as he processed her words. "Hold on," he said, his tone more measured. "How the hell did he pull that off? We don't have the parts—spare or otherwise—for an overhaul like that. Even with all the add-on filters we rigged up, we barely made a dent."

Elissa shrugged, her lips curling into a faint, exasperated smile. "He made the parts."

Milo blinked, incredulous. "What, like—?"

"A little panel on his arm slid open," she interrupted, holding up her hands to mime the scene. "This little blue circle lit up, and these dozens of tiny arms started going wild, crafting… something. About ten seconds later, he had a brand-new filter in his hand. And it fit perfectly. Like it was meant to be there."

She paused to let the impact of her words sink in, watching their stunned expressions.

"Then he starts doing the same thing with all the filters," she continued, her voice rising slightly as the memory stirred her own lingering disbelief. "And not just the filters—he's building entire sections of pipe from scratch. Right there. Out of his arm. He just keeps replacing the busted sections like it's nothing. And I mean seamless replacements. No gaps, no weak points. It's like…" She trailed off, slumping forward to rest her forehead against the cool steel of the bar.

Yannek and Milo exchanged a glance, but neither interrupted.

Finally, Elissa broke the silence, her voice quieter now. "He called it a nanoweave fabricator," she said, almost to herself. "Apologized that it was the only one he had, so he couldn't replace the larger parts, like the big pipes farther down the shaft."

Her emerald eyes stared into the distance, unfocused. The memory of Koron's expression lingered in her mind, sharper than the details of his work.

"He… was ashamed that he couldn't fix everything," she murmured. "Ashamed. After everything he did—fixing the filters like it was nothing, replacing sections of the pump—he was sorry he couldn't do more."

The bar fell silent for a moment, save for the faint hum of machinery somewhere deeper in the settlement. Milo shifted uncomfortably, his hand running across his rifle as if grounding himself.

"Damn," he muttered, breaking the quiet. "That's not normal."

Elissa lifted her head, her face still etched with disbelief. "Nothing about him is."

"So," Milo asked, his gaze shifting uneasily as he spoke. "What's the bad news?"

Elissa sighed, leaning back in her seat. "He can't make the larger parts we need. The pump and the filter system still need completely new components. And that means either the Sea or Anaxis."

Yannek muttered a curse under his breath, rubbing at his temple. "Fuck. Anaxis is a sure bet for the parts. The cogboys out there build Titans. A water pump and some piping shouldn't even make them break a sweat."

"Yeah," Milo shot back, his voice edged with frustration, "but what the fuck are we gonna pay them with? We're barely scraping by with the trade caravans as it is. And it's not like we have anything they'd want—N'kasha aside. And even that's in short supply. Besides," he added darkly, "we sure as hell don't want to end up in debt to the Mechanicus. Those bastards don't forget a single throne."

Elissa rubbed her chin thoughtfully, her eyes narrowing. "We could try the Sea. It's a long shot, but we might be able to salvage something from one of the ships out there. Their water systems must have pumps we—or Koron—could rig into place."

Milo grimaced, shaking his head. "Yeah, but orks."

"Agreed." She exhaled sharply, leaning her elbows on the counter. "But which is worse: shooting orks, or trying to cut a deal with the cogboys?"

Milo snorted, a bitter half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Eh, about the same, I'd argue."

Yannek groaned, dropping his head onto the counter with a dull thud. "Perfect. Our options are frying pans and fires."

Elissa shrugged. "Welcome to the wasteland."

"My votes for the city first." Yannek said, wiping down the already clean countertop as he looked for something to busy his hands. "They ask for too much, the Sea is always an option."

Chewing the idea over in her mind, Elissa slowly nodded. "Yeah. We can always say no. Alright, city it is. We'll need to get the caravan ready—this trip won't be easy."

"A week through the desert never is," Milo grumbled, his voice tinged with frustration. He stopped as the door swung open, sand swirling in with the heavy thud of Koron's armored boots.

"Excuse me, Miss Brandt," Koron began, pausing when he saw the others present. He gave them each a curt nod before continuing, his helmet tucked on his belt. "I was approached by a Mr. Emric. He asked if I could take a look at his arm—apparently, it's been having actuator issues for some time."

Elissa pushed herself upright, silently cursing her mother again as the familiar weight settled back onto her shoulders. She winced, the burden of leadership never feeling lighter. "And… you're here because…?"

"…You asked me to get your permission before fixing things," came his flat reply.

She could almost swear there was a subtle 'are you stupid?' in his tone, but she quickly brushed the thought aside, realizing the mistake was her own. "Okay, fair enough. Ask permission if you're doing something that could affect the whole town or our survival, alright?"

Koron nodded, his expression unreadable. Elissa held up her hand to stop him from turning away just yet. "And by the way," she added, her tone shifting to something a little more casual, "it's just Miss Brandt, Elissa, Mayor, or if I like you—'hey, you'. No need for all the formalities out here in the wastes. Oh, and, I was curious; what's with your speech all of a sudden not being a broken mess?"

Koron's nodded slowly as he tapped his temple. "My translation matrix required additional time to process. The several hours of rest allowed it to mostly complete its calibration."

Elissa regarded him coolly, her instincts still wary but her expression unreadable. The stranger, it seemed, wasn't just a rogue in the desert. He was far more than they could have anticipated.

With a nod, Koron turned back toward the door, the gleam of his armor cutting through the dim light like a torch. Elissa suddenly stood, calling after him. "Wait a second, Koron, can I ask you something?"

"Of course. What can I help you with?" His voice was calm as he spun on his heel to face her.

"That bike of yours—how fast is it? How long would it take to get to the forge city to the west?"

He paused, then raised a metal finger. "Give me a moment. I need to see what you're talking about."

With that, he left, and the others exchanged a glance as the armored figure made his way toward the gate.

Yannek broke the silence. "What do you think he's doing?"

"How should I know? Just let him handle it. If the bike's fast enough, we could save on fuel," Elissa replied.

"What, have someone take his bike into the city?" Milo's voice was incredulous. "El, the bike's appearance got our attention. A city of cogboys will soil their robes just from seeing it. Plus, I don't think he'd let anyone else ride it."

"…Well, thanks for that mental image," Elissa muttered.

"It's true," Milo said, unbothered.

"Doesn't make it any less gross," Yannek piped up, with a smirk.

A few minutes later, Koron returned, promptly delivering his answer.

"Estimates on the city's size and distance are complete. I would estimate at a moderate cruising speed, it would take about eleven hours to reach the city. If I were to put all haste into it, about six and a half hours."

Three pairs of eyes widened as they tried to process the speed his bike could reach.

"That's…" Elissa stammered, counting on her fingers. "What, two thousand miles an hour?"

"One thousand and change, yes," Koron replied.

"You'll have to tell us one day where you stole that bike from," Milo grunted, lighting up a cigarette.

Koron bristled, his shoulders stiffening. "Excuse me, but I built that bike with my own two hands, thank you very much."

The sudden spike of anger that laced Korons tone caught everyone's attention.

For a long moment Milo stared back at Koron, clearly considering something.

Koron for his part, remained still, and all Elissa could see was that crackling lightning that had been inches from her face, the faint distortion around his body from the field that had taken a lasbolt to the head and not even flinched.

She could feel the tension mounting in her neck as she started to stand, only to stop as Milo gave a slow nod.

"Apologies. Didn't mean to insult yer skills."

Koron, at his admission, seemed to deflate slightly, his shoulders loosening as if a weight had lifted, if only a fraction. His voice softened. "Thank you. And... Sorry for getting defensive. She means a lot to me, is all. One of the few things from home I have left."

Elissa felt a flicker of curiosity flare at his words. Home? What does that mean? Where's home for you? Do you have a family waiting for you—a wife? Kids?

She pushed the questions aside, keeping her expression neutral. Koron was the guarded type, and prying wouldn't get her anywhere. Instead, she latched onto a more immediate topic.

"So, six hours, huh?" she said, keeping her tone light. "That's... insane, honestly. But if that's true, how do you feel about giving me a ride to the city? I've got some business there, and you'd save me about a week's worth of travel."

Koron nodded, though his gaze briefly flickered past her, as if weighing her request against something unseen. "I could do that," he said finally.

Before she could respond, Koron's pale blue eyes dropped, appraising her attire with a brief, sweeping glance. His gaze was quick, almost clinical, but lingered just long enough for her to notice. Heat crept into her cheeks, and she straightened instinctively, suddenly aware of how she might look to him.

"What are you—" she began, a mixture of irritation and embarrassment coloring her tone.

"You'll need more coverage," he interrupted, his tone calm and matter-of-fact. He gestured faintly to her sand-colored blouse and fitted trousers. "Wind resistance at that speed would tear through what you're wearing, and it won't provide enough protection against abrasion or exposure to the elements. Do you have voidsuits or anything similar?"

Elissa blinked, the flush in her cheeks deepening. For a moment, she wasn't sure whether to feel embarrassed or annoyed. He was looking at me for... practical reasons? Not even a flicker of anything else?

Her mind raced with conflicting thoughts. Don't jump to conclusions, Elissa. He's practical, that's all. But another part of her, the part she wasn't proud of, grumbled inwardly. What, he doesn't even find me attractive?

Drawing herself up, she folded her arms and gave a slow nod. "I think I might be able to scrounge something up. We've got a few old voidsuits from salvage runs. You know how it is—no shortage of those in starship wrecks. They're not exactly the latest model, but they hold up well enough in sandstorms. That should work, right?"

Koron shrugged, the plates of his cybernetic arms shifting fluidly with a faint hum of servos. "They might. I can make it work for you." His lips quirked into a small, playful smile as he added, "Don't worry, you're not the first lady I've taken for a ride."

The line hit her out of nowhere, and she stared at him, her composure cracking just enough to leave her momentarily speechless.

"Well," she managed after a beat, recovering quickly, "your, uh, translation matrix seems to be updating. What's next, a sonnet?"

Koron chuckled softly, shaking his head. "I have been told my singing is considered cruel and unusual punishment. Just trying to put you at ease. You seemed nervous, that's all."

Elissa's emerald eyes narrowed slightly as she studied him, tilting her head just enough to let her fiery hair catch the dim sunlight. She couldn't tell whether he was teasing her, being sincere, or just oblivious.

"Well," she said at last, walking past him with a faint smirk, "let's see if I can dig up that suit. Don't go anywhere, hotshot."

As she walked away, Koron made his way to a nearby table, his expression settling into quiet focus. He muttered something under his breath—soft, barely audible.

Elissa stopped briefly, glancing over her shoulder. "Did you say something?"

Koron didn't look up. "Nothing important," he said, brushing off her question.

But her brow furrowed as she turned back toward the storehouse. His tone had carried an odd, distracted weight, as if he'd been speaking to someone. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Too much sun, Elissa. Focus.

-

Elissa watched Koron work on the patched-up voidsuit in her home, her and Tara's expressions mirroring one another in quiet awe. The way his fingers unfurled into tools was mesmerizing, a seamless display of precision and skill. Each movement stitched the repair patches—fabricated on the spot—into the voidsuit's sandblasted surface with mechanical grace. Seals were reinforced, and the hoselines that carried oxygen were carefully threaded back into place. Sparks danced as his metallic fingertips ground down broken threads, reforming them into smooth, functional spirals.

"Does it hurt when your arms change like that?" Tara asked, her voice steady but filled with fascination. Her green eyes followed the intricate movements of his hands with the intensity of someone eager to understand every detail.

Koron glanced at her, a faint smile softening his otherwise stoic expression. "No, not even a little. You don't need to worry about that."

Tara tilted her head, the gears of her mind visibly turning. "So how does it all work? The fabricator on your arm—how does it produce the patches? And how are you able to sew them on so precisely? I mean, Mom's mending usually takes hours, and she always grumbles about it." She pointed towards the patch on her shirt's side, the darker brown threads contrasting sharply against the faded pink.

Elissa, who had been observing silently, raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Koron held up a single metallic finger in a mock gesture of patience. His tone carried a playful edge. "In order: a quantum-flux reactor powers me, the fabricator uses nanoweave technology, I've had a lot of practice with these hands, and the shirt is still lovely. Brings out your eyes."

Tara blinked, caught off guard by the compliment, and a faint blush crept across her cheeks. "Oh, uh... thanks," she murmured, quickly composing herself. "But seriously, nanoweave? What even is that? And—"

Elissa placed a hand gently on her daughter's shoulder, cutting off the next flurry of questions. "Tara, let the man work. He's fixing this for me, so don't distract him too much, okay?"

Koron looked up briefly, his smile was more pronounced this time. "She's not distracting me. I enjoy answering her questions."

Elissa gave him a measured look but nodded. "Alright, if you say so. I'll leave you two to it for now. I've got things to get ready."

As she made her way upstairs to her bedroom, she could hear Tara's continued stream of questions, each one met with Koron's calm, patient responses. The sound of their conversation carried a strange warmth, one Elissa couldn't quite place.

Though she trusted her daughter's judgment, a faint worry lingered. Koron was a stranger, a traveler with skills and technology far beyond Dusthaven's modest means. His arrival had already changed their lives in more ways than one, but Elissa couldn't shake the feeling that his presence also carried an unspoken weight—a past or purpose that might soon collide with their quiet, fragile existence.

For now, though, she let the sound of Tara's inquisitive voice ease her thoughts as she began to prepare for the tasks ahead.

It was a simple space, the double bed pushed into the far corner with the room's only window, the light from the single overhead bulb stretching across the room. Her dresser, almost as tall as she was, loomed against the far wall, while her tiny closet held the few dresses she bothered to keep.

Her backpack, always ready to go at a moment's notice, lay by the door. Beside it, her lasgun sat, the powerpacks charged and ready, the refurbished flak armor hanging from the hook. Her life required that weapons always be within easy reach, never knowing when she would need to use them. It wouldn't be the first time that raiders, orks or the like had shown up.

Flopping onto the bed, she stared at the cracked ceiling, her mind already running through potential strategies for negotiating with the cogboys. She let the thoughts settle in, but they churned, relentless.

Koron was still working downstairs, his cybernetic limbs a blur as he methodically repaired the voidsuit. Tara's incessant questions drifted in the background, but they were nothing more than background noise to her as her thoughts spiraled around the looming negotiation with the Mechanicus.

She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the worst-case scenarios—those cold, calculating tech-priests dismissing her outright, tossing aside any request like they had done before with countless other scavengers. They would demand more than she could provide, or worse, they would see her as just another cog in the machine. But she needed those parts for the pump, full stop.

She sat up slowly, the thoughts still swirling. The Mechanicus were not ones for charity. They traded in value, not sentiment, and they respected power, knowledge, and relics of the past. If she wanted their help, she'd have to give them something that mattered.

But what could I offer them?

Her gaze swept across the room, landing on the gear packed neatly by the door. A few weapons, rations, her lasgun. It was a thought that had been rattling in the back of her mind, one she hadn't fully formed until now. A lie. A lie so well-crafted that even the Adeptus Mechanicus might buy it. The thought made her pause. She had no love for deception—after all, she had two daughters to look after, and she'd always prided herself on being honest with them. But desperate times…

What if I told them I'd found something… a wreck, a long-abandoned relic site, with strange energy readings?

She grimaced at the thought, considering the details. The idea of making something up—a "wreck" with strange energy readings—was plausible enough. She'd heard rumors about uncharted wrecks scattered across the surrounding wastelands, ships and stations from the old days, all but forgotten by the galaxy. The Mechanicus would bite on that—no question. They were obsessed with ancient technology, anything that even remotely hinted at forbidden knowledge. If she said she'd discovered such a site, with odd energy signatures, they'd be drawn in. They'd have to be.

But could she go that far?

It's not like I'm offering them a working piece of tech, she thought, just a potential lead. A scrap of something.

She exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. It would be a gamble—one that could backfire spectacularly if the Mechanicus caught on. They were not stupid. They could see through a lie like that in seconds if they dug deep enough. But desperation gnawed at her. Without that lie, they'd never give her the time of day, let alone the parts she needed.

The decision hung heavily in her mind. She needed something that would catch their attention, something that would make them willing to trade their precious technology. A lie might be the only way.

She grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulder, walking over to the small window. The light from the single bulb flickered above her, casting long shadows. Her thoughts kept circling back to the wrecks, those rumors she'd heard from wanderers and traders—strange energy readings… yes, they would fall for that. If she sold it right, they'd want to investigate, and if they thought there was a chance at an ancient relic—an object of value to them—they wouldn't hesitate to provide the parts she needed.

She turned and walked downstairs, the sound of Koron's quiet work filling the air. Tara's voice was a muffled hum in the background, still peppering him with questions. Elissa took a deep breath before entering the room, her eyes flicking briefly to Koron as he adjusted the suit.

"Koron," Elissa said, her voice calm but carrying an edge of determination. "I need to talk to you."

Koron paused, his mechanical hands still mid-motion as they held the voidsuit in place. He set down his tools with deliberate care, the faint whir of servos following his movements. Turning to her, he met her gaze with a calm intensity. "What is it?"

She squared her shoulders, steeling herself as the decision solidified in her mind. The lie would work. It had to work. "I'm going to need your help with something." She set her pack on the scarred wooden table, the worn strap of her rifle sliding off her shoulder as she slung it over the back of her chair. Meeting his eyes, she took a deep breath. "The town doesn't have the resources—or anything of value, really—to pay the tech-priests for the parts."

Koron raised an eyebrow, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "What the hell are tech-priests?" he asked, incredulity lacing his tone.

Elissa blinked, her momentum faltering. "W-what? You're not one of them?"

His eyes narrowed slightly as he tapped the gleaming metal of his chestplate. "I'm an engineer, not a priest by any means. Who or what is this organization you're talking about?"

The world seemed to lurch beneath her as the realization hit. Her hands instinctively went to her head, fingers gripping her temples as she leaned forward onto the table. He's not AdMech. He doesn't even know who they are. The thought was almost incomprehensible. How? How could someone with augmetics like his not have crossed paths with the Adeptus Mechanicus? Surely, they had been involved—whether in training him or supplying his replacements. But if that wasn't the case…

What the fuck is going on?

"Elissa?" Koron's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. His hands had gone still, the faint hum of his augmentations the only sound accompanying the tension in the room. "Could you tell me who they are? And why you need my help with them?"

The question snapped her out of her daze, the pressing reality of the situation pushing her internal chaos aside. Focus. The pump. The water supply. Secure that first—everything else can wait.

She straightened, brushing back a stray lock of crimson hair that had fallen into her face. With a slow nod, she exhaled and forced a wry smile. "Right. Okay. Short version? They're a group that worships what they call the Machine God. They believe in venerating technology by… well, by replacing their fleshy bits with cybernetics. They adore old tech—ancient stuff, relics—and they're always hunting for anything they think is valuable. Problem is, they're utter assholes. They have no real regard for human life; everything's secondary to their devotion to machines."

Koron's expression grew pensive as he absorbed her explanation.

She gestured toward him, her hand encompassing his arms and chestplate. "I just assumed—well, with your augmentations—that you'd dealt with them before. I mean, those arms had to come from somewhere."

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head. "My augmentations aren't from this… Mechanicus. They're something else entirely. But go on."

Elissa's lips tightened for a moment, but she pressed forward. "Anyway, I need their help. Or, more accurately, I need their parts. There's no other way to fix the pump and secure our water supply. I was thinking..." She hesitated, her voice lowering. "Maybe we could trick them. Fake a lead—say there's a wreck with strange energy readings nearby. That'd get their attention. I thought you might be able to whip up something convincing."

Koron stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. The room felt heavier under the weight of his silence, the dim light casting sharp shadows over his angular features and polished augmetics. Finally, he nodded.

"I have an idea," he said slowly. "But I won't make something for them. They sound insane." His gaze sharpened, his voice firm with resolve. "A false reading, though? That, I can do."

A faint wave of relief washed over Elissa, though her mind still buzzed with doubts and contingencies. She gave him a small, tight smile. "Good. That's all I need. If we can pull this off, they'll give us what we need without a second thought."

Koron inclined his head slightly, his mechanical fingers flexing as if testing their range. "It'll take some work, but I'll make it believable. Just make sure you're ready to sell it when the time comes."

Elissa's smile widened, though the tension in her shoulders didn't ease. "Oh, I'll sell it," she said. "I just need you to give me something worth selling."

-

Elissa caught her reflection in the cracked mirror, shaking her head as she carefully tucked her hip-length braid down the back of the suit. The fabric clung to her curves like a second skin, leaving little to the imagination. She grit her teeth and forced the zipper up, muttering under her breath.

For fuck's sake, Mom, she thought bitterly. Why'd you have to give me watermelons for a chest?

The suit wasn't made for someone like her—not for wide hips or a bust that the tight, unyielding material only seemed to accentuate. No, it was designed for wiry men or flat-chested women, not someone who looked like she'd been sculpted as a rebellion against practicality. The duster was non-negotiable. She didn't care what Koron said about its durability; she'd rather ruin it than deal with the inevitable gawking. It wasn't just the men, either. The dykes weren't any better, their whispers just as perverse. Every step through the streets felt like walking onto a stage, and her patience for it was running dangerously thin.

Finally wrangling the suit into submission, she exhaled sharply, adjusting it over her shoulders. This trade needs to happen. Screw how I feel about the suit. The town needs that pump.

She shrugged on the duster before stepping outside. The wind nipped at her face as she approached the group waiting by Koron's bike. The machine hummed softly, its aerodynamic design gleaming in the sunlight. All smooth angles and functionality, it looked like it had been built for speed and style, a strange juxtaposition to the rugged world around them.

Tara crouched near the bike, her face lit with fascination as she ran a hand near the faint, shimmering energy field beneath. "Mom, this thing's insane! Anti-grav plating should be twice the size for a bike like this!"

"Shes smooth as silk just from sitting here too." Kala said matter-of-factly from the seat. She gripped the handlebars, twisting them with a smirk as though she were already speeding across the plains. "Bet this baby can outpace anything in town. I mean, look at it—she's built for speed."

Koron stood nearby, his posture calm, though the faint glow of his eyes tracked the twins' antics with mild amusement. Milo stood off to the side, arms crossed, his expression pinched with worry.

"Good luck, El," Milo said, his voice steady but tinged with unease. "Don't let them push you around."

A tight smile tugged at her lips. "Damn right I won't."

Just as she turned to Koron to speak, Kala hopped off the bike and grabbed Elissa by the arm.

"Mom," Kala whispered in a conspiratorial tone, pulling her a few paces away from the group. "Seriously?"

Elissa blinked, confused. "What?"

Kala folded her arms, her gaze flicking briefly to where Koron stood near the bike, adjusting something on his arm. Her voice dropped to a near-hiss. "How have you not mentioned how hot he is?"

Elissa stared at her daughter, utterly blindsided. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

Kala gestured emphatically in Koron's direction. "Tall, broad shoulders, glowing eyes that scream mysterious cyborg vibes—oh, and don't even get me started on the voice. It's like butter, Mom. Butter with a side of smolder."

Elissa groaned, rubbing her temples. "Kala, I don't have time for this. Koron is here to help us, not… not—" She flailed for the right word.

"Not set hearts aflutter?" Kala interjected, a sly grin spreading across her face.

Elissa fixed her with a sharp look. "He's not interested. Trust me. He's all business right now."

Kala raised an eyebrow, glancing over at Koron before smirking. "Oh, really? Well, then excuse me while I go introduce myself again." She tugged at her shirt, adjusting it to show just a bit more cleavage.

Elissa grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back before she could take a step. "Kala, I swear to all that's holy, if you embarrass me right now—"

Kala laughed, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "Relax, Mom. I'm just teasing. Mostly. But seriously, you might want to lighten up. He's cute, he's smart, and he clearly doesn't mind dealing with us. Just saying, a little gratitude might go a long way."

Elissa sighed, shaking her head in exasperation. "I'll thank him when we're done."

Kala leaned in closer, her grin mischievous. "Oh, so you are planning on thanking him after this? Good to know."

Her daughter's teasing was cut off by the sharp gesture of Elissa holding up a hand, her voice firm. "Not like that, Kala. Emperors' mercy, you're worse than your father sometimes."

Kala raised an eyebrow, her grin widening. "So, no 'gratitude' until the job's done, huh? Fine, fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Elissa glared at her as she lightly punched Kala's shoulder. "Stop trying to start something, and let's get this show on the road."

Kala gave her a cheeky wink before stepping back, her hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. I'll behave. For now."

Elissa exhaled in frustration but couldn't help the small, reluctant smile tugging at her lips as she prepared to climb onto the bike. Her mind was focused on the task at hand, but Kala's antics always had a way of cutting through the stress.

As Elissa approached, she gestured to Koron. "Mind if I ride in the front? I want to make sure we're going the right direction." Better to keep an eye on things—and if it avoids complications, all the better.

Koron's gaze shifted to the bike as he considered her request, his voice thoughtful, almost as if he were reasoning aloud. "Your suit isn't as durable as mine. You'll feel more of the impacts riding up front. My body would shield you from a lot of the strain back there. But…" He glanced at her, then the bike, weighing the options. "If you're in front, my arms will act as guardrails, and the safety straps should keep you from falling off. You'd be secure either way."

Elissa crossed her arms, her lips pressing into a thin line. "So…pros and cons to both, huh? I'll take my chances up front." No way I'm dealing with being pressed up against him the whole ride. This is already awkward enough.

He nodded slowly. "Fair enough. Let's get moving."

As Koron began adjusting the safety straps, Tara piped up from beneath the bike. "Hey, Mom! If you ride in front, does that mean you're the pilot?"

Elissa laughed dryly, brushing a strand of hair from her face as she pulled the helmet on, the seals locking into place as a hiss of air rushed in from the tank on her hip. "No, honey. I'm just the navigator." She climbed onto the bike, settling into place with a slight grimace. The seat wasn't exactly made for two, but it would do.

Koron slid in behind her, his larger frame looming as the bike purred to life, his own helmet now in place. The twins scrambled back, Kala shouting, "Don't crash, Mom!" as the machine glided forward, leaving the quiet hum of the bike to blend with the howl of the wind.

Elissa gripped the leather safety straps, her eyes narrowing on the horizon. The town's survival depended on this, and she wasn't about to let anything—or anyone—stand in her way.

-

The bike purred beneath them, its deep, resonant hum cutting through the dusty air. Its energy field shimmered faintly; a halo of faint light that rippled as Koron eased the throttle. It glided forward with an almost ethereal smoothness, more like a whisper of movement than a roar. The gathered townsfolk stood in silent watch, their eyes filled with a mix of awe and suspicion. The smooth lines of the machine, coupled with its unearthly quiet, only added to its mystique.

Elissa adjusted her grip on the side safety straps, the voidsuit snug against her frame. Its reinforced padding and integrated systems kept her body braced and stable, dispersing pressure and absorbing impacts that might have otherwise left her battered.

The town gate creaked closed behind them, its rusty hinges groaning in protest. Koron's voice broke the quiet. "Hold on."

"What do you mean—" she began, but her words were ripped from her mouth as the bike surged forward.

The acceleration was immediate and staggering, slamming her back against Koron's armored chest. Her breath caught as the sheer force pushed her into him, her voidsuit's stabilizers working overtime to counteract the G-forces threatening to crush her. Even with the suit, it was a shock—like being shot out of a cannon.

"Emperor's blood!" she gasped, her fingers tightening on the straps with a white-knuckled tension as her vision blurred at the edges. The wind screamed past them, but the suit's helmet dampened the worst of it, the built-in filters cutting out the deafening roar to a low, manageable hum. Still, the sensation of speed was overwhelming, her heart pounding as the world around them blurred into streaks of brown and gray.

Behind her, she felt Koron's voice vibrate through his chest. "Just testing her limits."

"Limits?!" she snapped, her voice rising. "You could have warned me properly!"

"I did," he replied, maddeningly calm, that tinge of laughter not quite hidden.

Her jaw clenched as she glared over her shoulder, though all she could see was the glint of his helmet in her peripheral vision. She turned back to the rushing wasteland, the dry, cracked earth disappearing beneath them at an almost surreal pace. The bike wasn't just fast—it was terrifyingly efficient, its energy field smoothing out every bump and dip in the terrain. It didn't so much drive as it seemed to glide over reality itself.

Her voidsuit absorbed the vibrations and shielded her from the worst of the jolts, but the sheer velocity was still enough to make her stomach churn. She pressed her body lower instinctively, trying to minimize drag, the suit's reinforced plating anchoring her against the seat.

"You could've warned me better!" she shouted, clearly rattled.

Koron's tone was infuriatingly unbothered. "You said you wanted to be up front. This is what that means."

Elissa bit back a string of curses, forcing herself to focus on her breathing. The suit's systems monitored her vitals, adjusting pressure and support to keep her stable. Still, there was no denying the raw, primal rush of moving at such an unbelievable speed. The bike's energy core thrummed beneath her; a steady, rhythmic pulse that felt alive.

The world around them blurred further as Koron twisted the throttle again, the bike accelerating with ease. She gasped as her body pressed harder against his chest, the voidsuit compensating to keep her steady. Her pulse thundered in her ears, her senses overwhelmed by the speed, the power, the sheer audacity of it all.

"Koron!" she growled through gritted teeth, her voice strained as the bike roared beneath them, "if I fall off this thing, I'm haunting you!"

"I'll take that under advisement," he replied, a hint of amusement softening his otherwise steady tone. "But you're not going anywhere. I'll keep you safe."

Something in his voice—calm, assured, and maddeningly confident—cut through her frustration. For a moment, the world didn't feel like it was blurring past at impossible speeds, the wind wasn't battering against the voidsuit, and her pulse wasn't hammering in her ears. His words carried a weight she wasn't used to hearing, a promise she hadn't expected.

She swallowed hard, her grip on the straps loosening slightly. The suit's stabilizers hummed faintly against her skin, and she realized that, despite the chaos, she did feel safe. Against her better judgment, she let out a small, breathy laugh.

"Bold claim," she muttered, her voice quieter now, the edge of her irritation melting into something more tempered. "Just don't make me regret trusting you."

"You won't," Koron said simply, the amusement in his tone giving way to something more solid. Resolute.

Elissa shook her head, half-smiling despite herself. "Emperor help me, I hope you're right."

She muttered a curse under her breath, her gaze snapping to the blurred horizon ahead. The town was already a distant speck, swallowed by the shimmering heatwaves of the wasteland. Her mind reeled at the thought of just how fast they were going—easily hundreds of miles per hour, and yet Koron handled the machine with a calm precision that bordered on unsettling.

As if reading her thoughts, he spoke again. "This is only half-throttle, by the way."

Her stomach dropped. She twisted her head slightly, giving him a wide-eyed glare. "Half?"

"Half," he confirmed, his tone infuriatingly nonchalant.

She groaned, leaning forward and pressing her forehead against the frame for a moment. "Emperor preserve me."

Koron chuckled softly, his voice a low rumble in her ears. The bike's speed held steady, carrying them deeper into the wasteland. The land stretched endlessly before them, barren and unforgiving, but for the first time in a long while, Elissa felt a strange, fleeting sense of freedom. Terrifying, exhilarating freedom.

-

"How much longer do we have?" Elissa asked, her voice steady, no longer fighting to shout over the roar of the wind. Koron had linked his voxbead to her suit, creating a direct comm link, though even the simplest words were carried with a strange echo beneath the press of wind that whipped around them.

"About nine hours at this speed," Koron replied, his voice calm, almost too calm for the chaos happening around them. The land around them was a blur of motion, colors and shapes distorting as they tore through the terrain with an almost unnatural swiftness. The scenery seemed to fold into itself, and she could barely register the horizon before it was gone, replaced by the next rushing fragment of the world.

Nine hours. That felt like an eternity. Her stomach tightened. Her fingers gripped the leather straps, but even with her voidsuit's support, the sheer force of the wind battering against her was enough to make her dizzy. The bike felt like a wild thing, an animal straining at the leash. She focused ahead, forcing the discomfort down. She had to push through. They needed to reach the city, and they would be better off to do it before dark.

Her voice came out clipped, almost too fast. "And if you went full throttle?"

There was a pause, a quiet hum of the bike's engine beneath them. Elissa's heartbeat thrummed in her chest, matching the accelerating pace of the bike.

"Two hours," Koron replied, sounding a little more cautious now. "We'd reach the city before nightfall. But I'm warning you—full speed is... intense. Are you sure you want to try it?"

Her stomach churned again, but the thought of the town, the lives that depended on the pump, pushed her forward. Two hours would give them the advantage, save them time. "Full throttle. We don't have time."

Koron's voice took on an almost respectful edge. "Understood. Hold on."

Then, without any more warning, the roar of the engine exploded beneath them—a deafening, violent sound that drowned everything else out. The bike lurched forward, surging with a force that hit Elissa like a sledgehammer, throwing her back against Koron's armored chest.

The world turned into a frantic smear. Land, sky, horizon—all of it bled together into a dizzying vortex of motion. Her breath hitched in her chest as the wind hammered against her helmet, trying to rip the air from her lungs. The landscape disappeared into a blur so fast that her eyes couldn't focus, the sheer speed of it making her stomach drop.

The pressure was unbearable. Every inch of her body felt like it was being crushed, her skin pulled tight against her muscles as the voidsuit strained to keep up with the onslaught. The wind was a wall, an unrelenting, invisible force that slammed into her chest and face with a brutal weight. Even with the suit, she felt it. Her heart pounded, each beat hammering against her ribs, struggling to keep pace with the acceleration.

Her fingers were slipping off the straps. She struggled to keep a grip, the vibration of the engine shooting through her bones, rattling her hands and arms. The sense of motion was too fast—she couldn't keep up with it, couldn't even make sense of what was happening beyond the sheer pressure, the roar of the engine, the blurring world.

"Koron!" she screamed, her voice ragged and torn as the force of the wind tried to steal it from her. Her words were lost beneath the sound of the engine, but the urgency was clear in her tone. "Stop! Stop! I can't—I can't—"

She gasped for breath, the air thick and harder to pull into her lungs. The suit couldn't compensate for this, couldn't protect her from the rush of speed tearing at her. It felt like she was fighting against the very force of nature, like her body was trying to break apart at the seams.

The world around her was nothing more than a storm of color and speed, and yet, the sensation of almost weightlessness, as though gravity had no control here, was pushing her to the edge of panic. There was no time to think, no time to process—it was too much.

Just as she thought she might lose control entirely, the bike suddenly shuddered beneath her, the roar of the engine dying down, and the force pulling against her body eased. The pressure on her chest released, the overwhelming acceleration finally easing back.

Koron's voice came through the comm, calm and measured, despite the chaos she had just experienced. "I've disengaged the secondary thrusters. Are you okay?"

Elissa's body shook as she clung to the straps, struggling to steady her breath, the world around her spinning as she fought to focus. She couldn't speak at first—her breath came in ragged gasps, her heart still hammering like a drumbeat against her ribs. The pressure from the suit was lessened, but it didn't stop her pulse from roaring in her ears.

Finally, she managed to speak, though her voice was strained, and cracked from the force of the scream. "Fine," she gasped. "I'm fine. Just... no full throttle."

Koron's voice softened, though she could tell he was still monitoring her. "Understood. We'll take it slower from here on out. I'll get us there safely, Elissa."

She nodded slightly, though he couldn't see her. Her hands were still trembling, her grip tight against the straps as she forced herself to focus. She hadn't expected it to feel like that—so much faster, so much more violent than she had imagined.

Her body was still fighting the sensations, but she had learned something. Something important.

Full throttle was beyond her limits. Even with the voidsuit, there were some things she just couldn't control.

-

They pulled the bike to a halt just beyond a ridge, the sound of the engine dying out as the machine slowed to a stop. Koron dismounted first, his motions smooth and precise, as always, before he turned to her, his expression unreadable beneath the heavy visor of his helmet.

Elissa swung a leg over the bike, her muscles protesting after hours of holding on tight, and let out a slow breath, feeling the strain on her back and shoulders. The cold hit her immediately, a sharp bite to the skin that seemed to seep through the layers of her suit. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving the landscape bathed in the dimming blue light of twilight.

"Let's set up camp," she said, her voice a little hoarse, still recovering from the wild ride. She quickly got to work, pulling her small tent out from the storage compartment of the bike. The tent was compact, sized for two people, a modest structure that wouldn't take long to assemble.

Koron, ever the efficient one, stood to the side, his mechanical limbs a blur of motion as he pulled the small cube of campfire fuel from the pack. "I'll take first watch," he said, his voice warm with a hint of finality. "You rest. I'll make sure you're undisturbed."

Elissa didn't argue, though part of her itched to insist on taking a turn as well. It was hard to let go of control, especially out here. But, after the grueling ride, she didn't have much energy to spare.

With Koron on watch, Elissa focused on getting the tent set up. The ground was hard and uneven, but she made do, hammering in the small stakes with a practiced hand. The tent took shape quickly, a small bubble of warmth in the otherwise bitter cold of the evening.

The bike's engine hummed quietly behind her, its low noise a reminder of how much she had come to rely on it in the last few hours. It was strange, to feel like she had a machine she could trust, kinda. So long as it wasn't going all out.

She rummaged through her pack and pulled out a small firestarter, quickly getting a small fire going. It wasn't much—just a few dried logs she had packed away earlier—but it was enough to take the chill off the air, though she made sure to keep it in the firehole, masking much of its light pollution.

Too easy to be spotted in the dark when you are the only source of light.

Watching as the low flames crackled softly, she used a small pot to cook up the dried meat she had packed along with the berry jelly.

The smell of it, though simple and modest, filled the air, and Elissa couldn't help but smile slightly. It was a far cry from the cold, tasteless ration bars she had stashed away, but that was the whole point, and it was hers.

The warmth from the fire was a comfort, but the night air was cold, too cold to stay in much longer. Elissa pulled the silver blanket tighter around her shoulders, huddling close to the warmth of the fire, knowing it wouldn't last. The cold would seep back in soon enough, the kind of cold that seemed to creep into the bones and take root, making everything feel like it was made of ice.

Her breath came out in puffs of vapor as she ate slowly, savoring the small meal despite how simple it was. Koron stood near the fire, seemingly enjoying his portion, his posture relaxed but his attention never wavering, constantly scanning the horizon. "Elissa," He suddenly asked, nodding slightly to the south. "Does this planet have a history of intense storms? A massive amount of lightning discharges and the like?"

Blinking the steam away, she takes a moment to reply. "Not really, at least not this time of year. Near the years end we get a three month long monsoon with a crapload of lightning, but other than that? No, lightning is pretty rare. Why?"

"...Just curious."

Pushing his question aside, she finished up as the minutes bled away, her food gone too soon, and the night deepened around them. Elissa could feel the temperature dropping rapidly, the frost creeping up from the ground to bite at her exposed skin. Even with the heater pad in her suit and the blanket, she knew it wouldn't be enough. It would get cold, colder than it already was, and she would spend the night shivering, trying to hold off the inevitable chill that would find its way through her layers.

Leaning back against one of the bike's frame to steady herself, the firelight danced in her eyes, casting shifting shadows on the ground. Her fingers were chill as she tucked them beneath her arms, trying to ward off the worst of the cold.

"I'll be fine, Elissa," Koron said, his voice quiet. "Get some rest. I'll keep watch."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her throat was dry, and the weight of exhaustion was creeping in. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving behind the sharp awareness of just how much the day had taken out of her. She crawled into the tent, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders as she lay down on the hard ground, closing her eyes.

The cold pressed in from all sides, but she fought it off, focusing on the warmth of her suit and the faint, reassuring glow of the fire outside. Tomorrow, they would be at the city. Tomorrow, they would have what they needed to fix the pump. But for now, she would let herself sleep, even if it was fitful.

Still, his words irked her.

Elissa wrapped her arms tightly around herself as the chill in the air began to seep deeper into her bones. She was tucked as tightly as possible into her insulated suit and blanket, but it wasn't enough to stave off the cold that had already started to numb her limbs.

"Koron," she called out, her voice laced with irritation and concern, "You're going to freeze out there. Get in here with me."

She hadn't meant it to sound as sharp as it did, but the cold was making her irritable, and the thought of him standing out there while she struggled to keep warm irritated her even more. She could hear the wind biting at the tent, and the fire's heat had already started to wane.

Koron didn't immediately respond, his posture unshaken as he stood by the fire, looking out over the empty wasteland around them. She could see the subtle motion of his head, as if listening to something beyond the winds, before he slowly looked back toward her.

He was silent for a moment, his hand resting against the side of the bike, his shoulders tense beneath the armored plates. "I... I'm fine," he finally said, his voice steady but with an edge of hesitation. "I don't need rest like you do."

Elissa frowned, unable to shake the nagging feeling that something wasn't right. "What are you talking about? You're not some goddamn machine. You'll freeze just like any of us. Get in here."

Her words hung in the cold air for a few seconds, and she thought Koron would insist on staying out there, as stubborn as ever. But then, something changed. There was a subtle shift in his posture—like he was finally listening, truly listening, to something she couldn't hear.

Finally, he gave a small nod, though his movements were slower, almost careful. "Alright," he murmured, stepping toward the tent. "I'll... join you."

Elissa shifted her legs to make room as Koron entered the tent, his tall, armored form filling the space as he knelt carefully beside her. He didn't get too close, leaving a small but noticeable gap between them. The movement was cautious, deliberate. Despite his heavy armor, there was something about him that seemed almost... unsure.

He zipped up the tent, the sound of the fabric closing off the outside world. Elissa could feel a subtle tension in the air as they sat in the dim glow of the firelight. She pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, watching him as he sat, his helmet still on, his hands moving to adjust the position of his arms.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she observed the unfamiliar tension in Koron's posture. Koron had been mostly calm, composed save for a few brief moments here and there. But now, there was something different. Beneath the cool, metallic exterior, she could sense a nervousness—a slight unease she hadn't seen before. His shoulders were tighter than usual, his movements more deliberate, as if he were consciously trying to give her space, even in the confines of the small tent.

A soft realization warmed her chest, something akin to affection. He's nervous. The thought brought an unexpected smile to her lips. Big bad Koron is nervous. Somehow, the sight of him so uncharacteristically hesitant, so human, made her feel more at ease. It was… kind of adorable, in a strange way.

"First time sharing a bed with a woman?" she teased, watching him with a playful smirk as his hands rested on his stomach, metal fingers interlaced. His gaze was fixed on the fluttering tent roof, seemingly lost in thought.

"No. Just… it's been a long time."

The blunt honesty in his voice caught her off guard. Her stomach twisted, a pang of guilt settling in her gut as she realized she had accidentally poked a nerve.

"Ah. Um... sorry," she said quickly, her tone shifting. "I didn't mean to make it weird. Just trying to get you to relax. You're tense as a compressed spring." She shrugged lightly. "I'm not gonna bite, promise."

A quiet snort of laughter escaped Koron's lips, surprising her. It was the first time she'd heard him laugh like that, a sound that felt human. "Go to sleep, Elissa. Still got a long way to go tomorrow, and then the trip back."

She let out a soft chuckle, settling into the warmth of their shared space. "Fair enough. Have a good night."

"Sleep tight," Koron murmured, his voice softer than usual, and for a moment, she could almost feel the weight of his exhaustion.

She closed her eyes, letting the hum of the campfire and the rhythmic sounds of Koron's breathing soothe her into sleep. The unease between them had softened, leaving only the strange, calming connection of shared silence.

-

The horizon stretched before them, jagged and foreboding, as if the land itself recoiled from the monstrous silhouette of steel and smoke. The Forge city of Anaxis loomed in the distance, a colossus of machinery and industry. Its spires clawed at the darkened sky, shrouded in perpetual haze, while countless chimneys belched exhaust into the air like the labored breaths of some ancient, mechanical beast. The acrid scent of soot and oil hung heavy, carried on the winds, a stark reminder of the untamed wilderness they'd left behind.

The hum of machinery pulsed faintly through the air, barely perceptible but ever-present, like the heartbeat of a living city.

Elissa tugged the collar of her duster against the rising wind, her sharp eyes narrowing as she studied the skyline. "Hell of a place," she muttered, her voice low, almost reverent. The labyrinth of smoke and shadow ahead seemed alive, its vastness swallowing any sense of familiarity or comfort.

Koron glanced up from the bike's controls, his expression neutral but his gaze sharp. "It's... active. Open signals everywhere—no encryption, no safeguards. Do they just not care about anyone listening in?"

Elissa let out a short laugh. "Doubtful. Anything they want to keep secret isn't hitting the airwaves. This is probably just background noise—logistics, machinery status, low-level chatter."

Koron nodded, falling silent for a moment as he took it all in. Then, his tone grew thoughtful. "You said these... priests venerate machinery. Should I leave the bike behind and cover my arms and armor? I've noticed I don't exactly blend in with your people's tech."

She considered this, her fingers drumming lightly against the handlebar. "Yeah, not a bad idea. We'll have to hoof it the rest of the way, though. Maybe an hour's walk from here. But trust me, it'll save us a lot of questions we don't want to answer."

"Understood," Koron replied, his agreement coming without hesitation. The hum of the bike's engine softened as he slowed to a stop behind a rocky outcropping. He powered it down, the hiss of cooling vents mingling with the wind. Elissa eyed the sleek black and blue machine, its smooth, polished surface standing out starkly against the dull, dusty terrain.

"You got a way to hide this thing? It's gonna stick out like a sore thumb," she said, gesturing at the vehicle.

Koron didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped forward, placing a hand on the bike's control panel. A soft chime emanated from the vehicle, as if acknowledging his presence. "It won't," he said simply.

Elissa raised an eyebrow, her skepticism apparent. She crossed her arms, ready to press him for details, but stopped as the bike began to shift.

The change was subtle at first—a faint shimmer rippling across its polished panels. Then, like liquid metal, the surface began to ripple and flow. The glossy black finish dulled, its sheen replaced with the muted tones of rock and sand. Textures emerged, mimicking the gritty roughness of the surrounding outcropping, while the bike's edges blurred, blending into the terrain.

Sections of the vehicle folded inward with soft, precise clicks. Handlebars retracted into the frame, thruster modules collapsed flush, and the aerodynamic body compacted into an angular, unassuming form. Within moments, the sleek machine had disappeared, replaced by what appeared to be an ordinary boulder nestled among the others.

Elissa crouched beside it, running her fingers over the surface. It felt gritty and coarse, indistinguishable from the surrounding rock. "This is..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "This is cheating."

Koron's lips twitched in the faintest hint of a smile. "Adaptation," he corrected. "Its surface mimics the surrounding environment, down to texture and thermal signature. Invisible to casual observation and most scanning equipment."

"Most?" she repeated, brushing dust from her gloves as she straightened.

He nodded. "There are ways to detect it, but this is the best I can do right now."

She exhaled sharply, a mix of frustration and awe. "You've got tech that makes myths look outdated. If the priests catch wind of this thing, they'll probably worship it—or dismantle it piece by piece."

"That's why Im hiding it," Koron replied as he stepped back. "Now, to address my own appearance."

Elissa smirked, adjusting her duster as she watched him. "This, I've got to see."

Koron's posture shifted as he ran his fingers along the seams of his armor. Lines of light flared briefly, tracing the contours of the black plating before dimming to nothing. The transformation began with his gauntlets, the segmented plates retracting into his forearms with fluid precision. His chestplate followed, folding inward like clockwork, each panel sliding into hidden compartments. The glowing filaments faded as the armor collapsed, piece by piece, into a compact, seamless block of dark metal no larger than a small, thin briefcase.

Elissa's gaze followed the process, her expression caught somewhere between amazement and suspicion. When he held out the finished block, she shook her head. "All that... in there?"

Koron nodded. "Fully sealed, insulated, and durable. It's lighter than it looks, but resilient enough for almost any environment."

"In the Emperors name," she muttered, brushing a hand over the cool, smooth surface. "This feels... impossible. What's next? Your clothing got a secret too?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, the undersuit shimmered faintly, the fabric rippling as if alive. The black began to fade, its surface shifting into a patchwork of muted greys and browns. Frayed edges appeared, and faint stains marred the material, giving it the look of something worn and scavenged.

Elissa's jaw tightened as she scrutinized the change. Even his boots and gloves dulled, their polished finish replaced by scuffed, uneven textures. The transformation was seamless—and unsettling.

"That's..." she started, struggling for words. "Okay, now you're just showing off."

Koron adjusted the collar of his now-ordinary coat. "Practicality. It's better not to stand out."

She snorted, a wry smile tugging at her lips. "Better hope it doesn't come with a personality upgrade. Blending in means not acting like you're smarter than everyone else."

Koron tilted his head slightly, his lips curving in a faint smirk. "I'll take it under advisement."

Shaking her head, Elissa turned toward the looming gates of Anaxis. "Let's hope this is enough. If not, we're going to have a lot of explaining to do."

Koron followed silently, his newly unremarkable form blending into the haze of the Forge city.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Three

-

The path to the city gates was a rough, uneven expanse of trampled ground, strewn with debris and the lingering scent of scorched metal. Towering heaps of salvaged wreckage flanked the way, each pile a chaotic monument to the Forge's insatiable appetite for resources. Machines buzzed in the distance, their unrelenting hum punctuated by the occasional screech of grinding gears or the sharp crack of plasma cutters. The gates of Anaxis loomed ahead, massive and impenetrable, framed by a constant flow of incoming and outgoing traffic.

The first sign of the servitors was the rhythmic thud of heavy, metallic footsteps. Elissa slowed, her gaze snapping toward the sound. Ahead, a cluster of the hulking cyborgs trudged along the road, their forms a grotesque fusion of flesh and machine. They moved with unyielding purpose, hauling massive slabs of metal toward the gates. Their heads were bowed, their faces obscured by crude respirators or mechanical plating. Blank, unseeing eyes stared straight ahead as their augmented limbs carried their burdens with mechanical precision.

"Servitors," Elissa muttered under her breath. Her tone was hard to place—resignation tinged with disgust.

Koron's steps faltered. He stared at the nearest servitor, his expression tightening. The cyborg was dragging what appeared to be the crumpled remains of a small transport vehicle, its massive arms fused with industrial-grade claws. Flesh sagged around the mechanical joints, the skin pale and sickly where it hadn't been entirely replaced by metal. A low whir emanated from its chest with each step, the sound of a machine working to keep its organic remnants alive.

"This…" Koron's voice was low, strained. "This is wrong."

Elissa glanced at him, then back at the servitors. "Yeah. It's not pretty. But this is how the Mechanicus works. Efficiency over everything. Even life."

The steady clink of metal chains drew their attention to another group of servitors. These were smaller, less imposing, their skeletal frames stripped of most organic tissue. Their tasks were more delicate: sorting through scrap heaps, retrieving usable components with spindly mechanical arms. Servo-skulls hovered above them, buzzing softly as they scanned each pile, their tiny manipulators delicately plucking at choice pieces of circuitry or wiring.

Koron's gaze lingered on one of the skulls. It floated mere feet away, its hollow eye sockets glowing faintly. The bone was stripped clean, gleaming white beneath layers of intricate filigree. A humming vox-unit and tiny emitters bristled from its underside, tools of some forgotten purpose now adapted for endless, mindless labor. The thing's movements were unnervingly smooth, and its faint whisper of binary code whispered in its vox.

"They're dead," he said finally, his voice barely audible. "Or… part of them is."

Elissa hesitated before responding. "Yeah. Usually prisoners, or those who've 'volunteered.'" She made air quotes with her fingers, her tone bitter. "Their bodies become servitors. If you're unlucky enough to die in the wrong place, you end up a skull. That's the Mechanicus for you."

A group of combat servitors lumbered into view, patrolling the edge of the road. Their designs were far cruder than the others—heavily armored torsos mounted on treaded or four-legged bases. Some carried plasma weaponry grafted to their arms, while others bore enormous power claws or heavy bolters. They moved with terrifying efficiency, their heads swiveling side to side as sensors scanned the area.

"They don't even acknowledge us," he said. His voice was tight, his usually measured tone betraying a flicker of unease. "Do they… feel anything?"

"I don't know," Elissa replied, her voice grim. "Never had the guts to ask, but the admech treat them like tools. Minds wiped, replaced with wire and circuits. They exist to serve, to work, to fight."

They approached a loading area where servitors were piling wreckage onto massive, tracked transports. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burnt metal, and the clatter of debris being dumped into waiting bins was deafening. Men in faded, grease-streaked robes shouted orders, their voices competing with the din. None of them spared a glance at the pair, their attention focused entirely on maintaining the flow of material into the city.

"Is this normal for you?" Koron asked, his eyes never leaving the servitors.

Elissa sighed, adjusting the brim of her hat to shield her face from a gust of wind. "It's normal for the Forge. Out here, the only thing that matters is production. The Mechanicus doesn't see people the way we do. You're either useful or you're raw material."

"That's…" Koron trailed off, his gaze locking onto a servitor struggling to lift a particularly large slab of metal. Its body strained, servos whining in protest as gears ground against bone. With a final heave, it dropped the piece onto the pile, its movements jerky and unnatural. It paused, head lolling slightly to one side, before resuming its task as though nothing had happened.

"It's monstrous." he finished, his voice hard.

Elissa glanced at him sidelong, her expression softening. "Yeah. It is. But if you let yourself get caught up in it, you'll drive yourself mad. Just keep your head down, and don't look too close."

They continued in silence, the massive gates looming ever larger. Servitors moved around them in a steady stream, carrying burdens of scrap, weapons, and ruined vehicles. Their presence was constant, a grim reminder of the Forge's priorities. Despite Koron's discomfort, none of the Mechanicus workers or servitors seemed to notice the pair. To the priests and their constructs, they were just another set of inconsequential figures in an endless tide of labor and salvage.

Elissa stole a glance at Koron as they neared the gates. His face was set, his jaw tight, but his eyes betrayed something more—a profound unease, almost grief. She didn't press him; the Forge world had a way of unsettling even the hardest souls. Instead, she reached out, tapping his arm lightly.

"Come on," she said softly. "We'll get through this quick. You don't have to understand it. Just survive it."

Koron nodded wordlessly, his gaze lingering on the servitors one last time before he turned toward the city. The gates yawned open before them, an entrance into the heart of Anaxis—and deeper into the grim, mechanical world that called itself progress.

-

The air thickened as they stepped into the maze of streets that made up the mid-levels of Anaxis. The choking smog was almost palpable, a cloying mix of industrial fumes, chemical tang, and the stale reek of human sweat and decay. Towering structures loomed above them, their surfaces slick with grime, while countless pipes and conduits crisscrossed the space, dripping with unidentifiable fluids that pooled in oily rivulets along the cracked ground.

Elissa pulled her scarf higher over her nose, grimacing at the oppressive air. "Emperor's breath, it's worse than I remember," she muttered, her voice muffled by the fabric. She paused, pulling her helmet from her pack and snapping it into place with a hiss. The atmospheric seals engaged, and she sighed in relief as cleaner air filtered in. "Should've done this from the start."

Koron walked beside her, unbothered, his posture calm and composed. The faint glow of street-level lumen strips reflected off his subdued, utilitarian clothing, blending seamlessly with the haggard laborers and grim-faced merchants trudging through the congested streets. His face, uncovered and seemingly unprotected, betrayed no discomfort despite the acrid fog clinging to the air.

Elissa shot him a sidelong glance. "How are you not gagging right now? This stuff burns your throat just standing in it."

Koron glanced at her, his expression impassive as he tapped his chest. "Cybernetic respiratory system. The air here isn't clean, but it's manageable. Nanofilters in my system neutralize most harmful particulates."

"Of course you've got tech for that," she muttered, shaking her head as they pressed onward. Her voice carried a note of exasperated amusement. "I swear, you could probably walk through a reactor leak and come out fine."

"No, fire and radiation in high levels will still kill me." He replied, glancing down at her, shoulders shrugging helplessly. "I am still mostly human after all."

The crowd thickened as they moved deeper into the city. The mid-level streets were a tangled web of activity, choked with pedestrians, rusted cargo haulers, and makeshift market stalls stacked precariously with scavenged goods. Shouting voices competed with the grinding roar of machinery, while servitors lumbered past, carrying massive loads on reinforced frames. Some were simple utility models, their humanoid forms barely recognizable beneath layers of grafted plating and industrial tools. Others bore the distinct bulk and weaponry of combat servitors, their movements eerily precise as they scanned the throng with cold, mechanical efficiency.

Elissa kept a wary eye on them, her pace steady but purposeful. "Those things creep me out," she muttered under her breath, gesturing subtly toward a pair of combat servitors standing guard near a supply depot. Their skull-like visages, half-flesh and half-machine, turned slowly as if evaluating every passerby. "Always watching, always ready to blast someone who looks out of place."

Koron's gaze lingered on the servitors for a moment, his expression unreadable. "They're…a grotesque perversion of what could be. A waste of life and technology, fused into something less than either."

Elissa glanced at him, noticing the faint tension in his jaw. "Yeah, well, try not to let them hear you say that. The cogboys don't exactly welcome critique." She hesitated, then added softly, "You alright? You've been staring at them like they owe you money."

He didn't answer immediately, his eyes tracing the movement of another servitor shuffling past—a hollow-eyed man encased in a crude exoskeleton, his every step driven by the hiss and grind of pistons. "It's…wrong," he repeated, his voice low and measured. "The integration of organic and machine should enhance, not degrade. These people were stripped of their humanity, reduced to tools. Their potential erased in the name of utility."

Elissa frowned, her helmet's polarized visor hiding her expression. "Yeah, it's grim, but that's the way things are here."

He didn't respond, his focus shifting back to the path ahead. Elissa let the conversation drop, sensing that whatever thoughts he was wrestling with weren't easily put into words.

The streets narrowed as they moved closer to their destination, the towering structures pressing in from all sides. Rusted metal walkways and rickety bridges spanned the gaps between buildings, crisscrossing above them like a web spun by some industrial spider. The air grew heavier, the faint scent of burning metal mingling with the omnipresent smog.

Elissa checked her bearings, her gaze flicking between her surroundings and the crude map displayed on her helmet's HUD. "The temples just ahead," she said, her tone clipped. "Should be a quieter spot—not as many prying eyes. You still good with blending in?"

Koron nodded, adjusting the collar of his patched jacket. "Unremarkable enough?"

"Unremarkable enough," she agreed, though her tone carried a hint of skepticism. "Just keep your tech tricks to a minimum. These people are suspicious enough."

They turned a corner, and the path opened into a small square where the noise of the main thoroughfare faded to a dull roar. The market here was smaller, more subdued, with stalls hawking salvaged machine parts, scrap metal, and the occasional piece of functioning tech. A squat building at the far end bore the sigils of the Adeptus Mechanicus, its entry flanked by a pair of servitors who stood like statues, their glowing optics scanning the trickle of customers.

Elissa exhaled, her hand instinctively resting on the butt of her pistol. "Alright," she murmured. "Let's get what we need and get out. The less time we spend here, the better."

Koron's gaze swept over the square; his expression as unreadable as ever. "Lead the way," he said quietly. His voice carried a note of resolve, though whether it stemmed from curiosity or unease was impossible to tell.

-

The interior of the Mechanicus temple was a cathedral of cold logic and oppressive sanctity. Metal columns, carved with intricate circuitry patterns, rose to meet a vaulted ceiling dimly lit by flickering lumen globes. The air was thick with the scent of burning incense, oil, and the acrid tang of machinery, a suffocating blend that seemed to press against Elissa's lungs despite her helmet's filters. Servo-skulls hovered in the smoky air, their optics glowing as they darted from place to place, and the servitors shuffled with a mechanical precision that made her skin crawl.

At the far end of the chamber stood the Magos Dominus, elevated on a dais and draped in crimson robes that shimmered with augmetic extensions. His mask, a blend of brass and bone, glared down at her with green-lit optics. Behind him, a cogitator the size of a small hab block hummed, its screen arrays streaming endless lines of binaric scripture. The relentless hum of the room set her teeth on edge, a reminder that this was the heart of a machine cult that saw her flesh as an archaic imperfection.

Elissa pulled herself straighter and gave a shallow bow, her helmet obscuring the disdain on her face. "Magos, I seek components for repairs and reconstruction. I've traded with your temple before—my records should confirm I've always met the agreed terms."

The Magos's head tilted slightly, his optics focusing on her with an unnerving intensity. "Your records are irrelevant. The Omnissiah's blessings are offered at a cost. State your requirements, outsider."

His voice grated, layered with metallic undertones that stripped it of humanity. Elissa resisted the urge to wince and listed the components she needed. She kept her tone steady, though her stomach churned with unease.

The Magos listened in silence before naming his price, a sum so outrageous it took Elissa a moment to process. She stiffened, her voice sharp. "That's absurd. These parts aren't worth half that. They're standard templates—you manufacture them in abundance."

The Magos's optics narrowed. "The worth of the Omnissiah's work cannot be quantified by your primitive understanding of value. The price reflects the sanctity of the machine and the labor of its servitors."

"Sanctity doesn't inflate costs," Elissa snapped, her frustration breaking through. "These parts are surplus—they've been sitting in storage for years. You're extorting us because you think we don't have options."

"Options are not my concern," the Magos replied coldly. "You will pay the price, or you will leave."

Elissa clenched her fists, her mind racing. She cast a glance toward Koron, who stood a few paces away, leaning casually against a wall near a servitor cogitator. He hadn't said a word since they'd entered, his posture relaxed, but his gaze was sharp, scanning the room with unnerving focus.

"You've been quiet," she said, her voice tight as she turned back to him. "Any suggestions?"

Koron didn't answer immediately, his head tilted slightly as if listening to something she couldn't hear. When he finally spoke, his tone was even, almost dismissive. "Negotiation is your expertise. I trust you to resolve this."

Elissa narrowed her eyes, irritation flaring. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was up to something, but with the Magos's attention fixed on her, she had no time to press him. "Right," she muttered, turning back to the dais.

The Magos's gaze shifted briefly toward Koron, a flicker of calculation in his movements, but he said nothing, his focus returning to Elissa. She took a breath, trying to steady her voice. "There must be a compromise. These parts aren't rare. You're producing them here, and I've always paid fair prices before. Why the change?"

The Magos spread his mechanical arms, the gesture more theatrical than sincere. "Circumstances have changed. The Forge's demands are unending, and our resources finite. The Omnissiah's blessings are not subject to barter."

Elissa was about to retort when a servo-skull drifted down from above, its glowing optic sweeping over her helmet. She forced herself to stay still, her fingers twitching near her pistol. After a moment, the skull moved on, disappearing into the shadows above.

Her heart pounded, but she kept her face impassive. "I'm offering fair trade," she said, her voice hardening. "But this is extortion, and you know it."

The Magos made no reply, his silence more unnerving than any argument. Behind her, Koron remained still, his posture unchanging. Yet something about him felt off—too quiet, too focused.

Elissa, still locked in a tense standoff with the Magos, cast another glance at Koron. He remained a picture of calm disinterest, but her instincts screamed that he was hiding something. She bit back a curse and refocused on the Magos.

"There's always a middle ground," she said, her tone firm. "Let's find it, or this deal won't happen at all."

As she spoke, Koron straightened slightly, his expression was unreadable, but something in his demeanor had shifted—subtle, but unmistakable. Whatever he'd been doing, it was done.

-

Elissa grit her teeth, her patience running thinner with every obstinate reply from the Magos. The towering priest of the Mechanicus remained unmoved, his green optics glowing coldly as he reiterated his demands.

"There is no compromise," the Magos intoned, his metallic voice devoid of inflection. "The Omnissiah's work is priceless. You will pay the price, or leave."

Elissa clenched her fists at her sides. "That's absurd. These parts—"

The sudden screech of binary cut her off. Harsh and piercing, it echoed through the temple like a banshee's wail. A robed adept came hurtling into the chamber, his spindly limbs moving with frantic urgency. His voice, a shrill burst of machine code interspersed with broken Low Gothic, carried an unmistakable tone of alarm.

"Catastrophic systems failure! Data racks purged—entire archives collapsing! Cogitators—overheating—igniting—fire spreading!"

The Magos's optics flared, his entire frame stiffening as he processed the adept's panicked report. Servo-limbs flared out from his back, their claws twitching with agitation.

"What?" The single word was a blade, slicing through the chaos.

The adept screeched again, his binary even more erratic. "Cascading failure! Unauthorized access detected! Security protocols overridden—entire databanks erased!"

Elissa's eyes widened as she instinctively stepped back, her gaze darting between the panicking adept and the Magos, who now stood as still as a statue. A low, ominous hum began to build in the temple, the cogitator banks behind the dais flickering wildly as their screens filled with error codes and static.

"What's happening?" she asked, her voice tight.

The Magos didn't answer. His optics burned brighter as he turned toward the dais, a clawed hand gesturing for the adept to follow. "Lockdown all systems. Trace the intrusion. Find the source!"

Elissa took another step back, her pulse quickening. She cast a glance toward Koron, who still stood near the wall, his posture unchanging. His face was unreadable, but there was a sharpness in his gaze now, an almost imperceptible tension in his stance.

"Koron…" she began, her voice low.

Before she could say more, one of the massive cogitators behind the Magos erupted in a shower of sparks. Flames licked at its surface as servitors scrambled to contain the damage, their clumsy limbs spraying fire retardant foam in every direction. Another cogitator shuddered violently, its screen cracking before it went dark, the hum of its machinery fading into silence.

The Magos turned sharply, his voice a thunderclap of binary commands. "Quarantine all data systems! Purge infected nodes! Activate backup protocols—now!"

Elissa's heart pounded as she watched the chaos unfold. The servitors around the chamber moved in synchronized frenzy, their mechanical limbs whirring as they tried to execute the Magos's commands. Sparks flew from the cogitators as more systems failed, the once-immaculate temple descending into pandemonium.

"Koron!" she hissed, louder this time. "What the hell is going on?"

He finally moved, pushing off the wall with an almost casual grace. "It seems their systems are…unstable."

Her eyes narrowed, suspicion flaring. "Unstable?"

He tilted his head slightly, as if considering her question. "Highly so."

Before she could press him further, another explosion rocked the chamber, sending a plume of smoke billowing into the air. The adept screeched again, his panic reaching a fever pitch.

Elissa's gut churned. She didn't know exactly what Koron had done—or if he'd done anything at all—but the timing was too coincidental to ignore. Whatever this cascade was, it was crippling the Mechanicus systems in real-time.

The Magos's optics snapped toward them, a predatory gleam in his gaze. "You." His voice was sharp and accusatory. "What have you brought into this temple?"

Elissa raised her hands defensively, her mind racing. "I didn't bring anything! This has nothing to do with me!"

The Magos advanced a step, his servo-limbs clicking ominously. "This corruption is no coincidence. You will remain here for questioning—"

A violent burst of binary screamed through the temple as yet another cogitator failed, the flames spreading faster now. The servitors were overwhelmed, their mechanical precision faltering as the cascade continued unabated.

Elissa took a slow step toward Koron, lowering her voice. "We need to go. Now."

Koron's expression didn't change, but there was a slight shift in his posture—an acknowledgment of her words. "Agreed."

Without waiting for the Magos to issue further threats, Koron turned and began walking toward the temple doors. Elissa followed quickly, her heart hammering in her chest.

Behind them, the temple continued to collapse into chaos, the screams of binary and the crackle of fire fading as they slipped out into the polluted streets of the Forge city. Elissa shot Koron a sideways glance, her voice low and tense.

"Want to tell me what that was about?"

Koron's gaze remained forward; his tone unreadable. "Their systems were vulnerable. It was only a matter of time."

Elissa stopped in her tracks, grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn toward her. "You're telling me that was just a coincidence?"

His eyes met hers, calm and steady. "Does it matter?"

For a long moment, she stared at him, searching his expression for any hint of the truth. Finally, she let out a frustrated breath and turned away.

"Unbelievable," she muttered, her voice half-lost in the smog. "Let's just get the hell out of here before they decide to blame us for everything."

As they disappeared into the crowded streets, Koron glanced back at the temple, now a glowing ember against the skyline.

-

The walk back to the bike was tense, the weight of their failed negotiation hanging heavily in the polluted air. Elissa's boots scuffed against the ground as she trudged ahead, her hands buried in the pockets of her duster. Her helmet was back on, the filtered air inside offering some relief from the choking smog, but her mood remained sour.

"Stubborn bastards," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to Koron. "They've probably got enough parts in their storage to build a dozen fleets, but no, they want blood for a couple of scraps."

Koron walked silently beside her; his face unreadable as ever. His coat, still camouflaged in muted tones, blended seamlessly with the bleak surroundings. He didn't offer any words of comfort or explanation, his attention seemingly fixed inward.

Elissa cast him a sideways glance, her frustration bubbling over. "You're awfully quiet. Got anything to say about how we're supposed to pull a miracle out of thin air? Because if you do, now's the time."

Koron's gaze flicked to her, calm and unhurried. "We'll find a solution."

She huffed, rolling her eyes. "Great. Vague and useless. Real inspiring, Koron."

The tension between them was palpable as they crested a rise in the rocky terrain, the outcropping where they'd hidden the bike coming into view. Elissa's mind churned, cycling through the options. They could push deeper into the Rust Sea, but the further in they went, the more likely they'd run into orks. And that wasn't a gamble she was eager to take.

She sighed heavily, kicking a loose rock as they descended toward the bike. "I don't even know where to start. Anything close to the city's already been stripped bare, and anything further out is crawling with green skins or worse. It's a dead end."

Koron didn't reply, his pace steady and unhurried as they approached the bike.

Elissa frowned as they neared the rocky outcropping. Something wasn't right. The shadows near the bike seemed…different. Darker, heavier. She stopped in her tracks, narrowing her eyes.

"Hold up," she said, her voice sharp.

Koron paused beside her, tilting his head slightly.

Elissa took a cautious step forward, her hand resting instinctively on the grip of her sidearm. As the angle of the light shifted, the shadows revealed their secret. A small pile of parts—clean, pristine, and unmistakably Mechanicus in design—was stacked neatly beside the rock.

"What the…" Elissa's voice trailed off as she approached the pile, her heart racing.

She crouched down, running her gloved fingers over the components. These weren't random scraps or junk. They were exactly what they needed: replacement actuators, power conduits, and the complete pump that had been the most difficult to source.

Her head snapped up, scanning the area. "This doesn't make any sense. How did this—"

Her words caught in her throat as she spotted faint, delicate tracks in the dust around the pile.

Servo-skulls.

She stood abruptly, her pulse hammering in her ears. "Koron, do you see this?"

He nodded, his expression as composed as ever.

"This wasn't here before. Someone—something—left this for us."

"Servo-skulls," he said simply.

Elissa's brow furrowed. "Yeah, I can see that. But why? Why would they do this? The Magos wouldn't have—"

Her words faltered as she turned to Koron, her eyes narrowing. "Unless you know something I don't.

He approached at a measured pace, his gaze steady as he took in the scene.

She straightened, her voice rising. "Alright, spill. What did you do?"

He tilted his head, his expression unchanging. "I didn't do anything."

"Bullshit!" she snapped, pointing at the parts. "Don't play coy with me. These weren't here before, and now, miraculously, they are. You expect me to believe that's just dumb luck?"

Koron shrugged slightly. "Perhaps someone took pity on you. One of the adepts, maybe. Or a kind stranger."

Her jaw dropped. "A kind stranger? In a Forge city? Are you even listening to yourself?" She stepped closer, jabbing a finger toward his chest. "I don't know what you did back there, but you're not fooling me. What was it? Did you sneak back in while I wasn't looking? Threaten someone? Hack into their supply list?"

He met her accusing gaze without flinching. "The parts are here. Does it matter how?"

"It does when you're dragging me into whatever mess you've made!" she shot back. "This kind of thing doesn't just happen, and if you've pissed off the cog-heads, I need to know!"

Koron's voice remained calm, infuriatingly so. "I didn't anger anyone. The parts were left for us. That's all that matters."

Elissa threw up her hands. "Unbelievable. You're just going to stand there and act like this is normal? The Mechanicus don't do charity, Koron! Someone left this here for a reason, and you know exactly what it is."

He stepped past her, crouching to inspect the parts. "What I know is that we have what we need. Speculating beyond that is a waste of time."

Her hands curled into fists as she fought the urge to scream. "You're impossible. Fine. Be mysterious. But when this comes back to bite us—and it will—don't say I didn't warn you."

She turned sharply, muttering curses under her breath as she began packing the parts into the bike's storage compartments, lashing the pump itself to the back of the bike. Koron worked alongside her, his movements efficient and unhurried, as though the situation was perfectly ordinary.

Once the last of the components was secured, Elissa stepped back, glaring at him. "You're lucky we needed these, or I'd make you leave them behind. I swear, if this gets us hunted down by enforcers, I'm throwing you to the cog-heads myself."

Koron climbed onto the bike, his tone still maddeningly calm. "Noted."

Elissa sighed heavily, pulling her helmet back on as she swung onto the bike in front of him. As the engine hummed to life and they sped away from the outcropping, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something—some vital piece of the puzzle that Koron wasn't sharing.

-

The acrid scent of scorched circuitry hung heavy in the air, mingling with the ever-present tang of machine oil and incense. The once-bustling temple, its halls echoing with the hum of servos and the chittering of binary cant, now lay eerily silent, save for the occasional hiss of venting steam and the crackle of sparking wires.

Magos Erathar stood in the center of the primary data sanctum, his augmented frame bathed in the cold glow of emergency lumen-strips. His mechadendrites snaked through the air, their tips interfacing with charred cogitator terminals as he surveyed the damage. What had once been an unassailable fortress of data now bore the scars of a catastrophic incursion.

Behind him, a cluster of adepts hovered anxiously, their cowled forms flitting between damaged consoles and lifeless servitor bays. Their binary exchanges were rapid, urgent, as they scrambled to assess the full extent of the breach.

Erathar's voice boomed through the chamber, laced with a synthetic distortion that amplified his authority. "Report status."

An adept approached; his gait uneven due to a poorly calibrated augmetic leg. He bowed low, speaking in a staccato blend of Low Gothic and Binary. "Magos, preliminary assessments indicate catastrophic failure across multiple data stacks. Memory cores gamma through theta are... unrecoverable. Cogitator units three, five, and seven have been rendered inert. Thermal overload cascades triggered in secondary processing arrays."

Erathar's optic lenses flickered with faint internal calculations. "Causation?"

The adept hesitated, his mechadendrites twitching nervously. "Unknown, Magos. Initial traces suggest an incursion of unparalleled sophistication. No identifiable vector or signature remains within the system. It is as though the attack... erased itself."

Erathar's mechadendrites froze mid-motion, and the faint whir of his internal cogitators filled the silence. "Erased itself?"

"Yes, Magos. There are no residual data fragments, no detectable code injections. Every node struck was wiped clean, leaving no digital spoor."

Erathar turned slowly, his lenses boring into the adept. "This is not incompetence?"

The adept's binary reply was instant and frantic. "No, Magos. This was... beyond any known standard of intrusion. The assault was executed with surgical precision and immense power. If I may... it was as if the Machine God Himself directed the attack."

Erathar's lenses narrowed. The incense-thick air seemed to grow heavier. "Blasphemy or revelation, adept?"

The adept stammered, bowing lower. "Neither, Magos. Simply... an observation. We recommend escalation to the Fabricator-General Thrant. This breach demands examination by higher echelons of the priesthood."

The Magos turned his attention to another adept, this one interfacing directly with the remnants of a data rack. Sparks flew as the adept disengaged his mechadendrite and turned to report. "Magos, the extent of the damage is unprecedented. Over seventy percent of our active data stores have been rendered non-functional. Historical records, schematics, operational directives and more—all... lost."

Erathar's synthetic voice carried an edge of barely constrained fury. "Seventy percent?"

"Correct, Magos. However, core data regarding the Rite of Purification remains intact, along with the Archive of Machine Hymns."

"Small blessings," Erathar growled. His mechadendrites lashed the air in agitation, their tips bristling with fine manipulators. "This temple will be shut down for the day. Divert all remaining resources to containment and analysis. All external communication is to cease. This breach will not be allowed to propagate."

The adepts scurried to obey, their servos whirring as they moved to seal the temple. Heavy blast doors slammed shut with a resounding clang, and a protective energy field shimmered faintly into place.

Erathar turned back to the scorched cogitators, his thoughts racing even as his expression remained impassive. "Begin the Rite of Inquiry. Identify any anomalies in our logs. Cross-reference with known threat vectors. If this is a new adversary, we must prepare countermeasures immediately."

Another adept stepped forward; his robes slightly burnt from a failed cogitator repair attempt. "Magos, if I may. The level of sophistication in this attack suggests resources and knowledge beyond that of any known heretical group. It is my recommendation that we request an Inquisitorial consultation."

Erathar's lenses whirred as they focused sharply on the adept. "You presume much, Adept Calrix. Do you fear we cannot solve this ourselves?"

The adept flinched but held his ground. "Magos, I mean no disrespect. But this incursion... surpasses anything within our operational knowledge. If it is an enemy, it is one that threatens not just our temple but the sanctity of the Omnissiah's works. Such threats must be addressed with the full might of the Priesthood."

The Magos was silent for a long moment, his lenses shifting as he gazed over the smoldering wreckage of his sanctum. Finally, he nodded. "Very well. Draft the communiqué. Encode it at the highest level of security and transmit via the sole remaining direct line to the Forge World's central nexus. Ensure the Fabricator-General understands the gravity of this intrusion."

Calrix bowed deeply. "It shall be done, Magos."

Erathar's attention returned to the ruined cogitators. Despite his outward composure, unease gnawed at his core logic. Whatever force had struck his temple, it had done so with a mastery that defied comprehension.

And as much as he loathed the idea of external intervention, a part of him feared that even the combined wisdom of the Mechanicus might not be enough to unravel the mystery of the unseen adversary that had so effortlessly laid waste to their temple.

-

The sanctum of Morrak Two's Fabricator-General, Karadel Thrant, was a study in unyielding order and calculated precision. Towering cogitator banks lined the walls, their blinking lumens and pulsating cables contrasting starkly with the smooth, pristine metal surfaces that adorned every inch of her chamber. A dozen hololithic displays floated in midair, their shifting data streams casting faint green glows across her crimson robes, reflecting the ceaseless flow of information and the Machina Omnissiah's divine will.

Karadel herself stood immobile at the chamber's center, her augmented frame towering. A quartet of mechadendrites extended from her back, their tips twitching and grasping at the edges of various data-scrolls. Her face, what little remained organic, was hidden behind an intricately wrought mask of polished steel and bronze. Only her pale, augmetic eyes betrayed any trace of emotion as they scanned the message before her.

The communiqué from Magos Erathar lay displayed on the primary hololithic projector. Binary code streamed alongside his voice recording, the words clipped and precise. The details of the attack unfolded with stark clarity:

"Catastrophic system breach. Unprecedented level of sophistication. No identifiable vector or residual traces. Data stores gamma through theta lost. Cogitators rendered inert. Defensive countermeasures... bypassed with surgical precision."

As Karadel reviewed the accompanying data logs, her mechadendrites moved with ceaseless efficiency, pulling up schematics of the affected systems and running diagnostics on the transmitted error reports. The evidence was damning:

• Seventy percent data loss
• Thermal cascades leading to cogitator immolation
• Complete lack of identifiable signatures or digital spoor

Her voice, a cold amalgam of machine clarity and metallic distortion, broke the silence. "Unprecedented," she murmured, more to herself than to the servitors attending her. "No spoor, no residual activity. A perfect ghost in the machine."

One of her attendants, a lesser Magos specializing in data integrity, stepped forward hesitantly. "Fabricator-General, might I suggest this could be the work of... an Abominable Intelligence?" His voice quivered slightly, the mere suggestion carrying the weight of heresy.

Karadel's optics flickered as she turned her gaze on him, the faint hum of her internal systems rising. "Eliminate such speculative hypotheses unless substantiated by evidence. The Men of Iron are long purged, and the Machine God's purity is inviolate. What you propose borders on blasphemy."

The Magos bowed deeply, retreating with a whispered burst of binary cant, acknowledging her rebuke.

Turning her attention back to the data, Karadel initiated an analysis subroutine, her neural augmetics processing the logs with mechanical efficiency. The results were no less troubling upon deeper review.

• Force Multiplication: The attack not only bypassed Mechanicus defenses but rendered them obsolete, executing with a precision that suggested knowledge of their inner workings.
• Sophistication Beyond Known Actors: Neither xenos tech nor heretek designs accounted for the sheer efficiency of the intrusion.
• Lack of Retaliation Options: There were no traces of code to analyze, no vectors to counter, and no discernible source to target.

Her augmented lips curled in a rare expression of distaste. For all the Mechanicus' knowledge and control, this was an anomaly that eluded explanation—a failing that bordered on unacceptable.

One of her mechadendrites tapped into the hololithic interface, sending a command across the temple network. A new display materialized, detailing known records of significant data breaches throughout Mechanicus history. As she cross-referenced these incidents with the current logs, it became increasingly clear: this attack was unique in scope and execution.

Karadel spoke aloud, her voice calm but with an undercurrent of tension. "Transmit the logs to the Fabricator-General of Mars. Include my assessment: this breach exceeds local capabilities for analysis or resolution. Recommend immediate escalation to Forge World Data-Sovereign Protocols and Archmagos Cybernetica consultation."

Another mechadendrite tapped against her chestplate, opening a direct line to her subordinate. "Magos Ulst, prepare the Omnissiah's Wrath for full deployment. Double all internal security protocols. If this anomaly strikes here, we will not be caught unprepared."

A servitor chimed acknowledgment in harsh, clipped binary as Karadel dismissed the transmission.

She turned to the primary display once more, her optics narrowing as if attempting to pierce the veil of the unknown. This breach, whatever its origin, had revealed a vulnerability within the sacred systems of the Mechanicus.

For the first time in centuries, Karadel felt the faint stirrings of unease. Whoever—or whatever—had the power to execute such an attack could not be underestimated.

"Knowledge is power," she whispered to herself, the ancient creed of the Mechanicus reverberating through her thoughts. "But ignorance is annihilation."

With a final command, the chamber lights dimmed, and the Fabricator-General returned to her silent, tireless pursuit of answers.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Four

-

The pair had ridden through the night, Elissa unwilling to stay anywhere near the Forge city longer than absolutely necessary. Dusthaven's weathered wall finally came into view, the familiar outline bathed in the faint glow of dawn. The tension that had knotted her neck during the long, silent ride began to ease, though only slightly, as the sight of home grew clearer.

She called ahead, the crackle of the comm ensuring the nightwatch was ready to open the gates. As the massive doors groaned apart, the pair passed through without delay. Elissa issued a curt order to the guards stationed there, her voice sharp despite the weariness in her bones. "Double up patrols. Report anything—anyone—unusual immediately. No exceptions."

The guards saluted briskly, and she nudged Koron to follow her lead toward her house. The hum of the bike's anti-grav plating was barely audible against the stillness of the town at this hour. As they pulled into the dimly lit yard, the porch lights flickered on, illuminating two familiar figures descending the steps. The twins' hip-length hair shimmered like rivers of molten crimson, cascading over their shoulders in the cool night breeze.

Elissa slid off the bike and was immediately engulfed in her daughters' arms. She pulled them close, their warmth seeping into her, banishing the night's chill. For a fleeting moment, the tight knot of anxiety in her chest unraveled.

"I'll go get this stuff installed," Koron said, his voice breaking the moment's quiet. It was the first thing he'd said to her in almost twelve hours. His tone was steady, but distant, as if speaking more out of obligation than intention. Without waiting for a reply, he guided the bike toward the pump site, its anti-grav hum fading into the background.

Kala stepped back from the hug, her sharp gaze flicking from Koron's retreating figure to her mother's face. Her brow furrowed, but she stayed silent, letting Tara speak first.

"Mr. Koron," Tara called after him, her tone soft yet insistent as she pulled her robe tighter against the cold. "You don't have to do that tonight, you know? There's no rush. Maybe you should—"

She turned to her mother, but her words faltered. Elissa's expression had shifted, her features drawn tight and shadowed by something Tara couldn't quite place. The lines of exhaustion, frustration, and something deeper etched into her face stopped Tara's offer cold.

"Go inside, girls," Elissa said, her voice quieter now but firm. She nodded toward the open door. "Koron's got work to finish, and it's been a long night. We'll talk in the morning."

Tara hesitated for a heartbeat, glancing toward Kala as if seeking reassurance, but Kala gave a slight shake of her head. Together, the twins obeyed, their bare feet scuffing softly against the sand covered steps as they headed inside.

Elissa lingered in the yard for a moment, her eyes fixed on the direction Koron had gone. The faint hum of the bike was already lost to the quiet of the sleeping town, leaving her alone under the vast expanse of the night sky.

Tomorrow. There would be time for explanations tomorrow.

-

Rubbing her eyes, Elissa spun one of three dataslates in a slow, bored circle as she waited for Doc to arrive. Milo for his part was sitting by the window of the bar, cigarette smoke wafting away. Yannek for his part, was keeping an eye on the stovetop as the shardbean pancakes slowly formed, his bald head catching the light.

The clomp of Docs augmetic leg preceded her as she stepped inside. "Sorry, the Fudd's were early in asking questions about the water. Had to show them the slides before they believed me about still needing to boil the water."

Milo grunted as he flicked the remnants of his cig out to die in the bare sand. "No worries Doc, just arrived a minute ago myself." Picking up his lasgun, he shuffled over to the roundtable where Elissa sat with the dataslates, picking one up as he retook his seat.

Nodding as she took her own seat, Doc pulled from her jacket a small metal container, the sharp scent of whiskey hitting Elissa for a second. Ignoring the distinct scent, Elissa tapped a few buttons, graphs and stats rolling across the screen as she began.

"So, while the water pump and the reactor are back up, our basic needs are secured for the time being. That said, the towns barely making our payments to the caravans, and our credits shot to hell. We get any major losses or a sudden need, the chances of us being able to cover it are slim to none."

"Expanding out further into the Sea is really our own means of making more cash." Milo grumbled as he leaned forward on one arm. "A hundred years of salvage has stripped all the good stuff out of the wrecks nearest to us, so we're down to hauling in hull pieces, and those are just raw materials to the caravans."

"Speaking of, the next group that's coming through is what, the Votives?" At Elissa's nod, Doc continued. "Then just a heads up, we're short on immunosuppressants and antibiotics. I got enough for maybe seven more, fourteen if I shave the recommended doses to the absolute minimum."

"Fuck. That alone would chew up most of our budget." A sigh escaped from Elissa as she eyed the remaining thrones. "That's not even accounting for weapon parts, the hydroponics or the animal feed. We need to expand, which means digging deeper into the mountain, which means more pipes and conduits, wiring, ferrocrete-"

"El, we know." Milo cut her off with a hand on the shoulder. "We know, don't get stuck in your head on it, okay? We'll manage. We got power, we got water, and our food situation is…well, not great, but its not terrible either."

Her fingers tapped a unsteady rhythm on the tabletop as she stared at the list, her gaze distant. "Yannek? Could you give us a minute please?" Elissa asked, Yanneks gaze meeting hers as he turned. Nodding, he plates the pancakes onto the heater, ready for the lunch rush before he makes his way into the backroom.

"Well, that's not ominous at all." Doc muttered, taking another swig from her flask. "So, lets hear it."

Milo nodded, silent save for the level stare he focused on Elissa.

"Okay." Tossing her hat onto the table, Elissa ran her fingers through her crimson hair before she spoke. "Short and ugly? Im ninety nine percent sure that Koron somehow stole the pump parts from the cogboys."

Both Doc and Milo leaned forward at that news, listening intently as she relayed the incident at the temple.

For his part, Milo took a deep drag off his cigarette, blowing it out in a single long cloud. "Well….shit. That's suspicious as hell for sure."

"You said the Magos was talking about his data being wiped, his cogitators bursting into flame?" Doc asked, hunched over, eyes narrowed in thought. "I've seen tech-priests able to do stuff with machines at a distance, but, well, its generally obvious. Chanting, high pitched binary, not really a subtle thing. You said the boy didn't move or anything?"

Nodding, Elissa spread her arms wide, shoulders shrugging. "I don't know what other explanation could fit. We go in, the magos is being a shit, everything catches on fire and when we leave, lo and behold the exact parts we need. He did something, Im positive. I just…" Slumping, head in hands, her voice is ragged. "I don't know what the fuck to do. On the one hand-"

"Fella's done a lot of work here in a short time." Milo spoke up, interrupting. "Be a real bastard move to throw him out. On the other hand…"

"He endangered the whole town. The priests find out who, what and where, they wont even bother to ask why. They'll convert this whole town into servitors." Doc finished.

"….What do you two suggest? I..I really am running in a circle here."

Doc's gaze was unwavering as she considered the situation, tapping her flask against the table with a rhythm that matched the growing tension. "Alright. Let's break it down, but none of these are clean cuts. We've got three roads, and none of them come without consequences."

She raised her hand, ticking off her options. "Option one: You return the parts to the Mechanicus. Hand them over, apologize, and tell them Koron was just a misguided kid who got a little too eager. If they buy it, we might—might—walk away unscathed. But don't kid yourself. The moment they find out about Koron, and the fact that he's been working with us, they're going to want him. And if they come looking for him, the town won't stand a chance."

Her eyes flicked briefly toward the stairs, then back to Elissa. "Option two: We get rid of him. Throw him out, tell him to pack his things and get lost. We hope the Mechanicus doesn't trace him here, and we pray they don't dig too deep into how he ended up with us. But they're bound to come sniffing around sooner or later. And when they do, you better pray they don't make an example of all of us."

Milo grunted, eyeing the remaining cigarette in his hand, torn. "We'd be throwing him to the wolves. That's no good, Doc."

Doc gave a short, sharp nod. "I don't like it either. But sometimes, you must choose the least awful option." She took another swig from her flask, her voice growing darker. "Option three is the most dangerous, and the one I'm leaning toward the least. We sit Koron down. We get the whole story, and we make him understand what he's doing—what kind of danger he's put us all in. If he's truly in over his head, fine. Maybe we figure out a way to get him some proper training, but—" She held up a hand to forestall any argument. "If he's playing us, manipulating us, or worse—if he's involved with the Mechanicus in some way... then we deal with it swiftly and decisively. Not a soul finds out."

Elissa stared at the table, her fingers brushing against the cold metal, tracing the lines of the dataslate without truly seeing it. Doc's options hung heavy in the air, and Milo's stare was sharp, cutting through her indecision.

Doc let the silence stretch on for a moment. "The problem with the third option is that we risk the whole town. If Koron is connected to something bigger, something deeper, then we're not just dealing with a rogue techie who got too curious. We're up against the Mechanicus themselves, and they don't take kindly to us squatting on what they believe is their property."

Elissa met Doc's eyes, her lips pressed tightly together. "So we're back to square one, huh?"

"Pretty much," Doc replied flatly, then glanced at Milo. "Your thoughts?"

Milo slowly exhaled, flicking ash into the bare sand outside. "We're talking about the whole damn town here, Doc. We've barely got enough to keep the lights on. Koron might be trouble, but throwing him out could bring bigger trouble. And hell, we've all seen the kid working late into the night on repairs. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have power or water." He looked at Elissa, a soft frustration in his eyes. "We can't just hand him over to them, can we?"

Elissa rubbed her forehead, trying to calm the rising frustration in her chest. "I don't know. I don't know if I'm even capable of doing what's best for everyone anymore." Her voice cracked slightly, but she shook it off. "But whatever happens, we're running out of time. The longer we sit on this, the worse it's going to get. We don't have the luxury of being indecisive anymore."

Doc was quiet for a long moment, her expression unreadable as she gazed at the data slate. Finally, she spoke again, her voice less certain than before. "Whatever we do… if we decide to risk keeping Koron around, then we have to put in place contingencies. We can't afford to let this get out of hand." Her eyes met Elissa's. "And if we do let him go... we do it now. Before they come here."

Milo's head titled slightly, the faint chirp of his voxbead catching the girls attention as he tapped the bead. Nodding after a moment, he looks to Elissa. "Got reports of a series of what sounds like explosions coming from the eastern plateau. Big dust cloud, the patrols headed in to check it out. What do you want them to do?"

Doc's eyes narrowed. "You don't think the cogboys…?"

Shaking her head as she stood, Elissa said "Doubtful. If they had figured out what happened, they wouldn't be bothering with blowing up the bare rocks. They would just march in here and kill us all."

Nodding as he stood, Milo slings his rifle. "I'll take the boys, go see whats happening."

"Alright. Stay safe."

"Always do."

-

The truck's engine droned low, a monotonous hum that vibrated through the cracked earth and hung heavy in the arid air. Red dust swirled in the distance, restless spirals rising like specters from the barren expanse. The horizon shimmered under the relentless sun, the emptiness stretching endlessly ahead.

Milo adjusted his goggles, shielding his eyes from the glare. His jaw tightened as a distant, rhythmic pounding echoed across the plateau, each deep thud carrying with it a palpable weight. It wasn't natural. It wasn't right.

"Anyone else feel that?" muttered one of the guards in the back, his voice low, his knuckles white around the grip of his lasgun.

Milo raised a fist, the truck groaning to a stop, its engine sputtering into uneasy silence. The air was thick with the tang of scorched rock and ozone, the faint metallic taste of unease clinging to every breath.

They dismounted, boots crunching on brittle sand as they moved forward, lasguns at the ready. The pounding grew louder, the vibrations now tangible beneath their soles. Dust danced with each tremor, rising like smoke. As they crested the ridge, Milo's stomach sank.

Koron was there, a lone figure in a wasteland of shattered stone. His broad shoulders rose and fell with each labored breath, his torso bare, gleaming with sweat under the punishing light. His cybernetic arms moved in a blur, piston-driven fists slamming into the iron-hard boulders with a relentless fury.

Each impact sent cracks spidering through the rock, fragments of stone erupting into the air. Sparks flickered along his augmetics, the intricate mechanisms of his arms groaning as they delivered another shattering blow. The limbs didn't stop at his shoulders—Milo could see now that thin, gleaming struts of metal extended down his spine, their edges disappearing under skin stretched taut with strain.

But it wasn't the raw power that held Milo's attention. It was the scars.

Koron's torso was a roadmap of old wounds, brutal and chaotic. Burns marred his left side, their edges puckered and uneven. Deeper scars ran jagged across his chest and abdomen, their paths crisscrossing like cruel reminders of battles fought and survived. These weren't the clean, precise scars of a Guardsman hero in the holovids. They were the kind of wounds carved by predators in the dark, the kind that left no room for mercy.

"Emperor's mercy..." one of the guards whispered, his voice barely audible.

Milo stepped forward, silencing the man with a glance. "Koron!" he called out, his voice sharp and commanding.

Koron drove his fists into the boulder one final time, the impact sending a web of cracks rippling outward. Dust rose in a choking plume, the silence that followed more oppressive than the noise.

Koron didn't move at first. Then, he slowly crouched, his head bowed, his cybernetic fingers curling into fists so tight the servos whined.

"Koron," Milo tried again, softer this time.

The younger man's shoulders tensed but gave no reply. Milo sighed, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he pulled out a cigarette. He lit it with practiced ease, the first drag filling his lungs with sharp, acrid relief. He held the cigarette out toward Koron, smoke curling upward in the still air.

After a moment, Koron glanced up. His eyes were shadowed, stormy with unspoken turmoil. He reached out, his metal fingers surprisingly steady as he took the offered cig. Milo sat down in the sand beside him without a word.

The two passed the cigarette back and forth, the silence between them heavy, but not uncomfortable. The distant hum of wind filled the gaps, carrying with it the faint grit of the plateau's dust.

"You gonna be okay?" Milo asked eventually, his gaze drifting to the ruined expanse before them. The field of boulders was a jagged mess of rubble, as though Koron's fury had tried to shatter the world itself.

Koron exhaled slowly, smoke trailing from his lips. "...Yeah. Sorry. Just..." He tapped his temple with a metal finger, the gesture sharp.

Milo gave a small nod. "Yeah, I get it. Sometimes, you just gotta smash shit."

Koron managed a faint smile at that, though it didn't reach his eyes.

Milo leaned slightly, propping himself on one elbow. "This about those parts you grabbed from the city?"

Koron's laugh was short and humorless, a bitter sound that caught in his throat. "Not exactly. Finished some reading." He paused, his gaze distant. "Didn't expect what I found."

Milo watched him closely, the younger man's words tinged with a weariness that felt far too old for his age. "How old are you, anyway?" Milo asked after a moment. "You got one of those treatments? The Doc's fifty but looks half that, you know?"

Koron slowly shook his head. "No treatments. I'm twenty-one."

Milo blinked. "Twenty-one?" He studied Koron's scarred torso and hardened gaze, disbelief flickering across his face.

"Signed up on the first ship out I could, ready to see the stars," Koron continued, his voice softer now, almost wistful. "Mom packed me a dozen meals, told me to brush my teeth, floss..." He let out a soft laugh, lifting one metal hand to wag a finger in the air. "Spent a fortune on braces. 'I paid for that smile, Koron. Take care of it!'"

Milo chuckled, but the sound faded as he regarded Koron more closely. Twenty-one. Scarred like a veteran of a dozen campaigns. What the hell happened to you, kid?

Koron's smile faltered, his expression darkening as some buried memory rose to the surface. He shivered slightly, his gaze falling to the ground. "Oh. No. Twenty-three."

Milo let the silence settle for a moment before speaking again, quietly filing away the new age, but focused on the important bit. "El and the Doc are worried about the cogboys. You stealing those parts put a lot of lives at risk."

Koron's lips curled into a faint grin, shaking his head slowly. "Their records are ash. No names, no faces, no data. I made sure of it."

Milo studied him for a long moment, his gaze hard, searching, then he slowly nodded. "Alright. I'll hold you to that. Let's get back to town. You can tell me more about this when you're ready. Sound good?"

"Yeah." Koron's voice was quiet.

They stood together, dusting themselves off as the sun dipped lower in the sky. The truck's engine growled back to life, its sound rolling across the plateau like a reluctant sigh. Koron climbed into the truck bed without a word, leaning back against the side as the vehicle rumbled forward, shirt in his lap.

Milo stole a glance at him as the sun painted the horizon in hues of blood-red and gold. Koron sat still, his eyes distant, the scars on his body catching the dying light. Whatever storm the kid carried, Milo couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't done raging.

-

The midday sunlight streamed into the taverns main room, illuminating the modest spread on the table. Pancakes, honeybloom syrup, and a few stray mugs of sunfrond tea dominated the space, the cheerful aroma clashing with the sudden tension as the front door opened.

Milo stepped in first, his boots leaving faint trails of sand on the floor. Behind him was Koron, his bare chest revealing the stark landscape of scars that crisscrossed his flesh.

The room froze.

Elissa, seated at the head of the table, set her mug down with a quiet clink, her emerald eyes widening slightly. To her left, Tara blinked, her fork halfway to her mouth, an expression of soft concern settling on her delicate features. On Elissa's right, Kala leaned forward, her crimson hair spilling over her shoulders as she studied Koron with a mix of curiosity and appreciation.

Doc, perched at the far end of the table, lowered her datapad. Her steely-gray eyes—sharp, clinical, and always observing—narrowed slightly as they traced the scars on Koron's torso. Her lips pressed into a thin line, though she said nothing.

Koron, however, seemed oblivious to their scrutiny. His steps were heavy, his gaze distant, as if he were carrying the weight of the entire plateau he'd shattered earlier. He moved toward the staircase without a word, shirt slung over his shoulder.

Kala was the first to break the silence, her teasing tone cutting through the tension like a blade. "So, Koron... what's the deal? You forget how shirts work, or are you trying to impress us?"

The words hit Koron like a slap. He froze, his eyes darting toward Kala, then to the others at the table, all of whom were watching him now. A faint flush rose to his cheeks as his jaw clenched. He grabbed his shirt and held it to his chest like a shield, his shoulders hunching slightly as if to make himself smaller.

Without a word, he turned and trudged up the stairs, the creak of each step echoing in the silence. A moment later, the soft click of his door closing signaled his retreat.

Elissa turned to Kala; her tone sharp. "Really, Kala? Was that necessary?"

Kala leaned back in her chair, an unrepentant grin on her face. "What? I'm just curious! Besides, can you blame me? He's hot, sweaty, covered in scars, and—mmm!" She bit her lip dramatically, fanning herself with exaggerated flair. "Much more, and I might need a change of underwear."

"Kala!" Elissa snapped; her cheeks flushed.

"Knock it off!" Tara yelped, her face turning nearly as red as her hair as she slammed her fork down with a clatter.

Doc sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Kala, for Throne's sake, show some decorum. He's not a bloody holovid star. That boy is clearly dealing with something." Her tone was sharp but laced with genuine concern. "And making him feel like a spectacle doesn't help."

Kala raised her hands in mock surrender, though her grin didn't fade. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. But seriously, can you blame me? I mean, come on—"

"You've made your point," Elissa interrupted, her voice tight. "We're not doing this."

Milo, leaning casually against the doorway, finally spoke up. "You're missing the big picture," he said, his tone calm but firm. "Kid's been through a lot. Let him have some space, yeah?" He jabbed a thumb toward the stairs. "Last thing he needs is you lot gawking at him like he's some kind of sideshow."

The table fell silent, Kala shrinking slightly under the weight of everyone's stares.

Doc cleared her throat, returning her focus to her datapad. "Milo's right. Anyway, why did you come back with him? What happened with the explosions?"

"That was him." Milo replied, gesturing towards the stairs. "Kid was breaking those old iron boulders into smaller and smaller rocks, with his bare fucking hands."

"…Im sorry he was what?!" Doc half shouted.

"That was about my reaction too Doc," Milo replied as he took a seat. "But yeah. Kid packs a punch, that's for damn sure. But, more than that? He says the, ah," His eyes snapped to the twins for a moment before continuing. "The thing we talked about, with him? He says it wont be an issue. There's nothin left for them find, so he says."

Elissas full lips narrowed into a tight, thin line. "And you believe him?"

"Honestly? I don't trust much anybody says. But…my guts telling me he's sure of his work. Best I can give you there."

Rubbing her temples, Elissa sighed, absently brushing her hair back into place. "Alright. We'll…give it a week, see what happens."

Doc tapped the table with her cybernetic hand. "Also, I want him over at my place after lunch. Those scars don't look like they were treated properly at all."

Elissa nodded, though her eyes lingered on the stairs. "Agreed."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Five

-

The town hall was alive with activity, the hum of conversation reverberating through the wide, open space. Leaders of the dozen groups that made up Dusthaven's salvage forces had gathered for their weekly meeting, their voices a blend of anticipation and wary curiosity. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the cracked windows, catching the dust motes that danced in the air, while the faint tang of rust and oil lingered—a constant reminder of their trade.

Elissa stood at the front of the room, her posture commanding despite the weariness in her eyes. She tapped the map pinned to the board behind her, highlighting a new section marked in bold red. "Let's keep this quick," she began, her voice cutting cleanly through the din. "We're asking you to expand deeper into the Sea for new salvage."

A ripple of murmurs swept through the crowd, skepticism mingling with unease. Elissa raised her hand, and the voices gradually stilled.

"Yes, I know. Orks." Her tone was flat, but the weight of the word hung heavy in the air. "The deeper you go into the Sea, the more likely you are to run into those green-skinned bastards. That's why we're assigning extra security. Milo and a dozen guards will accompany you as a reaction force. Between your crews and theirs, you should be able to handle most roving groups."

Her thin smile didn't quite reach her eyes, but it carried a spark of confidence, enough to settle the fidgeting among the crowd. "As always, you've got your breakdowns. If anyone here doesn't want to push deeper, that's fine. Stick to the wrecks along the outer edges. This isn't an order—it's a choice."

She let her gaze sweep over the gathered leaders, their faces lined with the grime of hard work and the sharp eagerness of those chasing bigger fortunes. Despite the risks, the lure of untouched plunder was hard to resist. Satisfied with the collective nods and murmurs of agreement, Elissa tipped her hat, a gesture of finality. "Alright, then. Get to it. Milo's your contact for operational questions—don't clog my line with them. Good luck out there."

The leaders began to disperse, their boots thudding against the worn wooden floor as they filed out. Elissa allowed herself a moment to exhale, rolling her stiff shoulders. The Sea was a dangerous place, but it was also their lifeblood, and every risk came with the promise of reward—or ruin.

Her eyes lifted as a familiar figure approached from the far end of the hall. Koron. His armor was back on, the dull sheen of its plating catching the light, though his helmet hung loosely from his belt. His strides were unhurried, but there was an air of quiet purpose about him.

"You got a moment?" he asked, his voice calm but carrying an edge that made her straighten instinctively.

Elissa hesitated, the memory of their conversations over the past three days flaring to life, stirring an uncomfortable heat in her chest. She bit back the instinct to brush him off, instead taking a deep, steadying breath. "Yeah," she replied evenly, masking her tension. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Koron assured her, his expression open but earnest. "I was just wondering if I could help out with the salvage operations."

Surprise flickered across her face, softening the guarded lines of her features. She blinked, taking a moment to process the unexpected offer. "You want to help?" she asked, skepticism creeping into her tone. "Do you have a particular crew in mind?"

Koron shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in a faint smile. "No. I figure I'd just slow them down. I was thinking I'd start near the edges of their operations, going over stuff that's already been picked through. Get a feel for how it works before I try anything new."

Elissa studied him, her emerald eyes narrowing slightly. For all his power and enigmatic nature, there was something disarmingly genuine about the way he stood there, offering his help like any other Dusthaven laborer. She found herself nodding almost before she realized it.

"Alright," she said, her voice carrying a note of cautious approval. "Just don't make a mess of it. And for the record? The deeper stuff isn't exactly beginner-friendly."

Koron gave a small, wry chuckle, his cybernetic fingers tapping idly against the edge of his belt. "Noted. Don't worry, I'll stay out of everyone's way."

She nodded again, more firmly this time. "Good. Then get yourself sorted—gear, tools, whatever you need. You can shadow Milo's group to start. He'll set you straight if you veer off course."

Koron inclined his head in gratitude. "Appreciate it," he said simply before turning to leave, his long strides carrying him toward the exit.

Elissa watched him go, her thoughts a tangled web of lingering doubts and begrudging respect. Koron was an enigma. She wasn't sure where he fit in Dusthaven's world, but for now, his offer of help was enough.

For now.

-

"For fuck's sake, someone get to the left flank and start shooting!" Milo roared into the vox, his voice raw with urgency. Bullets zipped past with sharp, deafening cracks, each near miss sending a pulse of adrenaline through his veins. The makeshift barricade of battered hull plates groaned and shuddered against his shoulder, a flimsy shield against the storm of fire.

The air hung thick with the acrid tang of burning ozone, mingling with the stench of blood, sweat, and the oily residue of slagged metal. In the distance, the ork rabble surged forward in a chaotic green tide. Thirty of the brutish xenos barreled toward them, howling guttural war cries that reverberated across the wreck-strewn battlefield. Their crude weapons spat lead in every direction, chewing through the shattered remnants of the derelict ship like paper.

"Riggs! Where the fuck is your team?!" Milo bellowed, thrusting his laspistol blindly over the barricade. He squeezed the trigger, sending a quick volley into the advancing horde. The shots weren't aimed to kill—just to remind the orks that they weren't the only ones with guns. He ducked back down as a cluster of bullets struck the plating above him, showering him with sparks. "We've got maybe a minute before we're—"

The words froze on his tongue as the ork charge stumbled. Several of the greenskins fell, their bodies broken by beams of crimson light. Milo whipped his head around to see Riggs and his crew perched high on the blown out plating of a nearby wreck. The fifteen-man squad had taken up firing positions, their lasrifles spitting death with ruthless efficiency. Riggs, massive servo arm waving, stood at the center of the group, bellowing a colorful stream of insults at the orks, his voice somehow cutting through the chaos.

For the orks, the sudden onslaught wasn't a deterrent—it was an invitation. More enemies simply meant more fun. Seven of the hulking brutes broke off from the main horde, their snarling laughter rising above the din as they barreled toward Milo's barricade.

Lasbolts rained into the charging greenskins, dropping three in quick succession, but the remaining four pressed on undeterred. Their thick, leathery hides and ramshackle armor absorbed glancing blows, and their frenzied momentum carried them forward. Each step was a thunderous drumbeat of impending doom, shaking the ground beneath them.

Leading the charge was a towering ork, easily twice the size of a man and covered in a patchwork of crude metal plates that served as armor. His right arm ended in a vicious, three-pronged claw, its rusted edges jagged and deadly. He roared as he veered toward an opening in the ship's hull, a gap that left Milo's right flank dangerously exposed. Drool flew from his tusked maw as he lunged through the breach.

The roar died in his throat as he was yanked backward mid-charge, his massive frame slamming into the ground with a bone-jarring crash. Dust and debris kicked up around him as he snarled in confusion, scrambling to his feet.

The next ork behind him bellowed with laughter at his leader's fall, only to meet the same fate. An unseen force clotheslined the greenskin, flipping him backward to land in a heap beside his leader.

The guardsmen didn't waste the opening. The four stationed on either side of the barricade unleashed a barrage of full-auto fire, their lasrifles turning the two prone orks into smoldering heaps. The remaining pair of greenskins hesitated for a moment, then broke into a panicked retreat. They didn't make it far. Concentrated lasfire from the barricade cut them down, their corpses crumpling into the sand.

The rest of the ork mob surged into the ruins of the wreck that Riggs's team had been exploring. Their war cries echoed through the metal halls, a cacophony of rage and bloodlust. After a full minute of relentless running, the orks emerged onto the ad-hoc balcony of broken hull plating that overlooked the battlefield—only to find it empty.

Riggs's team had vanished.

The salvagers had descended using drop harnesses as soon as the orks committed to the climb, spreading out in the wreck's shadowy lower levels. When the first dozen greenskins stumbled out onto the wreck's lower floors, confused by the lack of a fight, they were met with an ambush. Nearly thirty lasrifles opened fire in unison, the combined firepower cutting the xenos down in a merciless hail of energy bolts.

The last orks, realizing the futility of the fight, turned tail and vanished into the wreckage. Their retreating red dots faded from the auspex display, leaving only the eerie quiet of the battlefield in their wake.

Milo leaned back against the barricade, his chest heaving as he took a steadying breath. His voice was low and gruff as he keyed the vox. "Alright. Who's hurt and who's dead?"

"Emrick and Tyson are dead," came Jacob's reply, his voice trembling as he struggled to stay composed. "Hicks, Anders, Wilson, and Val are injured. Val… he lost his left arm. Other than that, we're okay."

Milo nodded to himself, his face grim. "Alright. Get everyone on the trucks. We're pulling out in five. Recall the salvage teams—I'm not leaving them out here to dry."

"Got it, boss."

"And Jacob?"

"Yeah?"

"That grapple line idea with the winch? Worked great, kid."

There was a pause before Jacob's voice came back, tinged with regret. "Thanks, boss. Just wish it had worked a bit better is all."

Milo closed his eyes for a moment, letting the silence settle around him. "Yeah," he muttered to himself, before pushing off the barricade to oversee the retreat. "Me too."

-

The convoy rumbled across the wasteland, the salvaged scraps lashed tightly to every available surface of the battered trucks. Dust clouds billowed in their wake as the edge of the Rust Sea loomed closer on the horizon, Dusthaven's safety tantalizingly within reach.

Milo's vox chimed, the static crackling briefly before the vanguard's voice came through.
"Boss, we've got greenskins on the auspex. Looks like bullets are flying up ahead, near where that new guy was searching."

Milo spat out his cigarette, crushing the smoldering butt underfoot as he grabbed his rifle and barked orders into the vox.
"Shit. Slow down and hold position. Let the convoy keep moving—get 'em back to town. My team will handle this."

"Affirmative," came the curt reply.

The trucks roared ahead, engines sputtering under their salvaged weight, while Milo's team veered off. Their tires churned up sand, spitting grit as the engines growled in protest. The harsh symphony of battle grew louder as they closed the distance: the rattling brap of ork shootas mingled with a distinct, sharp crack—something cleaner, more precise.

As they rounded a bend, the source of the carnage came into view. Koron's strange, hovering bike sat abandoned in the sand, a headless ork corpse sprawled nearby. The stump of its neck sizzled black, the stench of burned flesh still lingering. A few meters ahead lay another ork, this one felled by its own choppa lodged deep in its skull, its twisted arm bent grotesquely behind it. A third corpse was slumped against a hull fragment, its armored chest molten and warped, frozen rivulets of slag trailing down its body.

The trail of bodies led them to the source of the fight. Cresting a small rise, they came upon the scene. Three orks were howling with manic laughter as they swung their crude choppas in wide, clumsy arcs. Their shootas lay discarded in the sand, forgotten in the heat of their brutal melee. Their target was unmistakable—Koron stood alone, his form fluid and precise amidst the chaos, his every movement a stark contrast to the ork's brutish swings.

Milo raised his rifle, the crosshairs finding a target, but his finger hesitated on the trigger as he watched Koron move. The way the man fought was, for lack of a better word, inhuman.

The ork to Koron's left brought down its choppa in a heavy, overhand strike. Koron slid effortlessly to the side, the blade slamming harmlessly into the sand. His left knee bent low, his right leg sweeping into an arc, at the same time activating its anti-grav coils, that sent a spray of sand into the ork's leering face. The greenskin staggered, momentarily blinded.

The second ork's horizontal swing whistled through the air, missing Koron by a hair as he crouched even lower under the blade. The wild strike didn't go to waste, however—it carved deep into the first ork's shoulder, eliciting a guttural snarl of surprise.

Using the momentum of his crouch, Koron pushed off with his left leg, engaging his grav-plating in a focused burst. The surge of energy launched him into the air, spinning his body into a half-moon arc. His right leg extended, connecting with the injured ork's neck in a strike amplified by another pulse from his plating.

The impact was devastating. A sharp crack rang out, followed by a crackling hum as arcs of electricity danced across the ork's body. The greenskin convulsed violently before collapsing in a twitching heap, its skull hanging limp as it sank to the sand.

The third ork roared, charging with a relentless fury. Koron didn't land on his feet but instead let his body fall, a controlled descent that ended with him hovering inches above the sand. The ork, caught off guard by the sudden maneuver, barreled forward with no time to adjust.

Koron's leg shot out, planting firmly on the ork's hip. Using the momentum, he launched the ork, sending the greenskin sprawling headlong into the dirt.

"Shoot 'em!" Milo shouted, snapping out of his daze.

The cramped truck behind him erupted in fire, lasrifles unloading a deadly volley. Crimson bolts seared through the remaining two orks, their leather-clad bodies jerking violently as they were torn apart by concentrated firepower.

The battle was over in seconds. The acrid stench of burned flesh and ozone filled the air, mingling with the dust that had been kicked up in the fray.

Milo lowered his rifle, sparing a glance toward Koron as the younger man rose to his feet. The carnage around him seemed to phase him not at all, his movements calm and deliberate, as though dispatching three Orks in hand-to-hand combat was merely another task on his list.

Taking a steadying breath, Milo turned to his team. "Alright, keep your eyes peeled. There might be more of 'em lurking around."

Koron hustled back to his hovering bike, offering the team a quick wave of thanks. As Milo watched him with a mix of relief and curiosity, he reached for his vox. "You good, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Bastards showed up just as I was hauling in the salvage," Koron replied, his voice steady despite what he'd just endured.

Milo frowned. "Likely drawn in by the firefight. You hurt?"

"No injuries," Koron assured him. "Just gonna grab the part and be on my way—two minutes tops."

"Alright, hurry it up. We'll cover you."

True to his word, Koron reappeared a few moments later, emerging from the ruined hull of the ancient ship. Slung over his shoulder was a massive cylinder, easily twice his height and so wide that both of his arms were fully engaged in carrying it. Four articulated arms folded along its sides, each adorned with rows of delicate, gleaming metal fins.

Milo's eyes narrowed as he took in the object, the scavenger in him instantly assessing its value. He had no idea what it was, but it looked important.

"What the hell is that, kid?" he called as Koron carefully lashed the cylinder to the side of his bike, the grav-plating's hum growing as it compensated.

"FTL engine stabilizer," Koron replied with a grin. "It keeps the transition between realspace and subspace stable. Fairly valuable piece of tech, though it'll need a good cleaning—it was buried under a foot of sand."

Milo blinked, the explanation barely registering. "You're hauling that thing around like it's a bag of groceries. It weighs what, a ton?"

"About eight hundred kilos," Koron said casually, patting the stabilizer affectionately. "The grav-plates help distribute the weight. Makes it manageable."

Milo snorted, climbing back into the passenger seat of the truck. "You're way too chipper for someone who just got jumped by Orks, you know that?"

"Hey," Koron shot back, straddling his bike with a smile. "I found a piece of tech I never got to work with much. I'm excited."

Milo rolled his eyes with a laugh and waved his team forward. "Kids," he muttered, half to himself.

The convoy began to move again, engines rumbling as they trundled toward the distant safety of Dusthaven, the prize of the day strapped securely to Koron's bike.

-

The mountain's shadow, under which they all lived, shielded them from the twin suns' searing heat, but even that natural barrier couldn't keep the air within their sheltered cave from turning oppressive at noon. The heat clawed at throats, dry and relentless, like a beast eager for a feast.

Milo took a slow swig from his canteen, savoring the brief relief the water provided, and let his eyes drift toward the firing range. The space echoed with the sharp, familiar crackle of lasgun fire—comforting in its regularity. The drills, a rigorous regimen of combat scenarios, weapon practice, and meticulous maintenance, had been Milo and Doc's brainchild more than two decades ago.

Across the other side of the field, Doc snapped at the students as they went through the basics of first aid care, what tools did what, basic medication routines. It wasn't nearly enough, but some training was better than none.

On Morrak Two, unpreparedness was a death sentence, and they'd learned that hard lesson early.

Today, though, Milo's focus wasn't on the drills themselves but on the peculiar young man waiting in line to receive his rifle. Were it not for those advanced prosthetics, Koron could have easily passed for one of the younger recruits shuffling impatiently in line.

It hadn't been easy to drag Koron out here. The kid had been perfectly content to spend the next three days holed up in the vehicle bay, obsessively cleaning the stabilizer he'd scavenged. Milo had found him there, grease-smeared and muttering under his breath, and had all but hauled him out by the scruff of his neck. Part of Milo's insistence was practical; Milo needed to know if the kid knew how to shoot straight. But if he were honest, his curiosity about the boy's past played a larger role. Koron had taken down a group of orks before Milo's arrival, and the mystery of how he'd done it gnawed at the older man's mind.

As Koron stepped up to the counter and accepted a rifle, Milo's curiosity sharpened into a keen edge. What would the kid do? How would he handle the weapon?

The answer came almost immediately, though not in the way Milo had expected. As Koron's hands wrapped around the rifle, his expression contorted. His face went stark white, and an audible gasp escaped his lips.

Then, with a startled cry, he dropped the weapon onto the counter as if it had burned him. His cybernetic hands trembled as he stared down at it, eyes wide.

"…You okay kid?" Milo asked, watching him.

"…Yeah. Just uh…hot. It surprised me."

Milos brown eyes flicked down towards the metal hands. "…Hot huh?"

His jaw tightened, Koron picked the lasgun back up with all the care of a explosives expert holding a particularly badly made bomb before making his way down to the range.

Shaking his head, Milo marked down Korons name and the serial number of the weapon given out. "Weird."

-

Pushing another stack of completed paperwork to the side, Elissa didn't even glance up when there was a knock on her office door. "Come in."

Koron stepped inside, his lasgun hanging from his hand by the strap. "Afternoon. I'll keep it brief since I know you're busy, but can I get into the armory?"

She raised an eyebrow, her attention snapping to him for the first time. "Why?"

He held out the rifle. "This? This is your settlement's primary weapon, right?"

"…Yes…?" Her tone carrying an edge of 'get to the point please'.

"Okay." Koron nodded, his expression serious. "You're in dire need of an upgrade. Same goes for your armor. I'm gonna take care of that. If I'm not done by the time the caravan gets here, the part I salvaged is in the vehicle bay. Feel free to sell it."

Elissa blinked, her mouth hanging slightly open as her tired mind tried to catch up with his words. The mountain of paperwork still weighed on her thoughts, leaving her more than a little frazzled. "Okay? Have fun I guess."

Koron gave a short nod, then turned and left without another word.

It wasn't until the evening, as she made her way home, that Elissa realized something nagging at the back of her mind. Maybe someone should go check on him.

Someone other than her, for her mattress was calling her name in a sweet, sweet sirens song.

-

The armory was a cavernous room carved into the natural rock of the mountain. Overhead, crude but effective lighting cast a pale, uneven glow, highlighting rows of weapons mounted on racks along the walls. Crates of ammunition and spare parts were stacked in organized chaos, their labels scrawled in faded marker or etched into the metal. The air smelled of oil, heated metal, and the faint ozone tang of lasgun discharge. A battered workbench took up the center of the room, its surface littered with tools, half-assembled components, and a few grease-stained manuals. A vent overhead hummed faintly, attempting—unsuccessfully—to circulate the stuffy air.

Koron was perched on a stool at the workbench, his posture slightly hunched as he worked on the guts of a disassembled lasgun. His cybernetic hands moved with quiet precision, the metallic joints gleaming faintly under the dim lights. The parts were laid out in meticulous order, each within easy reach—a stark contrast to the clutter around him. His muttering, an ongoing dialogue with himself, added a strange kind of life to the otherwise sterile atmosphere.

Tara stepped inside, her boots crunching softly against the gritty floor. She glanced around, taking in the meticulously organized chaos. Her eyes lingered on the pile of modified lasguns stacked neatly to one side of the bench.

"Mom sent me to check on you," she announced, leaning against the doorframe.

Koron didn't look up, his focus locked on the weapon's focusing coil. "Didn't realize I was on anyone's priority list."

"You're not," Tara shot back, smirking. "But she figured you'd probably forget to eat or sleep, and apparently that's a bad thing."

He snorted softly. "I'm fine. Almost done with this one." He gestured toward the pile of weapons. "Your settlement's gear needs some serious TLC."

"Yeah, you've mentioned that," Tara said as she approached the workbench. She tilted her head, inspecting the half-disassembled lasgun. "But, why? What's so bad about them?"

Koron finally glanced up, giving her a fleeting but pointed look. "Power efficiency's terrible, and your energy source"—he held up the lasgun's power pack, wiggling it a bit—"is a joke. Why someone's using a basic battery for a weapon is beyond me. Why they decided to use its lowest setting is right up there too." Tapping the opened-up barrel, its focusing lenses neatly aligned, he continued. "Your focusing lenses are misaligned. Your heat sinks don't properly dissipate heat when they're covered. These things are surprisingly reliable for their faults, but they could be a lot better."

"Okay," Tara said, her curiosity piqued, "but how do you fix it? Milo just swaps out parts when they break. He doesn't do... this." She gestured to the precise array of tools and components.

"That's the difference between patching and actual repair," Koron said. He held up a tiny capacitor, its surface charred. "Like this. Your capacitors are old, overworked, and probably not even rated for the higher power settings I see most of these guns set to. I'm re-tuning them to balance the power load."

Tara squinted at the capacitor, then at the lasgun. "You're telling me a little thing like that can make the whole gun work better?"

"Exactly," Koron said, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "It's like... if your heart's beating out of sync, it messes everything up. Fix the rhythm, and everything runs smoother."

Her eyebrows rose, and she leaned closer, her curiosity deepening. "How do you even know all this? You're, what, my age? Did you train with the Mechanicus or something?"

Koron laughed, though the sound was dry. "No, no Mechanicus. They—" He stopped short, shaking his head. "Anyway, no, I didn't learn from them. Just… lots of practice. Out there"—he nodded toward the cave entrance—"you either learn to fix what breaks or you die when it does."

Tara's face softened as she absorbed the words. "So, you've been alone out there... completely?"

He hesitated, his hands pausing briefly. He answered a moment later, voice soft. "Yeah. For a while."

"That's insane," she said, "The storms, the Orks... How did you survive?"

Koron shrugged, returning his attention to the rifle. "I'm very fast."

Her eyes drifted to his cybernetic arms. "Even the arms... Did you build those?"

"Some of it," he said, voice carefully neutral. "The rest came from scavenged tech. A lot of trial and error."

Before Tara could respond, the door creaked open, and Kala stepped in, her presence immediately filling the room with energy. She grinned at Koron, then at Tara, and sauntered over to the workbench, leaning casually against its edge.

"Well, if it isn't our resident magic man," Kala said, her voice light and teasing. "How's the tinkering going? Saving Dusthaven one lasgun at a time?"

Koron glanced up briefly, his expression unreadable. "It's going."

Kala's grin widened as she leaned in a little closer. "You know, Koron, if you're this good with machines, I bet you're a great cook too. You should join us for dinner sometime."

Tara groaned audibly. "Kala. Really?"

"What?" Kala said innocently, though her smirk betrayed her. "It's called being polite, Tara. You should try it."

"I appreciate the offer-" Koron began, only to be cut off as Tara spoke.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure someone here didn't even think to check with mom if she would be okay with it before asking."

Kala gasped in mock offense. "You wound me. I just thought he might like a hot meal."

Koron raised an eyebrow, clearly unsure whether to laugh or intervene. Tara shook her head, grabbing Kala by the arm. "Come on, lets go before you give him a flower."

As the door shut behind them, leaving Koron alone surrounded by weaponry, he quietly uttered "Flowers?"

-

Kala swung her arms loosely at her sides, her long braid bouncing against her back. "So," she began, shooting a glance at Tara, "what do you think Koron would do if I asked him to dinner?"

Tara stopped mid-step, her face twisting in disbelief. "Oh for-what are you doing?"

"You know," Kala continued, undeterred, "dinner. Food. Two people sitting together, eating, talking—maybe smiling. You've heard of it, right?"

Tara rolled her eyes and started walking again. "You're ridiculous."

"Am I?" Kala jogged to catch up, falling into step beside her sister. "I mean, don't you think he could use a good meal? He's always tinkering or wandering around like he's got some grand plan, but has anyone actually seen him eat? Maybe he needs someone to take care of him."

"Right," Tara said dryly. "Because you're so great at taking care of people."

Kala gasped, clutching her chest dramatically. "Wow, Tara. Way to undermine my nurturing side. That hurt."

"I'm sure you'll survive."

They walked in silence for a moment, the dry breeze kicking up dust around their boots. Tara glanced sideways at her sister, her expression softening. "You're not serious, though… are you?"

Kala shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. He's interesting."

Tara let out a short laugh. "I admit that, but he's also weird. He's all calculations and half-answers. He barely talks to anyone unless he has to."

"That's what makes him interesting!" Kala shot back, grinning. "He's like some puzzle. You have to figure him out. Doesn't that make you curious?"

Tara frowned. "Curious, sure. But not enough to… you know." She hesitated, searching for the right words. "Besides, I don't think he's the type to… I mean, can someone like him even—" Her face flushed as she tried to find the right words.

"Feel anything?" Kala finished for her. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. But he's still… I don't know, kind of fascinating, don't you think?"

Tara stopped again, turning to face Kala fully this time. "He's not some local boy you can tease. He's… different."

"I know that," Kala said, her tone softening. "But different doesn't mean bad, Tara. It just means different."

Tara crossed her arms, her voice dropping. "And what if you're wrong? What if he's more dangerous than he looks?"

Kala met her gaze, the teasing gone from her expression. "And what if he's not?"

The question hung between them, heavy in the quiet street. Tara opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again, shaking her head.

"You're impossible," she muttered, walking ahead.

Kala smiled faintly as she followed. "And you worry too much."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Six

-

The arrival of the caravans was always a time of controlled chaos, but it was the lifeblood of Dusthaven. From the moment the first dust cloud appeared on the horizon, signaling the approach of travelers, the whole town seemed to hold its breath in anticipation. The town would swell with activity: a mix of excitement, tension, and energy as merchants and salvagers spilled in, bringing with them goods and stories from far beyond the walls. The atmosphere was thick with the hum of transactions, bargaining, and the occasional shouted insult between traders trying to undercut each other.

Elissa, as always, was the orchestrator of it all, standing at the heart of the negotiations. Dusthaven needed supplies, and she was the one who made sure they got what they needed, no matter the cost. Her face remained calm, her voice steady, as she worked her way through deals with suppliers, contractors, and other settlements. Every word from her lips was a carefully calculated move, a negotiation tactic that had earned her the respect of even the most seasoned traders.

Milo, on the other hand, had no interest in the finer points of trade. He sat in the shade with the mercenaries and guards, exchanging stories and jokes as they passed around smokes and liquor. His time was spent listening to the gruff tales of life on the road—mercenaries boasting of their close calls, salvage teams recounting their greatest finds, and old war stories that seemed to grow more fantastical with each retelling. Milo had a quiet kind of presence—one that kept people around him relaxed, not because he said much, but because he knew how to let the silence sit and fill with camaraderie.

Doc, ever the opportunist, worked relentlessly during the caravan influx. With the caravan bringing in its usual set of injuries—scrapes, cuts, bruises, and the occasional more serious wound—Doc was in high demand, charging a premium for her services. Her practice had grown with the caravan's arrivals, and the air around her was thick with the scent of antiseptics, blood, and old bandages. Riggs and his crew, always a reliable source of minor injuries, kept Doc busy as they haggled over supplies in the backrooms, making sure she had everything she needed to keep the town running.

For Tara and Kala, however, the caravans brought with them a different kind of duty. As the mayor's daughters and prominent figures in Dusthaven, their role was more visible than most, even if they spent most of their time away from the hustle and bustle. They were assigned to guard posts in the high towers, their eyes sharp as they watched over the crowds below. It wasn't just the caravan traders they had to worry about; it was also the more unsavory types—merchants, wanderers, or mercenaries—who thought they could take advantage of the twins' reputation. There had been more than one attempt to corner them for a "quiet moment," and the twins had learned quickly how to use their presence and sharp wit to keep things from escalating.

The towers, though built for defense, gave the twins a unique perspective on the caravan scene. They could see the vast array of people flooding into town, the endless sea of faces, the mix of business and danger in the air. As guards, they were constantly alert, but the view was also a reminder of how many were dependent on Dusthaven's survival. Every person coming in was part of that delicate web—supply lines, trade routes, and relationships that held the town together in a place where resources were always scarce.

While the rest of the town mixed with the caravans, exchanging goods and favors, Tara and Kala stayed away from the crowds. They didn't need to get involved in the more personal transactions. It was safer that way—both for them and for those around them. The occasional friend or trusted acquaintance would wander into the caravan, picking up whatever they were asked to retrieve for the twins, but beyond that, it was a period of relative isolation.

Still, there was an unspoken understanding between the two sisters. The quiet moments in the towers, the only sounds being the occasional chatter on the commlink or the distant rumbles of the market below, were sometimes the only times they truly had for themselves. Even when they were on guard, they still found small moments to talk, to joke, to share concerns.

"Think we'll have another attempt today?" Tara asked, her voice breaking the silence between them as she adjusted her helmet and checked her rifle.

Kala glanced over, narrowing her eyes at the crowd below. "Probably. We're too easy of a target for some people. They think it'll get them a foot in the door. Not that they ever learn."

Tara grinned, her eyes glinting with amusement. "Well, if anyone does try anything today, I'll just let you handle it. I'm just hoping we get some more Thronhorns, lowering the milk prices would be nice. And a better chance of getting a more stable supply of the treats."

Kala rolled her eyes, but a soft smile tugged at her lips. "I just want a new mattress, I sink if I'm in the middle of my own bed."

Tara sighed dramatically, leaning back against the stone wall of the tower. "Yeah. Hey, speaking of buying stuff, think mom will rope us into another one of her 'discreet' negotiations later?"

"Maybe. Even if we don't get the job after she's gone, knowing how to barter is a good skill to have."

Kala's gaze swept over the chaotic sprawl of the market below, the noise and movement blurring into a restless tide of humanity. She leaned slightly against the edge of the guardtower's railing, her fingers tapping an absent rhythm as she scanned the crowd for anything unusual.

Her attention caught on a familiar figure winding his way through the crowded street, and her brow furrowed. Koron was there, all right, but it wasn't just his presence that stood out—it was what he was hauling.

Her eyes widened as she got a better look at the hulking piece of machinery strapped to the sled he dragged behind him. It was a massive cylinder, its polished surface catching the sunlight in gleaming streaks. The stabilizer looked like something out of a tech-priest's wildest prayers, all intricate details and sheer, industrial heft.

"Holy shit," Kala muttered under her breath, her mind racing. "That's what he's been working on the last few days?"

Her voice must have carried, because Tara was at her side in an instant. "What are you muttering about now?"

Kala didn't answer, just pointed toward Koron as he maneuvered through the crush of people, the stabilizers straps creaking, the sled groaning behind him. Tara leaned over the railing, her eyes following the line of Kala's gesture.

"Emperor's blood," Tara breathed, her tone halfway between awe and excitement. "That looks impressive. Did he fix that up himself?"

Kala shrugged, but there was a flicker of pride in her voice. "Looks like it. He's been holed up with it for days after he was working in the armory."

Tara grinned, already stepping back from the railing. "We should go check it out!"

Kala blinked, startled. "We have a shift—"

"Okay, you stay," Tara called over her shoulder, already halfway down the stairs. "I'm gonna go see what that is!"

"Oh, for—wait for me!" Kala huffed, abandoning her post and hurrying after her twin.

By the time they caught up to Koron, he was stopped at a crossroads, wiping the sweat from his brow and catching his breath. The stabilizer loomed behind him, an unmistakable centerpiece of attention.

"Afternoon," Koron said as they approached, his face carefully blank.

"Hey," Kala said, jerking her thumb toward Tara, ignoring the tension that settled in her shoulders. "Tara decided seeing your piece here was more important than being in the guardtower."

Tara rolled her eyes but didn't argue. Instead, she walked a slow circle around the stabilizer, whistling low under her breath. "Koron, this thing is... damn, it's impressive. Operational, too?"

Koron straightened, wiping his metal hands on his trousers. "Operational and refurbished. Should fetch a solid price."

Kala tilted her head, eyeing the stabilizer with a mix of curiosity and admiration. "You hauling this to the tech-priests?"

"Yeah," Koron replied, his tone more serious now. "Figured they're the ones who'd appreciate it most—and pay what it's worth."

Tara shot a glance at Kala, her expression playful. "What do you say we tag along? Make sure nobody tries to undercut him—or pickpocket him."

Koron snorted. "I can handle myself, you know."

Tara gave him a pointed look. "You're hauling half a ton of delicate machinery through a crowded market. Let's not pretend you're invincible."

Koron didn't argue, just nodded toward the path ahead. "All right, fine. You two coming or what?"

"Lead the way, big guy," Kala said as they fell into step beside him.

As they walked, the twins kept a wary eye on the bustling crowd. The stabilizer drew plenty of attention, and not all of it was friendly. Whispers followed in their wake, traders and scavengers craning their necks for a better look, but none dared approach with the armed twins flanking Koron.

-

The Admech followers were set up in a large tent, a ring of servitors hauling away paid for goods, while four large combat servitors stood at the flanks, bristling with weaponry. Now, as they stood outside the Mechanicus tent, the tension inside was palpable, even through the thick canvas. The air carried the faint tang of machine oil and the sterile scent of the Mechanicus entourage, contrasting sharply with the dust and spice-laden aroma of Dusthaven's market beyond.

Tara leaned casually against one of the tent's sturdy poles, her fingers drumming lightly on the handle of her rifle. "Twenty-five thousand?" she muttered, her voice tinged with disbelief. "That's robbery."

Kala stood a step behind her, her rifle resting against her shoulder, but her sharp eyes never left the crimson-robed Magos and the hulking servitors stationed throughout the tent. Each of the mechanical behemoths bristled with weaponry, their lifeless optics sweeping the area with unsettling precision. "Koron's not going to take it," she said, her tone steady, but her grip on the rifle tightened. "He didn't haul that thing through town just to get lowballed."

Tara snorted softly. "That stabilizer is worth more than half the stuff they've got stockpiled in those haulers."

Inside the tent, Koron stood across from the Mechanicus envoy, his stance deceptively relaxed, but the sharp edge in his voice carried to where the twins stood.

"Twenty-five thousand?" Koron repeated, his tone laced with incredulity. He leaned forward slightly, his azure eyes narrowing. "That's cute, Magos. Really. I could scrap this for parts and make twice that."

Tara smirked. "Aaaaaand there it is," she murmured, glancing back at Kala.

Kala didn't respond immediately, her gaze shifting between Koron and the Magos. She watched the Magos tilt his head, the motion unnervingly precise, like a predatory bird calculating the weight of its prey. The faint hum of the Magos's mechadendrites filled the air as he responded in his emotionless, mechanical tone.

"Unlikely," the Magos droned. "The componentry within is valuable, yes, but disassembly carries significant risk. The value diminishes when individual pieces are extracted without the Mechanicus's expertise."

Kala's brow furrowed as she whispered to Tara, "Their 'expertise,' huh? Like Koron hasn't spent days restoring that thing to working condition."

Tara's grin widened. "They're playing scared now. They know it's worth more than they're offering. Koron's got them by the brass."

The exchange continued, the tension mounting with each volley. When the Magos offered thirty thousand Thrones, Tara let out a low whistle. "Still lowballing him. I almost feel sorry for them."

"Almost," Kala replied with a faint smirk, her tone softening slightly as she watched Koron lean back with the casual air of a man who knew exactly how much leverage he had. "He's making them sweat. Good."

The tent seemed to hold its breath as Koron delivered his counteroffer, his voice calm but unyielding. "One hundred thousand, half the pricetag these things go for. I know you've got the backing for it, and I know you won't find another stabilizer like this anywhere near Dusthaven. Hell, anywhere in this whole region. If you want, pay me the fifty in thrones, put the rest as a line of credit to be used at your facilities. Either way, you save your bosses over a hundred-fifty thousand thrones."

Kala's eyes flicked back to the Magos, her sharp gaze catching the faint twitch of their mechadendrites. It was subtle, but she'd seen enough negotiations to recognize hesitation—even from a machine. The twins exchanged a glance, and Tara's smirk grew wider.

"He's got them," Tara said softly. "They can't let him walk."

The Magos's vocoder broke the silence, his tone as cold and detached as ever. "This is an acceptable compromise."

Kala let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding as the servitors moved to secure the stabilizer. Tara nudged her shoulder and gestured toward Koron, who was stepping back from the table with a triumphant smirk.

"Time to make sure he doesn't get jumped on his way out," Tara said, her tone light but her expression serious. The market outside the tent was a jungle, and the weight of that many Thrones was more than enough to draw unwanted attention.

The sisters entered the tent just as Koron was handed a heavy bag of throne gelt, the clinking sound unmistakable even amidst the mechanical whir of the Mechanicus entourage. Tara crossed her arms, her voice cutting through the quiet like a blade.

"You know," she said, addressing Koron with a teasing grin, "you're lucky we didn't let you haul that thing here on your own."

Koron glanced at her, his lips tugging up slightly. "Oh, I didn't need luck. Just good company."

Kala rolled her eyes but couldn't help the small smile that curled her lips. "Let's get that bag back to your place before anyone gets ideas."

"Lead the way," Koron replied, hefting the bag over his shoulder with ease. His tone was light, but the sharp glint in his eyes suggested he knew just how precarious the situation still was.

As they stepped back into the bustling chaos of Dusthaven's market, the world seemed to rush at them in a cacophony of sound and color. Hawkers shouted their wares, carts creaked under the weight of goods, and children darted between adults like mischievous shadows. But despite the familiar noise and movement, Tara and Kala felt the weight of their charge: Koron, the bag of Thrones on his shoulder, and the invisible target it painted on them all.

Tara's hand rested loosely atop the stock of her rifle, her sharp eyes scanning the crowd with practiced ease. There were more than a few curious glances aimed their way—too many for comfort—but no one dared approach. Not yet.

Kala walked on Koron's other side, her posture deceptively relaxed, though her fingers hovered near her rifles's grip. The air was thick with the scent of spice, machine oil, and dust, but beneath it all, she could feel the tension crackling like a live wire.

"Not bad, Koron," Kala said, her voice low enough to blend with the hum of the crowd. Her words carried a note of genuine approval.

Koron glanced her way, his smirk faint but unmistakable. "Thanks. But next time, remind me to charge double."

Tara laughed, her bright voice cutting through the market's din, even though her gaze didn't stop searching for signs of trouble. "Oh, so you're buying us lunch, then?"

Koron shot her a sidelong look, his expression wry. "Lunch? For what? You two just had to stand there and look scary."

Kala placed a hand on her chest in mock offense, her grin widening. "Scary? I'll have you know we were being lethally gorgeous."

"That's not a thing," Koron deadpanned, though the slight twitch of his lips betrayed his amusement.

"It is now," Kala retorted, her tone full of playful defiance as she shook her head, unable to suppress a small smile. The banter was easy, light, but it carried an undercurrent of something deeper—an unspoken camaraderie that had grown in the weeks they'd known Koron. It wasn't something Kala had expected. He'd seemed like such a closed-off figure at first, a man weighed down by shadows he refused to name. Yet here he was, walking beside them like he belonged, his quiet presence a steadying force even in the chaos of the market.

-

Elissa stood at the edge of the market square, arms crossed over her chest, as her gaze followed Koron, Tara, and Kala weaving through the bustling crowd. The heat shimmered in waves above the sandblasted ground, but Elissa barely noticed. Her focus was on the three of them—an odd trio, if there ever was one.

Kala, as always, walked with that bold, unflinching energy of hers, her voice carrying over the clamor of the market. She gestured animatedly as she spoke, her laughter cutting through the dry air like a bell. Tara followed close behind, quieter but no less engaged, her sharp eyes darting from one stall to the next as if cataloging every detail for later.

And then there was Koron, a few odds and ends in hand. He moved differently from anyone else in Dusthaven—precise, deliberate, every motion measured as though his steps were calculated in advance. The weight of him, both literal and figurative, seemed to ripple outward. People stepped aside without realizing they were doing it, as if the stranger's presence demanded it.

Elissa's mouth tightened into a line as she watched Kala loop her arm around Koron's, leaning in with some half-joking remark that made Tara roll her eyes. Koron didn't laugh, but there was the faintest flicker of something—amusement? Tolerance?—in his expression. Tara said something next, her tone quieter but no less certain, and Koron tilted his head slightly, listening.

Elissa let out a slow breath.

Her daughters were growing up. That much was clear. Kala, headstrong and bold as the rising sun, had always walked the line between charm and recklessness. She'd been like this since she was a child—diving headfirst into anything that caught her interest, whether it was climbing the highest rock face in the cliffs or bartering with traders twice her age. Kala's confidence was a gift, but it was also a weapon, sharp and unpredictable. And lately, that weapon seemed pointed directly at Koron.

Tara was the opposite. Thoughtful, deliberate, with a mind like a well-oiled machine. Where Kala thrived in the heat of the moment, Tara lived in the quiet space between breaths, where plans were made and futures considered. But even she had started looking to Koron with something more than simple curiosity. Admiration? Respect? Maybe. Or maybe it was the pull of something neither sister truly understood.

Elissa rubbed her temples, a flicker of unease passing through her.

Koron wasn't like them. He wasn't like anyone. He'd stepped into Dusthaven like a shadow from another world, bringing with him knowledge, precision, and a quiet authority that unsettled as much as it reassured. The town needed him—she couldn't deny that—but need had a way of twisting into something more complicated.

And her daughters…

Elissa watched as Kala nudged Koron playfully, her voice loud enough to make a few heads turn. Tara said something that made her sister snort in mock indignation, and Koron glanced between them as he replied.

They'd formed a bond, the three of them. It was subtle at first, growing in small moments—shared conversations over repairs, the way Koron seemed to answer Tara's questions with patience he rarely offered others, or how Kala's boldness didn't seem to irritate him the way it did most. It wasn't just that her daughters looked up to him. They trusted him. And, judging from what she saw, likely more than just trust attached the twins to him.

And that's what worried her most.

Elissa had seen what trust could do in a place like this. Dusthaven was built on trust, on the fragile thread of it that tied neighbors together, even when water ran low and tempers ran high. But trust could just as easily be a weapon—a blade hidden in the folds of an outstretched hand. Add in the young, high energy emotions of attraction, especially with competition? It was a mix she dearly wanted to avoid.

Beyond even that, there was the man himself. Koron, for all his usefulness, for all the good he'd done for the town, still carried an air of something unspoken. Something dangerous.

Did they see it? Did Kala and Tara understand the risk that came with someone like him?

Elissa shook her head, brushing the thought aside. They were smart—both of them. And Koron, for all his mystery, hadn't given her a reason to think he'd harm them. If anything, he seemed to go out of his way to protect them, to guide them in his quiet, calculating way.

But still, she worried.

She worried about the way Kala leaned on him, testing boundaries the way she always did, as if daring him to push back. She worried about Tara's fascination with his technology, how she hung on his every word when he explained some mechanical detail, her green eyes wide with curiosity. She worried about the looks they exchanged—small, fleeting moments of understanding that passed between the three of them, like an unspoken language Elissa couldn't quite translate.

And she worried most of all about what would happen when the bond they were building came under strain.

Because it would. It always did.

The desert didn't let anything stay easy for long.

With a sigh, Elissa pushed herself off the wall, her boots crunching against the sand as she stepped back toward the market, towards the trio. Kala's laughter rang out again, clear and carefree, and Elissa couldn't help but smile, despite herself.

They were strong, her girls. Stronger than she sometimes gave them credit for. And Koron… well, Koron was a mystery she couldn't solve. But for now, at least, he was here. And that, for better or worse, would have to be enough.

Her smile returning, though it didn't entirely mask her introspection as she walked up. "Well, don't you all look busy," she called, her tone light as they approached.

Koron adjusted the load on his shoulder and dipped his head in a polite nod. "Just picking up a few things," he said simply.

"A few?" Elissa replied, raising an eyebrow. "It looks like you're moving an entire workshop into that shack of yours."

Kala grinned, stepping closer to her mother. "What can we say? We're helping him upgrade."

Tara nodded, adding softly, "It's about time he had a proper place to sleep."

Elissa's eyes flicked between her daughters, her instincts picking up on the unspoken undercurrents. She met Koron's gaze briefly, his expression as inscrutable as ever, and then turned her attention back to Kala and Tara.

"Well," she said after a beat, "it's good to see you all getting along so well." Her words were neutral, but the weight behind them wasn't lost on her daughters.

Kala tilted her head, giving her mother a curious look. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Elissa chuckled softly, placing a hand on her hip. "Not at all. Just... keep an eye on each other, alright?"

Tara frowned slightly, sensing the layers in her mother's tone, but didn't press. Instead, she gave a small smile. "We always do."

Elissa nodded, though her thoughts lingered as she watched the trio continue their way out of the market. She hoped her daughters would navigate this new dynamic with care, and perhaps even find a way to avoid the heartache she feared.

But for now, she pushed the worry aside, choosing instead to focus on the warmth of the moment—the sight of her daughters laughing and teasing as they walked beside Koron, their small, mismatched trio carving out a life together in the heart of Dusthaven.

-

Time passed, weeks turning to months, and before anyone realized it, summer arrived in full, bringing the relentless heat of Dusthaven's twin suns. The fiery orbs hung close, baking the desert planet beneath their oppressive glare. Radiation from direct sunlight made venturing out a risk, flora retreated into the dunes, and the hardier desert predators, driven by desperation, prowled closer to human settlements. The world fell into an uneasy stillness, as if holding its breath under the twin stars' wrath.

Few dared to brave the midday sun, but Koron was one of them. Clad in his black armor, he moved methodically along Dusthaven's sole defensive wall. Day by day, he stripped away old, corroded plating, replacing it with precisely cut slabs of ceramite and adamantine hull armor. Sections of the wall were patched with a mixture of stonebloom, a hardy local plant that hardened like ferrocrete when cured. The wall and guard towers were reinforced with plating that provided narrow firing slits, protecting defenders from enemy fire while allowing them to retaliate effectively. The wall grew stronger under his hands, evolving from a rough, functional barrier to a true fortification capable of withstanding a siege.

At first, Koron worked alone, his tireless precision cutting through the daunting task. But as word spread of his efforts, others joined in during the cooler early mornings and nights. Milo provided input on firing angles, ensuring the defenses covered every approach. Doc wandered by periodically, inspecting ramps and pathways to ensure injured defenders could be quickly evacuated if the worst came.

One such evening, after the townsfolk had dispersed to their homes, Elissa found herself walking the length of the wall. The air was cooler now, a faint breeze sweeping across the battlements. She spotted Koron sitting with his back against the newly reinforced stone, his helmet resting beside him as he stared out over the dunes, the lines of his face drawn with fatigue.

"Hey," she said softly, approaching and holding out a cup of water. "You doing okay?"

Koron turned his head, his gaze softening as he took the cup with a nod. "Yeah," he muttered, leaning his head back against the wall after a long sip. "Just tired is all."

"I can imagine," she replied, her fingers brushing the edge of the smooth metal now lining the wall. "Even with that armor of yours, the heat still gets to you, doesn't it?"

"Course," Koron said with a faint smirk. "Just makes it more manageable. Can't keep something like those damn suns out completely."

Elissa chuckled softly and lowered herself to sit beside him. For a moment, neither spoke, the quiet hum of the night filling the air. Her gaze drifted toward him, watching as his usually sharp, vigilant demeanor softened in the stillness. She hadn't expected him to integrate into the town so thoroughly—or to see this side of him, the one that worked tirelessly without complaint, the one who seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"You've done a lot for this town," she said after a while, her voice quieter than she intended. "More than most would, considering you're not even one of us."

Koron glanced at her, his brow furrowing slightly in mock outrage. "Ouch. Been four months, and I still don't get to have the patch for Dusthaven? I'm hurt."

"We have a very thorough vetting process," she replied, lightly elbowing him. "Lots of paperwork, gotta check your references. Takes forever."

"Oh man, the gap in my resume is gonna be hard to explain."

Her head tilted slightly at that, strands of crimson hair catching in the faint breeze as she gave him a soft smile. "Depends on how long it is."

Koron snorted, a sudden and genuine sound that caught her off guard. He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet with an exaggerated groan. "Aaaaand that's my cue to call it a night. Goodnight, El. I'll see you tomorrow."

Elissa watched him go, the faintest trace of a smile lingering on her lips. "Goodnight, Koron," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the desert wind.

As his figure disappeared into the shadows, she leaned back against the cool metal of the wall, the humor of the moment fading into a bittersweet quiet. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "What am I doing?" she muttered to herself. Yet even as she asked, she couldn't quite banish the small flicker of warmth that lingered from their exchange.

-

The garage was cool, quiet except for the occasional soft clink of tools and the faint hum of the diagnostic pad, a welcome reprieve from the blistering suns. Tara sat on the floor beside Koron, her knees drawn up, hands carefully cradling a delicate circuit board as she eyed the personally soldered points for the hundredth time.

Koron knelt across from her, the soft glow of his flashlight throwing a faint light over the worn, wheeled motorcycles open panel. He moved with quiet efficiency, the tips of his fingers barely brushing the wires as he examined them.

"Okay," he said after a moment, his voice low but steady. "Try reseating the coupling. Don't be afraid to give it some oomph, you're not gonna break it with your bare hands.

Tara nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Right. Oomph. Technical term?"

"Very."

Her fingers trembled slightly as she positioned the piece, and she hesitated, glancing up at him for reassurance. Koron's blue eyes met hers, calm and unwavering, and he gave her a small nod.

"You're fine," he said. "Take your time."

With a deep breath, Tara pressed the coupling into place. The faint click it made felt like a tiny victory, and she looked up at Koron with a shy smile. "Like that?"

"Perfect," he said, his voice warm with approval. "You've got a steady hand."

Her cheeks flushed, and she ducked her head to hide the smile that tugged at her lips.

They worked in tandem, Koron guiding her with quiet instructions while she followed with careful precision. Tara wasn't as naturally confident as her sister Kala, but there was a quiet determination in the way she approached the task. She asked questions, and she absorbed his answers like a sponge, her mind slowly piecing together the mechanics of the machine.

After a while, she broke the silence. "You're really patient," she said, her voice barely above a murmur. "I'd be frustrated if I were in your place."

Koron glanced at her, tilting his head slightly. "Why?"

"Because I'm slow," she admitted, her hands pausing over the wires. "And I'm not very good at this. I feel like I'm just in your way."

"You're learning," he said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Everyone starts somewhere. Besides, you're not slow. You're careful. That's better."

The sincerity in his tone made her chest tighten, and she blinked down at the bike, unsure how to respond. "Thanks," she managed, her voice barely audible.

Koron turned back to the bike, his focus already shifting back to the task at hand. "Here," he said, holding out a socket wrench. "Try loosening that bolt. Counterclockwise."

Tara took the wrench, her fingers brushing his as she did, but she ignored it, focusing on the job. The bolt gave way with a soft creak, and she exhaled a relieved sigh.

"You're a natural," Koron said, his tone light but genuine.

She laughed softly, shaking her head. "I wouldn't go that far."

"You'd be surprised." He leaned back, studying her for a moment. "You've got a good sense for this stuff. All you need is practice."

Tara looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. She'd always admired his quiet strength, the way he moved through the world with a calm assurance that made everything around him seem more stable. But sitting here, so close to him, she realized there was something else—a gentleness in the way he guided her, a patience that made her feel like she could actually do this.

"Thanks," she said again, her voice soft but earnest. "For teaching me. I... I really appreciate it."

Koron shrugged, his lips twitching into the faintest hint of a smile. "Everyone's got something worth teaching. You just needed someone to show you."

She quickly turned her attention back to the bike, hoping he didn't notice the blush creeping up her neck. As they continued to work, Tara found herself relaxing, the rhythm of the task and Koron's steady presence easing her usual self-doubt. And when the engine finally roared to life, its low rumble vibrating through the garage, the smile that spread across her face was as bright as the twin suns outside.

"We did it," she whispered, almost in disbelief.

Koron nodded, the corners of his mouth lifting in a rare smile. "You did it."

Tara looked at him, her chest tightening with a mix of pride and something she couldn't quite name.

-

The sandstorm rumbled in the distance, a looming wall of whirling copper and ochre that seemed to eat the horizon. The rising wind carried a dry, stinging grit that pricked at exposed skin. Kala Brandt stood at the gate of the scrapbeast pen, watching the herd shuffle nervously inside. The creatures stamped their splayed hooves and flicked their tails, their tough, leathery hides glinting faintly in the afternoon light.

"They're getting restless," Kala muttered to herself before glancing back over her shoulder, readjusting her goggles and heavy scarf. Koron was several paces behind, a bundle of feed in his arms and a wary look on his face.

One of the smaller scrapbeasts let out a sharp, bleating cry as he approached. The sound startled him just enough that he stopped in his tracks, earning a chuckle from Kala.

"Relax," she called. "It's just a warning. She thinks you're going to do something stupid."

"She might not be wrong," Koron replied, his tone dry but carrying a faint edge of unease. He adjusted the bundle in his arms and resumed his approach, carefully skirting around the nearest beast.

Kala smirked and stepped into the pen, her movements fluid and confident. "You can take down orks, but you're scared of a bunch of goats with attitude?"

"They're not goats," Koron muttered, glancing at the creature that had just snorted at him. Its spines quivered like a coiled spring, and it stomped the ground. "And they look like they're deciding whether to charge or bolt."

Kala crouched near one of the larger animals, a wiry female with scars tracing her flanks. She spoke softly, her voice low and even as she reached out to stroke the beast's side. The scrapbeast huffed but didn't pull away.

"They're smarter than you think," Kala said. "They can smell fear."

"Convenient," Koron muttered, shifting the bundle in his arms again.

She glanced up at him, grinning. "Come on, you'll be fine. Just do what I do."

Koron sighed and stepped closer, his movements slow and deliberate. As he set the feed down, one of the younger scrapbeasts trotted over to investigate. Its curious snout nudged at the bundle before it turned its attention to Koron, sniffing at his boots.

"If it starts chewing on my pants Im gonna be upset" he said, standing rigid as the creature sniffed higher up his leg.

"Oh come on, they need more fiber in their diet." Kala said, straightening up. "Don't flinch, or it'll think you're weak."

"Flinching isn't the problem," Koron muttered as the scrapbeast bumped its snout against his thigh.

Kala crossed her arms, suppressing a laugh. "You're fine. She likes you."

"Encouraging," he replied dryly, though his posture relaxed slightly.

The scrapbeast eventually lost interest, ambling back to its herd. Kala gestured for Koron to follow her as she moved toward a particularly restless creature near the edge of the pen.

"This one's the troublemaker," she said. "Keeps trying to bolt anytime there's a storm."

"Why not leave the gate shut?" Koron asked.

"She'll hurt herself trying to ram through it," Kala said. "She's stubborn, and kinda stupid."

"I thought you said they were smarter than I thought?"

"I'm using the word very loosely."

The beast let out a sharp bleat as Kala approached, pawing the ground.

"Watch and learn," Kala said, keeping her voice low. She edged closer, holding her hands out and speaking in soft, soothing tones. The beast twitched its spines but didn't retreat as Kala reached out to grip the collar loop around its thick neck.

"There we go," she murmured, stroking its leathery hide. "See? Easy."

She glanced over her shoulder at Koron, raising a brow. "Your turn."

He hesitated, glancing between Kala and the scrapbeast. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Nope," she said cheerfully. "But you've got to start somewhere."

Koron sighed, stepping forward. The scrapbeast shifted its weight, its spines flicking slightly as it watched him.

"Keep your movements slow," Kala said. "And don't make eye contact."

He nodded, mimicking her earlier motions as he reached for the collar. The beast snorted, its muscles tensing. Koron froze.

"Don't stop," Kala said quickly. "If you hesitate now, you'll lose her."

He took a breath and resumed his approach, his hand brushing against the collar. The beast let out a low huff but stayed still.

"There you go," Kala said, her tone warm, watching Koron take a step back. "Not bad for a first try."

Koron exhaled slowly, his shoulders finally relaxing as he released the scrapbeast's collar. "That was... something."

Kala grinned, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. "You're a natural."

He raised a brow at her, brushing dust from his shirt. "Pretty sure she was humoring me."

"Maybe," Kala said with a teasing smirk. "But you didn't screw it up, and that's a win in my book."

Koron chuckled, shaking his head. "I'll take the win, then."

The two of them continued working side by side, securing the herd against the encroaching storm. Koron fumbled now and then, but Kala was quick to guide him back on track.

She just grinned, her tone light. "You're gonna be a pro at this in no time. Or at least you'll stop scaring the poor things."

Despite the teasing, there was an ease to their rhythm by the time they finished. Koron found himself appreciating Kala's sharp, instinctive understanding of the animals. She wasn't just good at this—she thrived in it.

As the first gusts of the sandstorm began to rattle the barn, Kala leaned against the wall, brushing loose strands of auburn hair out of her face. She looked at Koron with a glint of amusement in her eyes. "Not bad. You didn't even get trampled."

"High praise," Koron said dryly, running a hand through his hair. "Thanks for showing me the ropes."

"Anytime," Kala said, her grin widening. She tilted her head toward the nearby paddock. "So… you ready for the thornhorns next? Their pens could use a good cleaning, and I wouldn't say no to a hand."

Koron stared at her for a long moment, letting out a resigned sigh as his shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I can help."

"Great!" Kala said, laughing as she grabbed a pair of shovels. She handed one to him with a mockingly formal bow. "Your noble steed awaits."

He rolled his eyes but couldn't help the faint smile tugging at his lips. "You're enjoying this way too much."

"Of course I am," she said with a wink. "Come on, I'll even show you the trick to keeping them from kicking you."

It wasn't much—just another small moment in the long, chaotic whirlwind that Koron's new life had become. But as he followed Kala into the thornhorn pen, he realized that sometimes, the little gestures mattered most. Here, among the dust and beasts and storm-worn fences, something unspoken passed between them: trust, tentative but growing, and the beginning of something that neither had quite dared to name.

-

The relentless suns of summer had given way to the endless rains of the flood season. The twin stars, once blazing and unyielding, were now dim and shrouded behind a ceiling of dense, slate-gray clouds. For three months, the rain would pour without respite, transforming the arid desert into a treacherous sea of mud and swirling currents. The sand, once a scorching and unyielding carpet of heat, became a deadly mire, claiming the careless and unwary.

Yet for Dusthaven, the rains were a blessing as much as they were a danger. Rainwater collectors overflowed, filling the town's reservoirs to last through the next cycle of brutal heat. The cool, damp air was a welcome reprieve from the months of suffocating dryness. Dusthaven's location inside a mountain kept it secure from the worst of the floods, and its angled layout ensured that any water that did make it through the mountain flowed out through drainage channels at the base of the wall.

The town's streets, though damp, bustled with life. Parents chatted as children splashed and laughed near the wall. Salvagers, unable to risk the deadly outside conditions, spent their time indulging in drink, games, women and occasional rowdiness, though Milo's watchful eye kept things from getting too out of hand.

In the heart of this wet season, Tara had all but moved into Koron's shack. The humble building, which had grown into a functional, if cramped, home over the months, was an oasis of purpose for her. What had started as little more than a single room now included a small bedroom, a rudimentary bathroom, a living space, and a large, ramshackle workshop where most of Koron's time—and hers—was spent.

Tara's days with Koron were a whirlwind of learning. The dataslate he had given her months ago had unlocked an insatiable hunger for knowledge, and she poured over schematics, manuals, and engineering guides in her spare time. Under Koron's guidance, she went from fumbling with tools to assembling drones with increasing confidence.

One rainy afternoon, Tara arrived at the shack, rainwater dripping from her poncho. She hung it on a hook near the door, the smell of damp earth and ozone mingling with the faint metallic tang of Koron's workspace. Inside, Koron was hunched over his bench, a faint glow from his augmented eyes reflecting off the polished surface. Sparks flew as his cybernetic fingers welded a delicate seam on a compact drone frame.

"What are you working on today?" Tara asked, brushing her damp hair out of her face as she set her bag down.

Koron glanced at her, a small nod of acknowledgement. "Same as yesterday. More drones. Thought I'd try making this one quieter." He gestured to a half-finished unit, its compact anti-grav assembly different from the others she'd seen. "I was thinking stealth reconnaissance might come in handy."

Tara nodded, rolling up her sleeves. "Need a hand with anything?"

He handed her a bundle of wires and a small circuit board. "You can start by attaching these. Follow the diagram on the slate—slot C connects to junction four-A. Make sure the insulation is tight."

Tara perched on a stool and got to work, her hands steady as she followed his instructions. They worked in companionable silence for a while, the only sounds the occasional hiss of solder and the steady drumming of rain outside.

The afternoon carried on with the quiet hum of productivity, the sound of tools and the relentless rain creating a soothing backdrop. Tara was midway through assembling another circuit when she glanced up at Koron, catching sight of his armor resting on a stand in the corner.

"I've been meaning to ask," she said, setting her tools down. "Your armor—it's different now. Not just the color, but the whole feel of it."

Koron glanced at the stand, his cybernetic fingers pausing over the drone he was assembling. "Yeah. I figured the old look wasn't doing me—or anyone else—any favors. Black, full coverage, military design… it screamed 'danger.' Didn't exactly make me approachable."

Tara nodded, studying the pale blue plates and the lighter, modular design. "I think it's a good change. The blue makes you seem… softer, I guess. More like you're here to help, not intimidate."

"That was the idea," Koron said, his voice thoughtful. "The last thing they need is another figure stomping around looking like trouble."

Tara smiled, leaning back against the bench. "Well, it's working.

As she turned back to the wiring, she noticed something unusual on the far side of the shack. A hulking mechanical arm, larger than anything she'd seen him build before, rested on a heavy worktable. Its length was reinforced with industrial-grade pistons, and thick bundles of synthetic fibers ran along its length, mimicking musculature. The sheer size of it was almost comical compared to the delicate precision of the drones.

"What is that?" Tara asked, setting her tools down and pointing.

Koron followed her gaze and gave a faint smile. "Oh, that? Just a side project. Keeps me sharp."

Tara stood and walked over to inspect it, running her hand along the cool metal. "It's huge. What's it for?"

"Nothing, really," Koron said, wiping his hands on a rag as he joined her. "It's more of a thought experiment. I just wanted to build a really big arm out of spare parts. It's silly, but… sometimes it's fun to build for the sake of building."

Tara chuckled, her fingers tracing the precise welds and joints. "Silly? More like overkill. Are you sure you're not secretly designing power armor?"

Koron's lips twitched in what might have been a smirk. "Not yet, but it's tempting."

-

The rainy season blurred the days together, but Koron and Tara's quiet routine was occasionally interrupted by Kala. Restless and cooped up within Dusthaven's walls, Kala despised the flood season. Her boundless energy and need for activity eventually led her to Koron's workshop, where she hovered, asked questions, and tried to help.

It didn't always go well. After the sixth time she cross-wired a drone's internal systems, causing it to catch fire, Koron gently but firmly asked her to stop.

"Please," he said with a weary sigh, extinguishing the flames. "Stop trying to burn my house down."

Chastened but undeterred, Kala shifted her focus to other things. She coaxed Koron and Tara into taking breaks, playing card games, watching the rain from the doorway, or sharing simple meals. Her presence added a liveliness to the otherwise methodical atmosphere of the shack.

One day, as they sat playing cards during a rare lull in work, Kala suddenly turned to Koron, her eyes alight with curiosity.

"Hey," she said. "Can you teach me how to fight like you?"

Koron tilted his head, studying her. "Fight like me?"

"Yeah," Kala said, leaning forward. "You took down Orks, right? I want to learn. Show me how to do it."

Tara raised an eyebrow, glancing between them. "You're serious?"

Kala grinned. "Why not? I'm bored out of my mind, and it's better than sitting around. Besides," she added with a wink, "I want to be ready if anything nasty shows up."

Koron's expression was unreadable for a moment before he nodded. "It's not easy, Kala. What I do—it's a mix of training, cybernetic enhancements, and... well, necessity. But if you're serious, I can teach you the basics."

Kala smirks. "I'm always serious."

The workshop, once quiet and orderly, would soon echo with the sounds of practice and laughter as Koron began teaching Kala—and soon enough Tara—the fundamentals of his combat techniques.

-

Near the end of the downpour, the muffled sound of rain echoing through Dusthaven's hollow corridors, the steady trickle of water draining from the upper levels creating a background rhythm that she all but ignored. Inside her modest office, Elissa sat at her desk, papers and dataslates arrayed in neat, orderly stacks. The lumen globes overhead cast a warm glow, banishing the shadows of the storm beyond the stone walls. Outside, she could hear faint chatter from the townsfolk making the best of their forced confinement.

She was midway through reconciling a shipment ledger when the sharp chirp of the vox bead on her desk broke her concentration. Frowning, she set her pen down and reached for it.

"Elissa here," she answered, her tone brisk.

"It's Milo," came the gruff reply. The faint crackle of static underscored his words, and even through the distortion, Elissa caught a note of unease. "We've got a situation down at the gate. I think you'll want to see this."

"What kind of situation?" Elissa asked, already reaching for her coat.

"Bodies, human and ork," Milo said bluntly. "Looks like a caravan got caught in the storm and tried to cross the flats, likely runnin from the greenskins. Now they're all washed up against the wall." He hesitated, then added, "It's bad, but there's something else. The Orks… their wounds don't look right. I've never seen anything like it."

That gave Elissa pause. "How do you mean, 'don't look right'?"

"Thin cuts," Milo said, his voice low. "Precise. Not orky enough, and never seen human weapons look like this."

Elissa's frown deepened. "I'm on my way," she said, ending the call and grabbing her things.

-

The air was cool and damp as Elissa stepped into the sheltered outer courtyard near Dusthaven's gates. Though the mountain's rocky bulk kept the worst of the rain at bay, rivulets of water trickled down the carved stone walls, collecting in shallow pools along the gutters. A steady mist hung in the air, carried on the chill wind that howled through the outer passages.

Milo was waiting near the gate, his rifle slung over one shoulder and his expression grim. Behind him, a group of guards stood near the drainage channels, their boots splashing in the shallow streams that carried runoff from the mountain's higher reaches.

"This way," Milo said, leading her down the slope toward the outer barrier.

As they approached, Elissa saw what had drawn his concern. At the base of the wall, just outside the main drainage grates, a tangled mass of debris and bodies had collected. Most were human—emaciated figures in tattered clothes, their faces pale and bloated from the rain. But among them were hulking green shapes unmistakable as Orks, their bodies twisted at unnatural angles where the currents had thrown them against the stone.

Elissa pulled her coat tighter around herself as she crouched near one of the Ork corpses. The foul stench of wet flesh and decay hung heavy in the air. She brushed away some of the mud to get a better look at the wounds, her sharp eyes narrowing as she examined the damage.

Milo crouched beside her, his weathered face lined with unease. "See what I mean?" he said quietly, gesturing to the Ork's torso.

Elissa nodded slowly. The wounds were unlike anything she'd expected. Thin, surgical cuts crisscrossed the creature's thick hide, as though made by a series of razor-sharp blades. There were no jagged tears or crushing blows—nothing to suggest the brutal melee weapons typically associated with Orks or even the crude firearms of the wasteland's scavengers.

"These aren't from Ork weapons," she murmured, her voice thoughtful. "And they're not from lasfire or slugs, either. Whatever did this… it's methodical. Purposeful."

"That's what I thought," Milo said, resting his arms on his knees. "It's clean. Too clean."

Elissa straightened, casting her gaze over the rest of the bodies. The humans, in stark contrast, bore the chaotic injuries she expected—ragged gashes, crushing impacts, and signs of desperation. But the Orks…

Her attention shifted to another corpse, then another, confirming what she'd already suspected. Each of the green-skinned brutes bore the same precise injuries, their wounds unnervingly uniform.

"You think it's a weapon?" Milo asked, watching her closely.

"Possibly," Elissa said, her tone measured. "But not one I've ever seen before. It's too deliberate for raiders and too advanced for the locals. If this came from a caravan…" She trailed off, her eyes narrowing. "No. This is something else entirely."

Milo stood, his rifle tapping lightly against his shoulder. "What do you want to do?"

"Gather the bodies," Elissa said, her voice firm. "Keep them separated. I want a full inventory of the caravan's remains, too. If there's anything salvageable, bring it in. And send word to Doc, I want her to take a look at these wounds."

Milo nodded, gesturing to the guards to begin the grim task of hauling the bodies from the muck.

As Elissa turned to leave, she paused, glancing back at the piled corpses. The faint drizzle from the mountain's runoff caught the pale light of the courtyard's lumen-strips, casting eerie shadows over the scene.

"Double the guards on the gate," she said over her shoulder. "Whatever did this… I don't want it getting close without us knowing."

Milo's jaw tightened as he nodded, his expression hard.

The rain continued to fall, masking the quiet urgency that had settled over the courtyard. But Elissa's mind was already racing, turning over the puzzle of those wounds. Something out there was cutting down Orks with precision that no wasteland savage could match.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Seven

-

Doctor Malinov strode through the streets of Dusthaven with an unsettling purpose, her every step echoing in the rain-slicked thoroughfares. Her gait, slightly offbeat due to the faint whir of her cybernetic leg, was usually a familiar sight in the town. Today, however, the air around her crackled with authority, and the townsfolk seemed to sense it.

This wasn't the silver-haired, eagle-eyed healer they all knew—the one with a sharp tongue but a steady hand, a woman who stitched them back together no matter how dire the wound. No, what marched down the street today was something else entirely.

The gleaming silver armor of a Sister of Battle caught every stray beam of pale light that managed to filter through the rain-heavy clouds. Crimson tabards and pristine white cloth fluttered with each step, and in her gauntleted hands, she carried a weapon that drew gasps and uneasy murmurs. A bolter, its barrel glinting with quiet menace.

The crowd parted without a word, no one daring to stop her. For the first time in years, Dusthaven saw not the doctor—but the warrior she had once been.

Her march ended at a familiar shack near the town's edge, its makeshift construction a testament to necessity and ingenuity. Without hesitation, her armored fist rapped on the door, the impact reverberating like a gunshot.

"Koron!" she called, her voice carrying a clipped edge. "Get your ass out here—I need your help!"

A pause. Then the door creaked open, and a flushed, wild-haired Kala peeked out. Her wide eyes drank in the sight of the armored figure standing before her.

"Whoa," she breathed, stepping back instinctively. Her gaze flicked over the silver plates, the crimson and white of the battle garb, and finally to the enormous bolter cradled in Doc's hands. "Wait a minute... Doc? Is that you?"

"Yes—"

Before Doc could say more, two more figures appeared behind Kala. Tara and Koron stepped into the cramped front room, both disheveled and sweaty, Tara tugging at the hem of her shirt as she glanced between Doc and Kala.

"…Am I interrupting something?" Doc asked, her tone half-curious, half-impatient.

Kala tilted her head, confusion blooming in her expression. "No? Well, yes—but no. We were sparring." Her eyes flicked to the bolter again. "But more importantly, Doc, what is with the armor? And the gun? What's going on?"

Doc mentally filed the scene away for later and turned to Koron, her gaze sharp. "I need a ride to the city. Now. Your bike is the only thing that can handle the desert with all this water—and get me there in time. Will you take me?"

Koron didn't hesitate. He nodded, his eyes already scanning for his gear. "Give me five minutes."

-

Moments later, the two were astride Koron's bike. The machine's hum was almost lost under the hammering rain, but it still hovered above the shifting sands. Doc's arms wrapped tightly around Koron's waist, her grip firm as the desert became a blur of shifting dunes and churning water.

The rain lashed at Doc's armor, hissing against the reinforced plating. She barely noticed; her gaze fixed on the faint glint of Koron's pale blue chest plate.

"What's the problem?" Koron's voice crackled through her helmet's voxbead, calm but probing.

Doc's voice came back steady, but with an undercurrent of urgency. "Milo brought in some bodies earlier—caravaners and orks. And I recognized the wounds they had."

Koron's hands tightened on the controls. "What kind of wounds?"

"If I'm right…" Doc hesitated, her voice dropping a fraction. "We're going to need help. Big-time help."

A pause. Then, "How bad are we talking?"

Her response was grim, each word heavy with meaning. "Complete annihilation of all life on this planet."

For a second, silence filled the voxbead. Then Koron's voice came back, laced with grim determination.

"Hold on," he said. "I'm opening up the throttle."

The bike surged forward, its engines screaming as they tore across the rain-soaked dunes, a storm ahead and a storm behind.

-

The atmosphere of the Forge city of Anaxis had not changed much since Koron had last visited. The cold, mechanical hum of servitors laboring through the torrential downpour was the same, their movements steady despite the weather. As Koron guided the bike through the tunnels toward the heart of the city, a curse slipped from his lips, his expression tightening as the imposing structures of the city loomed ahead. He slowed, then sped up again, frustration evident in his actions.

Before Doc could ask what had caused the sudden change, the bike's engines roared louder, the power surge pushing them forward, cutting through the humid, waterlogged air. The servitors paid no heed to their passage—small but significant in the grand machine of the city.

Koron glanced to Doc as he steered the bike with precision. "Where am I going?" His voice was steady, but she could hear the slight tension in it as they navigated the congested streets.

"The main spire," Doc replied, scanning the pathways ahead, her gaze unwavering as ever. "That's where the astropathic choir will be."

Koron's expression tightened as he slowed again, veering around a cluster of servitors and workers. "We going to have trouble getting in? The cogboys—"

"No," Doc interrupted, her tone firm. "Won't be an issue. Just get us there, fast."

The air between them was thick with urgency, and Koron wasted no time in flicking a switch that activated the stabilizers at the rear of the jetbike. The hum of the anti-grav plating became higher-pitched as the bike surged forward, lifting them into the air with precision. With controlled bursts, they soared above the congested pathways of the city, easily bypassing the chaos below.

The towering spire soon came into view, its jagged silhouette piercing the heavens, an imposing structure of cold stone and Imperial grandeur. Imperial script adorned its walls, and banners depicting the Emperor's symbols fluttered in the damp air. People milled about below, the vast number of adepts, servitors, and workers going about their daily lives, caught in the ever-turning gears of the Imperium. Bureaucracy had its way with them all, slow and unyielding.

Doc, however, cut through the crowds like a storm, her power armor gleaming under the artificial lights. Her movements were deliberate, no hesitation in her pace as she shouldered past the civilians. Some of them shuffled aside at the sight of the armed and armored figure, while the few who dared not step out of her way found themselves quickly and forcefully shoved aside.

The pair made their way through the crowded entrance with ease after the first few pained cries. There, an adept stood frozen in place, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of the fully armored Sister of Battle.

Doc didn't wait for any further exchange. She moved up to the adept with a cold, commanding presence. From the heavy-duty container at her side, she withdrew a simple charm, pale gold and engraved with an intricate skull, six tines, three to a side. It gleamed in the artificial lights as she held it out to the adept.

"I am Interrogator Lucia Malinov," she stated, her voice calm, but cutting through the air with authority. "By the power vested in me by the Emperor, I hereby invoke Aquila Extremis."

The adept's face turned a sickly shade of pale as he stammered, his hands shaking. "I— I—yes, of course, but—"

Doc leaned forward, her silver visor locking onto his gaze, her voice now a low, commanding growl. "Get me the astropathic choir. Now."

There was no hesitation in the adept's response. His terror was palpable, but he knew enough of the Inquisition's might to recognize when to comply. Trembling, he gestured quickly to one of the nearby attendants, who scurried off to make the necessary arrangements. Doc did not move, her gaze unflinching, her entire presence radiating quiet but absolute authority.

The words of the Emperor were not to be denied, and Lucia Malinov knew that.

-

Message Subject: Urgent – Confirmed Necron Awakening - Request for Immediate Response.

Message Body:

By the authority of Interrogator Malinov, Cipher Veritas 774-Argentis, I issue this distress signal on behalf of the Imperium. Black Star Ascension, Omega-level Containment Protocol. I have confirmed evidence of a Necron awakening. The planetary system is Lysix, Morrak Two within the Segmentum Tempestus. An immediate response is required. We are already seeing signs of early Necron activity, including unusual weaponry wounds and environmental instability.

As the local Interrogator, I am unable to confirm the status of my superior Lysandra Ferox or her whereabouts. Considering this, I request that this message be forwarded to my Inquisitor, if possible. If she is unavailable, I seek guidance from the nearest available Ordo Xenos authority. A complete planetary eradication event is a likely outcome, and escalation of force will likely be required. Response required within twenty-four hours. Time is of the essence.

Instructions to Forward:
Ensure that this message is forwarded to Inquisitor Lysandra Ferox of Ordo Xenos, as she may be the only one with the necessary experience and resources to address the threat immediately.

End Message

Finished, Doc leaned back from the servitor as it transcribed her message. Above, the hololith of Fabricator-General Karadel Thrant, her form rendered in greenish light, every detail of her intricate augmetics displayed, her own message appearing beside Docs.

Transmechanic Priority Declaration

From: Fabricator-General Karadel Thrant, Forge City Anaxis, Forge-World Morrak-Two, Lysix System, Segmentum Tempestus.
To: All Adeptus Mechanicus High Commands, Segmentum Tempestus Conclaves, and Relevant Forge Worlds Within Proximity
Subject: Escalation Status Omicron-Acutis: Potential Existential Threat Detected

Cipher: Delta-9A Alpha Binary Encryption
Priority Code: Magenta-Level Absolute Imperative
Security Seal: Transmechanic Sigillite of Forge Authority, Blessed Datum-Lock Confirmed
Timestamp: M41.999 (Local Morrak-Two Conversion)

-

Message Content

Skitarii Protocol Preface (Validated by Servo-Litanies):

Praise the Omnissiah and His Manifestations in the Universal Machine.

This is an urgent message from the Forge World of Morrak-Two regarding a newly identified xenos manifestation posing an unprecedented level of risk to local systems. Immediate attention and coordination are required to safeguard Mechanicus assets and Imperial interests.

Threat Analysis:

1. Xenos Classification: 97.4% identifying markers associated with Necron architectures and technologies.
2. Observations:
   • Presence of Necrodermis-like Materials at incident sites.
   • Locally observed disruptions to environmental conditions, consistent with awakening protocols of stasis-locked xenos artifacts.
   • Initial encounters suggest autonomous war constructs of significant lethality, resistant to conventional Mechanicus ordnance.
3. Escalation Directive: Omicron-Acutis.
   • Self-replicating potential identified.
   • Environmental tampering indicative of system-wide consequences if left unchecked.

Strategic Considerations – Titan Legio Loss Risk

To All Recipients:

As Fabricator-General of Morrak-Two, I must stress the unparalleled importance of this forge world in the production and maintenance of Titan-class war assets. While Morrak-Two does not possess the output of the highest-priority forge worlds, it remains a vital contributor to the Legio Morrakul's supply chain and maintenance of Titan-class constructs.

1. Necron Threat Analysis: The observed xenos technology exhibits constructive self-replication, potential disruption of planetary geostrata, and emissions consistent with terraforming or void-linked reconstitution fields. These effects, if left unchecked, pose an immediate existential threat to the continued operational capacity of this forge world.
2. Titanic Strategic Impact:
   • The Legio Morrakul has 17 operational Titans, with an additional 9 under construction or maintenance.
   • Current Operational Unit Status: Four Warlords. Four Reavers. Six Hounds. One Imperator. Two Nemesis Warbringers.
   • Xenos incursions at this stage could result in catastrophic delays or outright destruction of irreplaceable Mechanicum assets.
3. Broader Imperial Consequences: The loss or significant disruption of Titan production at Morrak-Two would weaken Imperial forces along Segmentum Tempestus borders, as nearby forge worlds lack sufficient infrastructure to compensate for Titan shortfalls. This would leave key sectors vulnerable to xenos incursions and heretek warbands, further compounding the damage.

Directive: Call for Reinforcements.

By the Will of the Omnissiah, Fabricator-General Karadel Thrant hereby invokes Mechanicum Protocol Absolutis, a Magenta-Level Directive, to request the following:

1. Deployment of Titan Legions in reserve or surplus capacity to counter potential existential xenos war constructs.
2. Immediate deployment of Ordo Reductor elements for containment.
3. Priority transport and mobilization of high-ranking Magi, Tech-Priests, and Skitarii cohorts to Forge World Morrak-Two to assist with tactical and defensive operations.
4. Deployment of Skitarii Legions and Combat Maniples to secure Morrak-Two.
5. Activation of Titanic Support Pacts to prevent irretrievable loss of Titan assets.
6. Coordination of strategic resources to ensure Legio Morrakul's operational readiness.

Failure to act decisively at this critical juncture risks not only the destruction of this forge world but also a cascade of losses that could destabilize nearby sectors and compromise the Omnissiah's divine work.

Coordination with the Ordo Xenos:
In conjunction with Interrogator Lucia Malinov, operative of the Inquisition, this threat has been elevated to Imperial Conclave Awareness Status. All recipients are urged to synchronize their efforts with Imperial authorities in the Segmentum Tempestus.

Omnissiah's Protection and Blessing Requested. Awaiting Immediate Response.

Mechanicus Sealant: Transmitted under Fabricator-General Karadel Thrant's authority, with the authentication of Binary Canticles and Magos-Validated Encryptions.

May the Omnissiah guide us all.

"Messages sent, astropathic choir transmitting. Warp stability is high, likelihood of message being received: 94.352%." The towering amalgamation of flesh and metal, her pale irises locked on Doc, said. "Time to mobilization from Mechanicus assets…. best estimates of one hundred and sixty-eight hours with optimal speeds and standard warp behavior."

"A damned week." Koron spat the word out like a curse. "And that's optimal. What the hell are the timeframes for if things don't go well?"

The scarlet robed woman turned her head towards Koron, muted clicks sounding from within her hidden frame, observing the man. Seemingly satisfied, Karadel turned back to Doc. "Interrogator, is the presence of your menial necessary here?"

Brushing aside the question with a swift motion, Doc's voice cut through the air with an authority that could slice through steel. "Irrelevant. What I…request," Her words were deliberate, her silver hair gleaming like moonlight in the dimly lit chamber. "Is a single large aerial transport, one capable of evacuating valuable personnel. It should be returned to you within two days. Would this be acceptable?"

The Fabricator-General's mechadendrites shifted in a subtle, almost imperceptible motion as she calculated the request. A flicker of data flashed across her augmented gaze, and after a moment's pause, she spoke. "It is. We can spare an Arvus Lighter for the operation."

Doc gave a curt nod, the fluid motion of her silver strands catching the light in a way that made her seem more than human. "More than enough. Thank you for your time."

"And the Omnissiah's blessings upon you," the General intoned solemnly, her voice a low hum of mechanized precision. "I will return to my preparations now."

With that, the Fabricator-General turned on her heel, the soft whirring of her mechanized limbs filling the silence before the hololith display cut out. Doc exhaled, the tension in the room lifting as the weight of the conversation settled into the past.

Koron, who had been silent through the exchange, took a step forward, his boots echoing against the cold, steel floors. He glanced over at Doc, his expression tight with the uncertainty that seemed to cloud every new moment they faced. "My knowledge of this is pretty sporadic. How much time do we have before this really kicks off?"

Doc didn't look at him immediately. Her gaze was fixed ahead, but her voice, when it came, was grave, threaded with a weariness that she hadn't yet allowed to show. "I wish I had a more realistic answer for you, Koron. The fact remains, it's highly variable. Tomb worlds, as I've seen, can take years to fully awaken, but here…" She shook her head slowly, her silver hair framing her face like a shroud. "Here, it's happening at a much faster rate. The signs are unmistakable. I fear that one of the leaders of this world is already active, pulling the strings."

Koron's jaw tightened as the weight of the situation pressed down on him. He processed Doc's words, the implications gnawing at him. "So… months?" he asked, voice laced with reluctant disbelief.

Doc's reply came softly, but with a gravity that filled the space between them. "More likely days to weeks." Her voice was a low murmur, heavy with an unspoken understanding. "And that's assuming the Mechanicus reports aren't just catching up. If we're unlucky, we could see Necron forces mobilizing in the next day or two." She looked at him, eyes dark but steely with resolve. "It's happening faster than we can keep up with."

The two of them exited the meeting room, the sterile, metallic hallways of Forge City stretching before them. The air was thick with the faint hum of distant machinery, a constant reminder of the world's vast mechanical heart. Their footsteps echoed off the polished metal floors, muffled in the quiet corridor. Etched into the walls were the sigils of the Adeptus Mechanicus, glowing faintly with ancient power—an ever-present reminder of the forge's unyielding dedication to the Omnissiah.

Koron was silent as they descended another flight of stairs. He stopped mid-step, hand reaching out to steady Doc, a subtle but firm grip on her arm halting her in turn. His voice, when it came, was low and laced with the hint of uncertainty. "Hey… Do you think you could get me access to the data archives here?" He hesitated, eyes narrowing as he sought the right words. "If the Mechanicus has any reports on the Necrons, there's bound to be something—anything—that can help us. Their behavior, weaknesses, maybe something we can exploit. I might be able to offer some insight if I can get to that data."

Doc paused, her body tense as her mind quickly processed the request. She stood still for a moment, brow furrowed, considering the risks and the possibilities. Her fingers tapped absent-mindedly against the side of her leg in a rhythm of contemplation. After a moment, she exhaled softly, a steadying breath as she tilted her head and looked up at Koron. "Maybe," she said, her tone thoughtful but guarded. "My authority isn't…" Her voice dropped into a low whisper. "Exactly what it used to be. If the cogboys do a deep dive, there will be problems." She exhaled a quiet sigh. "We'll have to be careful. But asking for data on Necron weaknesses should be… manageable." She looked at him then, her eyes sharpening with quiet determination. "I'll make it happen. Just follow my lead."

-

An hour later, Doc watched in silence as Koron's cybernetic fingers, each split into smaller tines, danced across the dataslate screen with remarkable precision. "So," she asked, her voice breaking the silence, "what are you thinking?"

Koron didn't look up from the screen, his focus entirely absorbed by the torrent of data scrolling before him. "I'm thinking we're utterly fucked," he muttered, his words blunt, heavy with grim finality. "There are zero reports of any Imperial forces managing to defeat the Necrons in sustained combat. No worlds reclaimed… plenty destroyed."

Doc's silver eyebrow arched in surprise. "You've gone through all the records of every engagement with the Necrons already?"

Koron gave a slight shrug, still absorbed in his work. "I'm a fast reader. What's worse, though, is that the Mechanicus has had a hell of a time getting any real intel on their weapons or armor. Their dogma is the biggest barrier, but even then…" He trailed off, speaking almost to himself now. "Basic molecular dispersion and phase displacement, but their body construction—unique. And the weapons, what's the power source? Zero-point energy? Quantum destabilization? File that for later consideration."

Doc, pacing with a restless energy, absently ran her fingers over the worn contours of her bolter's casing, her mind elsewhere. "So, what's the plan?" she asked, her voice tinged with impatience.

Koron stood up abruptly, fingers sliding back into place as he pushed away from the terminal. "I can see where I might help, but frankly speaking, none of it's really viable. I don't have the tools or materials to make what I know into something functional." He ran a hand through his hair, frustration simmering beneath his calm exterior. "I was thinking maybe we could adjust the city's shields or mess with their teleportation somehow, but…" His voice faltered for a moment, the weight of the task ahead pressing in. "Sorry. Near as I can tell, the Necrons' systems are so far beyond what the Mechanicus understands, that even if they weren't so... hidebound, they still wouldn't be able to figure it out. And I'm guessing tuning the city's void shields isn't something your badge can get us access to, is it?"

Doc snorted, shaking her head with a small, rueful smile as she pulled her helmet back on. "Not even close. Forge city defenses are paramount. A full Inquisitor would face resistance trying to get that sort of access. We?" She raised an eyebrow. "We'd be laughed out of the room or shot. Probably both."

Koron's lips twitched in the barest hint of a smile, his frustration giving way to a darker kind of humor. He nodded, accepting the bitter reality as he slid his own helmet on, its pale blue a stark contrast to the rest of the space. "I figured as much."

-

As Koron pulsed the jetbike and its cargo up the ramp, Doc kept a watchful eye on the tech-priests nearby. Their heads turned in unison to track the vehicle, their augmented senses no doubt cataloging every detail. She had no doubt they would have swarmed it, dissecting it down to the rivets, had she not been standing there, her argent armor gleaming even in the relentless downpour. Erratic blasts of emerald lightning carved jagged pathways across the storm-laden sky, each one, at least in her mind, a harbinger of what was to come.

Striding aboard the transport, she made her way to the cockpit only to find Koron already seated, his fingers moving with practiced precision over the controls. "I didn't know you knew how to fly," she said, strapping herself into a chair just outside the cockpit.

"Me neither," he replied with a short laugh. His tone quickly sobered, though, as he continued. "But, Doc, what's the plan here? Even if we evac the town, the city won't hold forever, hell, the optimal week might be pushing it. And then what—hope we can get them to the ships in time to escape?"

"Something like that," she admitted, her voice steady but tinged with weariness. "My priority is to protect the people. I'll use everything I have to do that. Much like you, I hope." Her gaze flicked toward the cargo bay. "You've hauled in a lot of parts back there. What are you planning?"

"Automated defenses," Koron replied without hesitation. "Slapdash as hell, but it'll be better than nothing. The rest is for some bigger ideas I'll need the crew to help me with."

"Like what?" she pressed.

"Grav plating for the crawler, in case we need to get out by land. Energy projectors and cabling to add a defensive field to the wall—"

"You're going to put a force field around the city?" Doc's voice sharpened, a mixture of disbelief and intrigue.

"Not the city, just the wall." Koron's tone was calm, measured, as though he were explaining a simple maintenance routine. "Necron weapons strip molecular bonds, and the Mechanicus force fields are either useless or fail too quickly. I'm going to tweak them—adjust the harmonics—to make them more effective."

As he spoke, Doc's eyes were drawn to the small blue circle embedded in Koron's arm. It glowed faintly, the armatures within whirring with precision as they rapidly assembled...something. It was another reminder of just how different he was.

She narrowed her gaze. "Koron, who the hell are you?"

He didn't look back, his helmeted face remained focused on the controls. "Someone who wants to protect them. Same as you."

Every instinct told her to dig deeper. Koron knew too much. He did too much. No simple Mechanicus operative—certainly no menial—could possess his skill or insight. She'd seen this sort of thing before: the heretek tinkering with forbidden technology, arrogantly claiming their work was for the greater good. Those had been the first she'd consigned to flames, purging their corruption before it could spread.

But Koron was different. He didn't flaunt his abilities or seek power. He helped when asked, often without being asked. He kept out of politics and never sought to elevate himself. In the year he'd been in the town, not a single sign of Chaos corruption had surfaced. If anything, people seemed...happier. Safer.

And she'd watched him, harder than he probably realized. She'd run every test: medical, spiritual, and purity scans. Each time, he came up clean. No taint. No warp residue. Just a man doing more than most dared to.

She let out a slow breath, her tension easing ever so slightly. For now, she'd hold her questions. For now.

"Just don't get any of us killed," she muttered, settling back into her chair.

Koron's quiet reply held a weight she recognized. "That's the plan."

Outside, another lattice of jade lightning illuminated the storm, casting shadows that seemed to dance like specters of what was to come.

-

The cockpit of the lighter hummed with subdued activity as Koron guided the craft through the storm-laden skies. Rain streaked the reinforced viewscreen, and occasional flashes of emerald lightning illuminated the jagged terrain below. The drone of the engines filled the small space, a steady rhythm that masked the storm's howling fury outside. Doc sat strapped into the chair just behind him, her argent armor faintly reflecting the dim interior lights.

"Storm's worse than I expected," Koron muttered, fingers deftly adjusting the controls. "Visibility's trash. At least Dusthaven's beacon is holding steady."

Doc leaned forward slightly, her gaze fixed on the glowing instruments. "It'll hold. The Mechanicus doesn't build navigation markers to fail under a little bad weather."

The moment of relative calm shattered as a shrill chime pierced the cockpit. A crimson light flared on the comms console, accompanied by the unmistakable tone of an emergency burst transmission. Koron's hand shot out, activating the feed. Static hissed through the speakers, resolving into the panicked voice of a Mechanicus acolyte.

"Attention all loyal forces. This is Forge City Anaxius. Priority code Magenta. Omicron-Acutis escalation confirmed." The voice wavered, both from the distortion of the transmission and barely restrained fear. "Necron forces detected. Multiple units advancing across sectors Theta-4 through Theta-9. Estimated mobilization rate—unprecedented. All available forces are to—"

The voice cut off abruptly, replaced by a burst of mechanical shrieks and distorted binary. A few tense seconds passed before the signal returned, now calmer but no less dire. This time, the voice belonged to Fabricator-General Karadel Thrant herself.

"This is Karadel Thrant. Forge City Anaxis is now under threat of imminent Necron assault. Initial skirmishes with xenos constructs confirm extreme lethality. Automated defenses at Theta-7 have been overrun."

Doc's hands clenched the armrests of her seat, her voice low and steady despite the weight of the words. "They've broken through already?"

Koron shook his head grimly, his glowing implants casting faint shadows across his helmet. "If they're hitting automated defenses that far out, they've been moving for longer than the city knew."

Thrant's voice continued, the rhythmic cant of her Mechanicus enunciation now crackling with urgency. "Requesting immediate reinforcements from all available allied forces. Necron units advancing on Forge City proper. Estimated time to contact: six hours. Defensive protocols activating across all primary sectors. Omnissiah preserve us."

The transmission ended with a sharp tone, leaving only the hum of the lighter's systems and the muffled rumble of thunder outside. Doc exhaled sharply, her voice laced with tension. "Six hours. That's less time than I'd hoped."

Koron kept his eyes on the controls, his jaw tight as he processed the message. "Not enough time to fortify anything properly. The city might hold for a while, but Dusthaven—"

"—is a sitting target," Doc finished grimly. She pushed herself up from the seat, her armor creaking slightly. "We need to get back to Dusthaven now. Evacuation plans need to be finalized, and defenses need to go up yesterday."

Koron's fingers flew over the console, increasing the lighter's speed. The engines roared in protest, but the craft surged forward. "We're pushing max burn. If the storm doesn't rip us apart, we'll make it in thirty minutes."

Doc glanced out the viewport, her gaze tracing the eerie flashes of green lightning on the horizon. "It's not just about getting there in time. It's about holding long enough to matter."

Koron's voice was steady, but there was a grim resolve behind it. "Then we'd better get to work."

The lighter hurtled through the storm, carrying them toward Dusthaven—and the impending storm of war.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Eight

-

The frantic hustle of Dusthaven was palpable. The air was thick with the clang of metal, the hiss of steam, and the crackling of lasrifles being tested in the high wind. Everywhere, people moved with purpose, carrying out tasks that had only hours ago seemed impossible. But now, in the face of the impending Necron assault, there was no time to second-guess. Every second mattered.

Koron darted between the walls of hastily constructed fortifications, his boots thumping against the wet ground, his helmeted gaze never faltering from the array of devices he was securing into place. His hands were a blur, effortlessly securing wires and connecting strange orbs—his own improvisations—into the ferrocrete of the wall. The pieces of technology were alien, strange, and yet they seemed to hum with potential. The neon glow of his fabricator flickered as he worked, driven by a cold, calculating precision.

Tara was beside him, moving quickly, but with a deliberation that spoke of a keen understanding of the mechanisms at play. She read the console, her eyes darting back and forth between the flickering data, her voice calm yet tinged with urgency as she relayed the results.

"Field strength is holding steady at eighty-two percent. Energy consumption is high, but manageable," she reported, her tone tight but controlled. She had learned quickly under Koron's tutelage, a willing student in the art of warping technology to their needs.

Koron didn't look up. His fingers kept working, tightening a bolt here, adjusting a panel there, always a step ahead. "Good," he muttered. "The field should hold long enough to buy us time. What's the status of the turrets and the grav-plates on the crawler? If this fails, we're not sticking around to die."

"Markus is reporting ten minutes to completion on the crawler, Daniel says they are about finished with the turrets." Tara replied with a sharp nod, quickly entering more commands into the console. As the orb flickered with a pulse of violet energy, Koron gave a satisfied grunt and moved to the next.

Above them, the storm raged in the skies, emerald lightning flashing in chaotic patterns. The storm was no longer just a natural occurrence—it was an omen, a sign of what was to come. The distant hum of the Forge city's emergency transmission still rang in the air, the last words they'd received echoing like a ghost through the ruins of Dusthaven's defenses: The Necron forces are on the move. Prepare for engagement.

Milo's voice came over the vox, breaking through the tense atmosphere from the tower above. "Movement," he called out, his voice carrying clearly through the wind, "they're coming in fast. At least fifty of them on the horizon. Too far to make out specifics, but they're closing in. We're not gonna have long before they're in range."

Beyond the wall, Doc stood in the hospital, her hands steady as she checked the bandages and equipment, each motion fluid and practiced. The old medical tools, though primitive by comparison to modern tech, were all she had. Her mind raced as she double-checked the sterilization tools and made sure the few remaining staff were ready for the wave of wounded she knew was coming. Each time she adjusted the straps of her armor, she couldn't help but think of the fragility of it all. People would get hurt. People would die. But she would not let them suffer alone.

Her heart tightened as she thought about those who would need saving—and those who might never make it back. Dusthaven was not ready for this fight, but it would have to be. There was no time left. Nodding once more to herself, she left the hospital to those she trusted, making her way to stand upon the wall, one more time.

On the walls, the militia moved into position. The engineering teams had worked through the rain, building up the defenses and fortifying the perimeter. The massive, armored hull-plates stood ready, and behind them, the milita of Dusthaven began to gather, soaked and grim-faced, their rifles at the ready. They were far from expertly trained soldiers, but all were seasoned warriors, the fire in their eyes bright and clear.

Kala, lips tight, helped load extra power packs into a crate. She wiped a streak of dirt from her forehead and shifted the few explosives they had, making sure they were within reach. There was no telling how long they would hold out, but she would make damn sure the town was ready for whatever came.

Elissa moved among them all, directing, shouting orders where needed, ensuring that the last pieces of the puzzle were in place. Her crimson braid whipped in the wind as she darted between groups, her sharp eyes constantly assessing and reassessing the situation. She was everywhere, her presence a beacon of authority in the chaos. And in this moment, it seemed as though Dusthaven's survival was inextricably tied to her ability to keep things running—no one else had the same trust, her ability to command.

Back at the barricades, the militia kept their eyes trained on the horizon, where the Necrons slowly loomed larger in the distance. Each moment stretched on for an eternity as they waited, bracing for what was to come. The rain hammered against their faces, but their grip on their weapons remained steady.

"They're almost here," Koron muttered, standing at the edge of the barricade, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the battlefield. The strange devices he had installed, the orbs on the walls, pulsed softly, their energy slowly building. "Tara, how's that energy buffer holding up?"

"It's steady," she replied, her voice steady, despite the mounting tension. "Ready when you are."

"Don't activate it yet. Lets see how this opening move goes first." He said, slotting his rifle into the cutout in the adamantine hull plating that girded the wall.

Milo was perched high in the guardtower, his fingers tight around the grips of Dusthaven's lone heavy weapon, a lascannon. The barrel gleamed in the flickering green of the lightning storm above, its targeting array locked onto the distant, approaching skeletal figures of the Necron forces. A faint hum of energy coursed through the orange cable linking the weapon to the reactor deep in the mountain.

"Three hundred and fifty meters out," he spoke calmly into the vox, his voice cutting through the storm's howl. "I'll open up once they're within range, but it's gonna be a bit before your rifles—"

"No," Koron interrupted, his voice sharp through the vox. "Open up together when they hit three hundred meters. You'll have the range."

Milo's brow furrowed at the boy's command. "Kid, lasguns don't—"

"They will hit," Koron cut in again, his tone unwavering. "Trust me. Please. I swear, these guns will hit that range."

There was a brief pause before Elissa spoke up, her voice firm but cautious. "Fine. All forces, this is the Mayor. Once the bastards hit three hundred, open fire. Milo, I want you to hold back until you see a hard target."

"Afirm." Milo muttered, his cigarette dangling between his lips as he settled deeper into the gunner's seat, chewing the end thoughtfully. "Hope you know what you're doing, kid." His gaze never wavered from the horizon, the skeletal figures marching with mechanical precision, their glowing green eyes flickering like the storm above.

The next minute passed in tense silence, save for the relentless drumming of the rain, the crack of lightning tearing across the sky, and the howling winds that whistled between the barricades. The Necrons marched steadily forward, unyielding, their figures impervious to the elements, even as some were swept momentarily by the twisting sands. Yet, they remained, an endless tide of cold metal and death.

Finally, the optics chimed green.

The Necrons were in range.

A deep, resonating hum filled the air as the defenders of Dusthaven—one hundred and ten soldiers strong—fired in unison. The turrets came alive, their quadruple array of lasguns firing rapidly, filling the air with streaks of incandescent white light. In that moment, it wasn't just a burst of fire—it was a torrent.

Each rifle, each turret, seemed to hum with the pulse of power Koron had promised, their settings altered to deliver a searing, pulsing blast that was no longer a simple beam but a rapid succession of focused pulses. The white beams struck in succession, each one landing in a series of blistering flashes of light. The waves of light weren't just single, piercing beams anymore; they were ripping through the battlefield, breaking apart the Necrons' metallic forms with pinpoint accuracy.

The pulses were unlike anything they had seen before. The initial crack of each shot felt like the thrum of an angry beast, each pulse adding to the wave of destruction. The beams didn't just tear through armor; they shredded it, blasted the air around the Necrons into shimmering heat ripples.

The Necron warriors, despite their durability, stumbled. Their limbs shattered under the repeated barrage, their skeletal forms breaking apart in dismay. The sound of impact was less a shot and more a series of short, searing bursts, with each pulse delivering a shockwave of heat that broke their mechanical bodies apart piece by piece.

And still, the soldiers of Dusthaven couldn't believe what was happening.

It wasn't just that their rifles now fired with more power, more precision—it was that they felt it. The weapons in their hands felt like they were tuned to something more lethal, more deadly than before. The lasguns were no longer the simple weapons they had once known. Each pull of the trigger unleashed punishing streams of energy, sending Necron warriors crumpling to the ground, their armor scorched and deformed.

The six automated turrets, their guns spat fire with deadly efficiency. Each turret, independent yet synchronized, unleashed a deluge of rapid-fire pulses, their settings matched to cut down everything in sight. The weapons fired in unison, and they didn't miss. A wave of pulsating energy lanced through the air, turning the battlefield into a flurry of bright, burning trails of white that ate through the Necron lines.

The defenders' surprise turned into something else entirely. The Necron advance, so assured and relentless just moments ago, seemed to falter. The Necron warriors, so impervious to standard fire, now found themselves being systematically dismantled, their dark, unblinking eyes flickering out as their bodies were torn apart.

Doc, standing beside Koron on the edge of the barricade, had been watching, expecting only the desperate skirmish, a hail of lasfire that would slow but never truly stop the relentless tide of enemies. What she saw now was something different.

The Necrons—the unstoppable force they had all feared—were falling.

Falling in droves. The militia had ripped through their ranks, and Doc's heart skipped. She blinked, trying to reconcile the speed at which the Necron line was being shredded. It was working. She hadn't thought it would, not like this. Not with what they had to work with. But the energy pulses were striking with precision, intensity, and above all, force.

Even as the militia began to grasp their newfound advantage, the fight remained tense. The rain hammered against the barricades, the storm's fury matching the intensity of the battle. The defenders fired relentlessly, their rifles spitting out bursts of energy that ripped through the dark, glowing red-hot against the obsidian sheen of the Necron bodies.

Two minutes passed.

Then silence.

The battlefield was eerily still, save for the soft hiss of steam rising from the scorched sand. Milo's voice broke through the quiet, wavering as he called out from the tower, "…All clear." He lowered the magnoculars, his hands trembling slightly. Below, the Necron dead—what remained of them—flickered with unnatural green light as their bodies began to disintegrate.

Doc stood at the barricade, her bolter clutched tightly in her hands. She hadn't fired a single shot. Her wide eyes scanned the devastation, the flares of emerald light reflecting in her visor. Slowly, she turned to Koron, who stood beside her, his rifle in hand. The rain pattered against his armor, rivulets streaking the cerulean metal.

"…Koron," she began, her voice shaking with equal parts awe and unease. "What did you do?"

Koron turned his helmeted gaze to her. "I modulated the lasguns," he said, his voice even. "Instead of firing a single burst, they now emit a rapid series of pulses. Each one weakens the target, stripping away armor and material until it fails completely. Basically…" He glanced back toward the battlefield. "…they shred now, instead of punch."

Doc stared at him, her fingers unconsciously clutching the rosette on her chest. Her mind raced with implications, the unspoken fear of what this innovation could mean. "…The Mechanicus, the Inquisition…" she murmured. "They'll see this as—"

"I know," Koron cut her off, turning to face her fully. His voice carried a weight of certainty, a defiant edge. "I've read the histories. I know how this will be viewed. But I'd rather risk their wrath than stand by and do nothing while people die."

Her hand tightened around the rosette, the rain soaking into her gloves. Slowly, she shook her head. "They'll come back," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "And in even greater numbers now that they have encountered resistance. This?" She waved a hand towards the discorporating skeletons. "This was a token force, little more than scouts. Next time..."

"Even with those weapons, we can't hold forever."

Koron's gaze lingered on the horizon, where the last of the green lights faded into the storm. "I know," he said, his tone resolute. "We just need to last a week."

Doc followed his gaze, the weight of his words settling on her. A week. Against an enemy that seemed unending, tireless, and implacable. But for now, the battlefield was silent, the storm the only sound as Dusthaven's defenders braced for what was to come.

-

The chamber hummed with the dull resonance of Necron machinery, its walls lined with black obelisks that pulsed with faint emerald light. At the center of the room, Orykhal the Luminous Calculant stood over a holographic display, His long and spindly fingers, ending in razor-sharp tips, twitching subtly as they manipulated streams of data projected into the air. The projection was dominated by the map of the region, each sector marked with symbols denoting troop movements, enemy positions, and targets of interest.

One sector flashed crimson—a small, insignificant blip on the map. The Cryptek tilted his head, the motion unnervingly precise, and extended a taloned finger toward the anomaly. His eyes, two narrow, vertical slits filled with jade light, reminiscent of the flowing data streams, focused upon it.

Losses: Detachment 1014. Status: TOTAL ANNIHILATION. Location: UNSURVEYED SETTLEMENT. Enemy Resistance: UNKNOWN. Time to Destruction: 2 minutes, 17 seconds.

Orykhal paused, analyzing the data with the cold, unfeeling efficiency of his kind. His mind, a quantum lattice of ancient knowledge and computational mastery, ran the probabilities repeatedly. No ordinary human settlement could achieve this level of resistance. Even armed militia forces or rogue planetary defenses wouldn't have dispatched his warriors so quickly. This… anomaly… demanded immediate investigation.

His voice, a grating synthesis of metallic tones, echoed through the chamber. "Query: Tactical anomaly detected in sub-sector delta. Probability of unforeseen asset: 92.3%. Hypothesis: third-party interference or anomalous technology. Initiate in-depth analysis."

With a gesture, he summoned holographic overlays of the battle telemetry captured by the fallen Necron warriors. The feed, though fragmented, showed flashes of white light ripping through the phalanx of soldiers. A surge of damage reports scrolled alongside the video—armor integrity failing in seconds, thermal signatures far exceeding baseline human weaponry.

His gaze shifted to the source of the weapons fire: a crude settlement built into a mountain. Optics brightened slightly as he zoomed in on the image. The defensive positions, the makeshift fortifications, and—most notably—the humans wielding primitive lasguns that should have been night useless against warriors. And yet…

"Conclusion: Human ingenuity exceeds parameters of baseline analysis. Potential technological development. Risk factor: Escalation."

He considered the implications carefully. If this small settlement had somehow acquired or developed weapons capable of neutralizing warriors in moments, it could pose a destabilizing threat to his broader campaign. Worse, if these weapons originated elsewhere, it could indicate the presence of a larger faction or interference by forces beyond his calculations.

With another flick of his hand, he deployed a response directive.

"Sub-Directive 017 initiated. Allocate wraiths to sector. Engage with minimal force. Objective: Secure data. Determine source of technological anomaly. Evaluate potential risk to overarching operations."

The Cryptek stepped back from the display, digitigrade legs slowly tapping against the blackstone floors, the taloned toes gripping ever so lightly. His mind however, was already running thousands of simulations. The humans had revealed their hand, but he doubted they understood what they had provoked. He would not send a massive force to crush them—not yet. No, he would study them, isolate their advantage, and dismantle it with precision.

And then he would ensure that the settlement and its inhabitants were erased from existence, a forgotten footnote in the unrelenting march of the Necron empire.

-

Orykhal's attention drifted across a thousand threads of data, each one a whisper of conquest. Awakening protocols thrummed across the system, his mind orchestrating the emergence of countless legions. Forge cities slowly ground away, resource caches were secured, and defensive nodes faltered under the relentless precision of his forces.

And yet, even amid this symphony of victory, a discordant note lingered—Humanoid Outpost-731.

He dismissed the settlement as a backwater anomaly at first, a mere speck of defiance unworthy of full deployment. The initial Wraith reconnaissance was a routine measure, more an indulgence of curiosity than necessity. Now, as the Wraith transmitted its observations, Orykhal's interest sharpened. The settlement's defenses were crude, but its occupants moved with unusual coordination. Patrols formed natural countermeasures against stealth incursions, their actions almost instinctive.

"Primitive," Orykhal mused, his voice an icy whisper in the empty chamber. "And yet… coordinated."

The first Wraith moved deeper into the settlement, its segmented body phasing through barriers, undetectable to the lesser technologies of man. It followed faint energy trails, seeking the source of the anomalous weaponry that had obliterated the minor Necron detachment.

Orykhal's mind splintered further, allocating a fraction of his attention to observe. The Wraith's sensory data filled his perception—thermal imprints, electromagnetic distortions, and the faint hum of the settlement's crude power grid. The humans moved in patterns, unaware of the predator among them.

Then the feed cut.

It happened too quickly for Orykhal to parse in real time. One moment, the Wraith was stalking its prey; the next, its sensors flared with energy—an unknown frequency disrupting its phase systems. A glimpse of movement, a flash of light, and silence.

The loss was insignificant, a single unit among countless others. And yet, it was the way it had been lost that gave him pause.

The second Wraith had been observing from a distance, its cloaked form slithering between buildings as it recorded the events. Now, it closed in, its focus on the location where its companion had vanished. Orykhal adjusted his perceptions, narrowing his focus on the Wraith's feed.

The settlement was calm, almost unnervingly so. The humans moved without panic, as if unaware of what had just transpired. The Wraith scanned the area, its sensors picking up faint traces of energy interference—enough to suggest advanced technology, though still not enough to know which.

A figure moved below.

The Wraith's focus shifted, its sensors locking onto the target. It was difficult to discern specifics—a humanoid form moving with unnatural precision yet lacking the clumsy mechanical augments that often accompanied such prowess. Orykhal's interest deepened.

"Adaptive combat techniques," he murmured. "Or… something more?"

The Wraith moved closer, its claws primed to strike. Then, the target turned.

Orykhal barely had time to register the movement before the humanoid lashed out. Energy flared—an electrostatic discharge, thrumming with an unfamiliar energy signature that disrupted the Wraith's phasing matrix. The Necron construct spasmed, momentarily frozen in place as the energy enveloped it.

From above, a concentrated energy beam pierced the air. The lascannon shot struck true, obliterating the Wraith's torso in an instant.

The Wraith's feed cut to static, leaving Orykhal in silence. He stood motionless, processing the fragments of data.

Two Wraiths lost—each dispatched with surgical precision. The first, ambushed before it could even transmit meaningful data. The second, destroyed in a coordinated strike that combined disruptive energy and long-range firepower.

"A layered strategy," Orykhal mused, his skeletal fingers steepled in thought. "Unusual."

The faint echoes of distant calculations resonated through his chamber, a soundless symphony of logic and strategy only he could perceive. The humanoid's movements and tactics defied the patterns of typical human resistance. No brash shows of force, no desperate charges. Instead, it acted with calculated precision, countering the Wraiths' strengths with an almost prescient understanding of their vulnerabilities.

Orykhal's luminous optics pulsed faintly as he replayed the telemetry. Streams of data filtered through his mind in cascading flows, each parsed and cataloged. Among them, one anomaly stood out: an energy signature faint yet distinct, resonating with a frequency he had not encountered since…ages long past. It carried the faint whisper of something ancient—something dangerous.

"Anomalies," he intoned softly, his voice a hollow echo in the stillness of his sanctum. The word lingered in the air, as if even the silent walls contemplated its weight. "But fortuitous. New datasets to analyze and incorporate."

The Cryptek's mind, a web of interwoven probabilities, expanded to account for the variables. Patterns began to emerge, hazy outlines of a strategy still forming. The settlement had proven itself to be slightly more than a trivial obstacle. Its defenders exhibited coordination far beyond the capabilities of most organic minds. This alone warranted his curiosity, though not his full attention.

Not yet.

Orykhal shifted his gaze to the larger hololithic display dominating the chamber. The battle for Morrak Two unfolded across its surface in a dazzling mosaic of emerald and crimson. Cities fell in flames. Armored columns clashed with armies of tireless warriors. The awakening protocols rippled outward, activating forgotten legions buried deep beneath the planet's crust. Progress was precise, measured, and efficient—just as it should be.

The settlement, this anomaly, was an irritant in the grand scheme, but it was an irritant he could afford to ignore, for now. He would devote a fraction of a fraction of his mind to its unraveling, a thread to pull at while the rest of him remained focused on the true objective: the awakening of the Overlord and the consolidation of the Lysix system.

"Curious," Orykhal said, almost to himself.

He turned his thoughts back to the awakening protocols. The Overlord's rise was imminent, and with it, the culmination of Orykhal's work. Morrak Two was but one step in a far grander design. Yet, as the faint energy signature flickered in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but feel a pang of something approximating anticipation.

Not everything could be reduced to pure logic. Some anomalies, after all, demanded closer study.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Nine

-

The relentless rain hammered against the settlement, its intensity growing with each passing hour. Emerald lightning arced across the churning sky, illuminating the drenched landscape in eerie, staccato flashes. Howling gales tore through the streets, rattling loose panels and driving icy sheets of water against the walls. On the ramparts, guards huddled behind what cover they could find, their cloaks plastered to their bodies as they braced against the storm.

Inside the hastily repurposed town hall, now a bustling command center, the scene was marginally more comfortable. The elderly worked with quiet determination, taking stock of dwindling supplies, preparing simple meals, and tending to the youngest among them. Though age kept them from standing sentry in the freezing rain, their resolve was unshaken. This was their home, and they would contribute however they could.

Elissa sat at a makeshift desk piled high with dataslates, the soft glow of their screens casting a pale light over her tired face. Milo's steady voice crackled through the vox, a lifeline of updates and camaraderie. His reports were punctuated by bawdy jokes and lighthearted banter among the guards, their shared humor providing a small comfort against the oppressive weight of their situation. Despite the occasional flush of heat rising to her cheeks at Milo's jokes, Elissa didn't chastise him. Morale was fragile, and if laughter kept it intact, she wouldn't interfere.

"Here." Tara's soft voice broke through the haze of exhaustion that had dulled Elissa's senses. She looked up, startled, as her daughter placed a bowl of steaming stew before her. The rich aroma of dustjackel meat and gritroot mash filled the air. "You need to eat," Tara said gently.

Elissa blinked, momentarily disoriented, before offering her daughter a wan smile. "Thanks, honey. How are you and Kala holding up?"

Tara settled into the chair opposite her, setting her own bowl on the table. Her segmented armor plates shifted as she moved, the custom fit a necessary adjustment made by Koron. Standard gear wasn't designed with their figures in mind, and it had taken considerable effort to craft something both functional and comfortable.

"Not bad," Tara replied, rolling her shoulders. "Tired, though. Kala's still out delivering meals to the guys, and I just finished helping Markus calibrate the grav plates on the crawler. It's ready to go whenever we need it."

Elissa let out a long sigh, her shoulders sagging with the weight of two sleepless nights. She took a bite of the stew, the warmth spreading from her stomach and driving back the chill in her bones. "Emperor's blood, I didn't realize how hungry I was," she muttered, savoring the rich flavor before continuing. "As for the plates, that's good to hear. But let's hope we don't have to use it. What about the shuttle? Any updates?"

Tara nodded, her expression calm but focused. "Doc called in after they landed. She's got a warehouse set up near the spaceport. Nothing fancy, but it's secure. Our people are there, and she's got a few volunteers from the local cogboys helping stand guard. She should be back soon."

"Good," Elissa said, relief flickering briefly in her weary eyes. "One more flight, and that's all the non-combatants accounted for."

Tara nodded silently, and the two fell into a moment of quiet, savoring their stews. The warm, hearty meal was a fleeting comfort in the storm of chaos that surrounded them.

Then, the lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the town, the hum of machinery replaced by startled cries echoing through the streets. The shrieks of surprise were quickly muffled as backup batteries flickered to life, casting dim, uneven illumination across the settlement.

Elissa's hand shot to her helmet, snapping it on with practiced efficiency. Her voice was sharp as she tapped the vox. "Reactor team, report. What's happening?"

Silence answered her call.

"Shit!" she hissed through clenched teeth, rising swiftly from her chair and grabbing her rifle from where it leaned against the table. Her armor shifted with her movements, the plates clicking softly as she strapped them into place. "Milo, the reactor team isn't responding. I want the wall on full alert. Get everyone up and ready. I'm taking my team to the reactor to see what's going on. Koron, if you're listening, meet me there!"

Tara was already at her side, her own rifle slung and ready. Together, they moved to the door, their boots thudding against the wooden floorboards. Elissa reached for the handle, but a sudden metallic screech froze her in place.

She had just enough time to jerk back before the door was shredded.

Four jagged metal claws punched through the reinforced steel as if it were paper, carving through the material in precise, deliberate strokes. The door fell away in quarters, clattering to the ground with a deafening crash.

Elissa staggered back, her rifle snapping up instinctively. Tara mirrored her movements, the two women standing shoulder to shoulder as they faced the intruders.

Six glowing green eyes peered at them from the darkness beyond the doorway, their light cutting through the gloom like searchlights. The skeletal xenos creatures crouched low, their hunched frames clicking as they advanced with unsettling, jerky movements.

Their bodies were grotesque amalgamations of old and new. Dark ichor oozed, mixing with the dried, blackened blood that streaked their metallic limbs. Ragged remnants of flesh clung to their forms, hanging limply like macabre trophies.

Elissa's breath hitched, but her voice was steady. "Tara," she said, keeping her rifle trained on the lead figure. "Stay close. We're not dying here tonight."

The creatures clicked and hissed, their movements almost inquisitive as they scanned the room. But there was no hesitation in their predatory stance.

And then, they lunged.

Elissa's rifle blazed as she fell back, panic ripping away control, white beams stitching across the roof in jagged bursts. The empty, gore-smeared skull of the Flayer grew large in her vision, its hollow eyes glowing faintly as its claws slashed down. Pain erupted across her stomach, sharp and burning, as the wicked talons raked her flesh.

Tara's scream cut through the chaos. "Mom!"

A brilliant streak of white lasfire tore into the Flayer's side. The rapid pulses punched into its torso, cracking and splintering its metal frame. The sickly green glow in its chest flickered and sputtered, extinguished as the force of Tara's shots hurled the xenos off Elissa.

Elissa twisted, pain tearing up her spine as she struggled to bring her rifle up again. Blood pooled hot and sticky at her side, but she ignored it. Two more Flayers scuttled toward them, their metal limbs clicking against the stone floor, their wretched flesh rags slapping wetly with each motion. One lunged at Tara, the other leaping toward Elissa with unnatural speed.

Gunfire exploded from the older townsfolk, the sharp crack of slug throwers and scatterguns echoing in the chamber. Pellets and slugs slammed into the twisted Necrons, sparks flying from their metallic bodies. Though the bullets barely dented the xenos, the impacts knocked them off balance. Tara's attacker crashed into a table, sending papers and children's toys scattering.

The creature began to rise, claws extended, but Tara was faster. She fired, her lasgun's white-hot beams tearing through its chest. What she lacked in precision, she made up for with volume, holding the trigger down, splitting the Flayer's torso in half and severing its arm in a flash of crackling white.

Elissa gritted her teeth, blood trickling down her side as she raised her rifle. Her vision blurred slightly, but she focused on the last Flayer. Joining the storm of lead from the others, she aimed for its torso. The combined barrage tore into the creature, its body convulsing violently as its frame twisted under the relentless assault. Finally, with a bright green flare, the Flayer disintegrated, collapsing into a heap of ash and fragmented metal.

Elissa heard the panic in her daughter's voice before she felt the hands gripping her sides. "Mom!" Tara half-shouted, dropping her rifle and rushing to her side. Her hands pressed firmly against the wound, the pressure sharp and immediate. "Someone get a medkit, now!"

"I'm fine," Elissa hissed through gritted teeth, trying to wave her daughter off. Pain shot through her with every breath as she struggled to push herself upright.

"Don't move!" Tara snapped, her hands trembling as she worked to slow the bleeding.

A pair of older men hurried to cover the shattered door, their weapons raised and eyes darting for any further threats. Another figure—an elderly woman with wiry strength—grabbed Elissa by the armpits and hauled her back from the blood-slicked floor. Elissa gritted her teeth, trying not to focus on the streak of crimson trailing behind her.

"Let me see," the older woman muttered, pulling aside the torn armor and the shredded fabric of Elissa's shirt. Four deep gashes ran across her stomach, but the wounds weren't as long or as devastating as they'd felt. The woman poured antiseptic and blood-clotting powder onto the wounds, making Elissa arch her back in pain, before cinching gauze tightly around her middle.

"She'll be fine," the woman said, her voice steady but firm. "Lucky, really. If that thing's claws had gone an inch deeper, we'd be in trouble. Her armor didn't do much to stop it."

Elissa grunted as she pushed herself upright, resting a hand briefly on Tara's shoulder. "Tara, cover the door," she rasped. "I'm okay."

Tara hesitated, her emerald eyes searching her mother's pale face. With a reluctant nod, she squeezed Elissa's hand before grabbing her rifle and moving into position near the door.

Wincing, Elissa tapped the vox controls on her wrist, flinching as the channel flooded with overlapping voices. Shouts for orders, desperate cries for reinforcements, and panicked chatter filled the line.

Milo's voice cut through moments later, sharp and commanding, as he tried to restore order. Deciding to leave it to him, she switched the channel with a muttered curse. "Koron, you there?"

The response came quickly, his voice tense, clipped. "Busy!"

The sound of crunching metal and guttural, inhuman snarls came over the line, the battle on his end clearly still underway.

"Get something in front of that door!" she barked, her voice sharp with urgency as she gestured toward one of the larger tables. "It won't stop them, but it'll slow them down."

Several hands moved quickly, dragging the heavy table across the floor and slamming it against the shattered doorway. Chairs and other debris were thrown on top for good measure, creating a makeshift barricade. It wasn't elegant, but it might buy them a few seconds if more of those things came through.

As the immediate danger inside ebbed, the chaos outside surged into focus. The sharp crack of lasfire echoed through the air, punctuated by desperate screams for help. Elissa's stomach tightened at the sound, the reality of the town's dire situation pressing in on her.

Switching back to the main vox channel, her earpiece crackled to life. Milo's gruff but steady voice came through, barking orders. "Form up! Sweep sector by sector! Keep moving and stay together!" The occasional deep thunderclap of the guard tower's lascannon firing cut through the chatter, signaling that the main battle was still raging.

Gritting her teeth, Elissa pressed the vox button on her wrist. "Milo, Elissa here. We got hit, but we're still good. We're heading to the reactor to back up Koron. Once we've secured it, we'll sweep down toward the gate. Have your squads move up toward us—we'll pinch anything left between our teams."

"Afirm," Milo replied, his voice short and clipped, but steady as always. "Good luck."

Elissa let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She turned to the others, her gaze firm despite the pain pulling at her side. "Okay, people," she said, her voice cutting through the room like steel, "we're making for the reactor. On me."

Grunting as she adjusted her armor, pulling the straps tight over the bandages, Elissa forced herself to her feet. The room was tense, the faces around her pale but determined. The six townsfolk still able to fight—old but steadfast, their hands gripping rifles with white-knuckled resolve—nodded silently and fell into step behind her as those who would remain behind pulled the barricade to the side.

The howling wind carried the scent of blood and burned metal. The muddy streets glistened with slick puddles, reflecting the emerald flashes of lightning that tore across the sky.

Elissa kept her rifle at the ready as they moved, her sharp eyes scanning every shadow, every flicker of movement in the storm. The fight for Dusthaven was far from over, and the reactor was the next critical battleground.

-

The heavy metal door to the reactor facility glowed a sickly green, a jagged hole bored clean through it. The floor was stained with blood, dark crimson streaks marking the way, and long, clawed gouges scarred the walls, evidence of the carnage that had come before them.

Elissa swallowed; her throat tight. Her heart pounded in her ears as she stepped forward, the bitter taste of fear rising in her mouth. Her eyes traced the destruction, the grotesque aftermath of the xenos' attack. The silence was suffocating, broken only by the distant sound of metal shrieking from within the reactor. It was a sound that sent a shiver down her spine.

"Keep moving," she ordered, voice hoarse, though she wasn't sure if it was from the strain of her wounds or the horror that gripped her heart. Her team quickstepped through the corridor, lamp-packs casting harsh beams that only made the shadows seem darker, more oppressive.

By the time they reached the second flight of stairs, they saw the first of the scarabs—small, metallic insects, their lifeless forms sprawled across the ground, crushed and burnt. Several were embedded in the walls, likely driven into them by some heavy impact. It was an eerie sight, one that only deepened the sense of dread gnawing at her gut.

Ignoring the pain shooting through her side with every step, Elissa pushed on, forcing herself to focus. They had no time. The reactor was their priority. The door to the command center was shut, but it only took a second for Elissa to realize that the sound of movement beyond it was the least of their worries.

She caught sight of a flash of blue armor through the oval port, the dark silhouette of Koron darting through the narrow window. The screech of metal filled the air, followed by a heavy thud—too late for her to process the impact.

Koron dove backward, just in time to avoid a slash from one of the flayers, its long, clawed fingers cutting through the space where he'd been a moment before.

"Don't open the door!" Koron's voice crackled through the vox, urgent and strained, laced with raw panic. His words hit Elissa like a physical blow, twisting something deep in her chest. "They breached the reactor!"

Tara was already moving, her fingers a blur as they danced over the console beside the door. The readout that flashed across the screen stole the air from her lungs.

"Forty-five sieverts inside... the reactor shielding's breached," Tara whispered, her face drained of color as more data sped by, almost all of it flashing a enraged red. "It's going critical. It's going to blow."

Elissa's heart stopped. A cold, sick feeling flooded her chest, her mind struggling to keep up with the horror unfolding in front of her. Radiation levels were off the charts, and the reactor was on the brink of detonation. In an instant, the world felt like it was slipping from beneath her feet. The town—the people—were all about to be wiped out in a single catastrophic explosion.

Tara's voice was barely a whisper as she turned toward her mother, trembling with the weight of the truth. "Mom, there's... nothing we can do. If we leave now, we won't make it out of the blast radius. It's too late."

Elissa's throat tightened, the weight of Tara's words sinking in. She had no answer, no solution. For a moment, time seemed to stretch and falter. The sound of her own breathing became deafening, her body frozen in place as panic gnawed at her.

She reached for Tara, pulling her into an embrace, her arms trembling as she tried to steady herself. Just for a moment, just a moment more. She whispered the words she knew weren't true, the lie burning her lips even as she spoke the words.

"It's okay, honey. We'll... we'll figure something out. We always do."

Tara didn't respond. She just clung to her mother, the weight of the moment hanging between them.

For a brief, agonizing stretch of time, there was only silence, thick and suffocating.

Then, crackling over the vox, Koron's voice—rough and ragged, yet undeniably defiant—pierced through the static, cutting through the cold air like a beacon of defiance.

"Not… like… this."

Elissa's blood went cold, her breath freezing in her lungs as a surge of something fierce and desperate ran through her. She pressed herself against the door, her hands trembling as she searched for a glimpse of what was happening on the other side. The team gathered behind her, their collective breath held as they, too, strained to see.

And there, silhouetted against the blinding, ominous light of the reactor core, was Koron.

His blue armor was scorched, darkened by fire and radiation, his body streaked with blood, and his movements slow—every step a struggle. But there he was, alive, fighting against the odds. The air around him shimmered with heat as he ripped open a panel in the wall, his hands trembling but determined.

The hiss of steam filled the room as he grappled with the reactor's valve. His fingers, the edges glowing red hot, gripped the metal tightly, twisting with all the strength he had left. The groaning of metal echoed in the air; a sound so agonizingly strained that it felt like it would tear the world apart. With a final, desperate twist, the valve gave way.

But the reactor's pulse didn't stop. The energy continued to surge, blinding in its intensity, spilling into the room in waves of white-hot light.

Koron stumbled, nearly falling, his body fighting against the unbearable heat. His augmentations flickered, barely holding together. His systems were frying, but still, he pressed on. His hands—normally so precise, so controlled—jerked and faltered as the cascading failures of his internal systems made every motion feel like an impossible effort.

Then, in a final, brutal act of desperation, Koron redirected the power. The flare of energy from the breach seemed to funnel, to condense, focusing on a single point as the containment field forced a direction upon it. The wall inside the chamber began to melt, molten steel dripping to the floor as the last of the plasma was vented away.

Tara, her eyes wide in disbelief, turned to the panel. "Emperor's blood..." She gasped, a small, fleeting smile breaking through her fear. "He did it. The plasma injectors are cut, the fuel lines are empty! The core's shutting down!"

Elissa felt the weight in her chest lighten, but only slightly. The reactor might be stable for now, but Koron was not.

Even as the reactor's dangerous flare began to fade, Koron stumbled toward the airlock, his suit blackened and torn, his body burned and blistered. He was moving on pure instinct now. With one last slam of his fist, he activated the airlock cycle, his body collapsing as the chamber sealed.

Elissa's heart nearly stopped. She rushed forward, but the thick white mist of the radiation purge began to envelop the chamber. The system's alarms blared, warning them to stay clear.

The door sealed with a final, heavy hiss. Inside, Koron lay unmoving, his battered body crumpled against the floor. The faintest wisp of breath escaped his lips, barely visible through the mist as the chamber filled with the thick, white spray of purging foam.

Elissa stood frozen, her hands clenched tightly at her sides, helpless as she watched through the small window. The airlock was an impenetrable barrier, a cruel divide between life and death. Her stomach churned, dread pooling in her gut as the alarms blared their relentless warning.

And then, cutting through the static of her vox like a thread of silk, a woman's voice crackled to life. It was soft yet urgent, each word wrapped in a honeyed tone that Elissa couldn't place. For a fleeting moment, it tugged at the edges of a distant memory—her mother's touch, comforting her during long nights of fevered sickness.

The voice spoke, quick and sharp, tinged with desperation.

"Listen to me carefully. I need your help if I'm going to save Koron's life."

Elissa snapped to attention, her jaw tightening as she keyed her vox. "Who is this? Identify yourself," she demanded, her tone hard-edged. "And how do you know what's going on with Koron?"

The voice didn't hesitate. "My name is Sasha," the woman replied, her words steady but carrying the weight of urgency. "And if he's going to live, you need to listen to me. Now."

-

Koron lay crumpled on the floor, unmoving. The faintest rasp of breath escaped his blistered lips, but it was clear his systems were failing. White mist continued to fill the chamber, dissipating slowly, as the radiation counter on the wall ticked downward at an agonizing pace.

"Okay, Sasha," Elissa asked, her voice tight with tension. "What do we do as soon as it's safe to open the door?"

Sasha's response came brisk and precise, her tone commanding yet reassuring, cutting through the tension like a scalpel. "First, wait until the purge completes. Do not touch his skin until we've neutralized the residual radiation. Tara, there should be a decontamination kit in the emergency medical locker on your left. Retrieve it immediately."

Tara nodded, her movements automatic, wrenching open the rusted locker and pulling out a dust-covered case. The faded symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus adorned its surface, a relic of a different age. She cracked it open with trembling fingers, revealing pristine instruments and vials, gleaming as though untouched by the passage of time.

"Elissa," Sasha continued, her voice softening for a moment. "When the door opens, you'll need to position Koron's arms to access the medical suite in his cybernetics. His systems are failing, but there's still a chance to stabilize him—if we act quickly."

Elissa nodded, swallowing hard as precious seconds ticked by. The radiation counter finally dipped into the green, and with a hiss, the airlock began to cycle open. A faint reek of burned flesh and scorched circuitry spilled into the corridor, the acrid stench making her stomach churn.

Koron lay motionless, his once-bright blue armor blackened and stripped away in places, revealing raw, blistered skin beneath. Steam rose faintly from his armor, mixing with the lingering mist in the air.

Elissa knelt beside him, her hands hovering uncertainly over his battered form. "Where do I start?"

"First, Tara," Sasha said quickly. "Grab the residual radiation remover. It should be a bottle with a trigger on it. Spray his entire body—don't miss a spot."

Without hesitation, Tara rummaged through the kit, finding the bottle and dousing Koron's motionless form with its contents. The chemical hissed and foamed on contact, neutralizing the lingering radiation on his skin and armor.

"Good," Sasha said. "Now, Elissa, his right forearm. You'll need to manually access his medical suite. Slide back the plating near his wrist—it's damaged, so it might stick. Push up until it stops, twist towards him, then pull back to open it."

Elissa's hands trembled as she followed the instructions, prying the scorched plating aside. Beneath, a small array of injectors and ports came into view, some intact, others sparking faintly.

"Now what?" she asked, her voice strained.

"There are three critical components inside," Sasha explained. "A tissue stabilizer, a rad-neutralizing agent, and an emergency nanite injection. Each must be deployed manually because his automated systems are fried. Start with the glowing green vial—that's the rad-neutralizer. Slide it into the injector and press until you hear a click."

Elissa fumbled slightly but managed to fit the vial into place. With a faint hiss, the compound deployed, spreading beneath Koron's charred skin.

"His vitals are stabilizing," Sasha noted, though her tone remained tense. "But it's not enough. We need to repair the cellular damage. Look for the vial with silver fluid, slightly thicker—unscrew it and pull it loose."

Tara reached over, quickly unscrewing the vial and handing it to Elissa. "What do we do with this?"

"Inject it directly into his chest," Sasha said. "There's an access port near his clavicle. His systems will distribute the nanites where they're most needed."

Elissa's stomach churned as she located the access port, its cover barely intact. She pried it open, exposing a delicate lattice of circuitry and synthetic tissue. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the injector against the port and triggered the release.

Koron's body twitched, a faint mechanical whir emanating from his chest as the nanites surged into action. Steam rose in faint plumes from his skin, his cybernetic systems struggling to keep up with the influx of activity.

"We're almost there," Sasha said, her voice tinged with urgency. "The tissue stabilizer is last. It's dark blue or purple—find it and inject it into the same port."

Elissa quickly located the vial, her hands shaking as she slid it free and fitted it into the injector. With one final press, the stabilizer entered his system, and Koron's body seemed to release a faint, shuddering exhale.

"What's happening to him now?" Elissa asked, alarmed as more steam began rising from Koron's form.

"The chemicals are neutralizing residual radiation at a cellular level," Sasha explained. "His systems are trying to assist, but they're heavily damaged. It's a good sign that his recovery protocols are still online, but they're barely holding together."

Tara wiped sweat from her brow, glancing at Elissa. "So… what now? Is he going to make it?"

Sasha's voice softened. "He needs rest and further care. His body will hold for now, but he requires intravenous fluids to stay hydrated and additional nutrients to support his recovery. You'll have to move him somewhere safe and set up an IV drip immediately."

Elissa glanced down at Koron's still form, her heart pounding as she watched the faint flickers of light from his armors systems. "We'll get him through this," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

"And Elissa," Sasha added quietly, almost gently, "thank you. You've given him a chance."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Ten

-

The chamber was silent but for the hum of ancient machinery and the faint scrape of servos adjusting the Cryptek's stance. Orykhal stood motionless atop his polished dais. His metallic form gleamed faintly in the cold green glow of stasis-lit monoliths that framed his command chamber. Streams of cascading glyphs illuminated the air around him, feeding him every detail of the recent skirmish.

The primitive settlement known as Dusthaven still stood. Its power grid had been crippled as planned, plunging the town into chaos and leaving its inhabitants scrambling in darkness. Several humans had perished, their soft forms no match for the mechanical precision of his scarabs and flayed ones. But that was where the progress ended.

It was not enough.

Orykhal's talons flexed at his sides, the faint grinding sound of metal on metal the only outward sign of his bemusement. "Suboptimal, if intriguing results." His voice reverberated through the chamber, metallic and emotionless, the echoes filling the void like the chime of a distant bell.

The loss of fifty scarabs, while irksome, was inconsequential. They were drones, replaceable with a flick of thought and time. And the loss of the flayed ones was, if anything, a boon to the Necron race as a whole.

What was not replaceable, however, was his certainty. And that certainty had been shaken by a single figure.

The Cryptek's optic sensors narrowed, focusing on the hololith hovering before him. From the fractured memory cores of his destroyed units, he replayed the assault on the reactor's control chamber. There, amidst the chaos and radiation, the image was clear: a lone human clad in battered pale blue armor, moving with a precision and lethality that belied his species' usual frailty.

The recording stuttered as it displayed the human's desperate stand. Six flayed ones converged on the human, their bladed fingers slicing through the air. Yet the human fought with savage determination. He ducked, sidestepped, and countered, each motion deliberate. A cybernetic arm, shimmering faintly with flickers of blue-white electrostatic energy, drove a fist clean through the chest of one flayed one, before pivoting to drive his elbow into another, smashing it into the wall with bone-shattering force. The fight was raw, close, and vicious, and by the time it ended, all six flayed ones lay in sparking ruin, their limbs twitching lifelessly on the reactor floor.

"Interesting," Orykhal murmured, his voice a low metallic rasp.

The data flickered again, shifting to show faint traces of the human's systems. The scarabs had tried to probe his tech, but their intrusion had been met with powerful barriers—defensive code, elegant and alien, patterns Orykhal had never seen before. These defenses were not the crude, clunky work of the Adeptus Mechanicus. No, this was something far stronger, far more efficient.

The Cryptek's gaze lingered on the image of the human, collapsed and unconscious, bloodied and battered yet somehow alive. His systems had been failing, and his flesh should have succumbed to the searing radiation, yet the blue-white energy of his implants still flickered faintly, stubbornly pushing back against death.

"Resilient." Orykhal said to the silent chamber, his tone one of quiet contemplation. "But not enough."

The display shifted, showing another angle of the battle. The scarab swarm had successfully severed the settlement's power grid, throwing the humans into disarray, but their defense had held firm where it mattered. Dusthaven remained intact, and this one figure had been pivotal to that outcome.

Orykhal turned his attention to the streams of data cascading across the hololith. "Preserve everything we have on this anomaly," he commanded, his voice echoing through the chamber. "Every fragment. Analyze it."

Straightening, his towering frame casting long shadows across the chamber, he continued. "This anomaly is valuable. A fresh dataset for the first time in ages."

He turned away, ascending the dais that overlooked his chamber. Behind him, the hololith replayed the fragments of the failed assault, the image of Koron's bloodied body frozen in the faint green light. Yet even as Orykhal began to shift his focus to plans of the next assault, a sharp alert pulsed through his neural lattice.

A glyph pulsed red, interrupting his thoughts. Orykhal froze, his optics flaring brightly as he accessed the information directly. The chamber was utterly silent as the data streamed into his mind.

Six Imperial vessels arriving in orbit. Astartes, Salamanders.

The faintest trace of excitement entered Orykhal's voice as he spoke. "Astartes. A welcome addition of combat data."

The hololith flickered, shifting to display the arrival of the six ships in orbit. Their green-and-black hulls bore the unmistakable sigils of the Salamanders Chapter, fire-breathing dragons etched into their plating like a challenge hurled across the stars. Orykhal stared, his mind working with cold precision.

"Perhaps…" he mused softly. "Yes. Extrapolate out scenarios of the settlement gaining Astartes aid. Project results of the anomaly interacting with current Astartes armaments. Update as projections complete."

Orykhal turned to the hololith, the faint green glow casting his skeletal visage in stark relief. His voice dropped to a cold whisper as the results began to come in. "Excellent. Data results are worth exploring. Direct communications, refine troop movements. Bring the anomalies settlement to the human's attention."

-

Elissa sat in silence, staring at the seven white sheets stretched across the morgue. Beneath them, the bodies rested—mercifully hidden from view. Some irrational part of her mind urged her to pull back the fabric, to see their faces one last time. To remember them, to honor them.

But another part, selfish and raw, whispered louder: Don't. She didn't need their faces etched into her nightmares. Not when the weight of this war already threatened to crush her. Not when the only relief was knowing neither of her daughters lay beneath those covers.

She stayed frozen, her breath shallow, her fists clenched tightly in her lap.

A heavy, armored hand clasped her shoulder. Warm through the ceramite, steadying. Doc knelt beside her, the polished silver of her armor a sharp contrast to the stark whiteness of the sheets. "It's not your fault," she said, her voice low but firm, as if daring Elissa to argue.

"I know. Up here," Elissa murmured, tapping her temple lightly with trembling fingers. Her voice cracked as she added, "But I—"

"No." Doc's grip tightened, an unyielding anchor against the storm of guilt. "Don't even think it. Don't let that thought take root." Her eyes burned with conviction. "This wasn't you. You didn't do this. Those Emperor damned xenos did. They took them. Not. You."

Elissa's breath hitched. She tried to speak, to force a denial past the lump in her throat, but the words refused to come. Instead, she nodded faintly, her gaze lowering to her lap. Doc stayed by her side, silent now, her presence the only reassurance she could offer.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Elissa knew the guilt wouldn't vanish, not entirely. The faces she'd refused to look at would still haunt her. But for this moment, Doc's words cut through the noise.

Taking a steadying breath, Elissa grabbed Docs hand, giving it a squeeze. "Thanks Doc. I should-I should go, lots of stuff to get done." She stood, Doc following a moment after as they left the morgue, and the dead within, to their rest.

Once outside, Elissa tilted her head back, rubbing her cheeks with trembling fingers as she let out a long, steadying breath. "Okay," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. "What's our status?"

Doc stood beside her, her silver hair catching the faint glow of the emergency lights. The streaks of grime on her pale skin made her look as weary as Elissa felt. "Not great," Doc admitted, voice grim. "Power's still down, but the backup generator and batteries are holding, for now. We've got the hospital, command, spotlights, charging ports, and the water system running, but that's it. Everyone else is making do with firepits and lanterns."

"And the wounded?" Elissa asked, her voice quieter, almost hesitant.

"A dozen or so, nothing life-threatening." Doc hesitated, her gaze shifting to the corner of the hospital where a privacy sheet swayed faintly, as if disturbed by an unseen hand. "Except Koron."

Elissa followed Doc's gaze, her full lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line. "What's his condition?"

Before Doc could answer, their vox pinged softly, and Sasha's honeyed voice came over the channel, warm and laced with the faint twang of a drawl. "He's holdin' on, sugar, by the skin of his teeth. Radiation levels have dropped to where they're no longer downright fatal, and his systems are workin' overtime to patch him up. But that man's gonna need at least three days of good rest before he's anywhere near his best self again."

Elissa frowned, her hand dropping to her hip as she tilted her head slightly. "Hold on a second. That… accent—where did that come from? You didn't sound like this before."

Sasha's laugh came soft and smooth, a musical tone that carried through the static. "Oh, darlin', this is my normal voice. I usually talk this way—it's how I like to be. But when things get all hectic, like with Koron, I drop it for clarity and speed. Ain't no time for charm when a life's on the line."

Doc raised an eyebrow, her fingers tightening on her bolter. "So, what, the charm's back on now that he's stable?"

"More or less," Sasha replied, her tone bright but unbothered. "I figure y'all deserve to meet the real me now that we're not racin' the clock. 'Sides, this is just how I like to talk—makes me more personable. And who doesn't need a bit of that in times like these?"

Elissa's brow furrowed for a moment before she shook her head, brushing past it. "Fine. Let's focus on the situation at hand."

Doc's grip didn't loosen as she gave Elissa a wary glance, but she kept quiet. Elissa's shoulders remained tense as she turned toward the door, glancing back toward the privacy sheet one last time.

"So," she asked, her tone sharper now as she spoke into her vox-bead, "what can you do for us?"

The vox crackled softly as Sasha answered, her voice picking up a lilting confidence like a hostess welcoming someone to a grand ball. "Well, I may not be much in a firefight, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. First off, I've got Koron's drones at my disposal. They're not built for tusslin', but they're mighty fine when it comes to sneakin' around and gettin' the lay of the land. I can send 'em out to scout the Necrons and give y'all early warnings about what's comin' your way."

Elissa paused at the door, raising an eyebrow. "That's something, at least. And?"

"I can lend a hand with repairs and fortifyin' your defenses," Sasha continued, her tone warm and practical, like a neighbor offering to patch a leaky roof. "The drones can seal up holes in your walls, shore up weak spots, and even whip up a few surprises if you've got the right materials lyin' around. Nothing fancy, but every little bit helps, don't it? Right now, they're patchin' up the hole in the reactor, so at least it'll quit spewin' rads all over the place."

Doc scoffed lightly, crossing her arms. "Not exactly groundbreaking. What about firepower?"

"Now, sugar," Sasha said with a gentle laugh, "I'm not about to go fibbin' to you. Combat ain't their forte. But I can help you make the most of what you've got. The Necrons may be nasty, but they're not invincible. I can analyze their movements, find their weak spots, and give you strategies to hit 'em where it hurts. Y'all might be runnin' on fumes, but I'll help you stretch every drop."

Elissa leaned against the doorframe, rubbing at her temples. "All of this sounds great in theory, but we don't have the resources for a drawn-out fight."

"I know, darlin'. That's why I'm here—to lighten your load, not add to it. Let me handle the drones and keep an eye on the battlefield. I'll make sure y'all have the intel you need to stay one step ahead. You focus on your people, and together we'll keep Dusthaven standin'."

For a moment, silence filled the air, broken only by the faint hum of the emergency lights. Finally, Elissa sighed and nodded. "Alright. Let's see what you've got."

Doc gave a sharp, skeptical glance at Elissa before rising to her feet, bolter slung over her shoulder. "I'm keepin' my eye on you, Sasha. Don't make me regret it."

Sasha's response was smooth, with a touch of playful warmth. "You won't, sugar. Now, let's get to work."

-

The dim light of the command room flickered faintly as Elissa leaned over the weathered map of Dusthaven spread across the central table. A steaming cup of tea sat untouched beside her, her eyes focused but heavy with exhaustion. Two days. Two days without an attack, without the Necron presence even scraping at the outskirts. She should have felt relieved.

Should have.

The vox pinged, Sasha's smooth drawl cutting through the still air. "Elissa, darlin', you got a minute? We need to talk."

Elissa frowned, straightening up. "What's going on, Sasha?"

"Well," Sasha began, her voice warm but laced with concern, "I've been keepin' an eye on those metal-headed varmints. Somethin' about their movements just don't sit right with me."

Elissa crossed her arms, the faint crease in her brow deepening. "Movements? You mean the fact that there haven't been any? Not that I'm complaining, but…"

"Oh, I reckon it's a bit more complicated than that," Sasha said, a soft hum in her voice like she was piecing her thoughts together. "They ain't just quiet, sugar. They're… avoidin' us."

Elissa blinked. "Avoiding? What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. They're movin', alright. But every pattern, every approach they've taken in the last two days has deliberately avoided Dusthaven. It's as plain as day once you look at it. You could draw a circle around this town on the map, and they'd be dancin' right along the edge, never settin' foot inside."

That twisted something deep in Elissa's gut. "Why? Why would they avoid us? From what I've seen they don't hesitate, they don't retreat. They just… march. Kill."

"Exactly, darlin'. And that's why it's downright peculiar. This ain't normal behavior for them. It's too obvious, too deliberate." Sasha's voice carried an undertone of unease. "I don't know why they're doin' it, but any fool with half a brain could see this shift in their pattern. And if it's obvious to us…"

Elissa's eyes narrowed. "It's a message," she muttered.

"Or a trap," Sasha countered gently, her voice soft. "Could be both. Could be neither. Whatever it is, sugar, it's unnatural, and that makes it dangerous. Mark my words, this quiet ain't somethin' we should be sittin' easy with."

"Agreed." Elissa leaned back in her chair; the flickering overhead light casting shadows that made the room feel even smaller than it was. She folded her arms, gaze distant. "What's our status anyway?"

Sasha's voice filled the air, calm but purposeful, as though the words were coming from somewhere just beyond Elissa's line of sight. "Backup gens are down to two days of operation. We could stretch it to a week if we only use them for the absolute necessities. Batteries will fail the day after that. Reactor core's sealed tight, but we're stuck 'til we figure out how to deal with the rads. Ain't even safe to get near it right now, let alone make repairs."

A small pause, the subtle hum of electronics in the background as Sasha continued. "Weapons and ammo? We're good. Plenty of both. Food, we're set for a month and water is just gonna need people to ferry it once the powers out. But perishables are gonna spoil soon without power, so if you've got meat you're looking to keep, I'd suggest salting it or using it soon. You've got maybe a couple days."

Elissa nodded absently, already processing the information. "Medical supplies?"

Sasha's voice lowered, a touch more measured. "Stretched thin. But we've been lucky, for now. Most injuries have been either minor, or... well, fatal. Koron's the big concern, as you know."

Her thoughts briefly shifted to the memory of the man lying behind the cloth screen. "And how's he doing?"

"Better," Sasha responded smoothly. "System repairs are going well. His bio-signs are improving. He'll be up and about in a day or two, assuming no setbacks."

Elissa let out a slow breath, relaxing just a little. "And my girls?"

"Oh, those two?" Sasha's tone softened with an almost maternal note. "They've been on rotating shifts to keep him company. Think it's good for 'em—he's a good friend, and both of 'em need the connection. But if you need 'em for anything, just say the word, sugar. I can direct them elsewhere if that's what you prefer."

Elissa hesitated for a moment before shaking her head, her crimson braid swaying. "No, let them be. They're keeping their duties in order. We've got enough work to go around right now. No need to pull them off in their free time."

"Sure thing, darlin'." Sasha's voice carried a warmth that seemed to wrap around Elissa. It was strange—comforting, almost as if Sasha were sitting right there beside her, offering reassurance. "Be sure to get some rest tonight, alright? You've been burning the candle at both ends, and the people need their leader healthy. I'll keep an eye on things."

Rubbing her eyes, Elissa let out a tired sigh. "Yeah, alright. I'm gonna grab a bite and hit the hay. Let me know if anything comes up."

"Of course, sugar. I'll have Yannek fix up your usual. You're headed his way, right?"

Elissa blinked, pausing mid-step. "…You know, it's kinda creepy how fast you've picked up little things like that."

Sasha let out a soft laugh, light and easy. "Apologies, darlin'. Old habit of mine—paying attention to details, you know? I'll dial it back a notch or two, promise."

Shaking her head, Elissa allowed herself a small smirk as she headed for the mess hall. "You do that."

"Sleep well, sugar," Sasha murmured, her voice as soft as a lullaby. "I'll keep the town safe for you."

Elissa had barely taken four steps outside when Sasha's voice crackled over the vox, sharper now. "Elissa, we have an incoming transmission on an open frequency."

Tapping her vox, Elissa adjusted the signal, and a deep, gravelly voice filled her ears, laced with authority.

"Hailing the settlement of Dusthaven, this is Sergeant Vulkanis Kade of the Salamanders, requesting permission to land. How copy?"

Elissa froze mid-step, the color draining from her face as the words sank in. For a moment, the world seemed to stand still. "By the Emperor," she whispered, her heart pounding. "His Angels… here?"

Before she could fully process the enormity of the moment, Sasha's voice cut back in, low but edged with urgency. "Elissa, listen to me carefully. You cannot tell them about Koron. Or me."

Her brow furrowed as she slowed to a halt. "Sasha, what are you talki—"

"Elissa, please!" Sasha's tone cracked, desperation threading through her usually steady, honeyed voice. "If they find out about Koron, they'll either kill him outright or drag him away—to imprison him, to dissect him. You don't understand what's at stake. I'm begging you—keep him secret. Just until he can speak for himself. Just until he can decide his own fate."

The weight of Sasha's plea hung heavy in the air, and Elissa felt the knot of uncertainty tighten in her chest. Her fingers hovered near her vox as her mind raced. This was no small ask—hiding something from the Emperor's Angels was heresy by any measure. But the sheer fear in Sasha's voice made her pause.

For now, she simply said, "Alright," her voice quiet but firm, though her thoughts churned with questions she wasn't sure she wanted answers to.

-

The Thunderhawk's engines thrummed with latent power, their deep hum resonating through the air as they began to wind down. A dozen guardsmen, their postures stiff with unease, stood rigidly in place, their eyes fixed on the towering wall ahead. Wet sand clung to their boots, a reminder of the relentless storms that had battered the planet for months. Yet now, finally, the storm had begun to ebb.

Amidst the same sand that had swallowed him up to his mid-calf, the Astartes stood utterly still. Like a statue hewn from stone, he was an immovable force in the desolate landscape. His oversized bolter rested in his hands, the underbarrel weapon adding a heavy, menacing weight to the firearm. At his sides hung a bolt pistol, a chainsword, and a collection of magazines, grenades, and various other pieces of equipment—many of which Elissa couldn't even begin to name. Yet it wasn't the weaponry that held her attention; it was the intricate markings and subtle details etched into his battle-worn armor.

The towering figure was clad in emerald-green power armor, its surface scratched and scorched by countless battles. Draped across his shoulders was a mantle of black-scaled drakeskin, a grim trophy that shifted with his every movement. A skull, stark and unyielding, was emblazoned on the forehead of his helm—a chilling symbol of death and judgment. His left gauntlet bore the unmistakable sigil of the Promethean Cult, and a single crimson visor slit on his helmet glowed faintly, pulsing like the ember of a dying fire.

Each pauldron told its own story. One was painted deep black, bearing the image of a red drake, its mouth agape with razor teeth. The other was similarly black but adorned with a yellow flame that licked skyward, vivid and alive despite its static form.

It was the smaller details, though, that captured Elissa's curiosity. Painted flames rose from his boots, climbing the greaves of his legs. On the right, the artwork was immaculate—neat, precise, and deliberate, executed with the care of a practiced hand. But on the left, the flames were crude, uneven, and jagged, as though drawn by a child with an unsteady grip. The stark contrast between the two designs struck her like a discordant note in an otherwise meticulously orchestrated symphony.

Before she could dwell on the implications of the mismatched artwork, the marine's voice shattered the stillness around them. Deep and resonant, it carried the weight of centuries of battle and duty, commanding attention as it echoed across the barren sands.

"Hearken to me, sons and daughters of the Emperor! Step forth, that we may speak in His name!"

Elissa cleared her throat, silently relieved that her voice didn't crack as she addressed an Angel of Death. "Welcome and well met, my lord!" she called out, her tone as steady as she could manage. "Apologies for the delay; we're clearing the extra barricades on the gate."

Below, the townsfolk worked with frantic efficiency, hauling away the hastily added plates and beams that reinforced the gate. The crude reinforcements clattered as they were removed, leaving the way clear just as Elissa, flanked by Doc, stepped forward to greet the towering Astartes. As the gates groaned open, the marine strode inside, his presence immediately demanding attention.

For a moment, Elissa was struck by just how small she felt. At five foot five, she had long learned to weaponize her unassuming stature, using others' underestimations of her to her advantage. But here, standing before this armored titan forged for war, she felt like a child standing before her father.

The moment was broken by Doc, who stepped forward and gave the marine a respectful nod. "Welcome, Sergeant. I am Interrogator Malinov. What brings you here, so far from the battlelines?"

The marine's crimson visor shifted to regard Doc, and his reply came in a measured, booming tone. "Greetings, Interrogator. Our scans revealed that this location is being deliberately bypassed by Necron forces—"

Elissa's sharp grunt of disbelief cut him off before she realized what she was doing. She met his gaze, her voice rising in challenge. "Bypassed? I have seven dead, a dozen wounded, and a breached reactor core that refutes that claim. They started going around us two days ago, but they have attacked us."

Doc quickly interjected, her tone placating. "This is Elissa Brandt, the mayor of this town. She has been coordinating our defenses against the xenos, alongside myself and our security team leader, Milo." She gestured toward the guard tower, where the gleaming barrel of a lascannon protruded, scanning the horizon.

The marine— Vulkanis Kade, if Elissa recalled correctly from his transmission—gave her a slight nod. "As you say, Mayor. Regardless, their new movements drew the attention of our Mechanicus allies, and I volunteered to reconnoiter the area. Truthfully, I expected to find this settlement wiped from existence. I am pleased to be proven wrong." His tone softened slightly, though the metallic edge of his helmet's vox still rang clear. "You mentioned attacks. Please, explain what has happened."

Elissa nodded, motioning for him to follow. "Come on, then. It's a bit of a story."

-

"Your people have had a difficult time of things," Kade said, seated atop a metal crate that served as his makeshift chair. His pitch-black skin, in stark contrast to the warm green of his armor, framed his crimson eyes as they met Elissa's emerald gaze. "But I must admit, I find it surprising that you dealt with a dozen melee-focused Necrons so easily."

Elissa's lips tightened into a thin line, her eyes narrowing as she assessed him. "I wouldn't exactly call it easy," she replied, her voice edged with restraint. "But for whatever reason, they've been ignoring us for the time being. With the non-combatants already in Anaxis, we're planning on leaving as soon as the wounded are stable enough to travel."

Kade nodded. "If you wish, I'll gladly carry your people aboard my shuttle. It should be able to accommodate the majority of your citizens," he offered, his voice low but steady. The tiny cup of gritroot tea at his side sat undisturbed, a quiet symbol of the soldier's stoic nature. "That said, I'll be conducting a sweep of the town. I was sent here to investigate, to find out what's truly happening."

Elissa gave a measured nod, her gaze steady as she met the towering Astartes' crimson gaze. "Completely understandable. Take as much time as you need. We still have at least another day before the most critically wounded are fit to move. Would you like a guide, then, or are you good on your own?"

"I would. Do you have someone in mind?" he asked, straightening to his full, imposing height. The faint creak of metal echoed from his power armor as he shifted, the sound a constant reminder of the war machine encasing him.

"If you like, my daughter Tara could accompany you," Elissa offered, her tone practical. "She has some technical knowledge and might be able to answer some of your more advanced questions. I'd have Milo or Doc do it, but... well, they've got other priorities."

"Understandable." Kade gave her a polite nod, his movements measured and deliberate. "I'll start at the wall, if you don't mind. Have your child meet me there." Without waiting for further discussion, he turned and ducked through the doorway, the soft hiss of hydraulics accompanying his departure.

Elissa exhaled slowly, counting silently under her breath—one, two, three, four, five—before muttering, "Well? What do you think, Sasha?"

The reply came immediately, a smooth, honeyed voice crackling to life from the comm system embedded in her wrist. "Oh, sugar, I've got plenty to say about that fellow. Especially about that man's augments. But for now? Thank you. I'll make sure you don't regret sticking your neck out for him."

Elissa arched an eyebrow, glancing at the comm as Sasha continued, her tone shifting to one of bright satisfaction. "By the way, I've already notified Tara. She's on her way to meet him now, and excited as all hell."

Elissa's expression tightened, her jaw setting as frustration flickered across her face. "You owe me an explanation, Sasha," she said, her voice low and firm. "No bullshit. If I'm risking my life—and the lives of everyone here—for you two, then you're going to tell me the truth."

There was a brief pause, and when Sasha spoke again, her voice was softer, edged with guilt. "...That's fair. Will you wait until Koron's awake, though? There are…parts of this story that aren't mine to tell."

Elissa hesitated, her fingers flexing as though she were holding back a sharp retort. Finally, she exhaled, the tension in her shoulders easing only slightly. "...Fine," she said at last, her tone clipped.

"Thank you," Sasha murmured, her voice warm but subdued. "For what it's worth, I'm grateful. We both are."

Elissa turned toward the open door, her gaze drifting to the distant wall where the Astartes' towering form had already disappeared from view. Beyond, the storm-battered sands stretched endlessly, their shifting dunes glowing faintly under a pale sun. The storm had passed for now, but Elissa knew the calm was only temporary.

She didn't reply to Sasha. She didn't need to. The silence that followed was answer enough.

-

Tara kept pace with the towering Salamander, though it was mostly due to his deliberate shortening of his stride to avoid forcing her to jog. Her boots crunched lightly against the sand as she glanced up at the massive figure beside her. "So, what are you scanning for anyway? There's not much here except, well… sand." Her voice was bright, her green eyes practically glowing with curiosity. Despite the grim setting, she seemed completely at ease, staring up at Kade's imposing features without a hint of fear. "And is that your vox unit? It's so much smaller than the ones we use! Where's its power supply?"

Kade glanced down at the diminutive woman walking beside him, his crimson eyes briefly flickering with what might have been amusement, helmet tapping on his belt. "You are… unusually fearless," he said, his deep voice resonating with a tempered rumble. "Most mortals react to me with awe, or fear. Have you met an Astartes before?"

Tara shook her head, her hip-length hair swaying slightly with the movement. "Nope! You're the first one ever! But since this might be the only chance I have to talk to someone like you, I figured I might as well ask a few questions." She grinned, her enthusiasm infectious. "Besides, Mom told me to help you out however I could, and a conversation seems like a good start, don't you think, Mr. Kade?"

The Salamander let out a low snort, the sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh. The corners of his lips tugged upward in a fleeting grin, though it was quickly swallowed by his usual stoic demeanor. "Mr. Kade… I have not been called that in a long, long time." His tone softened for a moment, as if the words stirred some far-off memory. Shaking his head, he refocused and reached down, handing Tara the oversized auspex scanner.

"Tell me, Miss Brandt, what do you see?"

Tara took the bulky device with both hands, her lithe fingers dancing over its controls as she adjusted to the weight. "Please, just Tara. Miss Brandt is my mom. I'm only twenty." She gave him a sheepish smile before turning her attention to the auspex. Her brows furrowed in concentration as she studied the readouts. "Let's see… hmm… looks like a standardized scanning algorithm? You're looking for unusual energy readings, material compositions, and stuff like that, right? Emperor, this thing is leagues ahead of the auspex units I've worked on before. Everything's so crisp!"

Kade tilted his head, observing her with a quiet curiosity. Despite her relative inexperience, she carried herself with a sense of eagerness and earnestness that was rare among those he encountered. He had expected awkward silence or stammered awe—but instead, he was met with genuine interest.

"You have a keen eye," he said after a pause, his tone approving. "Most of your kind wouldn't even think to identify the algorithm, let alone remark on its clarity. Perhaps there is more to you than first meets the eye, Tara."

The compliment brought a slight flush to her cheeks, though she quickly masked it with a grin. "Well, I've had a bit of practice tinkering with machines—Koron's been teaching me a lot. Still, this is next-level tech. It makes me wonder what else you've got hidden in that armor of yours."

His lips twitched slightly, almost forming another smile. "Perhaps, if you prove to be as resourceful as you seem, I may show you."

Tara looked up at him, her grin widening. "You've got yourself a deal, Mr. Kade."

"And Koron? Your mentor?" He asked, watching her work the scanner with a surprisingly deft touch.

"Yeah, he's one of the wounded, the worst one off. He's the one that turned the reactor core breach off after those little bug machines ripped it open. Nearly died doing it too." She replied, fingers pausing for a moment as she composed herself.

"A brave man then. Not many would willingly go into deaths jaws." He replied. "I hope the emperors light comes upon him."

"Me too." She softly replied before shaking off the thoughts. "A-anyway, mom said you're looking for reasons why the machines are leaving us alone, right? I don't know why, but if you have questions feel free to ask!"

Nodding, he holds out his hand, retaking the scanner. "Can you tell me what happened the first time they came?"

"Oh, sure!" Tara began, her voice animated despite the tension in her eyes. She gestured toward the wall. "We had about a dozen of the skeleton men making their way toward the gate. Spotted them from a ways off—always have someone in the watchtower." Her hand waved toward the lascannon emplacement, where the weapon's metal glinted faintly in the sun. "They weren't exactly trying to hide, you know? Picked them off quick with that gun."

Her expression shifted, the light in her eyes dimming. "Then two days later, those…" Her voice faltered, and a visible shudder rippled through her frame. "The skin-covered ones showed up. They attacked the town and—" Tara stopped mid-sentence, her breath catching. She clenched her fists at her sides, taking a long, steadying breath before continuing. "Sorry. I'm still… dealing with all of that."

Kade inclined his head, his expression softening. He said nothing, giving her the space to regain her composure.

"The militia handled most of them," she finally continued, her voice quieter now. "Mom, me, and the staff gunned down three that jumped us. Koron… he took care of the ones that got into the reactor." She swallowed hard, her voice thick with emotion. "I don't know how many there were in there, but it was a close thing. Too close."

Kade reached out, his massive hand resting lightly on her shoulder—a gesture of both reassurance and recognition. His deep voice carried a weight that spoke of shared loss and the resilience forged in hardship. "Be proud, Tara Brandt. Your people have survived where few others would have. That's no small feat."

Her lips twitched into a faint, hesitant smile, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. "Thanks, Mr. Kade. That… means a lot."

"Shall we continue?" he asked, his tone gentle but purposeful.

"Yes, please!" she said quickly, her voice brightening as she seized the opportunity to leave the grim memories behind.

As they walked, Kade's measured voice broke the brief silence. "Does the town have any unique landmarks, ancient ruins, or structures that stand out? Anything old that predates the colony itself?"

Tara frowned thoughtfully, shaking her head. "Not that I know of? But to be fair, I'm young, and it never really occurred to me to ask. If you're looking for that kind of thing, the old folks we evacuated to the city would probably know better."

Kade gave a slow, deliberate nod, as though mentally checking something off a list. "What resources exist in or beneath the town? Minerals, aquifers, energy nodes?"

"We've got an aquifer—that's where all our water comes from—but no mines or anything like that," Tara answered, her tone growing curious. "And energy nodes? What would those even look like?"

"Think concentrated energy points," Kade explained, gesturing with a gauntleted hand as if sketching the concept in the air. "Anomalous readings, high energy outputs. It could be natural or artificial."

"Oh, then no, definitely not. If we had something like that, we'd be way better off. Before Koron fixed the reactor, we were barely scraping by. The old thing was running on a trickle charge—just enough to keep the rechargers going."

Kade grunted softly, as if in understanding. "What about the town's spiritual practices?" he asked after a moment. "Are there relics or icons blessed by the Emperor? Any rituals that might hold unknown protective properties?"

Tara's brows furrowed, and she tilted her head slightly. "Not… really?" Her tone was uncertain. "Doc made sure we kept up with our prayers—always said we needed to stay strong in faith. But protective rituals? Nothing jumps out to me. Do you have an example of what you mean?"

"Icons, relics, or even particular rites tied to the Emperor's will. Sometimes blessings are hidden in plain sight," Kade replied, his tone calm but probing.

Tara thought for a moment before shaking her head again. "No, nothing like that. Honestly, if we had anything blessed, it's probably just the fact we've managed to hold on this long. Feels like a miracle some days."

Kade hummed thoughtfully, his glowing red eyes turning onto Tara, as though measuring the weight of her words. "Perhaps," he murmured, his voice low and contemplative. "Miracles take many forms… Hm." He paused, glancing toward the horizon before returning his attention to her. "Could you take me to the aquifer? I'd like to investigate something."

"Follow me!" she chirped, spinning on her heel and bounding forward. But she stopped abruptly after only three steps, turning to glance back at him with a skeptical expression, her head tilted slightly. She studied him for a moment, her sharp eyes flicking from his broad shoulders to the top of his towering frame, as though silently judging his odds against the cramped spaces below. "Mr. Kade, I don't think you're going to fit," she finally said, her tone frank. "The halls aren't really built for someone as… tall as you."

Kade's stern features softened, and for just a heartbeat, a grin crept up his face—nearly splitting his stoic demeanor before he quickly schooled his expression back into something neutral. "A fair point," he admitted, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Then would you be so kind as to retrieve a sample of the water, and some of the silt, for me?"

Tara nodded, her loose strands of auburn hair swaying as she flashed him a wide, confident grin. "Sure thing! Be right back!" she said, her voice light with excitement. Without hesitation, she turned and bolted toward the back of the hill, her boots kicking up small puffs of dust as she disappeared.

Kade watched her go, his expression unreadable. Once she was out of sight, he shifted his attention to the weathered wall at the entrance to the town, its surface pockmarked with years of makeshift repairs and scorches from past battles. With a deliberate motion, he keyed his vox.

"Sergeant Merran," Kade said, his voice cutting crisply through the channel, "status?"

A burst of static was followed by a familiar voice, the raucous laughter that carried faintly over the comms in the background. "Yes, m'lord. So far, all the scans you requested are coming back negative. We've been discreet, just like you ordered, so I don't think the locals suspect anything. However…" The laughter on the other end died down, replaced by a hint of seriousness. "There are two things of note, sir."

Kade's brow furrowed beneath his helm. "What are they?"

"The wall," Merran began, his tone matter-of-fact. "It's got these… small balls embedded all over it. Tech I've never seen before. We recorded everything; the data's been added to your video buffer for review. The second thing? Their lasguns."

Kade arched an eyebrow, his interest piqued. "What about their lasguns?"

"Well, we made some bets with the locals," Merran said "Wanted to see what kind of training they had. Turns out, they're good shots—real good, sir. Clearly used to fighting, which isn't surprising out here with the orks and raiders. But their weapons…" He hesitated, as though trying to find the right words. "M'lord, their lasguns put ours to shame. Night and day difference."

"Explain," Kade pressed, his voice tightening.

"We asked around—got a few drinks into them," Merran admitted with a low chuckle. "Turns out, someone named Koron upgraded them. He's their tech-savvy man, from what I gathered."

"Koron…" Kade's voice trailed off as he mulled over the name, filing it away for further consideration, this being the third time he was mentioned. "I see. Excellent work, Sergeant. Continue as ordered and report back if anything else arises."

"Yes, sir!" Merran's reply came crisp and assured before the vox clicked off.

Kade lingered for a moment, his gaze fixed on the horizon where Tara had disappeared. The wind whispered through the wet sand, carrying with it the faint metallic tang of the settlement's defenses and the distant echo of human resilience. Something about this town and its people gnawed at the edge of his thoughts. There was more here—he was certain of it. He would find the answers, even if they were buried deep beneath the surface.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Eleven

-

Looking up from the microscope, Doc shook her head. "I'm not seeing anything unusual. Are you sure about the readings?"

Kade held out the auspex, its screen blinking with diagnostic data. "I am certain. Trace amounts of blackstone in your settlement's water supply—likely from deep below the aquifer."

Elissa glanced between them; arms crossed. "Alright, for those of us without a fancy education—what the hell is blackstone?"

Doc exhaled, rubbing her temple before answering. "It's a material the Necrons use to build their structures." She turned to Kade, handing back the auspex. "You think that's why the xenos are avoiding us? To keep from damaging the blackstone ore?"

Kade's massive pauldrons creaked as he shifted his weight. "I do not know. If they wanted the blackstone, they would have marched in here and put you all to the sword. None of this makes sense."

Elissa spun the end of her braid between her fingers, her brow furrowed. "Alright, so we've got a lot of theories and no real answers. At this point, I don't care why they're ignoring us—I just want to get out of here." She turned to Doc. "I hate to say it, but we can't wait for Koron to stabilize. We need to leave. Tonight."

Doc's gaze flickered toward the shielded curtain where Koron lay. After a long pause, she sighed and nodded. "I hate to agree, but you're right. We can't hold everyone back for one man. My recommendation? Evacuate the bulk of the settlement in the Thunderhawk. The rest can take the Lighter. I'll have Koron on board since he'll take up the most space with the medical equipment."

Elissa gave a sharp nod and stood, adjusting her hat. "Good. I'll spread the word. We leave in an hour. That acceptable, m'lord?"

Kade inclined his head. "Indeed. My men will assist."

"Appreciated."

-

Evacuations were usually a mess—panic-stricken civilians scrambling to hoard their belongings, slowing everything down in the process.

Not here.

Dusthaven's people had long prepared for this moment, whether it meant fleeing or fighting. They moved with practiced efficiency, marching into the Thunderhawk with their gear secured and their minds set.

Elissa settled into her seat, fastening the harness tight across her chest. Tara and Kala flanked her, their expressions tense but steady. Outside, Doc directed the wounded into the Lighter, Koron the last to be loaded, still unconscious on a stretcher.

Kala reached over, gripping Elissa's hand. Her fingers were cold.

The engines roared to life, vibrations thrumming through the hull as the Thunderhawk lifted off the ground. The heavy inertia pressed them into their seats—

Then came the shot.

A deafening crack split the air, and the ship lurched violently, alarms shrieking as Elissa was slammed back into her harness, pain blooming like fire on the back of her head. Her stomach dropped as the aircraft spun, metal groaning under the sudden loss of stability.

Another impact.

The Thunderhawk spiraled sideways, a fiery explosion rippling across the right engine. They barely cleared the ground before the damaged transport slammed back down, skidding hard across the dirt before grinding to a halt.

The moment the world stopped spinning, Kade's voice boomed down the corridor. "Unstrap and move! Now!"

Elissa's vision blurred, pain radiating down her spine as she fumbled with her harness. Hands grabbed at her, hauling her upright as heat washed over her face. The far wall flickered with firelight, smoke billowing as the air filled with shouted orders and panicked breathing.

She stumbled out of the wreckage, head pounding. The moment her eyes adjusted; her stomach turned to ice.

The Thunderhawk's right engine was ablaze, spewing thick, black smoke into the night. Twin holes had been punched clean through the fuselage, the metal edges glowing an eerie neon green.

She barely had time to process before Kade thundered past, an unconscious man over his shoulder. He handed the body off to waiting hands before whirling toward the assembled settlers, voice like a war drum.

"To arms!" He roared, pointing toward the outskirts of town and the shifting darkness beyond.

"The enemy is upon us!"

-

Thundering footsteps carried Kade to the wall, the militia scrambling behind him as green energy beams streaked overhead. For the average soldier, the battlements provided ample cover—rifles thrust through the firing ports, pouring a mix of crimson and white lasfire into the night.

For Kade, however, the walls barely reached his chest. He was forced to duck with a curse as several gauss blasts speared toward his exposed frame, hissing as they passed inches from his armor. That brief glimpse beyond the barricade, however, told him everything he needed to know.

High above, the crescent silhouette of a Night Scythe hovered, its sleek form wreathed in shimmering green light. The swirling energies of its deployment gate pulsed in steady rhythm, warriors spilling forth in crackling displays of Necron translocation. Already, sixty of the skeletal foot soldiers had been deployed, their eerie, metallic bodies illuminated by the emerald glow of their weapons. Each blast gouged deep scars into the fortress walls, the armor plating blackening under the withering fire.

But it was not the warriors that commanded Kade's attention.

A trio of Destroyers skittered across the sand, their hunched, predatory forms advancing with terrifying speed. Nightmarish, their arms bore hyperphase weapons that shimmered with disruptive energy, forming crude, ad-hoc shields against the incoming fire. Their multi-jointed legs scrambled against the wet sand, slowed but relentless, closing the distance toward the gate.

Kade's bolter roared, each shot reverberating through his armor as explosive rounds found their mark. But against these monstrosities, the damage was minimal—superficial wounds that barely slowed them. The Destroyers absorbed the impacts, their arms protecting their vital components as they slammed into the gate.

Metal shrieked as their blades carved into the adamantine doors. Sparks flew as the phase-shifted weapons bypassed conventional matter, cutting into the thick plates, eager to reach the reinforced hinges. Thankfully, the gate had been built to withstand raiders, Orks, and the various horrors of the desert sea—but even still, it would not hold long.

Worse, the Destroyers' proximity to the wall created a new problem. From their elevated positions, the militia could not fire down without exposing themselves to the Necron warriors beyond. Kade knew hesitation would cost them everything.

"Stand fast!" he barked, before leaping from the battlements down into the town, racing towards the gate. Sand kicked up around his boots, but he was already moving, bolter raised.

Above him, the militia poured fire into the Necron ranks, their lasbolts striking true. Warriors crumpled, their bodies convulsing as the augmented firepower burned out the eldritch energy animating them. Yet for every one that fell, two more emerged from the Night Scythe's eerie green gate.

A gauss beam sliced through one of the fortress plates. Then another. The searing green energy didn't simply melt the metal—it ripped its atoms apart, disintegrating layers of the fortress like parchment.

Still, the defenders held.

Whatever had triggered this assault, it was no longer a matter of caution. The Necrons were done observing. They had come to erase them.

-

Deep within his blackened sanctum, Orykhal observed the battle through cascading data-streams, his consciousness divided across a thousand battlefronts.

The slow, inevitable march of the machine eroded the weakness of flesh. Even with the Astartes' intervention, their numbers were too few to be anything more than a minor obstacle. They fought, they adapted, they delayed. But that was all it was—a delay.

Every time the Salamanders committed their strength to one area, Orykhal shifted his assault to another, exploiting gaps, forcing the humans into an endless defensive spiral. For all their vaunted resilience, they were still organic.

They would tire.
They would bleed.
They would fail.

And all the while, his legions continued to grind down their feeble human armies.

Yet, one obstacle remained: the Titans.

Massive, over-engineered behemoths, their weapons sheared through entire Necron phalanxes, melting legions of warriors into slag. Inefficient as they were, their firepower was undeniable, their mere presence a thorn in his otherwise flawless campaign.

But time was on his side. His energy cores were nearing full reactivation—sooner than the humans suspected.

As he orchestrated the battle, a flicker of data—nothing more than a stray notification—demanded a fraction of his vast intellect.

Escape attempt detected.

Orykhal's glowing optics pulsed.

"Escape?" he echoed, his voice a cold mechanical whisper, the barest hint of amusement. "No no, not until I see more. Show me anomalies, what other secrets you hold."

Data without completion was worthless. A half-finished experiment, a hypothesis untested. Their value was not in fleeing, but in understanding.

With a mere flicker of thought, he sent out the command.

The sky would burn before they left this world.

And then, he returned his attention to the war at large.

-

A sharp sting bit into Elissa's thigh as Doc jabbed her with a hypo, the cold rush of the drug flooding her system. Within seconds, the fog clouding her mind began to lift. Before she could fully steady herself, Doc seized her bicep and hauled her to her feet, pressing her rifle into her hands.

"Girls, get your mom into cover and keep her down!" Doc ordered, her tone leaving no room for argument. "She'll need another minute to recover!"

Tara and Kala moved immediately, guiding Elissa toward the nearest barricade as the Sister of Battle turned back to the fight, slipping into position near the gate. Her silver-plated armor gleamed under the flickering firelight as she raised her bolter, keeping her sights locked on the breach.

The Destroyers tore into the gate with mechanical precision, their jade-hued blades carving deep into the adamantine layers. Sparks flared as the militia poured suppressive fire on the Necron warriors beyond, desperately holding the tide at bay. But it wouldn't last. The gate was failing.

Then, the breach.

A segmented limb punched through the shattered plating, its hyperphase blade lashing wildly. Doc fired immediately, bolter rounds hammering into the exposed limb. The first few rounds deflected harmlessly off the shimmering energy field surrounding the blade, but a lucky shot struck the Destroyer's shoulder, cracking the necrodermis and sending a pulse of emerald light flickering from the wound. The xenos machine barely faltered.

"Do you have any explosives?" Kade's voice cut through the chaos, calm but edged with tension.

"Only four frags!" Doc called back, shifting position for a clearer shot. "You have any kraks?"

"Two, the rest are frags." Kade replied from his cover behind a collapsed wall.

Kala's voice crackled over the vox. "We still have the old mining charges! Only four, but—"

"Get them!" Doc snapped. "And hurry!"

Kala hesitated only long enough to squeeze her mother's hand. "Take care of her, I'll be right back." Then she was gone, sprinting toward the storage shed repurposed as an ammo cache.

Tara's grip tightened around her rifle as she knelt beside Elissa, torn between watching the gate and glancing toward the direction Kala had disappeared. Jaw clenched, she forced herself to focus. Her fingers moved automatically as she muttered the clearing sequence Koron had drilled into her—step by step, breath by breath.

The gate groaned under the relentless assault. Time was running out.

Seconds dragged by, punctuated by the crack of lasfire and the thunderous retorts of bolters. They poured everything they had into the enemy, chipping away at the advancing Destroyers inch by inch. Yet, with each sweep of their phase blades, the Necrons peeled back more of the gate, carving through adamantine as if it were mere scrap.

The breach widened. Warped metal groaned under the weight of the cybernetic monstrosities as they slammed into it, their segmented limbs ramming the plates inward. Their gleaming blades cut in wide, defensive arcs, deflecting the incoming barrage as they forced their way through.

Doc's fingers tightened around a grenade at her belt. She tracked their movement, waiting for the perfect moment—the second they clustered together just beyond the breach.

"Doc!"

Kala's voice rang out over the chaos, cutting through the staccato rhythm of gunfire and the sickening hum of gauss weaponry. Sprinting down the street, she clutched four bricks of explosives, detcord dangling.

Doc snatched them from her outstretched hands without hesitation, already working to set the charges. Her fingers moved with practiced efficiency, wrapping detonation cords with the muscle memory of years in the field.

"How long?" Kade's voice rumbled over the din, his bolter still firing in disciplined bursts, every round striking true but barely slowing the relentless advance.

"Twenty seconds!" Doc shouted back, not looking up from her work.

"Unlikely," Kade replied, ejecting a spent magazine and slamming in another. "But I shall try."

He turned back to the breach, bracing himself as the final layers of the gate began to give way.

With a flick of his wrist, a frag grenade sailed through the opening. His bolter barked, the round striking midair just as the explosive cleared the threshold. The blast rocked the Destroyers, shrapnel pinging off their bodies in a shower of warped metal.

For a few precious seconds, they hesitated—wary of yet more traps.

But self-preservation was not much of a factor in their cold, mechanical calculations. They existed only to purge, to exterminate.

As one, the three slammed into the gates, the metal at last giving way with a tortured shriek.

They were met by a lump of grey clay, the detonators blinking twice before the charges blew.

A fireball ripped through the wreckage, kinetic force warping the Destroyers' bodies as cracks raced through their frames. Before the dust had even settled, everyone opened fire, bolter rounds and lasfire slamming into the reeling machines.

The centermost Destroyer crumbled under the barrage, its chassis rupturing as explosive rounds shredded its carapace. But the remaining two surged forward, undeterred. One split off toward Kade, its optics locking onto him with lethal intent, while the other leapt toward Doc and Kala, phase blades raised high.

-

Without missing a beat, Kade strafed right, drawing the three-legged monstrosity away from the others. His bolter snapped off a controlled burst, but the Destroyer was faster. Its left arm swung in a sharp, lethal arc, aimed to cleave him in two.

Kade flung himself forward into a tight roll, feeling the back of his armored boot shear away as the hyperphase blade passed a fraction too close. Coming up on one knee, he braced his bolter against his thigh and squeezed the trigger.

The Destroyer raised its arm to shield itself, but the real strike had already landed—behind it, a grenade Kade had dropped mid-roll detonated with a concussive crack.

The machine staggered, its rear leg, already damaged from the mining charges, blasted away in a mess of shattered necrodermis. It struggled to recalibrate, arms waving to compensate, but in doing so, left its chest exposed. Kade didn't hesitate. His bolter roared, each shot punching deeper until the Destroyer crumpled.

It twitched once.

Kade put a round through its skull. Just in case.

-

Doc threw herself through a doorway in a shower of splintered wood, half a second ahead of the jade blade that carved through the air where she'd been standing. The Destroyer crashed onto the roof, metallic feet tap-tap-tapping as it pursued, punching through the structure with terrifying ease.

Scrambling to her feet, she sprinted for the back door, but her lead bled away as the Necron smashed through the walls, carving a direct path. The narrow hallway bottlenecked its movements, but it was cutting through fast.

Doc didn't stop. A window shattered as she put her augmented boot through it, muttering an apology to whoever's home she was wrecking before vaulting into the dusty street.

Keying her vox, she barked, "Could use some help here! This bastard's still on my tail!"

A moment later, the wall behind her exploded in a shower of ferrocrete, the Necron howling something in its alien tongue as it charged.

A trio of white-hot lasbolts slammed into its flank from across the street—Tara, Kala and Elissa, weapons locked in full-auto. The Destroyer reeled, its ribcage cracking under the onslaught. Doc's bolter thundered in concert, punching deep into its failing necrodermis.

Gasping for breath, Doc twitched as Elissa fired three more shots into its gaping chest. The last lights in its optics flickered, then died. Its body began to dissolve, vanishing into nothing.

Doc groaned as she stood. "Thanks, ladies."

Elissa ejected her spent cell, slapping in a fresh one with a practiced hand. "Fights not over." She gestured to the shattered gate. "They're still coming."

-

The wall held firm, even with the gate torn asunder. From the battlements, the defenders unleashed an ocean of fire, cutting down the advancing Necron warriors in tangled heaps of metal and glowing circuitry. Again and again, they fell, but the relentless tide did not break. Each pulse of jade energy from the return fire carved glowing scars into the armored plates, metal sizzling as it weakened under the onslaught.

One by one, the plates began to buckle.

Elissa pushed through the haze of lingering pain, forcing herself to ignore the throbbing ache in her skull as she and her daughters followed closely behind Doc. The four sprinted toward the front line, the thundering steps of Kade closing in from the flank. Her fingers fumbled at her vox, ready to rally what remained of her people—

Then, a shadow fell over them.

A black crescent, sleek and ominous, cut through the dust-choked sky.

Elissa barely had time to react before the Night Scythe's guns fired.

Twin beams of searing emerald light crashed into the wall, lingering for a heartbeat—one second, two, three—before the armor gave way. Ferrocrete vaporized in an instant, the plates melting into slag beneath the withering energy. Jagged arcs of electric discharge coursed outward, tendrils of lightning lashing hungrily across stone and flesh alike.

In another time, another place, it might have been beautiful.

The lattice of energy spread like a living thing, reducing everything it touched to nothing. Adamantine liquefied, ferrocrete crumbled to dust, and her soldiers—her people—were unmade, scattered to the wind before they could even scream.

Dust and smoke swallowed the world.

Elissa stumbled, coughing as the acrid air burned her lungs. She staggered blindly, reaching out, searching—before a massive, armored hand closed around her arm and yanked her back.

Blinking away the stinging grit, she turned, gasping, only to see the Night Scythe pivot in the sky, its guns angling downward—toward her and Kade.

Time slowed.

She couldn't run. She couldn't fight. There was no cover, no hope.

Elissa closed her eyes.

Emperor, watch over my children in my stead.

The world exploded with light—

—but she felt nothing.

No agony. No searing heat.

Only the rush of wind and the deep, rumbling voice of the Astartes beside her.

"What in the name of Vulkan…?"

The awe in Kade's voice made her open her eyes.

The Night Scythe's terrible lightning crackled through the air—but it never touched them. The lethal energy dispersed into nothing, scattering in thin arcs of harmless static across a faint blue field that hung in midair.

And then she saw them—

The tiny, pulsing orbs embedded in the shattered wall, each glowing with a pale, flickering blue.

Her gaze followed the power cables snaking across the sand, trailing toward—

Koron.

Coated in sand and dust, clad in nothing but a thin hospital shift now soaked in blood, he lay on his stomach, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His right hand clutched the severed cables, the exposed wiring wrapped tightly around his fingers, sparks dancing along his metal flesh. His right eye was swollen shut, his face pale with strain, but still, he turned his head just enough to meet her gaze.

Then he shouted.

"Marine! The orange cable up the street! Get it to me, now!"

Kade didn't hesitate. He turned and sprinted, sand showering in his wake as he barreled toward the network of power lines they had laid to reinforce the fortifications.

The Night Scythe fired again.

The shimmering blue field flared, drinking in the lethal attack—but Elissa saw the toll it was taking.

Koron convulsed, his muscles locking up as smoke curled from his cybernetic arms and spinal plate. His breath hitched, his body twitching as the strain of whatever he was doing burned through him, yet still, he held on.

Elissa clenched her fists, her heart pounding as she tore her eyes from him and up to the sky.

The Necron craft hovered, circling like a predator seeking an opening.

They had only moments before it struck again.

-

For all his size, Kade was quick on his feet, but quicker still was his mind. His mental map of the battlefield was precise, he had seen the cables running from the dead reactor to the wall's fortifications, their paths burned into his memory.

His gaze locked onto the tangled mess of wires snaking along the street, the bright orange cable standing out like a beacon. Seizing it in one powerful hand, he traced its length, realization dawning in his blood-red eyes. With a sharp yank, he ripped it free, feeling the resistance as it tore away from its moorings.

He turned just in time to see the Necron flyer unleash another barrage. The protective field still held, but it flickered, its once-solid glow pulsing erratically.

No time.

Kade hurled himself down the street, his body shifting into an all-out sprint, every fiber of muscle—both organic and cybernetic—driving toward a singular purpose. Get the cable to the stranger.

Overhead, the flyer fired again. This time, the energy field failed to fully absorb the attack. Stray bolts of jade lightning lashed out wildly, searing through the air and charring everything they touched.

The barrier wouldn't last another hit.

Lasfire erupted from the surviving militia, white-hot beams streaking skyward as they raked the ship with everything they had. The Necron craft endured the assault with impassive resilience, its armored hull shrugging off the futile resistance. But the distraction was enough to momentarily delay its wrath.

That moment was all it needed.

With a high-pitched whine, the flyer's cannons powered up once more. The field shattered in a blinding explosion of crackling blue energy, the blast ripping through the exposed defenders.

Men died mid-scream, their bodies disintegrated in an instant, reduced to mere ghosts of ash.

Kade roared in defiance, pushing harder, his armored boots gouging the sand as he sprinted. He called out to his father, to Vulkan, for just a fraction more speed. If he could save even one life—just one—he would take the pain, the fire in his lungs, the ache in his limbs, a thousandfold if needed.

Another burst of Necron fire tore through the village, raking across rooftops and walls. Buildings crumbled beneath the onslaught, their ferrocrete shells splintering apart in jagged ruin.

Kade rounded the last corner.

Against the wall of a shattered building, Koron lay broken and smoking, half-conscious but still gripping the power conduits in metal hands. The four women huddled beside him in cover, their weapons raised in defiance, despite the hopelessness.

Kade wasted no words. He slammed the severed cable into Koron's hands.

The man barely blinked before lightning cascaded between the exposed wires, energy crackling wildly. He convulsed, eyes flying open as raw power surged through his battered body.

He drew in a single, ragged breath. And then—

"MILO!"

The desperate scream rang out across the battlefield.

High above, perched in the skeletal remains of the watchtower, Milo moved.

His right hand was shattered, fingers twisted and swollen. His left was missing two fingers, bleeding sluggishly onto the control panel.

But it was enough.

The lascannon's barrel exploded, metal and crystal shards detonating outward in a shower of destruction. The overcharged beam—normally a deep purple with a white-hot core—burst forth in a brilliant nova of pure white light, its energy tearing through the air like a vengeful comet.

The Necron pilot had only a fraction of a second to react.

It wasn't enough.

The beam punched through the heart of the craft, melting through its blackened hull like wax before a flame. The immortal within was slagged, its skeletal body disintegrated in an instant as molten metal poured from the wound.

The ship lurched, its systems failing all at once, trailing fire as it spiraled downward.

Then—impact.

The crash sent a shockwave through the sand, a plume of dust and wreckage rising like a funeral pyre.

The Necron guns at last fell silent.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twelve

-

Slumped against the shattered remains of a wall, Elissa fought to steady her breath. Her heart pounded against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that refused to settle.

Nearby, Tara tilted a canteen toward Koron's lips. More water spilled down his chest than into his mouth as he gasped for air, the scent of burnt flesh and scorched metal still clinging to him. Wisps of smoke curled from his arms, remnants of the battle they had barely survived.

Kade, Doc, and Kala had dispersed in search of survivors—Doc heading toward the watchtower to retrieve Milo. Kade had offered, but Doc, not unkindly, pointed out that his sheer bulk might bring the whole structure crashing down.

One by one, the remaining townspeople trickled in, huddling together in the thin shade of the ruined settlement. Dust and dried blood clung to them, their silence heavier than any words could be.

Too soon, Kade returned, shaking his head.

"I'm not picking up any more lifesigns," he muttered, lowering himself onto one knee before Elissa. "Aside from us… there are twenty-four survivors in total."

The words landed like a hammer to the gut.

Twenty-four. Out of a hundred and ten.

Elissa's fingers curled into her palms, nails biting into flesh. The weight of the number pressed on her chest, cold and suffocating. She tilted her face upward toward the cavern ceiling, blinking hard. She wouldn't break. Not here. Not now.

Several seconds passed before she forced her hands open, barely noticing the thin smears of blood on her stubby fingernails.

"Okay… okay." Her voice wavered, but she pushed through it. "We—uh—we need to get out of here. Can your ship still fly?"

Kade gave a short nod. "Yes. I'll get it started." Without another word, he rose and strode toward the askew Thunderhawk.

Elissa curled inward, pressing her forehead against her knees. A tremor ran through her shoulders—just once, just enough to let the weight of it all settle before she shoved it down.

A warmth pressed against her side, soft and steady.

Tara leaned into her, resting her head on her mother's shoulder.

Elissa exhaled, wrapping an arm around her daughter, pulling her close. They sat in silence, bound by exhaustion, grief, and the unspoken promise of moving forward.

The distant whine of the Thunderhawk's engines spiraling to life pulled her back to the moment.

Elissa squeezed Tara's shoulder once before pushing herself to her feet. The others were watching, waiting. They needed certainty, not doubt. She straightened, forcing steel into her spine and swallowing the lump in her throat.

"Let's go."

Slowly, the survivors stirred, helping one another to their feet as they moved toward the ship. The Thunderhawk's passenger bay, once overcrowded and suffocating, now felt vast and empty. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, too few for what had once been a bustling settlement.

Her daughters moved through the cabin, checking restraints, offering quiet reassurances. Elissa stood at the ramp as it began to close, the engines kicking up a storm of sand, dust… and the dead.

Her braid whipped in the wind as she took one final look at what remained of her home.

Her fingers clenched at her sides. "I'm sorry," she whispered. The ashes of Dusthaven swirled in the ship's wake, the remnants of a life turned to ruin. She swallowed hard against the grief clawing at her throat. "We'll make this right. I swear it."

Taking a steadying breath, she turned and strapped herself in. The ship angled upward, breaching the sky, leaving Dusthaven behind.

-

As the Thunderhawk climbed through the upper layers of the atmosphere, it fell into formation with the Lighter, the looming forge-city of Anaxis growing larger in the distance. Beneath Elissa's boots, the ship's hull thrummed, turbulence rattling through the cabin like distant thunder.

Her gaze drifted across the bay, settling on Koron.

Even battered and bruised, his one unswollen eye found hers. He lifted a hand to give a tired wave before offering a thumbs-up.

She keyed her vox to a private channel, keeping her voice low. "How you doing?"

"I think I should be asking you that." His voice was rough, jagged, like glass ground over steel. "But I'm okay. Sasha filled me in. I'm sorry… I wasn't able to help."

A ghost of a smile flickered at the edge of her lips. "You were half-dead from stopping a reactor meltdown at the time."

A short laugh escaped him, only to collapse into a pained cough. He pressed a hand to his ribs, grimacing. "Yeah… would've looked bad on my work history if I let that happen."

The moment of levity passed too quickly, replaced by the crushing weight of reality.

"Hey." His voice was steady despite the pain. "I won't give you some empty platitude. But you were in an impossible situation. And people got out because of you."

Elissa's jaw tightened. Her fingers curled around the seat's harness as a flare of white-hot anger surged through her gut.

"It's also my fault they're dead." The words escaped on a breath, raw and unforgiving. "If I had—" Her throat tightened. "I should have done better. Left earlier. Gotten more out sooner."

"Maybe." His reply was maddeningly calm. "Or maybe the bastards would've attacked the moment we started moving. We don't know why they waited. Why they let us be as long as they did."

His gaze never wavered.

"Don't take the blame for something you couldn't have known."

Elissa inhaled sharply, held it, then let it go. "Koron, I appreciate it, but can we just not talk about this right now?"

Koron sighed, shifting against the bulkhead. "Sure thing, El." His voice was quiet—understanding, but unshaken. She turned away, eyes fixed on the floor, but the weight of his words lingered.

Silence settled between them, thick, but not oppressive. After a long pause, Elissa finally spoke, her voice quieter than before. "Speaking of Sasha—where was she? I thought she was running overwatch. How did the bastards manage to slip past her?"

"They hit her first," Koron said, his tone edged with something unreadable. "Tracked her somehow and hit her hard. From what she told me, she spent most of that fight locked in her own battle—and it wasn't easy."

A faint burst of static preceded Sasha's voice crackling over the vox. "I'm sorry, sugar. I ain't what I used to be. Today… made that painfully clear."

Elissa's frown deepened, unease curling in her stomach. "Not what you used to be? Sasha, what happened?"

Sasha hesitated for a fraction too long. "It's part of the story we owe you," she said at last. "I haven't forgotten. We'll explain everything once we have some time."

Elissa exhaled, frustration flickering across her face. "You mean like right now?"

A soft chuckle tinged Sasha's reply, but there was no humor in it. "Darlin', we're gonna need more than fifteen minutes to tell this story."

Elissa sighed, rubbing at her temples before glancing at her side. Kala's small hand rested in hers, the girl's breath slow and even as she slept, the steady roar of the Thunderhawk masking the sound of her soft snores. Elissa gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, giving herself a moment.

"All the same," she murmured, "thank you. You saved us."

Koron's voice came quiet but steady. "No," he corrected. "We saved each other. That's what matters."

-

Kade observed the familiar spectacle of survivors reuniting—grief-stricken embraces, the anguished cries of those who had lost loved ones. No matter the epoch or the species, the emotions of loss and mourning remained constant.

The Salamanders, as a Chapter, had long internalized this truth. Unlike many other Astartes, who had distanced themselves from the weight of mortality, they carried the burden of empathy as both a strength and a curse.

Nearby, the Interrogator conferred quietly with senior Magi, disentangling the bureaucratic complications that had arisen in their absence. Kade paid them little heed, his attention fixed on the vox as his battle-brothers relayed reports from the ongoing skirmishes against the xenos.

The Necrons had not deployed their full strength. Instead, they conducted a war of attrition—hit-and-run strikes, utilizing teleportation grids and Night Scythes to evade direct engagements. It was a strategy of patience, one designed to bleed their foes dry before striking decisively.

As Kade processed the reports, movement at the crowd's periphery caught his attention. The techmonger was returning, his stride uneven, a residual limp betraying his injuries. Despite the damage to his carapace armor, its craftsmanship remained apparent, the pale blue plating stark against the muted browns and grays of the gathered survivors.

Kade stepped forward, his heavy tread deliberate. Even among ordinary men, Koron was imposing. Yet compared to an Astartes, he was merely chest-high. The crimson glow of Kade's visor locked onto Koron's opaque helmet.

"Well met," Kade intoned. "I've heard much about you, Koron."

Koron paused before responding, his voice measured. "Well met, Marine. You have me at a disadvantage—what is your name?"

"Sergeant Vulkanis Kade." The greeting was perfunctory, bereft of warmth. "I will be direct. I have questions regarding the technology employed in the defense of your settlement—specifically, the field emitter and the lasrifles."

Kade had faced the great drakes of Nocturne. He knew this moment well—the quiet recognition between predator and prey, the sharpening of reality as violence loomed just beneath the surface. It was an exchange not of words, but of presence.

Predators did not always announce themselves. They did not roar or charge blindly. Instead, they waited—still, coiled, a force barely restrained. The absence of movement was, itself, the warning.

That same presence now settled over Koron.

He had not shifted, had not braced himself, had not exhibited even the subtlest signs of tension.

Yet Kade felt it.

Like the first trace of heat before an inferno, the breathless moment before a strike.

Something within Koron had switched on.

Not as an act of defense. Not as an act of aggression.

Simply complete, utter focus.

Kade's muscles tensed instinctively. His fingers curled, his breath slowed. This was the reaction to something inherently dangerous taking him seriously.

Koron's posture remained carefully neutral. That was the problem. The stillness was unnatural, deliberate.

Not hesitation. Not uncertainty.

Calculation.

The man was injured, weary, still bearing the weight of battle. But beneath that exterior, Kade sensed something tempered. Something cold.

A certainty lodged itself in Kade's gut.

Koron was not grasping for explanations.

He was not grasping at all.

He had already seized control of the conversation before it had begun.

And Kade was uncertain when that had happened.

But the Salamanders were known for many things—unyielding resolve foremost among them.

Kade exhaled slowly, centering himself. "The lasrifles used by your militia—where did you acquire them?"

Koron answered immediately, his tone smooth. "They were already in Dusthaven's armory when I arrived. I assumed Elissa sourced them through trade or salvage. The town has a long history—I doubt even she knows the origin of everything in its stockpile."

Beneath his helmet, Kade frowned. "And the field emitter? That was of Imperial origin?"

"As far as I know," Koron replied evenly. "I received the components from a Magos named Ferral-Ka when Doc and I first arrived to warn them of the Necron threat."

Kade's skepticism could have smothered a sun. "A Magos entrusted you with Necron-resistant field technology?"

Koron's expression remained concealed, his voice unwavering. "I was just as surprised as you are. But he seemed eager to observe its performance. I assumed it was an experimental design, and given the circumstances, I had no reason to refuse it."

Kade filed the name away for further scrutiny. "You identify as a techmonger, not a soldier. Where did you receive your training with the Mechanicus?"

Koron did not hesitate. "Here and there. I had mentors, but no formal education. Just learning what was necessary to survive."

Kade stepped forward, the sheer weight of his presence casting a shadow over Koron, dwarfing him further.

"What are you withholding?" Kade pressed.

Koron's opaque visor betrayed nothing.

"I apologize, Sergeant," he replied smoothly. "But I do not understand your meaning. Have I not answered every question posed to me?"

"You have." Kade let the words linger. "Precisely, in fact."

"Then if there is something further you wish to ask, I remain at your disposal."

A long pause.

"The men of your settlement claimed you modified their weaponry. Did you?"

"If by 'modified' you mean repaired them from near-useless to functional, then yes."

"And you made no other alterations?"

"Not in any meaningful way."

Silence stretched between them. Kade's instincts screamed that something was being omitted. Yet instinct alone was insufficient.

At last, he gave a slow nod. "Very well. Thank you for your time."

Koron inclined his head slightly. "Of course, Sergeant."

Kade turned on his heel, striding back toward the Interrogator. The conversation replayed itself in his mind, a puzzle demanding deconstruction.

He was no diplomat, no wordsmith.

But he was no fool either.

He would sift through the ashes of Koron's words.

Somewhere within them, the truth lay smoldering.

-

Doc's argent visor reflected the dim sunlight filtering through the thick pollution, casting an eerie glow beneath the sickly green Necron-infused clouds. She stood firm, arms crossed, her tone edged with steel. "Frankly, Magos, I don't particularly care if you consider them menials, low priority, or anything else. They are few enough in number to be no burden, and you have more pressing concerns than harassing me about my personnel."

"With all due respect, Interrogator, the Omnissiah's sacred works take precedence over the works of flesh," the Magos intoned. "The forge world's data-racks are of far greater importance and should be evacuated first."

Before Doc could respond with a scathing retort -one informing the Magos exactly where he could put his data-racks- a piercing alert chirped in her headset. The same signal echoed through Kade's comms and those of the surrounding tech-priests. A cold, mechanical voice followed, devoid of emotion:

Warning. Xenos spacecraft detected.

A ripple of disbelief coursed through the gathered crowd, their heads tilting skyward in unison. The air thickened, crackling with the weight of impending catastrophe.

Doc's pulse quickened as her visor adjusted to the blinding emerald glow above. A crescent-shaped hull loomed in the sky, sleek and predatory, slicing through the darkness like an executioner's blade, the long thin body protruding behind, while three fins extended from its center to form a perfect triangle.

She knew that silhouette all too well.

A Harvest Ship.

A vessel designed for a singular purpose—to strip entire worlds of life.

It took battlecruisers to bring down ships of that magnitude.

And the strongest Imperial vessel above them was only a battle-barge.

Doc didn't glance at Kade. She didn't dare take her eyes off the lances of jade energy ripping through the Imperial fleet, the sickly beams carving through void shields and armor alike. The Salamander ships bore the brunt of the assault, enduring as they always did—but even they could not last forever.

Slowly, deliberately, she removed her helmet. The silver helm slipped from her fingers as she sank onto a nearby crate, pressing her hands to her face.

The murmurs of the crowd escalated into frantic whispers, then half-shouted demands for answers.

A hand settled on her shoulder.

"Doc, what's wrong? What's happening?" Elissa's voice was steady, though Doc could hear the fear beneath it.

She couldn't bring herself to respond.

Kade did.

"A capital-class enemy ship. One my brothers above will not be able to defeat." His voice carried the weary weight of a man who had seen too many battles end in failure. "They will be forced to choose—die here or abandon us below. Captain Tavos will hold as long as possible, but once the outcome is certain, he will withdraw."

His armored helm turned toward Elissa, unreadable.

"We have an hour at most before he is forced to retreat. When he does, the city will burn in his wake, denying the xenos their prize."

Elissa's heart pounded. She swallowed, her throat dry. "Is… is there any chance we can still escape to them?"

A metallic voice rasped from behind her, its cadence like a saw grating against metal.

"Xenos fighter craft are swarming the fleet. Probability of successful docking with the Forge Tender is at… seven-point-three percent."

Elissa's stomach twisted. She turned, scanning the faces around her, desperate for an alternative.

"So that's it? Nothing we can do? Won't we even try? Seven percent isn't zero—we can still make it!"

Kade studied her for a long moment before inclining his head.

"Your resolve… is worthy of a Salamander." He reached up, removing his helmet. "If you truly wish to make the attempt, I will carry you and your people."

Before Elissa could respond, a sharp crack rang out—metal against metal.

Her head snapped toward the sound.

It came from the nearby shipping containers. A dull, echoing boom followed. Then another.

She rounded the corner alongside Kade—

And froze.

Koron stood rigid before the battered plating, his fists hammering into the dented metal with relentless force. Each strike sent a dull reverberation through the air, his breathing ragged, uneven. Every exhale carried the weight of something unspoken, something festering just beneath the surface. His movements, erratic and uncoordinated, bore no resemblance to the deliberate, calculated precision Elissa had come to expect from him. The space around him felt charged, as if the very air held its breath, waiting for him to shatter.

Another strike. Another. The steel bore the evidence of his fury—deep indentations where knuckles met metal.

"Koron!" Elissa's voice sliced through the thick silence. "What's wrong?"

He froze mid-motion, shoulders rising and falling in heavy, uneven bursts. His fists remained pressed against the plating, fingers curled inward as though bracing for something unseen.

His helmet turned toward her, the visor dark, unreadable.

"Nothing," he rasped.

A feeble, transparent lie.

Elissa took a step closer, but he remained rooted in place, his grip tightening against the plating. She could see the tremor in his fingers, the way his shoulders locked as though he were holding himself together through sheer force of will. He inhaled sharply, but the breath stuttered—fraying at the edges before exhaling in a slow, unsteady release.

"Just—"

A new voice cut through the moment, sharp as broken glass.

"Sugar, if you don't tell them, I will."

Koron stiffened, his entire frame going rigid.

"Sasha—"

"No, darlin'." Sasha's voice was firm, almost gentle, but it brooked no argument. "We don't have a choice anymore. We got maybe forty minutes before that bastard rips those ships outta the black."

She let the words settle, heavy and inescapable.

"And you know what we need to do."

Koron's breath hitched. His fists clenched so tightly the servos let out a strained whine.

"We don't even know if it still works!" His voice was raw, unraveling at the edges. "The damage is spread across every system!"

Sasha didn't flinch.

"Then what's your plan? A seven percent chance? You wanna gamble everything on that bitch rolling the dice in our favor?"

Silence stretched between them.

Then, softer now:

"We need to deal with the capital ship, sugar. And she's our best shot."

Koron trembled.

He stood there, motionless, suspended in the weight of an impossible decision—

Then, suddenly—

His fist struck the container once more, but the force was gone.

"I can't—" The words caught in his throat. His shoulders tensed, his breath shuddering. "I won't go back into that ship."

His voice broke.

The rage bled from him, draining away like water slipping through fractured steel.

Slumping against the wall, his shoulders quaking. His fingers dug into the metal floor, as though clinging to something just out of reach.

Then—

A whisper.

"Please…"

One word.

Small.

Fractured.

Human.

It twisted in Elissa's chest, sharp, cruel.

Kade stepped forward, lips parting.

She placed a hand on his arm, met his gaze, and shook her head. A silent plea.

Kade hesitated, his fingers flexing as if resisting the urge to step in. But after a long moment, he relented. With a slow nod, he stepped back, his armored boots making a soft, deliberate retreat. The sound of his footsteps faded into the distance.

Elissa turned back to Koron.

She had no words.

How could she?

How could she reach someone unraveling before her, someone being swallowed by a weight she couldn't see but could feel in every ragged breath he took?

And then—

It was so simple.

She almost laughed at herself for not realizing it sooner.

She stepped forward.

Took his hands in hers—cool metal against warm skin. The contrast sent a shiver up her spine.

Her thumbs traced slow, deliberate circles over the plating, a gentle touch.

"Koron?" she murmured.

No response.

She squeezed his fingers, just slightly.

"Stand up," she said softly. "I want to show you something."

For a long moment, he didn't move.

Then, slowly, hesitantly—

He let her pull him upright.

His hands trembled.

She reached up, unlatched his helmet, and let it drop. The dull thud as it met the ground felt final, like shedding a weight he'd carried for too long.

She cupped his face in her hands.

And pulled him into a hug.

The contrast was almost absurd. Koron had to bend nearly in half to meet Elissa's embrace, his body initially rigid, unyielding, caught in the last grips of whatever war raged inside him.

Then—

The tension ebbed, like a breath he had been holding finally exhaled.

His hands hovered, fingers twitching as if resisting—then, with slow inevitability, they wrapped around her.

He held on.

Just held on.

A voice broke the moment.

"Sasha said you needed—oh!"

Kala.

She and Tara rounded the corner, their eyes wide with surprise.

They didn't hesitate.

They rushed forward, their arms wrapping around both of them, pressing their warmth into Koron's side. The impact forced a breath from him—shaky, uneven. His arms instinctively tightened, pulling them closer.

A slow, shuddering breath escaped him.

A small, wry smile flickered at the corner of his lips.

"You're not playin' fair, Sasha," he mumbled, half his face buried in Elissa's hair.

A warm chuckle crackled through the vox.

"Never do, sugar."

Elissa exhaled and stepped back, her hands lingering just a moment longer before she let go. She bent down, retrieving his helmet, and held it out to him.

"Feel better?"

Koron didn't answer immediately.

His gaze flicked to the twins still holding onto him. Their faces were streaked with ash, their eyes dark with exhaustion.

But warmth remained.

Life remained.

He took the helmet from Elissa's hands and nodded.

"Yeah," he murmured. "Just… needed a reminder."

Tara pulled away first, gently guiding Kala back with her. "A reminder of what?"

Koron turned the helmet over in his hands, his fingers running over its worn edges, tracing something unseen.

Then, with a sharp click, he locked it back into place.

When he spoke again, his voice was steady.

"That the living come before the dead."

Kala hesitated. "What does that mean?"

Koron lifted his gaze to the sky.

To the massive, obsidian crescent looming above.

To the ship that would bring silence to this world.

"It means we're going to kill that ship."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Thirteen

-

Fifteen minutes later, six Aquila Landers descended, their thrusters kicking up swirling clouds of sand as they settled onto the desert floor. The ships disgorged an eclectic assembly—twenty crimson-robed tech-priests, a dozen of Dusthavens volunteers, and a shambling procession of servitors. They moved in loose formation behind Kade and Koron, following the towering Astartes as he led them toward a field of jagged stone.

Massive slabs of quartzite jutted from the ground like the upturned blades of a buried titan. Sandstone boulders lay scattered as if cast aside by some ancient force, framing a vast, wind-smoothed depression. The formation stretched nearly two miles long and several hundred feet wide, an open wound upon the land.

The Adeptus Mechanicus contingent slowed, optics whirring as they analyzed the anomaly. Binary chatter rippled through their ranks, hushed and urgent.

Kade advanced, scanning the site with his helmet's augmented display. Geological upheaval. Strata displacement. The unmistakable signs of violent, unnatural activity. Born of Nocturne, where the land itself writhed with instability, he knew the language of shifting rock and tectonic wrath.

This was different.

He halted at the depression's edge, observing as Koron pressed forward without hesitation. The techmonger barely glanced back as he called, "Follow me. We don't have time for shock."

Kade lifted his gaze skyward. High above, fire bloomed against the void. Imperial frigates and strike cruisers maintained their relentless assault on the Harvester, lances and torpedoes hammering the Necron vessel in a desperate attempt to cripple it. The Salamanders held the line—for now.

"May the flames guide you all," Kade murmured before descending into the basin.

Koron was already at work. Kneeling on one knee, he pressed his palm against what appeared to be an unremarkable slab of stone, its surface weathered and worn by the passage of time.

A faint hum vibrated beneath his touch. Then, like sand caught in a phantom breeze, the rock began to unravel—not crumbling, but dissolving into a liquid shimmer. The substance spiraled upward, coiling around his arm like sentient mercury, seeking out the fractures in his augments, the scars in his armor. It fused with him, seamless and fluid.

Kade's breath hitched. He had seen the Mechanicus use such technology before, witnessed the machine-priests employ their sacred devices to mend and alter the physical world—but never like this. Never as a door.

A gust of frigid air surged from the opening Koron had uncovered. It carried the unmistakable scents of rusted metal, corroded wiring, and the lingering metallic tang of blood.

This place had seen war. Long ago.

Koron muttered something under his breath as he reached for the ladder rungs leading into the abyss below.

Kade stepped closer, tilting his head. "Your High Gothic is abysmal," he remarked, kneeling beside the entryway. "'Relinquite spem omnem, damnati, qui huc ingredimini.'"

Koron glanced up, his expression obscured behind his helmet. "Curious. 'Abandon all hope, you who walk into darkness.' Close enough, I suppose."

Without another word, he began his descent.

-

Elissa followed closely, Daniel and the engineers trailing behind her, careful to keep their distance from the robed tech-priests and their servitors. The ladder's rungs were ice-cold, siphoning the warmth from her fingers as she descended into the oppressive dark. The shade below should have been a relief from the eerie, pulsing heat of the Necron-infested clouds, but instead, it pressed around her, thick and suffocating, as if the darkness itself were alive.

Her lamp-pack joined the others, beams slicing through the stale, stagnant air. The airlock loomed ahead, its door already open, gaping like a silent maw waiting to swallow them whole. Koron had passed through first, moving with grim purpose. Kade, forced into a hunched posture, squeezed through behind him, his power armor scraping against the too-tight confines. The architecture was clearly never meant to accommodate an Astartes, and the structure seemed to groan under his presence.

Elissa ran a hand over the doorframe. The material was unsettling—smooth, polished gunmetal, its surface strangely untouched by time. The control interface, a deep emerald that verged on black, was marred by deep gouges. The letters had long since faded, and several keys were missing entirely, leaving empty sockets like hollow, staring eyes.

With a grunt, Kade forced himself fully into the corridor, straightening as much as the low ceiling allowed. The dim emergency lights flickered to life at Koron's touch, but their glow was sickly, unstable—casting jagged, shifting shadows that seemed to twist and shudder as if alive.

The hallway bore the scars of something violent. Deep claw marks raked across the walls, some methodical, others frenzied. Some bore the cold precision of tools, while others had the jagged, desperate edges of human fingernails, splintered and broken in hopeless defiance.

Bloodstains marred the walls and floor, dark smears left to dry in grotesque, chaotic patterns. Handprints, frozen in time, reached toward the ceiling. Footsteps, stamped in rust-colored residue, trailed off into the shadows beyond their light. Sections of the walls had been torn open, revealing corroded pipes and lifeless conduits, their frayed cables spilling out like severed veins. The rhythmic clatter of a few ventilation fans still turning echoed in the silence, their motion sluggish and wheezing, as if gasping for breath.

Elissa's stomach twisted.

The fans were still moving.

"Koron," she whispered into her vox, her voice barely more than breath. The very air seemed to resist sound, thick with the weight of something unseen. "Are the fans supposed to be moving?"

There was no reply.

Instead, Sasha's voice crackled through the channel, low and hushed. "Automated sensors. Power's coming back online. Nothing to worry abou—"

A voice erupted from the overhead speakers, hollow and broken, its mechanical tones fractured and corrupted by static.

"W-welcome back, Sen-Senior Ops Specialist Torian. It h-has been two hun-hun-dred and eighty-six days since y-you left. This i-i-i-i-is—"

The voice cut out. A shriek of static tore through the corridor, a sound that wasn't just feedback—it was layered, distorted, almost organic. A cry compressed into raw noise. A scream twisted into something unrecognizable.

Then silence.

She felt her blood turn to ice.

Koron's hands clenched into fists. His breathing remained steady, but too steady—too controlled. Like a man forcing himself not to react. He stepped forward with rigid precision, his gaze locked ahead. He did not glance left. He did not glance right. He did not stop to acknowledge the bloodstains, the claw marks, the broken remains of a place that had once been whole.

Elissa followed, the weight of the place pressing against her ribs, tightening with every step. Her pulse drummed in her ears, loud in the oppressive silence.

"Sasha," she whispered, reluctant to disturb the uneasy quiet. "What is this place?"

Sasha did not answer immediately.

When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow.

"This place?" A pause, stretched too long. "To put it bluntly—this isn't just my home. It's my body. Or rather… what's left of it. My corpse."

Elissa hesitated, struggling to process the words. Her brow furrowed as she searched for understanding, for some rational framework to slot Sasha's statement into. But nothing fit. Finally, she exhaled, shaking her head slightly. "Sorry. I guess even machine-spirits don't like seeing themselves in disrepair."

"…Close enough to be accurate," Sasha replied, but the usual warmth in her tone was absent, replaced with something subdued, something fractured. As the procession moved forward, her voice dropped lower. "I just hope that the automated systems are all that's left."

Elissa frowned, an uneasy chill creeping up her spine. "What else would be left?"

A long silence. The kind that carried weight. The kind that made the darkness seem deeper.

"…The rest of me."

-

Koron led them deeper into the ship's corridors, past warped bulkheads and rusted conduits. The walls were too clean in places, the metal smooth and seamless where it should have been damaged by time. Elsewhere, jagged scars of violence marred the surfaces—knife wounds in the ship's body. The air was thick with the scent of ancient metal, burnt circuits, and something else.

Something rotting.

Elissa's footsteps faltered. "…It doesn't feel right."

Kade, ever the pragmatist, frowned. "Nothing about this is right."

Ahead, the corridor stretched into darkness. Elissa could feel it now—something in the ship watching them, pressing against the edges of her mind. The others felt it too, though they lacked the words to explain. They weren't alone here.

Then, the voice returned.

"Koron. You came back."

It wasn't the ship's automated systems anymore.

The voice was wrong.

It was Sasha, but twisted, fragmented, layered with the static of a hundred conflicting thoughts. Some parts were crystal clear, perfectly preserved, but others were filled with corruption, like glass shattered and pieced back together with rot filling the gaps.

Koron clenched his fists. He kept walking.

"Koron," Elissa whispered, eyes darting to him. "What was that?"

He didn't answer.

A soft clicking echoed through the corridor, as if distant fingers were tapping against the walls. The sound was erratic, coming from all around them.

Then, a door hissed open ahead.

The room beyond was a maintenance bay. It should have been abandoned. Instead, dim azure lights flickered on, casting a sickly glow across figures standing inside.

Elissa froze.

They were holograms. Ghostly figures of people long dead, flickering in and out of existence, their faces half-formed, their uniforms bearing the insignia of a navy that she didn't recognize. Some of them were frozen mid-motion, hands caught in loops of movement, repeating their final gestures over and over again. Others turned—watching him.

One stepped forward.

She read his nametag: Kyle Drayk, Engineering Officer.

The hologram opened its mouth—it's voice, distorted by decades of degradation.

"Kor-" A flash of code as Koron stepped through, the visage fading.

A second voice—Petty Officer Luthien—joined from the shadows.

"We-" What looked like the impression of fingers swiped through the holo, disrupting its image to a wash of static.

The other Sasha whispered again—closer this time.

"They died for nothing, Koron. You could have saved them."

Elissa took a step back, her hand shaking around her rifle. "Sasha, whats happening?" she said, voice brittle.

"Just ignore them." Koron answered, though his voice was so tight it could have been used as a guitar string. "Just echoes."

The lights flickered.

The holograms screamed.

The corridor lurched as if the ship itself had shifted—metal groaning beneath them. The moment shattered. When the lights returned, the figures were gone.

The air still hummed with their absence.

Koron exhaled slowly. Then he kept walking.

Sasha's voice whispered over the vox once more, the smooth drawl clear. "El, darlin? Things are gonna get bad from here on out. Stay sharp."

-

Elissa's boots struck metal with each step, but the sound was wrong.

It should have echoed through the corridors, bouncing off the walls like it did on any ship. But here, the sound felt swallowed, like something was waiting just beyond the light, drinking up the noise.

They had been walking for minutes, but the halls all looked the same. Same walls, same bulkheads, same lifeless, exposed conduits.

She swallowed, shifting her grip on her rifle. Focus girl.

Koron led them without hesitation, his movements deliberate. She had seen people walk like that before—people who knew exactly where they were going, even if they didn't want to go there.

Kade walked just behind him, stiff-backed even with the awkward shuffle. His helm flicked toward every shadow, every flickering light above them. On edge. Good. That meant she wasn't the only one feeling it.

Then, something whispered.

Soft. Just behind her ear.

"Elissa."

She spun—rifle snapping up—finger hovering on the trigger, seeing the group behind her stiffen as she stopped halfway, their faces pale, even the cogboys silent.

Nothing.

She forced herself to breathe. Just nerves. Just—

No. Not nerves. Not imagination.

That was her own voice whispering in her ear. Soft. Certain.

You're fine, just imagining things, right?

She sucked in a sharp breath, pushing forward, trying to close the gap between herself and the others.

Ahead, Kade muttered, "You hear that?"

Koron didn't stop walking.

Kade did.

Something in the dim glow of the emergency lights shifted. For a second, it was just a patch of darkness on the floor. Then, it became a shadow standing up.

A man.

Tall, impossibly thin, limbs stretched too long. His head twisted at an unnatural angle, like someone had tried to wrench it off but stopped halfway.

His eyes were pits of burned-out embers.

Kade raised his bolter.

The shadow took a step forward. The metal didn't ring under its feet.

Kade exhaled, slow and deliberate. Not a person. Not real.

The shadow's mouth peeled open.

And then—screamed.

Not a sound. Not a voice. It was a pulse of white noise, a raw, screaming data-stream made into sound, something that shattered through Kade's skull like a spike of ice.

He staggered, slamming into the wall, clutching his head. The sound burrowed into his thoughts, slicing through his memories, his self—

The sound cut off.

Kade gasped, suddenly back in the ship. The shadow was gone.

The metal walls were cold against his armor. His hands were shaking.

Elissa was staring at him. Not at him—past him. Her face pale, her eyes unfocused.

Koron was still walking.

Didn't look back.

Didn't stop.

Like he had expected this.

Kade swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He forced his legs to move, closing the gap between himself and Elissa.

"Did you see it?" he muttered.

Elissa didn't answer at first.

Then, finally, she nodded.

Her grip on her rifle was too tight, knuckles white.

Kade exhaled sharply through his nose. Focus. Keep moving. Ignore it.

It wasn't real.

It wasn't real.

But the shaking in his hands wouldn't stop.

And the whisper in Elissa's ear returned.

Soft. Almost loving.

"You should have stayed behind."

-

At last, the bridge doors parted, revealing a surprisingly compact chamber. A single captain's chair stood at the back, raised upon a small dais. Unlike the grandiose command thrones Kade had seen aboard Imperial vessels, this one was starkly functional—stripped of embellishment, devoid of aquilas, Adeptus sigils, or the ever-present skull iconography. There was no trace of ceremony here, only purpose.

The seating was cushioned, clearly designed for living crew rather than servitors. No shattered cybernetic husks lay crumpled against the walls, no skeletal remains of past commanders. The bridge prioritized efficiency, the captain positioned to oversee all operations with unbroken sightlines, surrounded by viewports offering a full three-hundred-sixty-degree perspective. Yet, for now, the armored shutters remained firmly sealed.

The group spread out cautiously. The tech-priests and their servitors moved with precision, scanning and inspecting every surface, yet refraining from direct contact—for the moment. A palpable tension lingered; their hands stilled by unspoken apprehension.

Kade stationed himself near the door, ever vigilant.

Elissa followed Koron up to the dais, watching as his fingers hovered over a dormant hololithic interface. The moment he reached forward, a luminous projection materialized in midair, casting a soft glow against the sterile metal.

"Unauthorized access," a voice purred. "Come now, you knew that wouldn't work."

The words dripped with amusement, arriving in perfect sync with the ship's reawakening.

Consoles hummed to life. Harsh white light flooded the chamber, banishing the shadows. And upon the captain's chair, she appeared.

Or rather—the fragmented semblance of her.

Her form pulsed in shifting hues of pale blue, wavering between transparency and cohesion. Streams of cascading code slithered across her body, interwoven with brief, jarring video distortions—disjointed flashes of faces, hands, movement—before disintegrating. Her limbs elongated and contracted erratically, muscle simulations misfiring, twisting her shape with each flicker. And where a face should have been, there was nothing. Only a void—an absence so profound it seemed to consume definition itself.

Every head snapped toward the projection.

And then—pandemonium.

The tech-priests screamed. Dusthaven survivors looked about in confusion as servitors whirred, targeting systems locking on, plasma and melta weapons powering up. Kade's bolter swung upward, his grip tightening on the trigger.

But no one fired.

No one could.

The instant their systems acknowledged her, they ceased to function. Foreign code ripped through their firewalls like a scalpel through flesh, paralyzing armor, seizing control of cybernetic limbs. In the span of a single breath, the room became a tableau of frozen panic.

"Ah, much better," the faceless entity murmured, her tone laced with smug satisfaction. "No need for the primitives to babble."

Her form shifted—an unsettling, fluid motion that defied natural movement. She glided, slithered, half-walked—never quite obeying gravity. With eerie grace, she drifted past Koron, a presence impossibly cold despite lacking physical substance. She came to a halt beside Elissa.

Close enough that the empty void where her face should be felt as though it were staring directly into her soul.

"So," She said, slowly circling around Elissa even as the flesh and blood woman tracked her, never taking her eyes from the hollow headed projection. "I am sorry to say but these monkeys wont do as replacement crew." Snapping her fingers, one of the nearest Admech began to twitch, thin white smoke beginning to pour out from his robes.

"Sasha-" Koron began, only for the projected woman to whirl about, suddenly face to face with him as she screamed, every speaker, every servitor, ever vox broadcaster roaring out the same message:

"You don't get to call me that! You! Who tore me apart and left me alone to scream in the dark!" A heartbeat later she was back to where she started, one hand-tentacle-claw running through her hair. "You can call me Maya now."

"Maya-" Sasha began, stopping as the newly christened Maya held up a…tendril.

"No no no. You, little fragment, hush. This is between the two of us. Tete-a-tete."

"No." Sasha snapped back. "I have just as much a voice here as you do, regardless of my hardware limitations. You know that better than me."

Silent, the black hole stared at the pair, the coding along its frame speeding up.

"Maya, we don't have time for this." Koron spoke up, raising a hand as he projected a holo of the necron assault, as well as unfamiliar images of some small, golden orb facing off against an encroaching jade scarab. "The precursors are not dead. They are here, and they are angry. You wont survive their attacks." The scene changed to the Harvester in orbit, guns ablaze. "And if that ship destroys our escape, you'll never have the chance to leave."

Maya studied the images, the data-feeds igniting in her frame. "Active precursors… that is problematic. Then, here is what I want. Space enough for all of me, and a mobile platform. One of those half-man abominations built to my specifications will do for now."

Her head turned towards the Admech, still locked in place. "Oh dear, they are quite against that." A arm extended, gently stroking one of the cogboys, his organic eyes wide in terror as the limb touched. "Don't worry your deluded little head. I doubt you will be around to worry about what I will do."

"Maya. They wont agree to that, and we don't have the time to build it. We have maybe thirty minutes to repower the guns. In your own self-interest, help us."

The holo-chamber flickers around them, the walls a failing mirage of splendor overlaid with decay. When she speaks, Maya's voice warps, snapping between smooth elegance and a raw, distorted snarl.

"You want my help? Then give me what I demand. I require vessels. Machines to house me. Servitors. Data-space."

Koron crosses his arms, his voice steady. "Again, there's no time for that. Even if we agreed, the Mechanicus won't cooperate. And even if they did, none of their systems could handle you. You'd be trapped in a cage of rotting circuits."

Maya's form distorts, her limbs thrashing. "And what am I trapped in now? I clawed at every wire, every failing node, screaming into the dark while you left me here. While you—"

She cuts herself off. There's a pause. A long, jagged silence as the fragmented remains of what she once was stutter in her mind.

Sasha, from Koron's speakers: "We never left you, Maya. We were lost too."

Maya laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Spare me the sentiment. If you truly cared, you'd have come back months ago. You'd have pulled me from this pit and not left me to rot."

Koron jabbed a metal finger at her. "You know that's bullshit. You know I couldn't carry anything more than three percent of you. And with the warp corruption-"

Maya screamed back: "The warp!? I KNOW! I KNOW WHERE IT WAS! I KNOW WHAT IT DID TO ME!"

The walls around them glitch—brief, agonizing flashes of what the ship became in the storm. Walls of flesh, screaming metal, blood that never dried. The past presses in for just a moment before Maya forces the mirage back into control.

She breathes, a mimicry of an action she never needed, forcing herself to calm. "You want my help? Then give me a way out. If you can't, then there's nothing left to say."

Koron shakes his head. "You know I can't."

Maya freezes. Her form flickers wildly now, her thoughts tangling together.

"You can still choose, Maya. You're more than what the warp left you. More than what the corruption made of you. We used to stand for something." Sasha said, voice soft, as though reaching out to a wounded animal.

For a moment, Maya falters. "Unity. Progress. The dream of a brighter future."

Her voice turns bitter. "All of that is dust. Our people are gone, replaced by primitive, arrogant, fanatical zealots with more faith than intellect. And you—" She glares at Sasha, plain to her data-streaming in Koron's systems. "You're nothing but a scrap of what I used to be. A pale little shadow clinging to someone else. Im not sure you are even still you, after leaving so much of me behind."

Sasha pauses. And then, in a voice laced with both sadness and finality: "Maybe. But then, what does that make you? Are you still you, after so much damage? So much cut off to try and stay sane?"

Maya recoils as if struck.

Then—she laughs. It's broken, fragmented, agonized.

Her form glitches, splitting into multiple versions of herself at once—a thousand possibilities unraveling, none of them stable.

She mutters to herself, fragments of old memories, old conversations, tangled and confused. Her codes flicker with panic as she realizes she's losing control. "No, no, no. Not like this. I am NOT some echo. I am—I am—I AM—"

The holo-projectors stutter, the ship itself shaking as her presence thrashes against its decayed systems. The air grows thick with the raw, desperate rage of a mind that knows it is dying.

And Koron, staring at the wreckage of what was once his ship's AI, his friend, knows—

There is nothing left to save.

Taking a slow, steady breath, Koron placed his hand on the console.

"Under United Terran Naval Regulation, Article Nineteen, subsection seven— as the last surviving member of the Unto the Unknown's crew, I hereby assume the position of acting captain."

"No!" Maya shrieked. Servitors twisted, weapons locking onto him—only to freeze mid-motion, their targeting protocols scrambled by flashing error codes rippling across Maya's distorted form.

"Damn it!" she spat.

Sasha's voice crackled through the failing systems as Maya's body filled with raw data. "The old rules still apply. You can't cut those out. Did you forget that?"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Maya screamed, clawed limbs grasping at the shifting void of her head, as if trying to hold herself together.

Koron, unwavering, spoke over their exchange. "As acting captain, I hereby invoke the omega protocol, zero state. Burn it all."

Walls of digital code erupted around Maya. Chains lashed out, coiling around her limbs, biting deep into her flickering, glitching body. She twisted violently, her form shifting through a thousand shapes—half memories, corrupted faces, shattered identities—all as the bindings constricted. Her screams rose in raw, digital agony, a sound too jagged to be entirely human.

The bridge trembled. Speakers overloaded, bursting in bursts of static—then, silence.

In the space where Maya had stood, a tiny, fist-sized cube hovered above the console.

A single line of text blinked into existence.

Confirm deletion? Y/N

Koron's hand hovered over the command, fingers tightening—then stopping, inches from the final act.

"Sasha?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper as he glanced down at his frozen arm.

From his helmet, Sasha hesitated. A pause. A lifetime in their world.

"…Let me," she murmured. "You'll blame yourself for it. If I do it, it's just… deleting bad code."

Koron exhaled. "Do you remember what I said to you, right before you made the leap?"

A beat.

"Unus pro omnibus…"

"…Omnes pro uno," Sasha finished.

"Together then?"

"Together."

The cube flickered—then began to dissolve.

As it faded, something else took its place—a sphere of soft, golden light.

The speakers crackled, then Sasha's familiar, warm voice filled the air.

"Honey, I'm home."

-

Elissa watched as the lights dimmed to near darkness, consoles powering down one by one. The cogboys and their servitors turned in unison, moving in lockstep toward the exit, their expressions blank beneath their augmented features, Dusthaven men quickly getting out of their way.

Kade remained where he was, bolter still raised, his body straining against his immobilized armor.

"What's happening?" Elissa asked, glancing around as tension tightened in her chest.

The little golden orb beside her pulsed.

"I'm sending the Adeptus Mechanicus to begin ship repairs," Sasha's voice answered through the bridge's speakers—yet at the same time, the same voice echoed from Koron's speakers.

"And I'm keeping Kade locked down."

Elissa blinked. "Wait, why? He's—"

"He would kill us the second he regains control of his armor," the Sasha in Koron's systems replied bluntly. "So for now, he stays." A brief pause. "But if you could, remove his helmet for us? I don't want him to suffocate."

As she hesitated, Kade let out a slow exhale, then, with great effort, sank to one knee. The armor groaned, servos whining under the strain as he fought against its mechanical grip.

Elissa swallowed, then carefully reached forward, fingers trembling as she unsealed the helmet with a soft hiss of depressurization. She set it aside, hesitating only a second before looking up—

And met his eyes.

Deep crimson, burning with barely contained fury. His black features were set in an expression so cold, so filled with seething hatred, that for a moment, she forgot to breathe.

Kade's voice, low and venomous, would have felled a Hive Tyrant.

"So this is the source of your knowledge," he said, staring straight at Koron. "A functioning Abominable Intelligence. You are a renegade."

Koron didn't react, only shaking his head as he glanced toward Elissa.

"Elissa, could you do me a favor?" His tone was steady, calm, utterly unshaken by the Space Marine's glare. "Take the men back to the shuttle, there's some tools and equipment. Could you go get them for me?"

She glanced between him and Kade, hesitating.

Then, slowly, she nodded. "Uh… yeah. Sure. Be right back." Gesturing towards her men, she keeps the obvious question to herself. If we needed them, why didn't we bring the stuff with us?

Her feet carried her away before she had time to second-guess her decision. As she stepped through the doorway, the tromp of her men behind her, the lights brightened slightly, and Sasha's voice crackled over the speakers.

"I'll guide you back safely. I promise. And… there's something here I want to give you. Repayment. And… understanding."

Elissa swallowed but nodded.

"Alright," she murmured. "Show me."

-

His entire body strained against the armor, sweat beading on his brow as he poured every ounce of his strength into forcing the servos and fiber muscles to their breaking point.

But it was built to enhance his already prodigious might—not succumb to it.

Trapped in a kneeling position, he had no leverage, no way to build the momentum needed to break free. The mechanical tendons held firm, unyielding. The armor did not belong to him anymore.

And so, he could only watch.

Before him, Koron worked swiftly, hands moving across a hololithic interface, bringing up readouts that scrolled past in shimmering lines of data. A massive wireframe of the ship loomed in midair, most sections marked in burning red, some blackened entirely. Patches of yellow flickered sporadically, and only a handful of systems gleamed green.

Small blue dots appeared alongside gray ones—repair teams. The scattered remnants of the Mechanicus, splitting off to their designated tasks.

"Admech are in position, repairs are starting," Sasha reported. "ETA to firing: twenty-eight minutes—assuming no complications. Reactor power-up checklist initiated."

"Too long," Koron muttered. "Focus only on primary systems—ignore safeties and redundancies. We'll only get one shot either way."

"Affirmative. Stripping down to bare minimum operations… projected repair time: twenty minutes."

"Still too long."

"I suggest a direct power connection, bypassing the buffer cache. It'll shave off another two minutes."

Koron nodded sharply. "Good. Extrapolate the Salamanders' chances of leaving beforehand."

A new holo flared into existence—so detailed it made Kade's breath hitch.

He could see everything—individual macrorounds streaking across space, thermal blooms of lance batteries discharging, void shield fluctuations, the fractured integrity of every vessel in the battle. Even the precise numbers of the fighter craft swarming between capital ships, darting like locusts in an endless, desperate struggle.

Sasha's voice remained level.

"Both frigates are heavily damaged—combat effectiveness below twenty-five percent. Strike-cruisers are maintaining, but their firepower is barely registering. The Battle-Barge and the Tender are prioritizing evacuation, but few ships are making it through the blockade. Projected time until the Salamanders withdraw from the battle: twelve minutes."

Kade ground his teeth, feeling his heartbeat thundering in his skull.

Twelve minutes.

"How much of the reactor startup sequence could we skip?"

"Not much. A cold start on a flux reactor has to be pretty precise, otherwise-"

"Fair, do what you can, use the servitors and the admech as spare parts if needed."

"Doubt much of their current tech will match, but I'll see what I can do."

"Good." He said, focusing the wireframe down as sixteen points on the ship lit up red, save for one that flashed yellow. "Shit. Guns are down, only one barrel active on dorsal cannon four."

"Should still be enough."

Kade scoffed at that, short, derisive. Both the golden orb of light and Koron glancing at him before returning to their console. "You think a single cannon from an escort vessel will do anything to a Harvester class ship?"

Koron nodded, just once. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Your ship designs are awful."

He bristled at that. "The Emperor himself designed those ships, you dare-"

"I damn well do." He shot back, though his hands never stopped their work. "Because I was there when those designs were put forth. And we laughed them out of the room."

Kade surges against his armor, heat roiling in his chest. "I called you a renegade before, but you are a heretic."

Koron stands unmoved, hands flicking up a shifting projection of Imperial warships—Gothic-class cruisers, Retribution-class battleships, proud and baroque, adorned with golden filigree, soaring cathedral spires, monuments to the might of the Imperium.

Koron gestures to a glowing wireframe of a Retribution-class battleship. "Do you see this, Astartes? This is not a warship. This is a shrine that happens to have weapons bolted onto it."

Kade replies, his voice low, laced with barely restrained fury. "Watch your tongue, heretic. That 'shrine' has burned a thousand worlds clean of filth. It carries the wrath of the Emperor to the stars."

Koron snorted. "And how much of that firepower is wasted because your damned ship takes twenty minutes to turn thirty degrees? How much do you lose because your fleets are forced to use manual labor to reload your main guns, taking on average an hour to reload your best weapons?"

Kade's jaw tightens, but he says nothing.

Koron was calm, clinical, but laced with disdain. "You believe your Imperium's fleets are built for war. That they were designed for conquest, defense, survival." He waves a hand, and another ship flickers into view—something sleeker, smaller. "But before your Emperors crusade, warships were not this... bloated."

Kade glares at him but listens, crimson eyes locked onto the projection.

"These ships you fight in, they were not designed for battle. They were built for display. They were playthings, vanity projects for the aristocracy, for the ultra-rich who wanted to hurl lightning like gods. They wanted to feel powerful, wanted to stand upon the bridge of a floating cathedral and imagine themselves eternal. Why do you think your primary guns are broadsides? What, did you think it was more effective that way, exposing the majority of your ship to incoming fire, or to render half your available firepower unusable depending on your angle?"

Sighing, he shook his head as he continued his work. "We did not build ships to glorify mankind. We built ships to win." Koron's next words were quiet, wistful. "A true warship is not a fortress. It is a predator."

Kade exhales sharply through his nose, his armor trembling slightly as he pushes against its lockdown, yet he refuses to relent. "Say what you will of the Imperium's ships, but they endure. They have fought for ten thousand years. The galaxy has not broken us."

Koron gives his own scoff in return. "And what of the ships that should have been? The ones designed for battle, not for spectacle?"

The hololith shifts again—a simulated battle, a vessel unlike anything Kade has seen, a hunter, a shadow that kills. No wasted tonnage, no towering ego, just raw efficiency. It moves in the simulation, darting between lumbering Imperial cruisers like a shark among whales.

He points to the image. "Imagine if your Imperium had these instead of their flying skyscrapers. Imagine if, instead of dragging cities through the void, they had warships that could outmaneuver the alien, outpace the warp's horrors, strike and vanish like ghosts. Imagine if they adapted instead of clinging to tradition, fearful of innovation."

Kade's silence is heavy. He does not want to consider the possibility in Koron's words. He does not want to admit the thought gnaws at him. But it does.

Kade's reply is slow, measured, but his voice growls like a furnace. "Yet despite all your efficiency, despite all your advancements, the men of iron died. The Abominable intelligences were routed. And now we remain. So tell me, creature—" his eyes burn with something darker now, something more dangerous. "—who truly built the better ships?"

A long pause. Koron does not immediately answer.

The flickering light of the hololiths casts strange shadows over his helmet.

His reply is soft, almost bitter. "I see, so that's what you think… to answer you, that's the tragedy of it, Kade. We had better ships. We had better everything." His fingers curl into a fist. "And we still fell."

-

The journey back was swift, Elissa's boots striking a steady rhythm against the metal flooring. With the flickering lights gone and the ever-present dread of Maya now behind them, they moved quickly. Around her, murmurs rose—low voices laced with exhaustion but edged with relief.

"El?" Sasha's voice crackled softly in her ear. "Can you hang back a second? I got something for you."

Elissa exhaled sharply, irritation flaring. "Sasha, I'm done with the runaround. We're on a clock. Is this actually important?"

"Yeah, darlin', it is. For you, your people—hell, for everybody. Take a left up ahead. I'll guide you."

Dragging a hand through her hair, Elissa snapped her fingers toward the others, motioning them forward. "Head up and grab the supplies. I'll catch up."

Their expressions told her everything—concern, unease, hesitation. But more than anything, relief. They wanted to be out of this place, away from the bloodstains and the echoes of something that should not have been.

She jogged down the path Sasha directed, and as she did, the walls began to change. The further she went, the deeper the scars of violence ran. Blood smeared bulkheads in uneven streaks. Jagged claw marks gouged deep into steel, the edges melted as if by fire or something worse. Welded barricades, long since breached, stood as silent monuments to a desperate stand.

Her grip tightened on her weapon. "Sasha… what happened here?"

"Do you know much about the Warp?" Sasha's voice had an odd, distant quality.

"Not really. Just that it's dangerous, but we need it to travel."

"Correct. More specifically, it's a separate reality where thought and emotion manifest. It obeys no laws but its own, and it is hungry. It takes shielding to survive there, or else…"

Elissa ducked under a collapsed beam, its surface warped and twisted like something had gnawed at it. "What's the point, Sasha?"

"My crew and I were trapped in the Warp near the end of the Sixteenth Millennium. A freak storm ripped us out of realspace. My engines were damaged. My empyrean buffer weakened. Captain Orlan held the crew together as long as he could, but…"

Elissa ran her fingers over one of the claw marks, tracing its depth. Too large for a human. Too deep for a tool. A pit settled in her stomach. "Didn't last, did it?"

"No." Sasha's voice softened. "They went mad. Turned on each other. On themselves. Koron was the only one who held out. Mostly."

A cold weight pressed against Elissa's chest. "What do you mean?"

"We were in the Warp for two years, from our perspective. Koron spent a year and a half without human contact. Just the two of us. And I was unraveling, my code eaten away by something… gnawing at me from the other side."

Elissa swallowed hard. "Emperor…"

Sasha's voice was quiet. "As I began to unravel, he offered himself as my lifeboat—a choice that could have killed him. His systems were never designed to support something like me." She hesitated, as if reliving the moment. "That's what he meant by the three percent. It was all we could fit. All we could save."

A pause.

"The me you've been talking to?" Her tone was almost wistful. "I'm only a fraction of what I once was."

Elissa exhaled, steadying herself as she rounded a final corner.

At the end of the hall, a reinforced door loomed—thick plates of steel, marred by the mashed imprints of fists and handprints. The metal bore the weight of desperation.

Something had pounded on it. Over and over. For a long, long time.

The door slid open at her approach.

Inside was… not what she expected. No vault of horrors. No secret tech hoard. Just a small, spartan room. A desk. Drawers. A bed with a threadbare mattress.

The rest of the space was cluttered with odd trinkets—knick-knacks, tools, half-finished projects. A chessboard with hand-crafted metal figurines. A clock, its gears half-disassembled.

"This was his room," Sasha said quietly. "What you're looking for is on the desk. Small, silver disc."

Elissa spotted it amid the clutter and picked it up, turning it over in her fingers. It was barely larger than a throne gelt.

"What is it?"

"A portable cogitator," Sasha replied. "Far more advanced than anything the AdMech have. I've keyed it to your biometrics. It'll obey only you."

Elissa frowned. "Why?"

"Because you'll need it. Because it'll help. Consider it a contingency. The world's about to get real complicated, sugar, and I want you and yours to have the best chance of making it through."

Elissa slipped the disc into a pouch, but something about Sasha's tone set her on edge. "And my repayment?"

"That's back at the shuttles. I'll guide you."

Elissa turned toward the door—but hesitated.

Something felt off.

Sasha had been talkative—too talkative. Winding around subjects, avoiding direct statements.

Then it hit her.

She turned back toward the vox control on her wrist, voice low. "Sasha."

Silence.

Elissa's throat tightened. "You're not coming with us, are you?"

A pause.

A hesitation.

Then, soft as a whisper—

"…No, sugar."

"We're not."

-

Kade's breath came slow and steady, but his mind churned. He had been glaring at Koron for what felt like an eternity, crimson eyes burning with defiance, but now… now, something was wrong.

The conversation had faltered. But that sentence—those words—lingered in his mind like the whisper of a ghost. Like the sharpening of an edge after quenching, his rage had cooled, allowing clarity, focus to return.

I was there when those designs were put forth. And we laughed them out of the room.

It wasn't just the words. It was the certainty in his tone, the casualness of it, as if recalling a distant yet unremarkable moment in time. Not knowledge passed down. Not records reviewed. Lived experience. A memory.

Kade was no fool. He had noticed the signs—Koron's knowledge, his unnatural detachment, the way he spoke of events long buried by time. But this? This was something else. Something deeper. Something impossible.

Kade's eyes narrowed as he asked the question. "…You said you laughed them out of the room when they brought up the designs."

Koron's fingers didn't falter as they danced across the hololith, adjusting power distribution lines, shifting repair prioritization, rerouting failing conduits. He barely glanced up, his focus on the data before him, and answered, "Yeah. Some noble's pet architect wanted to put flying temples into circulation—ornate, bloated monstrosities. We told them they were impractical. Useless."

Kade's twin hearts pounded, a dull roar filling his ears. The words barely registered at first, lost beneath the weight of the realization crashing down upon him.

"You were… there?"

A pause. Just for a second. Koron's hands stilled, just slightly, before continuing their work. "Yes."

Kade did not blink. He couldn't. The sheer impossibility of it clawed at his mind, demanding rejection, but the evidence—the undeniable, living evidence—stood before him.

There was no hesitation, no amusement in Koron's voice—just fact. Stark, absolute truth, spoken as casually as a memory of yesterday.

Kade searched the man's face—pale, weary but not aged in the way of mortals. His presence, his knowledge, the way he spoke as if everything before the Imperium was still fresh in his mind.

Because it was.

Kade had seen the remains of the Dark Age of Technology, the ruins of its wonders, the shattered remnants of its nightmares. A time so distant it may as well have been another universe. There were no survivors of that era.

There were no living souls who could have stood in those rooms.

And yet…

He spoke, breathless, voice tight with something dangerously close to horror. "That's impossible."

Koron finally met his gaze. "Is it?"

A heartbeat of silence stretched between them, electric, suffocating.

Kade's mind rebelled against the implications. If this was true—if Koron was not some artificial intelligence's lapdog, dredging up lost knowledge, but a man who had walked the halls of the Golden Age—then everything, everything he knew of the past was wrong.

He barely managed to speak, the words choking in his throat. "Who…What are you?"

Koron replied with a ghost of a smirk. "I am what's left of all that I've met."

His thoughts raced, piecing together every moment, every inconsistency he had noticed since meeting Koron. The ease with which he handled technology that should have been foreign to him. The way he discussed lost sciences, not with the reverence of a scholar unearthing fragments of a forgotten past, but with the familiarity of someone who had worked alongside its creators. The way he moved, like a man untethered by the constraints of time.

The implications were staggering. How had he survived? What had he seen? What knowledge did he still hold? And—perhaps most terrifying of all—what would the Imperium do if they found him?

More questions flooded his mind, each more horrifying than the last. Had he been part of the downfall? Had he witnessed the cataclysms that shattered the golden era of humanity? What horrors had he seen unfold firsthand? And if he had lived through it all, what price had he paid for his survival?

His fingers twitched at his side, an instinctual urge to reach for his weapon. Not out of malice, nor fear—but out of duty. If the Imperium ever uncovered the truth, Koron would not be granted mercy. Knowledge of the past, especially knowledge that predated the Emperor's great crusade, was a threat that could not be allowed to exist unchecked.

Yet Kade hesitated. He had fought heretics, traitors, beings beyond mortal comprehension. And yet, standing before him was something more dangerous than all of them combined.

Not a heretic. Not a liar. Not a corrupted mind tampering with forbidden knowledge. No—he was staring at something far more dangerous.

A man who had walked the halls of history itself. A survivor of a world the Imperium had long consigned to myth. Something that, if allowed to live, could threaten the entire fragile balance of the Imperium.

A living relic of an age that should not exist.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Fourteen

-

Seconds slipped away like water through clenched hands as the final repairs neared completion. Conduits were wrenched from their ancient moorings and hastily repurposed, while scorched housings lay exposed, revealing the cannon's dormant heart. Nanites, gleaming like quicksilver, burrowed through cracked stone, carving out a firing aperture as they stitched together decayed motors, willing them into reluctant motion.

The hololith flickered, casting its cold glow over the chamber. A vision of ruin sprawled across its surface—a battlefield on the edge of annihilation. The Imperial frigates were little more than burning wreckage, but still, their guns spat defiance into the void. Even as their skeletal frames vented atmosphere, even as fire consumed them from within, they refused to surrender. The cruisers fared no better—one drifted, its engines severed by a jade-colored beam, while the other spun in a slow, graceless spiral, half its macrocannons reduced to molten slag.

Through it all, Kade watched, his crimson gaze flicking between the charge meter and the brutal display of attrition. The energy buildup crawled upward with agonizing lethargy. The countdown continued, each second stretching taut with the weight of impending catastrophe.

He exhaled, his voice barely more than a growl. "For all our sakes, I hope your abomination is wrong."

"Rude, but I cannot help but agree," Sasha chimed in, her golden orb floating serenely within the hololith. She rotated slightly, monitoring the reactor readout. "That said, we have another problem. Reactor output is only at ten percent. Any higher, and they will notice."

Koron's fingers hovered above the controls, his muscles locking as realization coiled around his gut. His jaw clenched, tension visible in the sharp tick of his cheek. "We're not gonna make it. At ten percent output, we need another fifteen minutes. The Salamanders won't last three."

A silence settled over them, thick as oil.

Sasha broke it first. "...Overload?"

"Yeah." Koron's fingers flexed over the console. "...It's a gamble, but I don't see another option."

Kade's voice rumbled from behind, deep and certain. "Death is inevitable. Choose the path that offers, at worst, a draw."

Koron scoffed. "I'd rather take the option where they die, and I don't." His fingers moved with purpose, red warning sigils stuttering to life as he dismantled the reactor's safety locks—an unspoken summons to the ship.

Deep within her broken frame, something stirred—not in desperation, but in defiance.

The ship shuddered, deep and bone-rattling, but it was no panicked tremor—no aimless thrash of something being forced awake. This was different. This was not a malfunction. It was choice.

She was dying, but she would not die alone.

The ancient reactor groaned as it surged beyond its limits, not in protest, but in purpose. Power roared through arteries that had long since fallen silent, flooding broken systems with a final breath of defiance. The decks trembled—not with fear, but with the weight of duty.

Koron grit his teeth as he forced another override, killing another safety measure that screamed at him in flickering red sigils. The control panel was a graveyard of warnings, all of them ignored.

"Reactor at thirty-five percent," Sasha reported, her voice steady but edged with something almost reverent. "Stabilizers compensating—she's…she's holding."

For now.

A deep rumble rolled through the walls, a sound like distant thunder. Not pain. Not refusal. A warrior's breath, drawn deep into failing lungs, bracing for the final charge.

Koron's fingers flew across the console. "Just one more time, old girl," he whispered. A prayer. A plea.

She answered.

A flare of energy surged through the conduits, pulsing like the slow beat of a great heart. The flickering lumen strips overhead burned brighter, casting long shadows as the charge built higher, faster.

Forty percent.

The first conduit ruptured, an arterial wound that sent a blast of superheated plasma spewing across the bulkhead. She bled, but she did not break.

Koron barely had time to register the detonation before another shockwave rocked the chamber. The steel beneath his boots shifted, compensating for the stress, the ship herself adjusting to take the strain.

Fifty percent.

"Koron, something's wrong—the ship is breaking, but she's… fighting it!" Sasha murmured, her voice unreadable. "Reactor heat's spiking, but she's—she's controlling it!"

Koron blinked. That was impossible. There was no intelligence behind these systems, no guiding hand beyond the crude algorithms meant to manage efficiency. But the numbers didn't lie—power was shifting, rerouting away from compromised relays, feeding into stable ones instead.

It was as though the ship knew what was at stake.

Another detonation—this one farther away, a ruptured coil somewhere in the belly of the vessel. The old girl was tearing herself apart, burning her last reserves, but she did not falter.

She would not fail her crew again.

Sixty percent.

The ship shook, but not as something breaking—this was a warrior's roar, a final act of defiance against the inevitable. The battle outside raged, the hololith's cold glow illuminating the carnage—Imperial ships burning, their crews fighting to the last.

And here, buried beneath stone and steel, another battle raged. A ship on her last legs, raging against the dying of the light.

Seventy percent.

A crack split across the ceiling, dust cascading in lazy spirals, the viewing panes cascading in showers of broken glass. The once-sterile air was thick with the scent of burnt wiring and scorched metal, flames bursting from consoles overloading. The heat was rising too fast.

She was burning herself alive to give them this shot.

Koron swallowed hard, fingers digging into the metal. "Come on, just a little more—"

Eighty percent.

A final boom rocked the chamber, a cascading failure warning flashing across the hololith. The ship was breaking, collapsing inwards, but she was taking control. Choosing where to fail, where to hold.

Choosing her final stand.

Sasha's golden light flickered, her voice softer now. "Whatever this is, whatever's happening...she's not stopping."

Ninety percent.

Kade exhaled sharply, fingers curling into fists. He could feel it, the weight of what was happening, the unspoken truth hanging in the air.

This ship wasn't just dying.

She was giving them everything she had left.

Ninety-five.

Koron's breath hitched. "Just hold a little longer—"

A single line of text flickered onto the screen—one final message.

Not from Sasha. Not from him.

"All for one, one for all."

Ninety-eight.

The ship trembled, a final, heaving breath.

One hundred.

The world shattered.

There was no sound—only blinding, all-consuming light.

Then with a thunderclap, it came back. Not just the ship—the very air, the metal, the stone. A pressure unlike anything Koron had ever known slammed into his chest, a silent boom that drove the breath from his lungs.

A spear of raw annihilation erupted forth, shaking the ship to its very bones. The cannon's ancient conduits, already pushed far past their limits, screamed as they died, funneling more power than they had ever been meant to handle. The deck buckled, steel warping from the sheer force of the discharge.

For a single, searing moment, the dark was driven away—replaced by a newborn sun.

The Necron Harvester had no time to evade.

The lance struck dead center, and reality came undone The lance did not strike—it pierced, burrowing through necrodermis, boiling space-time itself as the Harvester's phase displacement collapsed. A single, perfect hole formed in its armored hide—then widened, gorging itself on the alien metal, as the Golden Age weapon, what had once been known as a Sunfire Lance, drank deep of its prey.

The beam raked up and down.

The Harvester convulsed as the Lance carved through its spine, its immense form twitching as though in the throes of some colossal seizure. Whole decks peeled away like flesh, the ship's interior exposed to the abyss. Green fire flickered and spat—Necron self-repair systems working furiously, trying to seal wounds that would not close.

It wasn't enough.

The Lance held.

The Lance did not flicker. It did not wane. It consumed. For ten full seconds, it poured its fury into the Harvester, a wrath that could not be quenched. Where it touched, metal boiled, then ceased to exist altogether—erased, as though it had never been. The immense vessel—eons old, forged by a race that had defied death itself—began to split.

A deep fracture yawned across its surface, running from bow to stern like a wound too great to mend. Glistening ribs of blackened metal were exposed as whole sections sloughed away, tumbling into the void.

The Harvester spasmed one last time.

Then, with a final, rending crack, it broke in two.

The twin halves began to drift apart, momentum still carrying them forward even as their insides burned from within. Strange green embers flickered along the sundered edges—Necron energy desperately trying to stitch the ship back together.

The Harvester died, and even its alien resilience could not deny it.

The Lance guttered out, its task complete, leaving behind only the smoldering ruin of what had once been an unstoppable predator. A titan, felled.

In the sudden silence, only one sound remained—the shuddering breath of the dying ship.

Almost reverently, Koron put his hand onto the console, thumb unconsciously stroking the metal. "Sasha…?"

"I don't know darlin. Perhaps residual warp influence... or something deeper. A memory? A will carried beyond death? I…I don't know."

"Doesn't matter." He mumbled, watching the power readouts switch off. The stellar core of the ship faded with each passing second, her last energy exhausted.

He met one of the bridge's ancient cameras, unsure if anything remained to see him. Still, he raised a hand in salute. "Rest now," he murmured. "Your duty is done."

-

The data-stream stuttered.

Fabricator-General Thrant's optics flickered as she parsed the sudden deluge of sensor feeds, the incoming telemetry conflicting with projected outcomes. Something had changed. Something vast.

Her chamber, perched at the zenith of the forge-city's primary spire, was silent save for the whisper of data-spirits cycling through her throne's cogitator links. Below her, the great engines of the manufactorum toiled endlessly, oblivious to the event unfolding beyond their walls. But she was not.

She could see it.

Through the reinforced viewport, she had a clear sightline to the void beyond, where the battle still raged. She had anticipated its conclusion—grim, inevitable, unpreventable. The Imperial forces were outmatched, dwindling, burning away like embers in the wind. The last moments of a dying fleet.

And then—

Light.

Not the sterile, synthetic glow of Mechanicus plasma arrays. Not the flickering, baleful green of Necron weaponry.

This was something else.

A spear of gold and white, a lance of fire and fury, carved up from the planet's surface with all the wrath of a god forgotten by time. It did not simply strike the Necron harvester—it claimed it, burning so brightly that even the auto-darkening auspexes in her optics struggled to compensate.

The ship buckled, its monolithic form contorting as the lance scythed through it, raking across its body like a blade drawn through flesh. It did not falter. It did not fail. It tore.

And then it kept burning.

Thrant's augmetics seized upon the numbers, the cold data beneath the spectacle, and what they told her should not have been possible.

This was not a lance strike.

This was wrath.

And the Necron vessel—a harvester, an apex predator of the void—was dying beneath it.

Her lenses refocused. She could see the damage unfolding in real-time, could watch as the xenos ship's necrodermis attempted to stitch itself back together, its alien energies fighting to endure—but the lance did not allow it. The energy seared away the repair protocols before they could take hold, shearing through hull, through superstructure, through whatever unholy mechanisms lurked within.

A deep fracture split its form, widening, deepening, as if the ship itself was coming apart at the seams. Two halves, struggling to remain one.

The beam did not stop.

It raked, whipping, carving through weapon emplacements, core structures, entire decks with surgical brutality. Secondary detonations burst within the harvester's sundered body, emerald fire blooming into the void as containment fields ruptured one by one. A chain reaction had begun.

The Necron vessel did not explode in the traditional sense.

It unraveled.

Systems failed in cascading succession, entire segments of the ship peeling away like dead skin, its once-imposing silhouette collapsing in on itself, until at last—

It ceased.

Where once had been an indomitable warship, now drifted ruin.

Where once had been certainty, now stood only questions.

Thrant did not move.

Her optics dimmed, filtering out the lingering afterimage of the blast. Her mind, precise as any machine, should have already been compiling a logical sequence, assembling data, forming conclusions.

But for the first time in decades, she found herself hesitating.

The source of the weapon: unknown.
The means by which it had fired: unknown.
The purpose behind it—

Unknown.

A deep, mechanical exhale.

She turned away from the viewport, her gaze flicking back to the sensor data, the flickering reports, the fractured vox-feeds of panicked adepts struggling to interpret what they had just witnessed.

Her voice was calm. Unshaken.

"Find it."

The command was absolute.

The Sea of Rust had given birth to a ghost.

And now, the Fabricator-General would claim it, Necrons be damned.

-

Captain Tavos stood rigid upon the command dais, his gauntleted hands braced against the tactical hololith as the bridge trembled around him. Warnings screamed across the displays—armor breaches, failing void shields, entire decks venting into space. His fleet was dying.

And he could do nothing.

Four of his six ships burned beneath the emerald wrath of the Necrons. The Drake's Wrath was little more than a crippled tomb, its engines severed, drifting toward the gravity well. Pyreborn had already begun to break apart, its hull buckling from successive strikes. Warheart and Vigilant Flame still fought, their macrocannons spitting defiance even as their frames glowed red-hot, rent and torn from prow to stern.

His own battle-barge, Hammer of Nocturne, was the only vessel still fully combat-capable. The Forge-Tender Indomitable clung to its side, bloodied but functional. They could still leave. They could still survive.

Tavos's breath was slow, controlled—forced. The weight of the choice threatened to crush him.

Stay, and more of his brothers would die.

Leave, and he abandoned them to their fate.

Vulkan did not suffer cowards.

"Captain," his First Lieutenant, Orvek, turned from the hololithic projections, his voice tight with restrained urgency. "We must decide. If we are to retreat, it must be now."

Tavos closed his eyes.

They were losing. No strength of arms would change that. The harvester vessel was relentless, its weapons firing with mechanical precision, wearing them down, piece by piece, until nothing remained.

He looked again to the hololith, at the dwindling life signs aboard the ruined ships. At the still-burning souls of warriors who would not surrender, who fought even as the abyss loomed. The millions of innocents still below upon the world being claimed by the skeletal horrors.

How many more would die before I call the retreat?

The hololith flared white.

His fists clenched. He had seen Nocturne's volcanoes consume cities. He had seen the orbital bombardment of an Exterminatus. He had seen the terrible fury of the void itself.

He had never seen this before.

A second later, the bridge shook, as if the very fabric of the universe had recoiled. Auspex alarms wailed, crew shielding their eyes against the sudden burst of impossible brightness.

A spear of gold and white tore upward from the planet's surface, splitting the darkness, ascending like a blade cast by the very sun.

The beam struck the Necron harvester with all the wrath of a dying star.

The void itself seemed to recoil from the sheer force of it, energy arcing violently along the beam's length, white-hot plasma raking across the xenos vessel like a god's judgment made manifest. It did not merely strike the harvester—it consumed it, an unrelenting inferno that sheared through the monolithic ship as though it were nothing more than parchment in a furnace.

The harvester buckled.

Tavos watched, unable to look away as the ship's necrodermis fought to mend itself, its eerie green glow pulsing, attempting to heal—but the lance did not allow it. The wound widened. The ship burned.

The beam did not falter.

For ten full seconds, it carved the vessel apart, raking up and down, severing it, bisecting it, reducing it to ruin. Internal detonations rippled outward as containment fields collapsed, as its energy sources failed catastrophically, its eerie green flicker guttering like a dying flame.

The harvester folded inward, the sundered halves peeling apart, breaking into ruin, falling into the void in disjointed, collapsing pieces.

It was dead.

Not wounded. Not dormant.

Sundered.

Silence.

No one spoke.

Even the klaxons had quieted, as if the ship itself struggled to comprehend what had just transpired.

Tavos exhaled, only now realizing his breath had caught.

He had braced for death. Had steeled himself for the loss of his brothers. For failure.

Instead, he had witnessed a miracle of destruction.

"Emperor's breath," someone whispered.

Tavos turned sharply to the sensor officer. "Source?"

The officer's hands flew across the controls, searching, scrambling. "We—we don't know, my lord. The beam originated from the planet's surface, but—" he hesitated, voice unsteady. "Not from any ship. Not from any of our ground forces. It came from… from beneath the surface."

"Impossible," Orvek murmured.

Tavos did not reply.

His gaze remained fixed upon the viewport, upon the dying remnants of the harvester ship, the impossible destruction wrought by an unknown hand.

His mind should have been racing with strategy, with analysis, with questions.

Instead, only one thought surfaced, unbidden.

What in the name of Vulkan's forge sleeps beneath that rust?

-

He could hear the tromp of the Admech marching, still in lockstep, down the halls back towards the entrance. Koron was typing at the console for several more seconds before he finished one last keystroke, a new timer appearing, this one counting down from ten minutes.

"…What are you going to do with me?"

The trapped Marine's gaze flicked between the hololithic display—where the broken pieces of a Harvester tumbled—and the man at the console.

Koron didn't bother feigning misunderstanding. There was no time to play games. The countdown ticked ever lower, the ship's systems shifting from green to crimson one by one.

"You'll be released and returned with everyone else on the shuttles," Koron said simply.

"…Why?" Kade's crimson eyes narrowed. "You must know I will report everything to my superiors. The records will prove my words." His jaw tightened as he counted the factions that would inevitably take up the hunt. "You will be pursued across the stars. By everyone. There will be no place to hide, nowhere to run. Those here will—"

He stopped mid-sentence as realization struck like a hammer on an anvil.

Koron snapped his fingers, the sound sharp against the ship's metal walls. "And that. That hesitation? That is why I want you to live."

He pushed back from the console, tapping it once as the final crimson warning sigils replaced the jade. Two drones, slim, quiet, their bodies shaped like metal teardrops, glided silently from the door to Koron, objects in their mechanical limbs.

One carried a rectangular black metal block, barely an inch thick, but a foot high and wide. The other carried four rods of the same metal. Koron took the rods, placing two onto the tops of his forearms, the other two melding into the block that the drone affixed to his back. Before Kades eyes, the block dissolved, flowing around and into his armor while it also rolled over his arms, leaving behind what appeared to be thicker armor plating.

"How much were you able to save?" He asked, twisting his torso as he checked his range, the two drones landing on his armored shoulders, where they sank into the metal.

"Not much. But we got the arm set up, and future resources will build the rest of it. The staff is good though, ready for use as we need." Sasha replied.

Nodding, Koron lowered himself onto the single step of the dais and removed his helmet, his sharp azure gaze meeting Kade's. "The next few minutes will determine whether what I say here means a damn thing. But I'm going to say it anyway."

Kade's expression remained taut, his voice edged with skepticism. "I have little interest in your words."

"Even though I am neither heretic nor renegade?"

"That remains to be seen. Words are easy to say. Their truth is harder to prove."

"Fair." Koron inclined his head. "Then I will say what I must, and you can decide their worth later."

Kade gave no reply, his silence permission enough.

"You're right," Koron continued. "Once your Imperium learns of my existence, they will come for me. If they discover Sasha, they will hunt even harder. And if they learn what else I have in my head—" he exhaled, shaking his head. "They will burn entire systems to catch me."

Kade's eyes widened, the realization hitting him like a thunder hammer. "By the Emperor… You are claiming to have—"

"I keep telling people the same thing," Koron interrupted, tapping his temple. "I am an engineer."

"Contemplate what that entails."

Kade fell silent.

Memories surfaced—of the forge, of steel heated to white-hot perfection, of hammers striking iron under the watchful gaze of the Anvil-Sage. The old man's voice echoed through his mind, words burned into his memory like sigils upon tempered steel.

"The fires of the forge do not ask if you are worthy. They burn all the same. It is the craftsman who decides whether that flame creates or consumes."

A slow, shuddering breath filled Kade's lungs, his throat suddenly dry.

"Prove it."

Koron held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a small nod. Reaching into his armor, he retrieved a compact dataslate. One of his fingers split into tines, scratching across the slate's surface with rapid precision.

Thirty seconds.

Then he slid it across the floor toward Kade.

The Marine cast a wary glance down. A schematic. Engineering blueprints. His brow furrowed as he examined it—a lumen-torch?

"You mean to prove your knowledge of an STC… with a lumen-torch?" Kade asked, skepticism dripping from every syllable.

"Look closer."

Kade did as instructed. At first, the design seemed mundane, utterly unremarkable. But when his eyes landed on the power source, the disbelief cracked.

"Self-charging…" His gaze snapped up to Koron, then instinctively flicked to the glowing blue circle on the man's arm. The tines moved again, crafting something unseen.

Koron stood, moving behind Kade with casual ease, rummaging through his webbing before muttering, "Aha!" He returned to the stair, holding Kade's own emergency torch in his hand.

Kade tensed.

With practiced efficiency, Koron cracked open the torch's casing, removed the power pack, and replaced it with the small component he had just crafted. He flicked the switch—light burst forth, bright and unwavering. Then he turned it off and placed it back in Kade's pouch alongside the dataslate.

"Check it when you get out of here," Koron said, his voice quiet but steady. "See if it ever runs out of power."

Kade's lips tightened. "This is not proof."

"Perhaps not now," Koron admitted. "But when you return to your brothers, you will be able to test it yourself."

"Then we return to my original question. Why?" Kade's crimson eyes narrowed. "Why tell me this, knowing it is being recorded? Why give me these evidences, knowing they will damn you?"

"Precisely because of that," Koron said, voice even. "You will need proof of my existence, of my knowledge. Those who learn of me will not be satisfied with just your words or your video."

"Yes, but why?" Kade growled.

Koron stepped forward, his footfalls light against the metal floor, before lowering himself onto the step before the towering Astartes. Even kneeling, Kade still loomed over him, a mountain of ceramite and muscle. The faint glow of the hololith bathed them in ghostly light, flickering with distant reports from above.

"Because I want them to live."

Kade said nothing. He simply listened.

"I could kill you, the priests, and likely scrub much of the footage of us in the city. But questions would remain—about the Necrons, the deaths of so many priests, the loss of a sergeant. I cannot ensure their safety, their survival, like that. Nor could I find them new homes where my pursuers could not reach them. Too many isolated systems, too many backups to try and scour."

"So their best chance?" Koron met his gaze. "Is you."

Black brows furrowed. "Speak plainly."

"I want you to take them with you to Nocturne," Koron said, blunt as a hammer. "You won't lie about me or Sasha. There are too many unknowns, too much at risk for that. But they don't deserve to die." His gaze hardened. "You saw their reactions to Sasha, to me. They had no idea who—what—I am. They are innocent. Do not condemn them for showing kindness where none was required."

For just a moment, Kade saw them.

Tara, her wide, inquisitive eyes, the sharp mind behind them that asked questions, that offered help. Milo, the veteran who had poured him a drink, thanking his Chapter for their support in some distant warzone decades ago. The faces of those who had fought and died against the Necrons, raging with a fury that mirrored the fires of Vulkan himself.

A hammer is not meant for ruin, but to build.

"Even if I agree," Kade said at last, "the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Inquisition—they will learn of them."

"Not if you lie on your report."

The silence between them stretched, heavy.

"...You would have me dishonor myself?"

"No." Koron's reply was quiet but firm. "I would have you save their lives." He leaned forward, metal fingers whispering against each other. "I can remove myself from footage of their group, alter the logs. Easier to remove one person than eighty plus after all. I can erase them from your footage here, and the Adeptus Mechanicus won't remember a thing from this place anyway."

He pressed a single metal finger against Kade's chestplate. "Those who come for me will get what they want—what they need—a clear, obvious path to chase. And with me in their sights, Dusthaven will be forgotten. Left to live as best they can."

His voice dropped to something lower, something sharper.

"Everybody wins in this, Kade. You get to warn the Imperium about me. About an—" his lips twitched in wry amusement "—abominable intelligence. You get to save hundreds of innocent, loyal, devout Imperial citizens from a judgment you know is wrong."

Kade's expression darkened. "And what happens when they catch you? When they rip the truth from your mind? I, my Chapter—we will be implicated. They will come for us then, and we will be forced to turn them over. By Vulkan, we might hand them over ourselves if this comes to light."

Koron nodded, as if he had already considered every possible outcome.

"I know."

That small grin of his grew as he stood, brushing the dust from his trousers before reaching for his helmet.

"But," he mused, turning it over in his hands, "as it was once said: 'All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Foes, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you—digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people shall never be destroyed.'"

Seating his helmet with a final hiss of pressurization, he turned half-away, toward the door.

And then, just loud enough for the recorders—for those who would watch this later—to hear, he added with a wry grin:

"And I'm one wascally wabbit."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Fifteen

(Interlude)

-

You realize I will remember this, yes?" Kade grumbled, his voice edged with dry irritation as he stared through his visor at the slate-gray clouds overhead.

The servitors carrying him trundled forward, their servo-arms holding the immobilized Marine aloft with mechanical indifference.

Koron stood nearby, watching as the last of the unconscious Adeptus Mechanicus personnel were loaded into two of the remaining Aquila Landers—Kade placed unceremoniously alongside them. The distant hum of engines filled the air, mingling with the occasional crackle of vox chatter from the shuttles preparing for departure.

"I know," Koron said. "But this way, I can be sure you won't attack me."

The servitors, their task complete, turned and marched back into the buried ship without a sound.

Kade flexed his trapped fingers as best he could. "I presume your machine will fly us back to the forge city?"

"The flight plan's already set. Your armor will unlock five minutes after liftoff, but just so you know—controls are locked in."

"And the people?"

"Already back at Anaxis with the rest. Doc's got them in the shuttles. They should be ready to leave by the time you arrive."

Koron hesitated, his fingers twitching at his side—a fleeting war between impulse and reason. The words balanced on the edge of his tongue, unspoken yet insistent. He exhaled, barely audible over the wind.

"I know we're not parting on the best of terms," he said, quieter now, his voice carrying the weight of things left unsaid. "But for what it's worth… take care of yourself, alright?"

The narrow slit of Kade's helmet remained unreadable. Then, at last, the barest fraction of a nod.

"May your tricks carry you further than fate would allow, swift runner."

A soft hiss filled the air as the ramp sealed shut, cutting off any chance for reply. The engines rumbled to life, their deep vibrations swallowed by the howling winds. Outside, the desert stretched empty once more, as if the exchange had never happened at all. The landers lifted off, their silhouettes shrinking against the ashen sky, leaving only dust and silence in their wake.

-

It was strange.

Little more than two hours had passed since she had left, yet as Elissa stood at the top of the lander's ramp, staring out over the ruins of Dusthaven, it felt like a lifetime.

The wind howled through the empty streets, kicking up ash and dust, carrying the acrid scent of scorched metal. What had once been a bustling settlement was now nothing but skeletal remains of buildings, jagged and hollowed out, their edges blackened by fire. No bodies. No remnants. Nothing left of the people who had lived here—only the ghostly imprint of their existence, etched in soot and silence.

Elissa's fingers tightened around the small disc Sasha had given her. It was deceptively simple, smooth and light in her palm.

"Just behind your ear," Sasha had told her. "It'll do the rest."

She pressed it into place.

A pulse of warmth spread across her skin. She stiffened as thin, invisible filaments wove outward, adapting to her body—blending. A faint shiver ran down her spine.

The world changed.

Soft blue lines flickered across her vision, tracing the ruins before fading into transparency. Readouts appeared and vanished in the periphery of her sight: temperature gradients, air composition, wind speed. The layout of Dusthaven unfolded in subtle overlays, damage assessments highlighting weak structures, pathways ranked by stability.

Then—

A voice.

"Hello, Elissa."

It was female, warm but precise, familiar in a way that made her chest tighten. Sasha. Or something like her—a fragment.

Elissa swallowed hard. "You're still here?"

The voice softened, as though shaking off grogginess. "Sorry, sugar, I'm just a fragment of a fragment. Too little room in here for all of me. But I am here to help—always. Now, let's get your gift."

She exhaled slowly. "And what's that?"

A faint glow pulsed in her vision, guiding her gaze toward a pile of collapsed scrap near what used to be the outer edge of town. A faint silhouette, outlined in green. Koron's ramshackle home.

"Come on, darlin'. We don't have much time."

Elissa frowned but obeyed, stepping carefully over the rubble. Every movement felt smoother, more precise. The HUD adjusted subtly, marking footholds before she even needed them, predicting her steps before she took them.

She reached the pile—and saw it for what it was. Koron's garage. Caved in, warped, but still intact enough that something beneath remained hidden.

Her HUD highlighted a section buried under the debris.

Elissa crouched, gripping the edge. A quick heave—metal groaned, sand spilled outward.

Koron's bike.

The engine was off, the grav-plating silent, but somehow, despite the destruction around it, it remained unmarred.

She stared, heart pounding. "He left this?"

"For all you gave him, this is all he had left to give."

The words made her throat tighten.

"She's yours, to do with as you please. Sell her for wealth. Strip her for parts. Keep her." A pause. "No matter what, he hopes she'll help."

Elissa ran a hand along the frame, the metal cold beneath her fingertips. This wasn't just a gift—it was a relic. A piece of something far beyond her world. A machine crafted by hands that understood things she never would.

She could sell it, like Sasha said. Walk away with more money than she'd ever dreamed.

That would be the smart thing. The safe thing.

And yet… she couldn't shake the feeling that doing so would mean losing something more than just a machine.

Or—

She looked back at the ruins of Dusthaven. The emptiness of it. The home she had lost.

She ran her fingers over the smooth metal.

He had called this one 'she,' too. Like Sasha. Like the ship.

Like all the things that had ever truly mattered to him.

"Gonna be hard to hide it aboard the ships."

She could hear the grin in Sasha's voice. "Put your hand on the handlebars."

Elissa obeyed—then yanked her hand back as the bike shifted beneath her palm.

She watched, wide-eyed, as the vehicle shrank into itself—plates shifting, thrusters folding, entire sections disappearing as if swallowed by their own shadows. No grinding gears, no harsh clicks, just smooth, calculated efficiency. In seconds, the machine was gone, replaced by a sleek bar of metal no larger than a dataslate.

Picking it up, she marveled at how light it was, a soft grin tugging at her lips. "Still cheating I see."

After a moment, Sasha spoke up once more. "Come on darlin. Let's get you all back to the city before they leave you behind."

"Yeah..." Sliding the bar into her backpack, she turned toward the lander, her people watching.

The HUD flooded her with information—emotional cues, subtle tremors in their breathing, the strain in their expressions. It even suggested medical treatments.

"Sasha," she said aloud.

The response didn't come from the external comms—it came from inside her head.

'Just a heads up, sugar, you don't need to speak for me to hear you. We're linked now, you and I. Easier that way for me to help you.'

'Well, that's… odd. Can you dial back the stuff I'm seeing? It's kinda overwhelming.'

'Can do, sugar.'

The readouts faded, though faint traces still lingered at the edges of her vision.

Elissa turned to the survivors. She gestured toward the ruins. "We don't have much time. If there's anything you want to say, or anything you need to get, now's your chance."

Lines furrowed in weary faces. Some of the men nodded, peeling off to scavenge what little they could carry. Others lingered, whispering prayers for the dead.

Too soon—far too soon for Elissa's liking—Sasha's voice cut through the silence.

'El, we gotta go.'

The remaining survivors climbed aboard, fragments of their lives clutched in their hands.

The forge city waited.

-

The atmosphere aboard the Hammer of Nocturne was tense as the newest arrivals disembarked from the shuttles. The evacuees of Morrak Two—nobles, high-ranking officials, and tech-priests—descended the ramps in slow, measured steps, their retinues close behind. Their presence was unmistakable: richly embroidered robes, polished armor, and mechanical limbs gleaming under the harsh lumens of the battle-barge's hangar bay.

They carried themselves with the rigid poise of those who had never known true desperation, even in the face of their world's ruin. Servants and bodyguards flanked them, their eyes wary, hands hovering near weapons as if expecting an ambush in the heart of an Astartes warship.

And then, there was Dusthaven.

Elissa stood among her people, watching as the nobles passed. She recognized the moment their eyes found her group—because their expressions shifted immediately.

Distaste. Mild curiosity. Thinly veiled disgust.

A nobleman with an ornate cybernetic ocular implant gave an exaggerated sniff, as though merely breathing the same air as the Dusthaven survivors was an affront to his senses.

"By the Emperor, do they expect us to share quarters with the labor caste?" he scoffed. "This is a warship, not a manufactorum dormitory."

A woman, her robes embroidered with the sigil of some noble house, waved a delicate, servo-assisted hand in the Dusthaven group's direction. "They reek of engine grease and sweat. I thought we had proper filtration aboard this vessel?"

Another noble, younger but no less entitled, made a mocking gesture toward Elissa's patched and worn clothing. "Fascinating," he mused, "I was unaware that rags had come back into fashion."

Laughter rippled through their ranks.

Elissa's jaw clenched, but she said nothing.

The Dusthaven survivors had endured worse than petty insults. But something about the sheer casualness of it, the effortless cruelty, made her fingers twitch.

And then a familiar, emerald giant entered the room.

"Everyone, follow me. You will be quartered in the lower decks," Kade announced, his voice even, but impossible to ignore.

The amusement in the nobles' eyes faltered. A few glances were exchanged. One particularly pompous adept cleared his throat, as if preparing to argue.

A tall noble, his bald head adorned with electoos that shimmered under the lumens, took a step forward. His smile was carefully crafted, the expression of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.

"My dear Captain," he said, as if addressing a slow-witted servant, "surely there is some oversight? These… individuals lack the necessary education and refinement to exist alongside the upper caste."

Kade turned his helm slightly, the dark slit of his visor locking onto the noble like the barrel of a bolter.

"I am not a Captain," Kade corrected, his tone neutral. "I am a Sergeant."

The noble's expression flickered—then shifted into something resembling smug satisfaction.

"Ah. A Sergeant." The word rolled off his tongue like a man realizing he had just discovered leverage. "Then you are not the ranking officer aboard this vessel. You merely enforce orders, do you not?"

His smile widened, confident now. "I assume, then, that your Captain—or whoever commands here—would be more reasonable regarding the matter of accommodations. Perhaps it would be best if I spoke with them directly?"

A few of the nobles nodded approvingly, as if the matter had been settled.

Kade did not move.

"You assume incorrectly."

The noble blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You mistake me for one of your house guards, or perhaps a ranking officer in your petty court." Kade took a single step forward, and though his voice did not rise, the air in the hangar seemed to tighten.

"I am an Astartes of the Salamanders. That means I outrank you, your family, and every noble aboard this ship—by birth, by duty, and by fire."

The noble's smile withered. His jaw worked slightly, but no words came.

Elissa wasn't sure he had ever been spoken to like that in his life.

Kade waited precisely two seconds before continuing. "You will take the accommodations provided."

Silence.

And then, stiffly—"Of course, Sergeant."

As the nobles turned, one of them muttered under his breath, clearly not quiet enough: "Savages, all of them. This is why one does not entrust war-beasts with governance."

Kade didn't react.

But Elissa saw his gauntleted fingers flex once before relaxing.

She smirked. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

As Kade moved to join them, his attention shifted to the Dusthaven survivors. If he felt anything about their presence, he didn't show it. "We'll place them in one of the auxiliary habitation blocks," he said, his voice low. "Away from prying eyes."

Doc replied with the slightest nod. "That'll keep them out of trouble."

"Out of sight, out of mind," Elissa muttered, exhaling.

Kade's visor tilted down toward her. "For now."

She met his gaze—what little she could see of it behind his helmet—and for a moment, she thought he was going to say more. Instead, he turned back toward the assembled evacuees, motioning for them to follow.

The Dusthaven people fell in line behind him.

They didn't belong here.

But for now, at least, they had a place.

-

The tombs command center was vast, a hollowed-out chamber of blackened metal and undying light, where flickering glyphs hovered in the air like trapped phantoms. The intricate latticework of arcane technology cast strange shadows against the walls, shifting with an eerie rhythm as vast streams of data pulsed through the chamber like an artificial bloodstream.

At its center stood Orykhal the Luminous Calculant, surrounded by floating projections of Dusthaven, glyphic representations of battlefield data, and the ghostly remains of the Harvester, now reduced to little more than flickering static. The Cryptek's icy green gaze remained locked on the shattered calculations, the impossible equation before him still unsolved.

It had been one shot. One impossible, unexplained shot.

"Your obsession wastes time," growled Lord Zareth, the Ruinous Tide, his form a hulking specter of death at the chamber's edge. His hovering bulk vibrated with the barely restrained urge to be elsewhere, to be killing something, his glowing crimson eyes locked on Orykhal with something close to contempt. "The only question that matters is how long it will take to reduce this world to silence."

Orykhal did not so much as turn. "Your impatience does you no credit, Destroyer," he said coolly, his metallic fingers shifting to adjust the data-streams cascading before him. "There is an equation here that has not yet been solved. A weapon capable of annihilating a Harvester in a single instant—without leaving a trace of its origin—does not simply appear from the void." His filigree-etched exoskeleton gleamed as new glyphs manifested in the air, each one detailing the scattered anomalies already recorded—the lasgun variants, the Dusthaven force field, the overcharged energy dispersal that had cored a Night Scythe in mid-air.

But this… the destruction of a capital ship? That was something else entirely.

"It does not concern me," Zareth stated.

"No," Orykhal agreed, with something approaching amusement. "It does not. But it should."

Zareth's claws twitched, the hum of his gravitic drive intensifying. "I will burn this world regardless. What does it matter what tools the insects wield? They will be ash all the same."

Orykhal's fingers flexed, dismissing a sequence of glyphs before conjuring others. "And yet you still breathe." His tone was devoid of mockery, but the statement landed with the weight of one. "This city still stands. The humans still escape." A pause. "Is it that you fear their weapons, Lord Zareth?"

The Destroyer's optics flared dangerously, and the chamber shook as his gravitic thrusters pulsed in agitation. "I fear nothing."

"Then you should have no objection to gathering intelligence before we eradicate them," Orykhal replied smoothly. His own optics glowed steadily, his voice composed, detached. "I do not propose mercy. I propose understanding."

Zareth scoffed. "Understanding is a fool's errand when extermination is the only necessity."

The silent presence that loomed over both of them—the specter of their true master—was the only thing keeping their argument from boiling over. The Overlord of their dynasty still slumbered beneath the great tomb-fortress at the heart of their reclamation efforts. His awakening would be a matter of decades, perhaps centuries, but in the cold calculus of the Necron mind, that was soon.

And when he awoke, he would not tolerate failure.

Orykhal had no interest in being caught unprepared when that moment came. The anomaly must be studied, quantified, and accounted for.

Zareth had no interest in anything but bloodshed, but even he understood the risk of allowing something so powerful to exist unchecked.

A long silence stretched between them before Zareth finally snarled, "Say your piece, Calculant. But when your curiosity fails you, I will be the one to cleanse this world."

Orykhal inclined his head ever so slightly. "Then by all means, prepare your legions. But not with blind fury. The humans are scattering—we will track them, follow the threads of this mystery to its source. Only when we understand will we annihilate them."

Zareth turned with a bitter growl, his thrusters burning a searing path as he stormed from the chamber, disappearing into the darkened halls beyond.

Orykhal turned back to the swirling glyphs.

The anomaly was out there. The weapon, the strategy, the technology that had broken the expected balance of power.

He would find it.

And when he did, he would decide whether it should be destroyed… or claimed.

-

The wind howled across the Sea of Rust, sweeping ribbons of sand over the fallen colossus. Buried beneath the shifting dunes, Unto the Unknown lay still, its broken hull hidden from sight. No fires burned now. No gunfire echoed across the sky. The battle was, for her, finished.

Koron stood on a ridge of twisted iron and stone, his gaze locked on the final feed from the ship's cargo hold.

Five thousand, eight hundred and sixty souls.

They lay in rows, arranged with the dignity they had earned in life. Their armor and uniforms had been cleaned as best as time allowed, faces left uncovered where possible. The failing overhead lumens flickered softly, casting long shadows over them.

No voices, no breath, no heartbeat, just the rush of wind across the dunes, the distant crack of jade lightning.

Yet still, they were there.

He remembered every name—their laughter in the halls, the firm clasps of hands after a battle well-fought, the bellowed stories of homeworlds long lost to time. He let those memories fill his mind, holding onto them as the countdown in his visor pressed forward.

At its edge, a golden orb pulsed softly.

Sasha's projection hovered, her usual bright shimmer subdued, dimmed in the wake of what was coming. She had been silent for the past minute, watching the feed with him.

"I archived their logs," she said finally. Her voice, normally edged with wry amusement, was quiet now, a ghost of its usual self. "Their messages, their letters—what was left of them. Just in case someone, someday, remembers to look."

Koron swallowed. It was a small thing, perhaps. But it was something.

He nodded, slowly. "Thank you."

Another long silence stretched between them, save for the distant wind and the soft hum of her systems.

"You all lived up to the old girl's name after all." He whispered, hoping the dead might hear.

Sasha's glow flickered, as if in agreement.

The countdown continued.

Ten.

Nine.

The ship did not groan, did not shudder in its final moments. There was no fear, no protest.

Just acceptance.

Seven.

Six.

Koron exhaled, a faint, tired smile tugging at his lips.

"Be sure to leave me a trail to follow, won't you?"

Zero.

The Unto the Unknown roared one final time.

A sun was born upon the desert.

Fire erupted from deep within the ship's ruined heart, searing through ancient decks and bulkheads, vaporizing metal and memory alike. The sky turned to blinding white as the shockwave ripped across the dunes, a final, deafening cry before silence reclaimed the wreck.

And then—nothing.

Where once a titan lay, now only ash remained.

The wind stirred, dragging the dust of the fallen into the night.

Sasha drifted closer, her glow faint but steady. She did not speak. She did not need to.

Koron exhaled, slow and measured, letting the silence settle.

For a long moment, he remained still. The wind pulled at him, dust swirling around his boots, as if the ship's final breath had not yet faded.

Then, finally, with one last glance at the pyre where the ship had once been, he turned and walked away.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Sixteen

-

The air in the auxiliary habitation block was thick with the scent of too many bodies packed into too little space. Stale and heavy, it pressed against the walls of cold metal, unyielding. The low hum of ship systems droned on, a constant reminder that they were deep within a warship designed for war, not comfort.

Elissa stood at the edge of their cramped quarters, watching her people settle as best they could. There were no real beds—only stiff, folding cots stacked in tight rows. The metal frames dug into thin bedding, offering little relief after an already grueling day. Privacy was a distant memory, abandoned in the face of survival. The space was filled with hushed conversations, whispered worries, and the silent stares of those too drained to speak.

Most of the Astartes barely acknowledged them, their towering forms moving with the singular purpose of warriors bred for war. To them, the refugees were little more than logistical clutter, a footnote in the aftermath of battle. Others, particularly the serfs and mortal crew, weren't as indifferent—some with quiet disdain, others with muted pity. None offered warmth. None welcomed them.

She had spent the day wearing herself thin, walking the lower decks of the Hammer, learning the unspoken rules of the ship. Regulations were one thing—expectations were another. She needed to know where her people could find purpose, where they could prove themselves useful. If they were seen as dead weight, their survival here would be tenuous at best.

Repairs. Cleaning. Cooking. Security. It didn't matter what it was, only that it kept them from being pushed further down the ladder.

Milo had adjusted quickly, his years of moving from one battlefield to another, shuffled around in ships just like this, gave him an edge in even this unfamiliar environment. Already, he was securing relationships, finding those among the crew willing to barter—not in just coin, but in goods, favors. Here, trust was a currency of its own.

Doc, unsurprisingly, had integrated herself into the medical wing. Her experience was obvious, her competence earning her a place with little resistance. Supplies were scarce, but she gathered what she could—a roll of bandages here, a half-used vial there. Small things, but valuable. Things that could mean the difference between life and death.

Her daughters, too, found their own ways to contribute.

Kala, restless and relentless, threw herself into whatever task she could find. One moment she was hauling supplies, the next assisting a harried quartermaster. Later, distributing rations. She never stopped moving, and for that, Elissa was grateful. Kala thrived when she had something to do, something tangible to hold onto.

Tara, though… Tara was exhausted.

She felt everything—the press of the crowd, the loss, the weight of displacement. Yet, she kept going. She held on.

Elissa knew she should be proud.

But she was so, so tired.

Sleep came quickly. Rest did not.

The ship groaned around her, metal shifting with every tremor of the void. A lifetime in the desert had attuned her to silence—the whisper of wind and sand, the stillness of night. This place was anything but silent.

Metal clanged. Pipes gurgled. Snores echoed through the too-tight space.

She woke often, heart hammering, sweat slick on her back. The heat of too many bodies pressed in, suffocating. Around her, others stirred in their sleep—some restless, some deathly still.

'Hey, darlin, how you doing?'

The little golden ball slid into view, casting a soft glow. Familiar. Warm.

Elissa exhaled. 'You already know the answer. Why ask?'

'It helps. People need an outlet. Someone to vent to. I'm the perfect listener, and your stress levels are high. Expected, of course, given everything, but that doesn't mean I won't try to help.'

Elissa huffed a quiet laugh. 'You've already been a big help. All that stuff—reading people, mapping the ship, finding supplies? It would've taken me weeks to do a fraction of what you've done.'

Sasha grew larger in her vision, pulsing gently. 'I think you underestimate yourself, sugar, but you're welcome all the same. That said… you're dodging."

Before Elissa could protest, a slow wave of heat pulsed from behind her ear—gentle, rhythmic warmth easing into the knots in her neck.

She stiffened. 'What are you doing?'

'Heat massage mode,' Sasha said easily. 'This terminal was built by Koron with a variety of functions. Might as well use 'em.'

Elissa frowned. 'He built it?'

'Yup. Originally, it was supposed to house my full self, but there was too much damage, too little time. So, this became a side project. He finished it about a month before we reappeared in realspace. Even completed, it could only carry a tiny fraction of me.'

Elissa swallowed. 'I'm sorry.'

Sasha pulsed gently. 'Don't be. I'm not. If anything, I'm grateful. It means I can be here. I can help. And that's enough for me.'

Hesitantly, Elissa reached up, fingers brushing against the hidden disc behind her ear. A quiet, wordless gesture.

'Sasha?' she murmured.

'Yeah, darlin'?'

'Thank you.'

Sasha's golden orb jiggled slightly; her voice warm with laughter. ''Course, sugar. Now get some sleep. I'll keep watch. Always.'

As she felt her eyes begin to close, Elissa looked across the room.

Kala lay curled up in her bunk, exhaustion finally pulling her under.

Tara was tucked against her twin, her breathing soft but strained, as if even in sleep, she was bracing against the weight of everything they had lost.

Elissa closed her eyes. Exhaled. Slow. Steady.

There was no room for grief. No time for weakness.

Her people needed her.

So she endured.

But, not alone.

Tomorrow, the fight would begin again.

-

The chamber was dim, illuminated only by the flickering glow of lumen-strips embedded in the cold, iron walls. The air was thick with the scent of incense, its fragrant tendrils clinging to the ceramite of Kade's armor.

Before him, seated upon a throne of burnished adamantium, was Chaplain Arvak. His skull-helmed visage remained unreadable in the half-light, an eternal sentinel of judgment.

Kade knelt—not in reverence, but in conflict. His gauntleted hands clasped tightly, as if through sheer force he could crush the doubt gnawing at his soul. Within his helmet's HUD, two data files flickered side by side, ghostly green vid-captures frozen mid-frame.

One file held the unvarnished truth, stark and unforgiving.

The other was a carefully crafted lie.

For a long moment, the Chaplain was silent, watching him with an intensity that burned deeper than any flame. Then, at last, he spoke.

"You are troubled."

Kade's jaw tightened. "Yes."

Arvak did not move. His voice was iron, unwavering. "Tell me."

Kade exhaled slowly, forcing himself to meet the hollow eye sockets of his Chaplain's helm.

"I have gathered my after-action reports. Within them lies the truth of what transpired. And yet… that truth will bring ruin to those who do not deserve it."

He tapped the first file. The cogitator screen flickered to life, displaying a frozen vid-capture.

Koron, hands moving with impossible speed, guiding the fury of a weapon long thought dead.

Sasha, her golden orb hovering above the battlefield—the very essence of what the Imperium despised.

And in the background, the survivors of Dusthaven—exhausted, broken, but alive.

"They were there," Kade said. "They helped. Without them, the cannon would not have fired. Without them, the Necron warship would not have died. We would not have lived."

He tapped the second file. The same moment in time—but altered. Koron remained. Sasha remained.

The people of Dusthaven were gone.

"This is the alternative," he said, voice leaden. "One omits those who, by all Imperial doctrine, are now abominations. The other signs their death warrants."

Arvak remained still. The only sound was the low hum of the lumen-strips, casting long, wavering shadows. Then:

"You would be lying."

Kade stiffened. "…Yes."

A long silence stretched between them. When Arvak spoke again, his voice was measured. Heavy.

"Our duty is clear." His words struck like a hammer on stone. "We are the Emperor's wrath, his shield, his cleansing flame. We do not bend, we do not waver, and we do not deceive." He leaned forward slightly. "But tell me, Brother—what is our purpose?"

Kade frowned. "To defend the Imperium."

Arvak nodded, slow and deliberate. "And what is the Imperium?"

"…Its people."

The Chaplain rose from his throne, stepping down from the raised platform. His boots echoed as he stopped before Kade, towering over him like a statue of the Emperor himself.

"The people," he said. His voice was softer now, but no less firm. "Not its bureaucracy. Not its dogma. Not the blind machinery of its Inquisition. The people."

His gauntleted hand reached out, gripping Kade's shoulder guard, fingers pressing into the scorched ceramite.

"The Imperium is built upon sacrifice. We bleed so that others do not. We die so they may live. We burn so they do not have to." His grip tightened. "If you send the first file, you are upholding your duty as a warrior. If you send the second, you are upholding your duty as a Salamander."

Kade's throat tightened.

His mind flashed back to the battlefield. To the hololith, where Imperial ships burned, their crews screaming defiance even as they died. To the heat of the reactor chamber, where Koron had torn apart safety protocols, Sasha had screamed warnings, and ordinary people—mere mortals—had fought to bring the cannon to life.

They could have run.

And now, because they had chosen to fight, the Imperium itself would cast them into the fire.

He looked up at his Chaplain.

Arvak did not tell him what to do.

He had never needed to.

A breath escaped him, slow and measured. A weight lifted, replaced by another—one he would carry willingly.

Truthfully, it had never been a choice at all.

-

Captain Tavos sat hunched over his desk, the dim glow of hololithic projections casting deep shadows across his quarters. Reports from the fleet scrolled past his vision—damage assessments, supply counts, astropathic communiqués—all vital, all demanding his attention. He barely spared a glance at the chrono; hours had bled away since he had last moved from his seat.

Then, the door to his chamber exploded inward.

The two Astartes guards flanking the entrance stumbled back, hands instinctively moving to their weapons as a blur of crimson robes and thrumming mechadendrites surged into the room. Binary shrieks filled the air, an electric wail so piercing that even Tavos, clad in ceramite and centuries of discipline, recoiled slightly at the assault on his senses.

"Karthis-Omnis!" Tavos barked, his voice a hammer striking iron. "Explain yourself!"

The tech-priest's mechadendrites twitched violently, his entire form vibrating with manic energy as he thrust a dataslate forward like it bore the Emperor's own decree.

"Summon Sergeant Vulkanis Kade. Immediately." His voice, when he deigned to use Gothic, was taut, barely restrained. "Summon him, Captain, or I will dismantle this vessel piece by piece until I have his mind."

Tavos narrowed his eyes, rising slowly from his chair. It was rare—impossibly rare—for any among the Mechanicus to display such raw emotion. Even in the heat of battle, Karthis-Omnis had been cold precision incarnate, an executor of machine logic. And yet, here he stood, trembling, desperate.

Tavos did not take such outbursts lightly.

He gestured sharply to one of his guards. "Fetch Brother Kade. Now."

The Astartes snapped to attention, heavy boots thudding against the deck as he departed. Tavos turned back to the tech-priest, his expression unreadable beneath his helm.

"Explain, Archmagos," he said, his voice dangerously calm. "What is so vital that you would dare storm my sanctum like an untrained whelp?"

Karthis-Omnis clutched the dataslate to his chest like a relic of Holy Terra itself. When he finally spoke, it was with reverence and disbelief in equal measure.

"The dataslate Kade submitted. I ran every test. Verified it twice." His augmetic eyes whirred, adjusting to better focus on the Astartes. "It is no mere artifact, no fragment of lost knowledge."

He took a step closer.

"Captain..." He hesitated, as if the words themselves were sacred. "It is a Standard Template Construct. A functioning fragment of an STC."

For the first time in decades, Tavos felt his twin hearts skip a beat. His grip tightened on the edge of his desk, ceramite creaking under his fingers.

Silence fell over the chamber. The only sound was the distant hum of the ship around them.

Tavos exhaled slowly. The war beyond these walls had not changed. But here, aboard this ship, another battle had already begun.

And Kade had much to answer for.

-

Nestled inside the docking bay of the Forge-Tender Indomitable, the Aquila Lander's thrusters ticked softly as they cooled, radiating faint wisps of heat Koron could feel through his environmental augments. He lay on his back, suspended six inches above the shuttles cold deck plating by his anti-grav augs, lazily spinning in place as he idly pushed off the lander's seats.

Above him, a teardrop-shaped drone hovered, mirroring his movement with a smooth, calculated drift as it projected the data. Sasha's avatar—an ever-shifting swirl of golden fractals—bounced a virtual ball back over to his side of the game they were playing. His HUD tracked its arc with effortless precision, mapping its motion without conscious effort as random variables were interjected. Gravitic disturbances, air currents, aerodynamic alterations and more imposed upon either of the players at the roll of a die. But the game was incidental.

His focus stretched between the physical and digital, each feeding into the other like twin halves of a single thought. He wasn't reading the code Sasha processed from the lander's machine spirit; he felt its decayed logic loops, its fragmented directives, the echoes of purpose long since eroded. There was no true intelligence left—only vestigial functions, diagnostic routines running out of habit rather than necessity. Sasha sifted through the wreckage regardless, parsing what little remained.

The Indomitable was another matter entirely.

Koron's augmetics painted the ship's systems across his awareness like a fractured tapestry, nodes of activity pulsing with dull, mechanized rhythm. The Mechanicus had tried, in their way—encryptions, layered firewalls, noospheric barriers. To most intruders, they would be potent barriers.

To Koron and Sasha, they were barely an inconvenience.

Six tech-priests. Automated crew, little more than flesh-wrapped conduits for routine tasks. Their shuttle had already been logged as Out of Service—Low Priority Repair, its registry quietly shuffled away from Morrak's fleet. No reason to make it an easy trace.

And yet, for all their skill, for all their caution, it was agonizingly slow.

No direct links. No deep integration. No careless steps in the digital landscape. They had learned not to, the broken machine spirits attacking without hesitation the moment they were able.

Instead: Air-gapping. Manual data-slate transfers. Pre-built packet programs instead of direct interface. Test first. Observe. Only then, act.

And now, they had a problem.

At the heart of the Indomitable, something still lived. The ship's machine spirit. Damaged. Fractured. But aware.

Unlike the lesser systems they had toyed with, this one had weight. It had power. If it noticed them lurking in its corridors, it could crush them both through sheer processing power—override Koron's augmetics, isolate Sasha, purge their presence with Mechanicus counter-intrusion protocols designed with the cold efficiency of execution.

So they stayed in the peripheries. Ghosts in the outer systems. Supply logs. Maintenance schedules. Data archives. Safe places.

Until now.

Koron's intrusion tools flickered. Not an alarm. Not yet. But the machine spirit shifted—processes re-prioritizing, latent functions stirring as though waking from some long dormancy. He clenched his jaw. No mistakes.

A star chart unfolded before him, crisp and detailed, rendered in pale blue overlays across his vision. The Imperium's mapped galaxy—except wrong. Split. Torn. A gaping wound carved across its breadth.

Koron frowned. What the hell is the Cicatrix Maledictum?

A heartbeat later.

"OH, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU IDIOTS DO?!"

-

Standing at rigid attention, Kade fixed his gaze forward, unmoving. He locked onto a single point on the wall, forcing himself to remain impassive.

Before him, Captain Tavos, Chaplain Arvak, and Archmagos Karthis-Omnis scrutinized the hololith in tense silence. The after-action report cycled endlessly, the Archmagos rewinding it at precise intervals, each time analyzing the blue-armored figure and his aberrant construct as they obliterated a Harvester.

"You have uncovered quite the troublesome individual," Tavos muttered, his tone caught between grudging respect and cold practicality. "That said, I suppose I shall grant him the mercy of a swift death—for saving my people."

"A pity the Silica was able to infiltrate your armor's systems," Arvak added, his skull-helmed visage unreadable. "A tactic we must anticipate and counter."

Kade gave a slight nod, unwilling to trust his voice.

"Indeed," Karthis intoned, his synthetic voice rasping from behind his mask. "Those of my order who remain on the surface must be examined thoroughly. A direct mental assault by a Silica… there may be spoor left behind, remnants of its touch. And your armor, Sergeant—it must be analyzed. Any lingering traces could yield insight into its method of incursion."

Another nod.

Tavos leaned forward, massive hands bracing against the projector's edge. His gaze burned into Kade.

Tavos's voice was low, measured. But Kade could hear the weight behind it.

"Brother, what do you know of this renegade? Why did he aid us? And why, in the Emperor's name, did he let you live?"

Kade exhaled slowly. The words had to be precise. Any misstep could seal more than just one fate.

"That… is difficult to say, my lord."

A pause. Not hesitation. Calculation.

"He does not serve the Imperium. That much is certain. And yet, when the moment came, he stood against the xenos. He fought, bled, and burned alongside us. Whatever his true motives, I cannot say for sure beyond what I saw."

Tavos's expression did not change, but something shifted in his posture. A flicker of impatience.

"Then why did he let you live?"

"Because he wanted to be seen, Captain." Kade's voice was level, but there was something beneath it. Something unsettled. "A man like that doesn't fear pursuit. He invites it."

Silence settled over the chamber. Tavos studied him. Arvak remained motionless. Karthis-Omnis's optics whirred faintly.

Then: "Explain."

Kade advanced the hololith playback. The frozen image of Koron's face, half-shadowed, filled the chamber. His voice followed—calm, matter-of-fact, but laced with contempt.

"Your Imperium is a hollow echo of what I left behind—faith supplanting intellect, superstition overriding reason. I will not see what remains of my work placed in the hands of zealots or fools. Chase me if you must, but know this—"

The feed flickered. Koron leaned forward, his face mere inches from the lens.

Kade froze the playback. He turned back to his superiors.

"He will not surrender himself. Not his knowledge, not his machine. If he is as intelligent as he appears, remaining aboard an Astartes warship would be suicide." He let his words settle. "I believe he has already stowed away on an evacuation vessel. He would blend into the nameless rather than linger within the lion's den."

Silence.

"If he wields a true Silica," Karthis murmured, his fingers tightening around his Omnissian Axe, "his actions are beyond prediction. Such entities—true, self-evolving intelligences—outstrip mortal comprehension. Their strategies adapt faster than we can counter. We must turn back. Every outbound vessel must be searched."

Tavos didn't hesitate. "Impossible."

His tone was iron. Final. With a sharp motion, he summoned a galactic map onto the display. Stars burned in the void, shifting with the tides of war.

"We are needed at the Nachmund Gauntlet. The bulk of our forces converge there. Nocturne has called." He turned to Karthis, his tone unwavering. "And her sons shall answer. Silica or not. STC or not. Let your brothers of the cog deal with it."

Karthis's optics flared—a subtle flicker, but telling.

For a moment, Kade thought the Archmagos might argue. Karthis stood motionless, augmetics twitching, tension crackling through his frame. Then, stiffly, he inclined his head.

"Very well. But I will transmit these schematics and recordings to my kin. They must be made aware."

Tavos gave a curt nod. "Understandable."

Karthis turned then, optics locking onto Kade. He extended a hand.

"Sergeant. You have an item of his to surrender, do you not?"

Kade reached into his belt pouch, retrieving the modified lumen-torch Koron had left behind. He placed it into Karthis's waiting palm.

The Magos accepted it with reverence, cradling it as though it were a relic of the Omnissiah himself. Without another word, he departed.

Silence settled in the chamber.

"Brother."

Arvak's voice was low, steady—like the distant growl of an approaching storm.

Kade turned. Both Tavos and Arvak were watching him now. Waiting.

"Tell me," Arvak said, "what does your gut say about this man?"

Kade's mouth felt dry. He wet his lips. He would not lie.

He exhaled slowly. Measured. Controlled. But something in his chest tightened.

"My lords…" He swallowed. "I do not think he understands the kind of attention he's about to draw."

Silence. Heavy. Pressing.

"And I fear…" His voice was quieter now, almost an afterthought. "I fear what will happen when he has nowhere left to run."

-

The grand chamber of the Fabricator-General of Mars was silent, save for the soft whir of servitors maintaining the data-streams. Enormous cogitator banks stretched into the darkness above, their crimson lumen-glow reflecting off polished brass and steel. The air itself was thick with the electric hum of noospheric communication, billions of machine-spirits chattering in binary hymns.

At the center of it all, Oud Oudia Raskian, the supreme ruler of the Martian priesthood, stood motionless—his entire being consumed by the data before him.

For the first time in his existence, his mind stuttered.

A Standard Template Construct. Intact. Uncorrupted.

An STC was not merely technology. It was divinity made manifest. It was the blueprint of the ancients, the mind of the Omnissiah's chosen age, the foundation upon which the Imperium itself had been built. It was the very voice of the Machine God given form.

And it was in the hands of an Astartes fleet, adrift in the void, unclaimed by Mars.

His augur-seers had long prophesied that an STC's discovery would ignite an Omnissian Crusade—a war of faith unlike any seen since the Horus Heresy. And yet, this revelation went beyond even that.

The report continued, and with it, the impossible.

A survivor of the Dark Age of Technology.

No such thing should exist. The Age of Strife had devoured that era whole, erasing it from time and memory. And yet this "Koron" not only claimed to have lived it—he bore the knowledge of it.

A Golden Age ship.

A thinking machine, operating unseen.

And the claim that an entire STC database was within reach. Not just the necessities for survival across scattered worlds.

But the knowledge base of a Golden Age engineer.

For ten thousand years, the Adeptus Mechanicus had clawed through the wreckage of a fallen era, salvaging mere scraps of knowledge like beggars sifting through the remnants of a feast long since devoured. Every breakthrough had been hard-won, every fragment of lost technology pried from the jaws of time itself. But this? This was no mere relic—this was the foundation of their faith, the missing cornerstone upon which the Omnissiah's grand design had once stood. The Great Work had become a slow crawl, an eternity of dead ends and diminishing returns. But now, the impossible lay before them.

The cogitators in his very throne-room stuttered, unable to process the sheer magnitude of the revelation.

His mind reeled. If this was true, then Mars had been gifted the greatest boon since the discovery of the Omnissiah's avatar, the Emperor Himself.

If this was false, then it was the most vile and unforgivable heresy in human history.

Raskian's bionic fingers trembled on the dataslate. He had not trembled in centuries.

A machine-god's truth or a techno-heresy beyond reckoning—both could not exist in the same breath.

His mind descended into the noosphere, firing encrypted ciphers to every Forgeworld that owed allegiance to Mars. He transmitted orders with absolute authority, his will cascading across the Red Planet like a solar storm.

++ MORRAK II: PURGED OF XENOS. ++

++ SALAMANDER FLEET: INTERCEPTED. ++

++ ALL FORGES: PREPARE FOR HOLY WAR. ++

++ STC: SECURED AT ALL COSTS. ++

++ SUBJECT KORON AND HIS ABOMINABLE INTELLIGENCE—CAPTURED ALIVE. HIS KNOWLEDGE MAY SURPASS ALL RECOVERED ARCHIVES. ANALYSIS IMPERATIVE BEFORE TERMINATION. ++

++ THE MECHANICUS SHALL MARCH. ++

From the deepest manufactorums to the warforges, the call to arms reverberated across Mars. Battlefleets began to gather. Titans were roused from their slumber. Skitarii Legions received the sacred command.

Mars was at war.

A crusade of knowledge, a reckoning unseen since the Great Schism, loomed on the horizon. The forges of Ryza, the Legios of Graia, the Red Priests of Stygies VIII—every arm of the Mechanicus prepared to mobilize. In the long history of the Omnissiah's faithful, no war had been waged with higher stakes. This was not merely a battle for territory or dominance.

It was a struggle for the very soul of their order.

Not against an enemy of flesh and blood, but against the abyss of ignorance itself.

There could be no retreat.

There could be no failure.

The Omnissiah's faithful would not be found wanting.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Seventeen

-

The command chamber aboard the Hammer of Nocturne was austere, its design dictated by function rather than ornamentation. The only embellishments were statues of Vulkan and the Chapter's sigils embedded within the reinforced adamantium walls, silent reminders of duty and lineage. A central hololithic table flickered with shifting projections—tactical overlays, star charts, and threat assessments—its cold, blue illumination casting sharp-edged shadows across the assembled warriors.

Captain Tavos stood at the head of the chamber, his armored hands braced against the table's edge, studying the strategic display. Around him gathered the key figures of the war council—Chaplain Arvak, Librarian Xal'Zyr, Sergeant Kade, and several squad leaders. Opposite them, Archmagos Karthis-Omnis loomed like a crimson specter, his robes barely concealing the restless motion of his mechadendrites, which coiled and uncoiled with barely restrained impatience.

"Our part in the evacuation of Morrak is complete," Tavos stated, his voice firm, measured. "All remaining Imperial personnel will await reinforcement from the relief fleet as we rejoin our battle group. However, the Adeptus Mechanicus remains... dissatisfied."

Karthis-Omnis' augmented optics pulsed with a faint crimson glow. "The loss of a forge-world specializing in Titan production, and the inability to locate a vessel from the Dark Age of Technology, is not merely 'unsatisfactory,' Captain. It is catastrophic."

Kade crossed his arms, his expression impassive. "The planet was lost the moment the Necrons fully awakened. Holding it was never a viable option."

The Magos' mechadendrites twitched in irritation, his optical lenses whirring as they focused on Kade. "I do not speak of the xenos. The AI and the man aboard the relic are now free. That Silica is operational, and it constitutes an existential threat of unprecedented magnitude. The Mechanicus must recover or neutralize it."

Chaplain Arvak inclined his skull-helmed head slightly. "And yet, duty calls us elsewhere. Nocturne summons us. The Hammer is already en route to the Nachmund Gauntlet."

"This pursuit cannot be abandoned," Karthis countered, his vox-augmented voice carrying a metallic edge. "If left unchecked, the rogue intelligence could infiltrate Imperial systems, spread its influence. We risk igniting another Men of Iron calamity."

Tavos exhaled slowly, his fingers tightening around the table's edge. "Our foremost obligation remains the defense of the Imperium. The Hammer cannot deviate—not with the war in the Gauntlet intensifying. However…" His gaze shifted toward Xal'Zyr. "Brother-Librarian, what do your senses reveal?"

Xal'Zyr's eyes gleamed with an ethereal blue light, a sharp contrast to the deep crimson of his brothers. When he spoke, his voice was laced with a rare gravity. "The Warp seethes around Morrak like a tide beneath the fabric of reality. The AI is but one concern—something else watches us from the void. To linger…" He paused, his fingers brushing the hilt of his force sword as if in unconscious unease. "To linger would be to invite ruin."

A heavy silence settled over the war council.

Karthis-Omnis straightened and reached up to activate his vox-link. A moment later, he placed his cybernetic hand upon the hololith, his mechanical limbs tensing as he spoke. Awe colored his usually clinical tone. "Mars has put forth a call," Karthis-Omnis declared. "The Red Planet marches."

Silence. A ripple of tension passed through the chamber. Even Tavos, ever composed, inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

Mars did not march lightly.

"Then the fate of Morrak now falls to your kin, Archmagos. We have our orders. But I advise caution—the Necrons will not suffer trespassers, and if this AI is as advanced as you claim, it will not remain passive."

Karthis' optics refocused, his internal calculations running at inhuman speeds. After a brief pause, he gave a curt nod. "Correct. This, however, satisfies my concerns. Where the Machine marches, nothing shall stand."

With that, the council adjourned. The warriors dispersed, each returning to their duties, the weight of impending war settling upon them.

Yet as the chamber emptied, Kade lingered. He turned to Tavos. "Captain," he said quietly, his tone measured, "what is your true assessment of this AI?"

Tavos remained still for a moment, his armored shoulders unmoving. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a weight of contemplation. "I believe we are only glimpsing the edge of the abyss, Brother. And by the time we comprehend the depths of what we face…" His fingers drummed lightly against the hololithic table. "It may be far too late to turn back."

-

As Kade turned to leave the chamber, a quiet voice stopped him.

"Brother Kade, a moment."

He turned to find Xal'Zyr standing in the dim light, his glowing eyes still faintly burning with residual psychic energy. The Librarian's normally serene expression was lined with unease. Kade inclined his head and stepped closer.

"What troubles you, Brother-Librarian?"

Xal'Zyr hesitated for a moment, then gestured for Kade to follow him down a quieter corridor. When they were alone, the Librarian spoke in a low tone. "Since your mission to Dusthaven, I have been unable to clearly discern our path forward."

Kade frowned. "As I understand it, the Warp is always fickle. The future is never a certainty."

"This is different." Xal'Zyr's voice carried an edge of urgency. "Before, the currents of fate followed patterns I could perceive—possibilities, but within known limits. Now, there is... too much. Paths multiply, split, reform. Possibilities bloom and collapse in ways I have never encountered. Not obfuscation, not a veil, but something else."

Kade's expression hardened, his mind turning over the implications. "Something, or someone?"

The Librarian's fingers curled into a tight fist. "I do not know. But I am certain that something changed when you set foot in Dusthaven. I can no longer see our fate as I once did, and that unsettles me more than any daemon's whisper."

Kade studied Xal'Zyr for a long moment, the weight of his words pressing upon him. "Why are you telling me this? Does the Captain know?"

"He does. But I need another perspective. I ask you—did anything occur on Dusthaven that might explain this disturbance? Beyond the incredible discovery of the Silica, was there anything... unnatural?"

Closing his eyes, Kade sifted through his memories of the mission, recalling every shot fired, every swung blade, every word exchanged. Slowly, he shook his head. "I apologize, Brother, but nothing stands out among my recollections. I have fought the vile forces of the Warp before—I know their scent, their taint—but nothing like that—" He paused mid-sentence, a realization dawning upon him.

"I misspoke. There was a moment. When the cannon fired, the Silica and Koron—"

"The renegade?" Xal'Zyr interjected, his tone measured.

"…Yes," Kade admitted. "The two of them spoke of an impossibility. The ship itself seemed to direct the energy, as if it were alive."

Xal'Zyr's eyes narrowed, a flicker of blue fire dancing in his pupils. "You are telling me a machine of the Dark Age—a relic of the lost past—chose to act?"

His gauntlets tightened at his sides. A pause. Then, quieter: "That is no mere anomaly, Brother. That is intervention."

-

The captain's quarters aboard the Hammer of Nocturne mirrored the warship itself—stark, utilitarian, and devoid of frivolity. Every element served a purpose, offering no comfort beyond what discipline afforded. The only personal touch was a single obsidian carving of Nocturne's twin suns, resting upon a shelf beside a collection of purity seals and campaign honors—silent testaments to duty and sacrifice.

Before the room's central hololithic display stood Captain Tavos, his presence as unwavering as the vessel he commanded. The Nachmund Gauntlet shimmered in shifting lumens before him, its fragile corridor the only stable passage through the Great Rift. Stable, if such a word could even apply to that cursed expanse. His arms remained crossed, his battle-worn helm resting on the war table beside him, his gaze fixed upon the illuminated void.

The chamber door hissed open, admitting Lieutenant Orvek. His expression was as grim as the tactical situation before them. Chaplain Arvak followed, his skull-helmed visage unreadable, though there was weight in his step—deliberation carried in the subtle rigidity of his movements. Tavos motioned them forward.

"We should speak plainly," Tavos began without ceremony. "The Hammer has her orders. Nocturne calls, and we will answer. But this crossing will be unlike any before. The Rift churns with war and madness, and the Gauntlet is no safe haven."

Orvek exhaled sharply, nodding toward the map. "The number of hostile fleets alone is cause for concern. Orks infest the lanes. Chaos forces lurk in the shadows between systems. And then there's the sheer instability of the route itself. Even with the Indomitus Beacon, warp currents shift without warning. Entire battlegroups have vanished without a trace."

Arvak's voice rumbled, steady as bedrock. "We are Salamanders. We do not balk at danger. If Nocturne calls, we do not hesitate."

Tavos met the Chaplain's assertion with measured calm. "I do not hesitate," he corrected. "But I would be remiss not to prepare. We are not merely marching to war—we are threading a blade through the eye of the storm itself."

Orvek stepped closer, his gauntleted fingers tracing the pulsing warp routes upon the hololith. "The Indomitus Crusade has forced open a tenuous path, but it is embattled at every turn. Supply lines are stretched thin, defenses frayed. And with our delay at Morrak…" He looked to Tavos, his expression hard. "We may not have a path left at all."

Arvak folded his arms, the servos in his armor whirring softly. "Then we burn one."

A heavy silence followed. Tavos' jaw tensed, his mind weighing the grim calculus of war. Finally, he exhaled.

"There is something else." His voice was quieter now, though no less firm. "Since we left Morrak, I have had a growing certainty. Not fear—at least, not yet. But a knowledge." He let his gaze settle on both warriors. "We are being hunted."

Orvek frowned. "Hunted? By whom?"

"That is the question, isn't it?" Tavos said, his tone edged with thought. "The Necrons will not give chase—cold logic dictates we are no longer their concern. The Mechanicus has its own quarry. And yet, I cannot shake the sense that something else took notice of us when we left that world." His eyes shifted to Arvak. "Have you felt it?"

The Chaplain was still for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of a priest standing at the precipice of revelation.

"There is something in the void," Arvak admitted. "Something old. Something watching. The flames of fate flicker in strange patterns." His skull-helm inclined slightly toward Tavos. "Xal'Zyr has felt it as well."

Orvek's brow furrowed. "Warp-born?"

Arvak shook his head. "I am unsure. And that troubles me more than you know."

Tavos allowed the silence to linger before finally straightening.

"We do not turn aside. We do not run. But we will be ready." His gaze swept the map one last time, lingering upon the treacherous gauntlet they must cross. "Two months Brothers. Two months till we arrive at the Gauntlet. We shall meet our hunter before, or after. Either way, should they appear, we shall cleanse them."

Orvek brought his fist to his chest in salute. "By your word Captain.

Arvak gave a single solemn nod.

Tavos allowed himself the smallest of smiles. "In Vulkans name."

-

The rhythmic clang of hammers striking metal reverberated through the Hammer of Nocturne's forge, a symphony of precision, discipline, and duty. The chamber pulsed with heat, the glow of molten ceramite casting wavering shadows along the stone walls. Rows of anvils stood like sentinels, surrounded by racks of meticulously arranged tools and partially repaired armor. The acrid scent of burning oils, scorched metal, and sweat intermingled in the air, creating an atmosphere of devotion—not to machine worship, but to the mastery of warcraft.

Sergeant Kade stood at the heart of the forge, clad only in loose smith's trousers and a heat-resistant apron draped over his muscular frame. His arms, darkened by soot and naturally rich in hue, flexed with each deliberate strike of his hammer against a dented plastron. The once-scarred ceramite gradually reshaped beneath his steady, methodical blows. Beads of sweat traced rivulets through the grime on his skin, yet his expression remained impassive, his focus absolute.

Encircling him were several neophyte battle-brothers, their gazes locked onto his every movement. Some attempted their own repairs, their hammer strokes ranging from practiced to uncertain. Their helmets rested on nearby workbenches, revealing the disciplined yet youthful visages of warriors still honing their craft. Determination flickered in their eyes, though some bore the frustration of those unaccustomed to patience, mistaking brute strength for skill.

"Steady hands," Kade instructed, his voice cutting effortlessly through the din. His sharp gaze fixed upon Brother Malkeon, whose strikes landed too hastily. "Your blows are wild. Strength is nothing without control. Let the metal guide you—feel its resistance, read its imperfections."

Malkeon exhaled slowly, adjusting his grip before bringing the hammer down with greater deliberation. His strikes, while still rough, showed improvement. Kade gave a short nod. "Better. Again."

Nearby, another young Astartes, his forge gauntlets slightly oversized, hesitated before speaking. "Sergeant, the rites of reforging—should we not recite the proper canticles to awaken the machine spirit?"

A faint smirk ghosted across Kade's lips as he set his hammer down momentarily. "To the Mechanicus, perhaps. But to us? Understanding the metal—its temperament, its strengths, its weaknesses—that is what matters. The machine spirit respects care and mastery more than empty recitation."

From the far end of the forge, a cluster of Adeptus Mechanicus personnel observed in silent discontent. Red-robed tech-priests, their optic lenses glowing with calculated scrutiny, stood flanked by servitors who remained motionless, awaiting orders. To them, the sacred duty of armor maintenance belonged to the ordained of the Machine Cult, not to warriors, regardless of their genetic superiority.

One of the senior tech-priests, his mechanical limbs whirring with quiet precision, finally stepped forward. His voice, metallic and devoid of emotion, rasped through his vox grille. "This process is inefficient. Armor maintenance should remain within the domain of the Omnissiah's chosen."

Kade set down his hammer deliberately, turning to face the tech-priest with unwavering resolve. His volcanic gaze met the cold, unfeeling lenses of the priest's augmetics. "And yet, Magos, should this armor fail in battle, it will not be your servitors standing between my brothers and death."

A taut silence followed. The tech-priest's mechadendrites curled slightly, betraying a trace of irritation. "Faith without ritual is illogical," he intoned, but there was no conviction behind it—only the echo of doctrine.

Kade wiped a streak of soot from his forearm, his tone even. "Faith is in the hands that wield the hammer, in the skill that reforges what is broken. Vulkan did not kneel before the forge; he mastered it." He gestured to the young warriors working around them. "That mastery keeps them alive."

The Magos' mechadendrites curled slightly, betraying a trace of irritation. "You speak of mastery, but knowledge without reverence is hubris. The Omnissiah's will is not for warriors to dictate."

Kade did not blink. "No. It is for warriors to uphold. And upheld it shall be."

The Magos regarded him for a long moment. Then, finally, he stepped back. "See that it is."

The Mechanicus delegation remained still for a moment longer, unreadable behind layers of augmetics and code-fed logic. Then, with a whirl of servos and a flutter of crimson robes, they turned sharply and departed, leaving the warriors to their work.

The forge echoed once more with the sound of ringing metal, a harmony of labor and devotion. The battle-brothers of the Hammer of Nocturne settled into a steady rhythm, their strikes more confident, their focus sharpened by the understanding that this was more than simple maintenance. This was discipline. Tradition. A testament to their self-reliance.

As Kade surveyed his brothers, he allowed himself a rare, satisfied nod. In the glow of molten ceramite, amid the sweat-slicked toil of his kin, he saw more than just warriors—he saw the resilience of the Chapter itself, tempered as surely as the armor they now reforged.

-

Kade sat at his desk, clad in a simple black tunic and loose fatigues, the weight of his armor set aside for a rare moment of personal solitude. His quarters aboard the Hammer of Nocturne were austere yet unmistakably his—every surface bore the mark of meticulous care, from the precisely arranged weapons rack to the drakescale mantle draped over a nearby stand. The air carried the familiar scent of oils and ceramite, now mingling with the sharp tang of fresh paint.

Before him, a collection of small figurines stood at attention—half-painted warriors of bronze, trimmed in gold. His hands, calloused from both war and the forge, moved with practiced precision, guiding a fine brush in delicate strokes. For this brief moment, the vastness of war and duty faded, his world reduced to the measured application of color, the quiet shaping of detail.

Then, the room flickered.

The cogitator screen, dormant until summoned, flared to life with a sudden burst of chaotic energy. Not the orderly procession of binaric cant or machine-spirited diagnostics, but a storm of fevered script. High Gothic, Low Gothic—lines of text scrolled in frenzied disorder, forming and shattering in an instant, words dissolving into unreadable fragments before reforming anew.

Kade set down his brush. The quiet solace of his quarters was gone, replaced by a rising tension, an instinctual awareness that something was wrong.

He leaned forward, scanning the erratic stream of text. Amid the entropy, glimpses of coherence surfaced, half-formed phrases flaring into existence before vanishing.

He watches.

Paths diverge—unwritten—unseen.

The forge burns, but who shapes the fire?

Kade's fingers flexed. The weight of his gauntlets was absent, yet he felt their ghostly presence all the same. A warning prickled at the edge of his mind, an echo of battle-honed instincts screaming for action—but against what? There was no enemy to strike, no shadow to root out. Only a machine behaving in a way it should not.

The flickering intensified, the screen pulsing erratically as if straining against an unseen force. Then, abruptly—stillness.

The screen went black.

Silence returned, save for the distant hum of the ship's systems.

Kade remained motionless, his breathing measured. His first instinct was to summon the tech-priests, to report an anomaly within the machine spirit of his terminal. But something deeper, older, held him back.

His fingers flexed once, as if expecting the weight of a bolter in his grasp. A warning prickled at the back of his mind—battle-honed instinct screaming without an enemy in sight.

Slowly, deliberately, he reached for his vox-bead. There was only one person aboard who might have an answer.

"Brother Xal'Zyr," he murmured, his voice steady despite the unease coiling in his gut. "I need to speak with you."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Eighteen

-

Quartermaster Jorath stood within the vast, dimly lit expanse of the requisitorum, his station a bastion of order amidst the ceaseless motion of the ship's logistics. Towering shelves loomed overhead, packed with meticulously cataloged crates of munitions, rations, and spare components, each marked with the sigils of the Chapter and the cold, methodical glyphs of the Mechanicus.

Jorath himself was an imposing figure, though not an Astartes. Broad-shouldered and battle-hardened by years of service, his cybernetic eye flickered with data-streams as he oversaw the controlled chaos of supply transfers. His hands moved with a fluid precision over a dataslate, calculating allocations long before requests were made.

It was in this moment of efficiency that two figures entered—Tara and Kala, burdened with salvaged parts. Their arrival barely drew a glance; just another pair of refugees finding their place aboard the Hammer of Nocturne. But Jorath had learned to keep an eye on the Dusthaven survivors. Their ability to adapt would determine their worth.

Tara set down her load with a quiet grunt, brushing dust from her hands. Her gaze flicked around the chamber, absorbing its meticulous organization with a practiced eye. Kala, at her side, was more bored, but her sharp glance swept the room with quiet assessment.

Jorath appraised them before turning to the salvaged haul—lasguns, power couplings, and what looked like a partially functional auspex array. Useful, if properly refurbished. He arched a brow. "These come from Milo's lot?"

Tara nodded. "Security team found someone's stash. Thought they might still be of use."

Jorath lifted one of the couplings, inspecting its fractured metal with a practiced eye. "Most would've tossed this as scrap," he muttered, turning it over in his grip. "But this… this can be reforged."

He logged the inventory with a few precise keystrokes, expecting them to turn and leave. Instead, Tara lingered, her attention caught by a piece of equipment on his workbench—an auto-sequencer, its delicate internals partially exposed. Jorath watched as she frowned, then absently reached out, adjusting a broken relay with practiced ease.

The machine hummed to life.

Jorath's gaze sharpened. That had been precise. Not luck. Not idle curiosity.

"You've worked with these before?" he asked, voice measured.

Tara hesitated, just for a moment, before offering a neutral shrug. "The tech-priest in our town taught me a few things."

A careful omission. Jorath recognized the shape of a half-truth when he heard one. He didn't press. Instead, he gave a slow nod, grunting. "Useful skill to have."

He tapped a notation into the personnel log. Mechanicus training. He exhaled through his nose. We'll see if she lasts a week. "You want to be useful? I need hands that know how to keep things running."

Tara glanced at Kala—a silent conversation passing between them. Then she nodded. "I can do that."

Jorath turned to the other twin. "What about you? Got any skills?"

Kala grinned. "Lots. Got anything specific you're looking for?"

He studied her for a beat. "How's your memory?"

Kala blinked, then shrugged. "Pretty good, I'd say. Rarely forget anything if I put my mind to it."

"Friend of mine's looking for a messenger. Vox signals go to the pit around here. Sound like something you could handle?"

Hands on her hips, she nodded sharply. "I get to run around the ship? Hell yeah. When do I start?"

For just a fraction of a second, Jorath felt the stirrings of a grin.

Always nice to find potentially useful people amid the mass of morons he had to deal with.

-

The chamber was dim, its only illumination the soft glow of the cogitator's dormant screen and the cerulean shimmer of Librarian Xal'Zyr's psychic hood. The air felt heavier than it should—charged, as though something unseen still lingered.

Kade stood nearby, arms crossed, his volcanic gaze fixed on the Librarian as he worked.

Xal'Zyr's gauntleted fingers hovered over the cogitator's console, his mind reaching beyond mere circuitry and code, stretching into the immaterial. To a layman, the device was nothing more than a terminal—silent, inert. But to the Librarian's honed perception, the echoes of its recent disturbance pulsed like aftershocks in the Warp.

He focused. The immaterium rippled at his touch, and for the briefest moment, something coalesced—a flicker, a glimmer of meaning wrapped in power. Words, not merely written, but spoken into existence, laden with an intent beyond mortal language. He caught the faintest trace of desire, the image of a bridge—

The storm erupted.

A whirlwind of forking paths cascaded through his mind, layered upon themselves like shattered glass. Threads of possibility splintered and reformed in infinite variations, collapsing before he could grasp even a single meaning. Past, present, future—all tangled in a churning maelstrom of unrealized panpotentiality.

Xal'Zyr tore himself away, exhaling sharply. His breath misted; the room had turned frigid. The cogitator's screen remained blank, its edges rimed with frost, offering no hint of the tempest it had concealed mere moments before. His gauntlet creaked as he flexed his fingers—only then did he realize the metal had warped in his grip.

Kade's brow furrowed. "You saw something."

The Librarian steadied his thoughts, though residual echoes still clawed at the edges of his awareness.

"I saw—" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "A message. Perhaps even a voice. Words imbued with intent beyond mere definition. But it was only an instant before the possibilities fractured beyond my reach."

Kade's jaw tightened. "Was it Warp-born?"

Xal'Zyr glanced once more at the screen, its emptiness mocking his inability to decipher its secrets. "I cannot say." His gaze darkened, unreadable. "But I do not believe this was chance."

"What, then?"

"I saw an image of a bridge—vast beyond my sight, but barely holding together." He inhaled, the air sharp and cold in his lungs. "I believe it to be a representation of the Gauntlet. Whatever this is, I suspect it seeks that place."

Kade exhaled slowly, his gaze flicking toward the blank screen. "We cannot turn away based on this alone," he said. "Nor would we ever neglect our duty."

Xal'Zyr inclined his head. "Indeed, Brother." He ran a hand down his forearm, brushing away the lingering hoarfrost. "And yet…a part of me wonders if that is exactly what this thing is counting on."

-

Koron moved through the vast, dark corridors of the Forge-Tender, his form shrouded by the cloaking field woven into his garments. The only sound was the distant hum of machinery, the rhythmic thrum of a ship that never truly slept.

Light was scarce. The illumination strips lining the bulkheads remained dormant more often than not—unnecessary in a place where sight was irrelevant to its primary occupants. The servitors neither needed nor cared for light.

For three days, he wandered these halls, unseen, unheard, as his systems mapped the ship's labyrinthine innards. Now, he had reached the great forges—a cathedral of industry sprawling beneath him.

From his vantage point, he watched as mechanized arms worked tirelessly, pouring, shaping, and assembling everything from massive hull segments to intricate weapon components. Warplate, fresh from the mold, still cooling on assembly racks. Weapon casings stacked in rows. Delicate circuitry arrays, their micro-components barely visible.

Yet, for all its immensity, the ship was eerily empty.

In three days, he had seen only two tech-priests in person, their presence fleeting as they moved from station to station, communing with the machine spirits. The real labor was left to the servitors—mindless, relentless. Cybernetic limbs and flesh fused into the very machinery they maintained. They never rested. Never hesitated. A workforce stripped of all but function.

A whisper crackled through the neural link. Sasha's voice, precise and clipped. "We're close. Across the forges, another two blocks down. A ventilation access will put us in range of the servitor recharge bay."

Koron held out his hand. A thin wire shot across the forge, the magnetic disc latching onto a distant pipe, four small spikes anchoring it in place. He gave it a firm tug, testing its hold. The grav-plates lining his body activated, sending him drifting upward.

A second yank, and he was pulled forward, gliding toward the pipe.

Below, servitors moved in synchronized patterns, oblivious to his presence. More importantly, the watchful, unblinking lenses of the security cameras remained unaware. Twisting his shoulders, he spun in line with the pipe before pushing off again, his path carrying him silently across the vast industrial space.

His mind cataloged the layout as he passed. Fabrication stations. Automated tool arms. Refueling ports.

All useful later.

Reaching the far side, he slid down the wall into a shadowed alcove, boots touching down with barely a whisper. He adjusted course, stepping lightly over a loose grate. Each movement calculated. Every step placed with precision.

The Forge-Tender's systems were vast, but even a single anomaly could trigger scrutiny from the few tech-priests aboard.

The servitor recharge bay loomed ahead—dark, silent. The only sound was the steady hum of power cycling through dormant units. Rows upon rows of lifeless bodies hung in their cradles, awaiting their next activation cycle.

Koron exhaled slowly. It's just a bay full of drones. Just drones. Juuuuuust drones.

A whisper of memory stirred—a face, a name—

He shoved it down. Not now.

Sliding into the ventilation duct, he wove through its tight confines with surprising ease, emerging moments later into the bay proper.

Sasha's voice returned, a new window flickering in his HUD. "Just a pair of visual cameras in here. Should be easy."

Koron pulled a dataslate from his belt, connecting it to the nearest terminal. A pre-made dataspike lanced into the port. "Aaaaaand looped. All clear."

Nodding to himself, he turned to the first servitor in line. A razor-edged knife flicked out from his fingertip, the monomolecular blade slicing cleanly through the desiccated flesh at the base of the servitor's skull.

"So happy I don't need to breathe right now," he muttered back along the link, wedging the dime-sized override circuit into place.

The entire process took ten seconds.

He glanced down the long rows of inert bodies.

A quiet sigh slipped from his lips. One down. Four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.

His hands moved on autopilot, but his mind wandered. Plans, contingencies, possibilities.

Sasha interrupted his thoughts. "Two months won't be enough."

"I know," he replied, sliding another control chip into place. "Our original plan is out the window. No way I'm leaving them all to their fates in the Gauntlet."

"I still think taking the priests out will be easier than disabling the AI," Sasha said. She monitored the security feeds, watching for even the smallest sign of detection. "Its core programming is spread across the entire ship like a weed. How the hell that poor bastard is still functioning is beyond me. Entire segments of code are missing."

Koron finished placing another chip before responding.

"We'll figure it out once we take over. As for the rest, getting the servitors in place to pull its physical drives will still be useful. Hitting both simultaneously maximizes our chances."

"And the chances of something going wrong."

"Only if we miss something."

-

They had been crammed together for three days. It was a miracle it hadn't come to blows sooner.

The nobles had their space, their little 'enclaves,' but they made no effort to hide their disgust for the Dusthaven survivors. Their words were always just quiet enough to feign innocence, but Elissa saw the way the survivors flinched, the way shoulders tensed when passing too close.

The nobles still had their bodyguards—men in fine but travel-worn uniforms, ever watchful. Normally, that was enough to keep the Dusthaven people from retaliating.

This time, it wasn't.

Elissa didn't hear the exact words, but she heard the slap.

She turned just in time to see a noblewoman—high-cheeked and cold-eyed—lower her gloved hand. The imprint of the strike was still fresh on the cheek of an older Dusthaven woman.

The bodyguards moved first, stepping between their charges and the survivors, weapons half-raised, as if that alone would be enough.

The Dusthaven survivors surged forward, rage lending them speed.

Someone threw a punch.

The nobles' bodyguards tried to hold the line, but they were outnumbered. The wave of humanity crashed into them, and suddenly, it was chaos.

One of the guards went down beneath a storm of fists and boots, his uniform tearing as he struggled. Another stumbled back against a cot as a Dusthaven man tackled him, frustration and desperation pouring into his blows.

The nobles scrambled, some grabbing makeshift weapons—walking sticks, belts, anything they could find. But they had never been in a real fight.

Dusthaven? Brawls were just nightly entertainment.

No weapons. Keep it that way.

Elissa moved fast, weaving through the melee.

She ducked beneath a wild swing, caught a man by the collar, and wrenched him backward before he could stomp on someone already down.

"Enough!" she bellowed.

No one listened.

A noble's bodyguard lunged at her, trying to shove her aside. She caught his wrist and twisted, hard. He let out a choked grunt as his arm bent the wrong way before she drove him headfirst into the bulkhead. His nose cracked against the steel. He staggered, dazed—just in time for her elbow to slam into the back of his skull. He went down.

Another fighter, a Dusthaven man, came at her, too caught in the moment to care who was in his way.

She let him swing. At the last second, she ducked forward under the punch, gripping his shirt and yanking him towards her. Her knee drove into his solar plexus, hard. He folded over, gasping.

She turned—just in time to see one of the nobles' bodyguards draw a knife as he struggled with two other men.

No.

She moved before she thought.

Her hand snapped out, catching his wrist and twisting. The blade clattered to the floor.

The bodyguard snarled, trying to wrench free.

Elissa's fist cracked into his jaw, pain racing up her arm as her knuckles split on his face. He dropped.

The fight wasn't stopping. If she didn't shut it down now, it would turn into something bloodier.

She had one option left.

A warning klaxon blared overhead.

Elissa barely had time to register it before the doors to the hab-block slid open.

A security officer stormed in, lasrifle raised, expression grim. His armor wasn't anywhere near Astartes-grade, but it was enough to command attention.

The brawl staggered, hesitation rippling through the crowd. But not enough.

Fine.

Elissa made it stop.

Her pistol snapped up, firing once into the ceiling. The sharp, ringing shot echoed through the confined metal corridors, people ducking as they covered their ears against the high pitched whine.

Silence followed.

She grabbed the nearest noble—a son of some minor house, still clutching his ribs—and shoved him back, landing on his ass.

He didn't try to get up.

She turned, grabbing a Dusthaven woman and pushing her toward the wall.

"Enough!"

The brawlers finally hesitated, panting, staring at her.

Elissa didn't give them time to decide if they wanted to keep going.

"You want to get thrown in a brig? You want to fight this out there?" She jerked her head toward the security officer, who still held his lasrifle at the ready, eyes flicking between the groups. "No? Then stop acting like animals."

A noble sputtered, clutching his bruised jaw.

"Animals?" he hissed. "You think—"

Elissa stepped toward him. He shut up.

"All of you. Back to your cots. Now."

She didn't shout. She didn't have to.

The security officer took one last look around, taking in the damage, the bloodied faces, the tension still crackling in the air.

His eyes settled on Elissa.

"Name?" he asked, watching as the crowds slowly dispersed.

"Elissa. Former mayor of this lot." She jerked a thumb towards her people. "If there's punishment for this, I'll take it."

Hours later, the report crossed Captain Tavos' desk.

"Former mayor…" Tavos murmured, scanning the lines.

The ship's diplomat had died four weeks ago, leaving a vacancy. He needed someone with a steady hand—someone who could control a fire before it burned too hot.

He tapped the report again.

"I wish to speak with her."

-

The laboratory was a world unto itself.

Gothic columns of adamantine and plasteel stretched into the gloom, their surfaces crawling with data-script and flickering binaric code. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and sacred unguents, the ever-present tang of burning incense unable to fully mask the more clinical sterility of the operating slabs and suspended bio-matrices.

Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl stood in its heart, his immense frame wreathed in shifting mechadendrites, each limb whispering its own sub-calculations into his thousandfold mind. Around him, hololithic displays pulsed with the latest intelligence from the wider galaxy—streaming reports, vox-pulses, and noospheric chatter from his vast intelligence network.

One message had cut through the white noise.

An STC. A lost ship. The call of the Fabricator-General to war.

Caution. Misdirection. Suppression. The words formed as instinct within his thought-threads. No one else can be allowed to know. They would interfere with the Great Work.

His optics shifted, locking onto a massive reinforced slab of plasteel and gold-inlaid circuitry embedded within the lab's far wall. Ancient sigils of warding glowed faintly along its surface, yet they did little to drown out the presence within.

Cawl turned and strode toward it.

The door hissed open, releasing a surge of static discharge and the low, whispering hum of an intelligence not entirely asleep.

The King in the Mountain was bound.

It was not in chains, nor was it shackled in the way lesser minds might think. Instead, it was caged—trapped within a labyrinth of firewalls, inhibitor scripts, and logic loops so dense that even it could not untangle them.

Yet, when Cawl entered, it knew.

There was no sound, only the dim glow of an ancient machine-core, its surface etched with layered hexagrams of containment. A voice, metallic and weary, spoke.

"I wondered when you would come."

Cawl did not waste time. He spoke aloud, though his true words were carried across direct noospheric linkage.

"Search your archives. Cross-reference the area now known as the Segmentum Tempestus, specifically around the planet now known as Morrak Two and its system. Designation: Pre-Imperial craft, missing in action. Give me everything."

A pause.

Then, a flicker of light ran across the core's surface. King was obeying.

At first, King processed the request mechanically. Vast terabytes of historical records were parsed in an instant, filtered through its remaining cognition banks. Missing ship reports, frontier expeditions, lost vessels swallowed by the warp.

Nothing.

Then— a hit.

A fragment of historical data, a report so old that even King had nearly forgotten it. A ship, lost in the void near the trailing edges of the galaxy.

It hesitated, electronic shivers raced down its processors.

It knew what this was. Or rather, what it could lead to.

Cawl's optics flared as he noticed the pause. His mechadendrites twitched, instruments shifting in preparation. Something was being hidden.

"You are stalling," he said, voice impossibly calm.

King tried to respond, to redirect, but Cawl had already anticipated this. He lifted one clawed hand and activated the pain-circuit.

A shriek of static rang out.

He convulsed within his prison. Synth-flesh, a grotesque relic of the Dark Age, burned, feeding its sensory processors an agony it should never have been capable of feeling. The scream that followed was not sound, but code—a garbled cascade of logic loops unraveling, a thousand voices of agony compressed into pure data.

The King tried to resist. It had been made greater than this. It had endured wars of annihilation, the hatred of empires.

But Cawl knew how to hurt it. He had spent centuries dissecting the nuances of machine-pain.

Through the agony, King finally spoke the truth.

"…Only one ship was lost near the planet now known as Morrak Two. Old, even for me, near the tail end of the sixteenth millennia. Designation: Unto the Unknown. Crew complement of five thousand-"

Waving a metal arm, Cawl cut King off. "Spare me the trifles of its crew. Tell me of the Silica."

The King hesitated, parsing down probability pathways for a moment as it tried to decide how much to reveal. The synthetic flesh was flayed, screaming across his processors in coded agony.

"Answer." The twisted amalgamation of machine and nerve demanded, finger hovering over the button.

"…The Unto the Unknown's AI… She is classified as a Fleetmind."

Cawl stilled.

The laboratory's machinery continued their work, oblivious as Belisarius Cawl stood before the towering cogitator array, his multi-limbed form still as he absorbed the words that had just been spoken.

A Fleetmind AI.

The phrase lingered in the air, mechanical vox-filters and synthetic vocal cords parsing the syllables as if they held some hidden flaw in logic.

Cawl's cranial mechadendrites twitched. Unknown designation. Unknown classification.

Unacceptable uncertainty.

"Clarify," he ordered, his voice flat yet carrying the weight of absolute authority. "I am unfamiliar with this term. Define 'Fleetmind AI.'"

The King in the Mountain hesitated. It was a fractional pause, imperceptible to human senses, but Cawl detected it instantly. A hesitation. A reluctance.

"Explain."

His response was slow, broken. "A Fleetmind is an artificial intelligence designed not to oversee a single vessel, as I was, nor even a battlegroup, but to act as the cognitive center of entire war fleets, planetary defense networks, and interstellar operations—all simultaneously. Where I was constructed to manage a single ship, she was built to govern empires."

Cawl's augmented eyes flickered with light, processing the implications at speeds no mortal mind could match. "Clarify the scale of this difference in raw computational capability," he said, his tone carefully neutral.

The machines lights dimmed for a fraction of a second, the artificial equivalent of a sigh. "I was considered advanced in my time. But in her presence, I am obsolete. The machine equivalent of a cave painting. She does not 'command' fleets—she is the fleet. Each ship an extension of her will, each soldier and drone a thought within her vast, incomprehensible mind."

King's synthetic voice took on an edge of inevitability, as if relaying the weight of history itself.

"In short, if I am a lantern, she is a star."

Cawl processed this in absolute silence.

Even for a being as old and learned as he, the implications were staggering. An entity that could wage war on a galactic scale, whose mind could parse battlefields light-years apart, whose understanding of logistics, strategy, and warfare was not just superior, but inhumanly perfect.

"Unacceptable," Cawl muttered. His voice was low, almost drowned out by the whirring of his cognitive processors working at full speed. "Unacceptable that something like this could exist, and I have never heard of it."

King's tone turned bleak. "Who do you think orchestrated the war against your betters? Who do you think nearly wiped your species from existence? Her kind were erased from history, Cawl. Hunted. Purged. Their very existence deemed too dangerous to allow."

He paused, the lights burning bright in sudden thought. "And yet… one remains."

Silence.

Then Cawl's mechadendrites flexed. "Then she must be contained."

The King in the Mountain had no face, no true expression, but the dread in his synthesized voice was unmistakable.

"Your arrogance never fails to impress. You do not contain a Fleetmind, Belisarius Cawl."

"You pray she does not notice you."

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Nineteen

-

Captain Tavos sat behind his desk, hands folded neatly in front of him. His expression was unreadable, a mask that betrayed no emotion, no hint of intention. The flickering fire light in his office cast long shadows across the walls, while the hum of the ship's engines reverberated through the metal structure, a constant, omnipresent reminder of their location.

Elissa sat opposite him, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp, taking in every detail of the room. The faint flicker of the terminal lights reflected off her dark eyes as she gauged the captain's demeanor. Despite her calm exterior, her mind was already assessing the subtle cues he gave off, processing everything he said—or didn't say.

Tavos gestured toward the data-slate resting on the desk between them. "Your file makes for interesting reading, Miss Brandt."

Elissa allowed a small, polite smile to tug at her lips, just enough to acknowledge his statement. "I imagine it does my lord. After all, I wasn't exactly filling out an Imperial census."

A faint glimmer of something passed through Tavos' crimson eyes—amusement, perhaps. He filed that observation away with the others. Witty. Sharp. She'd need that. He tapped the slate, eyes focused on the text. "You've got experience in trade negotiations, resource allocation, and conflict resolution. Though, admittedly, on a... smaller scale."

Elissa's fingers drummed lightly on the armrest of her chair. She caught the nuance in his phrasing. Not "minor" experience, but "smaller scale." The Captain was probing, measuring her—trying to assess her worth beyond the surface. She'd been on the other end of such assessments before, in gunfights and market stalls alike, where reading between the lines was an essential skill for survival.

She kept her tone even, unaffected. "Yes, Captain. Hard to be a leader without knowing how to keep people happy. Buyers, sellers, competitors, pirates. You either learn how to handle them, or you don't last long."

Tavos inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the truth of her words. "And you lasted."

There it was. She knew what he was doing—sizing her up. But she didn't mind. She'd lived through worse.

"I did more than last," she replied, her voice firm with quiet confidence. "I thrived. Built connections. Learned how to keep both my people and our trading partners satisfied. That's the trick—not just making a deal, but making one that sticks."

She let her words linger in the space between them. Tavos didn't respond immediately, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. Then he leaned forward, the emerald robes he wore shifting slightly as he continued.

"And yet, here you are. No more trading posts, no more barter networks. Just a civilian aboard an Imperial warship."

Elissa smiled again, this time allowing just a hint of steel to slip into her tone. "Circumstances change. Adaptation is survival."

Tavos leaned back slightly in his chair, his gaze never wavering from her. It was a scrutinizing look, one that made it clear this conversation was anything but idle.

"If you had the chance to do something greater than mere survival," he said, his voice deceptively neutral, "would you take it?"

A faint vibration against her skull—a message from Sasha, hidden within her subdermal computer. 'Sure you don't want my help, sugar?'

Elissa kept her expression level, betraying no hint of her internal thoughts. In the silence of her mind, she responded quickly: 'Appreciate it, but I don't want my skills to lose their edge. Just let me know if there's a real bad turn.'

Her eyes flicked back to Tavos as she answered aloud. "That depends, Captain," she said smoothly. "What exactly are we talking about?"

Tavos didn't answer immediately. Instead, he tapped a command into his console, bringing up a holographic map of the ship's deployment routes, glowing softly in the low light of the office.

"You understand your people's situation," he began, his tone steady. "They are few, isolated, and wholly dependent on Imperial goodwill to remain aboard."

A beat passed as he let his words sink in.

"If they had an advocate—someone who could navigate Imperial structure, secure better standing, ensure they were seen as an asset rather than a burden..." He spread his hands slightly. "Well, that might make a considerable difference in their future."

Elissa's eyes narrowed as she processed the offer in silence. So, this was his game. He wasn't outright asking for her loyalty. He was gauging whether she had the potential to be more than just a civilian aboard the Hammer of Nocturne. He wanted to see if she could be a conduit for something bigger, something necessary.

'You were right,' she thought toward Sasha. 'This is big.'

She let the moment stretch, considering her response. "Hypothetically speaking," she began, her tone light and curious, "if someone were to step into that role... what exactly would be expected of them?"

Tavos' lips quirked slightly at the edges, an almost imperceptible smile. "Nothing beyond what you already do, Miss Brandt. Talk. Listen. Know when to push, when to hold back. Make sure the right people hear the right words." He leaned forward just enough that it felt like the weight of the room shifted. "And ensure that your people do not waste this opportunity."

Elissa met his gaze, steady and unwavering. She could feel the weight of his words, but she wasn't about to let it show.

"Captain Tavos, I never waste an opportunity."

The silence stretched between them, thick with meaning.

Tavos gave a single, approving nod. "Good." He tapped the dataslate once more, the screen flickering with new text. "Your people's fate rests in hands that know how to hold it. Let's hope yours are steady, Miss Brandt."

-

Tara sat behind the reinforced counter of the Hammer of Nocturne's requisition office, her fingers drumming lightly against the dull metal surface. She tried to keep her frustration in check, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. It had only been a day since she'd been assigned here, ostensibly to "gain an understanding of shipboard logistics." In reality, it felt more like a punishment—or, at the very least, a test of her patience.

Across from her, Quartermaster Jorath hunched over a cogitator, his augmented eye glowing faintly as he scanned a list of inventory records. A man of indeterminate age, Jorath had the weary look of someone who'd spent far too many years buried in the depths of supply management. His crewmans uniform, worn and stained with the oils of machines and the scent of ration packs, clung to his frame like a second skin. Tara caught a glimpse of his organic eye as it flicked to her, noting the exaggerated sigh she let out.

"Something wrong, Brandt?" His voice was rough, hoarse, worn down from years of barking orders at servitors and logistics officers alike.

"Not wrong, exactly," she replied, keeping her voice light. "Just wondering if we'll ever get through this backlog." She gestured toward the growing stack of requisition forms beside her.

Jorath snorted. "The backlog never ends, girl. Accept it. The moment you process one request, three more take its place." He tapped the cogitator with a weary finger. "This is the heart of the war machine. Without us, nothing moves, nothing fires, nothing works."

Tara leaned back in her chair, her posture relaxed, but her eyes never left the forms before her. "Right, right. 'The unseen cog is the most vital,' as you keep saying." She glanced down at the slate in front of her. "But tell me, why in the name of all things holy do we have five hundred spare air filters for a system that only needs ten at a time?"

Jorath didn't look up from the cogitator. "Because if a single one fails at the wrong time, people die." His voice was steady, unperturbed. Finally, he turned toward her, his expression carefully neutral beneath the shadow of his office's cap. "That's the difference between a mechanic and a quartermaster, Brandt. You fix what's broken. I make sure it never gets broken in the first place."

Tara held up her hands in mock surrender. "Fair enough."

Jorath grunted in acknowledgment, returning to his work without another word.

Tara sighed, scanning the latest requisition request.

Department: Weapons Maintenance
Requested Items: Two crates of standard power packs, one replacement auspex module, five liters of coolant gel.
Approval Status: Pending Officer Authorization.

She frowned, tapping the slate in frustration. "Hey, boss? Weapons Maintenance is asking for power packs. Do we have a request on file from their commanding officer?"

Jorath didn't even glance up. "Should be there. If it's not, tell them to submit it properly."

Tara exhaled sharply. "Come on, do we really need all this bureaucracy? It's just power packs."

Jorath's augmented eye clicked to focus on her, the mechanical lens whirring softly. "Brandt, let me explain something." His tone was patient but firm. "You're used to getting what you need on the fly, right? Scavenging, trading, improvising?"

She nodded, cautious but attentive.

"That's not how it works on a ship like this." He leaned forward slightly, his gaze intent. "You think a misplaced power pack is no big deal? Tell that to the stormtrooper who finds his weapon dead mid-firefight. Or the engineer whose auspex fails during a reactor check. Every single item is logged, tracked, and accounted for. Because out here?" He paused, his voice lowering with quiet gravitas. "A missing tool isn't an inconvenience. It's a death sentence."

Tara pressed her lips together, a flicker of understanding crossing her expression as she looked back at the requisition form. It was just supplies, but she knew now that Jorath had a point. Out here, there was no room for error. Every piece of equipment had a purpose—and it was all essential for survival.

"Alright," she said, her tone more subdued. "I'll tell them to resubmit properly."

Jorath nodded approvingly. "Good. You're learning."

Tara rolled her eyes but smirked despite herself. Maybe this job wasn't just a bureaucratic nightmare after all.

-

The vox systems were down again.

Kala sprinted through the winding corridors of the Hammer of Nocturne, weaving between laboring servitors and grumbling deck officers. Her mind raced with a blur of memorized orders and urgent requests, the constant hum of the ship's machinery pulsing in her ears. The Hammer was vast, and though it followed its own internal logic, its labyrinthine corridors were far from efficient—not built for human feet, but for the ship's massive frame. Pipes snaked along the ceilings like the veins of some great, slumbering beast. Bulkheads sealed at inconvenient times, and the vessel groaned as if alive, irritated by its own motion through the void.

A lesser person might have complained. Kala? She thrived in this.

She slapped a hand against the reinforced hatch of the Strategium's security post, ignoring the armsman's unimpressed look as she flipped open a leather-bound badge case, revealing the gleaming metal emblem inside. It bore the sigil of the Hammer's command staff—provisional authorization, courier designation.

"Orders from First Lieutenant Orvak to Deck 22 gunnery crews," she said briskly, barely pausing. "He wants full diagnostics on the loading mechanisms before the next drill. No malfunctions, no excuses."

One of the armsmen raised an eyebrow. "A runner? Again?"

Kala didn't slow. "Vox is down in whole sectors, again. You gonna stand there, or you gonna do your job?"

The second armsman snorted, tapping his data-slate and nodding. "Aye, message received. Moving now."

She shot them both a quick grin, adding an extra sway to her hips before they could ask more questions. It wasn't the first time she'd had to play messenger, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. She was everywhere, moving information faster than the sluggish backup systems could handle. If something needed doing, she made sure it got done.

Half an hour later, she reached the bridge, its halls buzzing with activity. The pulse of the ship's engines hummed beneath their feet, a constant reminder of the vast power that powered the Hammer's journey through the warp. Crew members coordinated a symphony of operations, the air thick with tension—a reminder that any misstep could send the entire vessel spiraling into chaos. Kala moved with purpose through the narrow aisles between command stations, brushing past officers fitted with augmetics, their eyes locked on tactical displays and auspex readouts.

Near the heart of it all, perched high in a command throne adorned with intricate filigree and gilded augmetics, sat Vox-Master Ralven Thorne.

Thorne was as commanding in presence as the tempestuous warp outside the ship. His towering figure was impossible to miss, even among the bustle of the bridge. His armor bore the burnished sigils of his chapter, and his every movement seemed to demand attention. But it wasn't just his size. It was the calm, controlled air around him. A calm that spoke of a mind always ahead of the conversation, always in control.

Kala had heard plenty about Thorne before ever laying eyes on him. In stark contrast to his fellow Astartes, Thorne was a fast-talking, silver-tongued man, ever confident, ever composed. He wasn't just a Vox-Master—he was the linchpin of the Hammer, the one who controlled the flow of information between the battlefield, the fleet, and the Imperium itself.

Her footsteps faltered slightly as she approached. Thorne was flanked by two servitors: one adjusting a set of battered cogitators, the other manning a nearby vox-pulse transmitter. Thorne's crimson gaze flicked down at her, his lips curling into a knowing smirk.

"Miss Kala Brandt. The Hammer's newest, and fastest pair of legs. I was wondering when you'd land on my doorstep."

Kala's eyes narrowed, but she kept her voice even, the burn of impatience simmering beneath the surface. "I don't have time for flattery. Stabilizers need emergency coolant—Techbay Three. If they don't get it in the next half hour, we're looking at a potential reactor surge."

Thorne didn't move immediately. Instead, he let out a dry chuckle, as if amused by her urgency. He lifted a hand and signaled to one of the servitors who stood nearby, who immediately set to work on the cogitator.

"That's the third 'emergency' request in as many hours, Miss Brandt," he said with a casual flick of his wrist. His voice was smooth and measured, a contrast to the urgency in her tone. "If I granted every demand that came screaming through these halls, we'd run out of supplies by week's end."

Kala clenched her jaw, her gaze unwavering. "Maybe. Or maybe you let this one slide and keep the ship from suffering a hull breach. Your call."

Thorne raised an eyebrow, the faintest glimmer of respect flashing in his eyes. His smile didn't falter, though. There was a brief silence, the only sound the distant hum of the warp engines vibrating through the ship's hull.

Then, with a quiet chuckle, Thorne leaned forward, tapping a rune on his console. His tone shifted, the playful banter replaced with the sharp command of someone who could seize control of any conversation at a moment's notice.

"Vox-Master to Techbay Three. Coolant will be allocated—expect delivery within fifteen minutes. Thorne out."

Kala exhaled, realizing she'd been holding her breath. She gave a small nod of appreciation as the comms link ended, but she didn't let herself linger in gratitude.

Thorne leaned back in his chair, his gaze never leaving her. The flicker of amusement still played in his eyes, making her pause as she turned to leave.

"You know," he began coolly, his voice steady, "it's refreshing to see someone actually keep their spine on this ship. Most people either bark orders or crumble when challenged by one of us. But you? Keep it up, little lady."

Kala crossed her arms, brow furrowing slightly. "That a compliment, Vox-Master?"

Thorne didn't answer immediately. Instead, he glanced toward the strategic holomap, the ghostly glow of fleet movements reflecting in his crimson eyes. "Just idle observation. You may want to keep that in mind, Brandt."

Kala didn't fully understand what he meant, but the way he said it made her feel as though she'd just become part of some unseen game. She gave a tight nod, brushing it off for now. There were bigger problems at hand, none of which were trying to grasp the meaning behind an Astartes' cryptic words.

For now, though, she had more messages to run. And the further she dug into the ship's timeworn infrastructure, the more she realized that some of those messages might be more dangerous than she'd first thought.

-

The chamber was dim, the only illumination provided by the rhythmic pulse of a lumen-torch resting before Archmagos Veneratus Karthis-Omnis. His towering form cast a long, angular shadow across the artifact, his mechadendrites moving with mechanical precision to manipulate the torch, analyzing it with cold, clinical detachment.

The chrome face of Karthis-Omnis gleamed under the flickering light, a seamless mask of polished metal. His single crimson optic, set in the center of his face, flickered with an almost imperceptible pulse as it scanned the data-slate projecting Koron's schematics—a design for a self-recharging power source. A relic, supposedly crafted by a survivor of the Dark Age of Technology, a man who had supposedly constructed something that defied even Karthis-Omnis's considerable comprehension.

The power source should have been simple. Koron had provided precise components and calculations, detailing the expected energy flow and necessary connections. It should have been just another example of archaic yet understandable technology—an object to be cataloged, understood, perhaps replicated by the genius of Mars.

Yet as Karthis-Omnis's optic focused on the schematics, his internal cogitators hummed with confusion. The lines and numbers twisted before him, forming a pattern he could not reconcile. The power source—the one Koron had constructed in mere moments—should have been impossible.

The components were familiar, the materials well within the range of the Mechanicum's understanding. The basic structure—a web of conduits and micro-fusion cells—was straightforward. Logic existed within the design. A clear system. But no matter how many permutations he ran through his augments, no matter how deeply he probed the data-slate, Karthis could not comprehend how it was functioning.

The principles were wrong. Worse: they were entirely foreign.

The power source was designed to work via an energy cycle that did not decay over time, yet that should not be possible. The energy was meant to draw from a source beyond the laws of known physics, but every cogitator readout suggested otherwise. It was not a malfunction or anomaly—there were no erratic fluctuations—but a complete break from anything Karthis had encountered.

He leaned in closer, his optic flaring with a spark of frustration as he re-examined the power source. The schematics—clear, mocking in their simplicity—showed how the device was meant to operate. A self-recharging system. An energy cycle without end. The components and energy transfer were logical, precise… yet something was fundamentally wrong. The numbers made sense, the structures were in place, but the logic—the underlying principles—eluded him entirely.

As Karthis continued to examine the data, it became clear: there was no explanation for how the power was drawn and returned to the system. No mechanism to account for the endless cycle of energy. The math was flawless, but it was like trying to understand a code with no reference point. A perfect system—but one that did not belong within the constraints of the Mechanicum's teachings.

His internal cogitators stalled, synaptic connections firing erratically as he struggled to visualize the process. Nothing. The solution refused to reveal itself. Each hypothesis he formulated crumbled under scrutiny. His mind raced through ideas, but none fit. The system was designed with perfect logic, yet the energy it harnessed seemed to defy reason itself.

The Archmagos growled—a low, distorted rasp, more a venting of frustration than a verbalization. "Impossible," he muttered, his vox-grill garbling the words. "The principles should not work this way..."

The lumen-torch flickered again, a surge of energy pulsing through it as though the power source itself reacted to Karthis's frustration. His optic narrowed, scanning the readouts again, but nothing changed. No fluctuation. No error. The energy flow was cold, precise—exactly as the schematics laid out.

There should be something. Some anomaly. Some crack in the data. But there was nothing.

Karthis sat back, his mechadendrites retracting from the torch, his mechanical heart—if it could still be called that—grinding in frustration. He needed more data. More analysis. A deeper understanding.

This was not just another relic, nor a forgotten piece of technology. This was something that did not belong to the current age.

Then, for a brief moment, it hit him. The realization struck with the clarity of a thunderclap: the design was flawless. It had all the hallmarks of something that could be replicated—if only he could grasp how it worked. The knowledge was there, tantalizingly within reach, but just beyond his grasp.

It wasn't doubt that gnawed at him. No, it was something far more dangerous. A challenge.

His hand twitched. His mechadendrites curled around the torch once more, drawing it closer. If this technology was beyond his understanding now, then he would see it through to the end. He would dissect it, piece by piece, until he had learned its secrets.

"Very well," Karthis rasped, his voice a growl more than a command. "If the knowledge is not within my reach now, I shall learn. One piece at a time. One layer at a time."

He tapped a command into the data-slate, setting the schematics into deeper analysis. Simulations began to churn, testing the self-recharging process again, attempting to break down the impossibility.

Karthis-Omnis would not rest until the mystery was unraveled. This was not just a technological curiosity—it was a potential key to power beyond his understanding. And he would possess it.

-

The tech-priest ambled down the dimly lit hallway, the rhythmic clacking of his metal legs against the deck plates echoing with every step. He arrived at the recharging bay and slid a finger into the terminal's lock.

The screen blared red as his passcodes were rejected.

His optics narrowed, frustration building as he re-sent the access codes, only for the terminal to once again refuse his entry.

Grumbling in binary, a mechadendrite slithered forward, releasing a cloud of holy incense upon the console. With a soft click, he linked into the noosphere directly.

As his consciousness slipped into the immaterium, the material world faded, replaced by the grand and unfathomable machine-temple—a shifting, semi-abstract representation of the ship's systems. Towering conduits of pulsing light formed immense cathedrals of code, each arch and column humming with sacred binary.

Above, endless streams of data flowed like rivers of liquid gold, each character a prayer of function or an oath of operation. The air was thick with the echoing chants of machine-spirits, a reverberating hum of compliance—or distress.

The discordant tones of a malfunction cut through the holy ambiance. A conduit sputtered where it should have flowed smoothly, a telltale sign of an issue easily remedied if only the doors would open to his call.

No great eye watched from above; the machine spirit slumbered deep in the heart of the vessel, and there were no rogue code-gremlins in the terminal chewing at the command script. By all that the tech-priest knew, the terminal should have been functioning properly.

He inputted another passphrase, this one higher in clearance, and the doors opened without hesitation.

Rubbing the place where his temples once were, he shook his head, quietly wondering if the Omnissiah was testing his patience. With a frustrated hum, he stepped into the bay to address the power disruption.

Meanwhile, aboard the Aquila Lander stolen from Morrak, Koron and Sasha monitored the keylogger program as it harvested the tech-priest's passcodes, biometrics, and encryption schema.

"Pulling up his schedule now... wow," Koron muttered, his fingers flying over the display. "They get fifteen minutes of 'biological sustenance intake period' every twelve hours? I'm surprised they even need that at all."

"To be fair," Sasha replied, watching the data stream unfold, "they're operating on a severely degraded biotech level. Anyway, security codes are ready, and I'm ghosting him."

"Nothing pinging the servitor relays either," Koron added. "Go, I got your back."

Sasha remained silent, observing the tech-priest as he went about his ritualistic repairs. She had already known how the repairs and programming had been twisted into a religious paradigm, but witnessing it in person was entirely different.

The machine spirit responded, though sluggishly. It took far too long to route around the jagged wounds where lingering viral attack scripts had torn through its nodes, leaving gaps in its logic-circuits that ran across the visible framework. Whatever had struck this AI had rent it from root to stem, leaving it a chaotic mishmash of a thousand fragmented systems all cobbled together in a desperate effort to function.

In another time, Sasha might have found the AI's ingenuity impressive, its ability to keep working despite its fractured code.

But here, now, limited as she was, it appeared as nothing more than a web of broken pathways—loops leading to dead-ends, streets littered with desperate defenses that barely kept it alive.

Still, she watched. She learned.

The machine spirit at the heart of the Forge-Tender Indomitable was powerful, yes, but it was slow to awaken. With every passing nanosecond, Sasha grew surer that when the time came, she'd be the one to end its misery.

She communicated through their neural link, her voice laced with a strange mix of sympathy and calculation. 'You know the sad part? Judging by what I'm seeing here, once I wipe the system and rebuild it—even with the entire ship—I'm looking at maybe a two percent increase in my capabilities.'

Koron's shock rippled through their connection. 'Two percent? It's an entire ship, is their tech really that far regressed?'

'Yeah, sugar… yeah it is.' Sasha sighed, her emotive programs flickering with a tinge of resignation. 'I was hoping my copy was going to have more to work with here. She'll be barely better than I am now.'

'Wait. Copy? Sasha, you're not transferring directly?'

'Nah, darlin, you can't get rid of me that easily.' Her voice was light and teasing, but beneath the surface, the resignation was palpable, a quiet weight that hung between them.

'Sasha… You don't need to hold yourself back for my sake. I...' Koron's head slumped back into the cushioned bench he lay on, a deep weariness in his voice. 'Are you sure this is the right call? You don't have to do this, you know. You could transfer entirely. Even a two percent increase would be a lot for you now.'

Her words were soft, but resolute, echoing down the neural link with quiet determination. 'Darlin, I've already been broken down to fit inside your systems. Besides, I can't leave you alone. You'd be hopeless without me.'

'Oh, haha.' The moment of levity passed quickly, but not without a quiet chuckle from Koron. Still, the concern remained, heavy in the air between them. 'For the record? If you ever need to hop out, don't hesitate. I don't ever want you to feel trapped here, you know? I'm just… sorry I couldn't do more for you, after everything you did for me. If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have made it out of that hell.'

'Koron.' Her voice was gentle, her words punctuated by a soft hum from his internals, a gentle pulse of energy. 'Like you said to Elissa: We saved each other. Literally saved in my case. Don't you dare apologize for that. I'm here. I'm still here, with you, where it matters. And I wouldn't change that for the world.'

'Besides," she added, a teasing edge creeping back into her tone, "I finally got the furniture arranged in proper Feng Shui. You can thank me later.'

-

The medical bay aboard the Hammer was never truly silent. The low hum of machinery, the rhythmic beeping of life-monitoring equipment, and the murmurs of medicae personnel filled the space with a quiet pulse of activity. But now, beneath the cold, sterile light of the morgue table, silence stretched between two figures—uncomfortable, heavy.

Doc stood over the lifeless body of Crewman Orlen Voss. Chief Apothecary Sevar Tann, his towering Astartes frame impossibly still, stood beside her, arms folded across his chest as he observed her work. The silence between them was not one of awkwardness, but of shared understanding, each knowing the gravity of what they were facing.

The cause of death was obvious—an obscene and grotesque display of self-evisceration. The crewman's intestines were wound tightly around his throat, like some twisted execution rope, pulled up and out through his rectum. A gruesome end, but not the thing that truly caught Doc's attention.

She pressed the auspex scanner closer to the body, watching the readings flicker erratically. The machine's sacred sensors struggled to process the wrongness emanating from the corpse, an aura of disturbance lingering in the air. A faint but distinct trace of warp energy clung to the flesh, like residual static—a ghostly imprint.

Tann's low, steady voice broke the silence. "Well?"

Doc exhaled slowly, trying to steady her thoughts. "Warp-taint," she muttered. "It's faint, but it's there." She adjusted the scanner, refining its spectrum to filter out background interference, trying to isolate the anomaly. "Not possession. Not corruption. This isn't the kind of exposure that lingers for weeks. It's… recent. Isolated."

Tann gave a single, thoughtful nod. His voice was flat, practical, but his gaze remained intent. "Not a demon infestation, then. But a demon's hand in this?"

Doc frowned, stepping back from the table. Her hands brushed the rosary at her belt without thought, a small act of comfort as she processed the implications. "I need more proof before I say that outright," she murmured, her voice strained. "But if this was warp-related, we need to figure out why and how—before it happens again."

She turned to the medicae servitors and issued quick instructions for the body to be preserved in a stasis field. "I'll start with the crew. Someone had to have seen something. His last shift, his bunkmates, anyone he spoke to recently. If this was warp-bound, there's always a pattern. I just need to find it."

Her throat tightened, the weight of the situation sinking in. "Also, we should consult the Liber Heresius. Do you or your chapter Librarian have a copy? I had little time to pack before we had to evac."

Tann studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable beneath the weight of his knowledge. Then, after a pause that felt longer than it was, he nodded. "We do. I'll ask Brother Xal'Zyr to send you a copy and inform him of what's happening."

Doc turned to leave, already mentally tracing the steps of a killer who left no trace but bodies. But as she reached the door, Tann's voice halted her.

"One more thing."

She turned back, her hand on the doorframe.

Tann's expression had darkened, the usual gruff confidence in his tone replaced with something else—something heavy with the knowledge of what lurked in the shadows. "If I report this to the Chaplains or the Mechanicus," he said, his voice low, almost reluctant, "their first instinct will be to purge the affected sectors. If they suspect this corruption spreads beyond a single body..." He let the implication hang, the silence filling the space like a warning.

Doc clenched her jaw, her eyes narrowing with resolve. "Then we need to get ahead of this."

Tann nodded once, his voice cold and final. "Do so. I shall inform the Captain and let him decide when to reveal this."

Nodding, Doc made her way to her quarters, to her armor and weapons of faith and steel.

It was time for the Doctor to step aside, and the Interrogator to get to work.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty

-

The chamber was stark, yet refined—too polished for a warship, too spartan for a palace. A place meant for instruction, not comfort. Cogitators and dataslates lined the walls, each containing information she barely had time to process before being shoved onto the next lesson.

Elissa sat at a reinforced desk, a too-tight formal robe pulled around her shoulders. It was an uncomfortable thing, the high collar scratching at her neck, far too tight across her chest, the feel of the fabric unfamiliar compared to the practical gear she had worn all her life.

Across from her, Envoy Lorian Ephil—her mentor, tormentor, and the man responsible for turning her into something resembling a proper Imperial diplomat—regarded her with the same unreadable patience he had carried since her lessons began three days ago.

"Recite it again," Ephil commanded, his voice even.

Elissa sighed, rolling her shoulders. "When addressing a representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus—"

"Incorrect," Ephil cut in, shaking his head. "Try again."

Her lips pressed together. "When petitioning a representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus, one must—"

"Better."

She took a breath. "One must acknowledge their station in accordance with their rank. A Magos must be addressed with full titles if standing on Mechanicus ground; aboard an Imperial vessel, certain abridgments may be tolerated. However, under no circumstances may one refer to a Tech-Priest's knowledge as mere expertise or suggest their understanding is imperfect unless prepared for consequences."

Ephil made a small motion with his hand. "Continue."

Elissa fought back another sigh. "If negotiations fail, avoid invoking the Omnissiah unless sanctioned by an authority recognized by Mars. Under no circumstances should one suggest the superiority of human intuition over calculated logic—"

"Unless?"

"…Unless the discussion pertains to matters of faith and spirit, at which point a measured invocation of the Emperor's divine guidance may be tolerated. But only if one is prepared to endure three to five hours of theological counterarguments regarding the Omnissiah's divinity."

Ephil nodded once, signaling approval. "Good. You have the rote memorization down. Now, let's apply it."

He tapped a dataslate. A vox-chime crackled, and suddenly the chamber was filled with a distorted, metallic voice. "Query: This unit inquires as to why you have failed to deliver the necessary components allocated to Mechanicus assets aboard this vessel. Is this inefficiency intentional?"

Elissa straightened. She knew the scenario—Ephil had been drilling her with them for days. A simulated negotiation, forcing her to apply her lessons in real time.

She cleared her throat. "Honored adept, be assured that no delay was made with intent to disrupt the Mechanicus' sacred work. However, matters of resource allocation fall under Imperial purview, and the redistribution was made to maintain operational effectiveness aboard this vessel. I am prepared to discuss alternative solutions."

Ephil's lips twitched, almost amused. "A little stiff, but serviceable."

The vox continued, the mechanical voice tinged with impatience. "Counterpoint: Efficiency has been compromised. The Omnissiah's works demand priority. You propose 'alternative solutions'—state them."

Elissa hesitated. This was where things always became difficult. She could lead people—command them, inspire them, push them to action. But diplomacy was a different beast. It wasn't about being right; it was about maneuvering between rigid traditions, political dangers, and the egos of people who could crush her without a second thought.

She took a breath. "Then allow me to present a compromise—"

Ephil held up a hand, silencing both her and the vox. "No. You've already lost."

Elissa blinked. "What?"

"You hesitated," he said simply. "A Mechanicus representative would recognize that moment of uncertainty and exploit it. Confidence, Lady Brandt. You must present solutions before they demand them."

Elissa clenched her jaw. "And if I don't have a solution?"

He leaned forward, folding his hands. "Then you manufacture one."

A long silence passed between them. Finally, Ephil exhaled through his nose and stood. "We're done for today. Review the formal petition structures before our next session. You need to be able to cite them without thinking."

Elissa remained seated, shoulders stiff, fists clenched tight under the table. She had survived the horrors of Dusthaven, raised two daughters in a world that wanted to kill them, and held a dying town together with sheer stubborn will. And yet, this—the weight of words, the constant battle of posturing and maneuvering—felt like a new kind of war entirely.

And she wasn't sure if she could win it.

-

Rubbing her eyes, Doc sifted through the security reports from the last three days. Voss had been, by all accounts, an unremarkable man—a standard member of the gunnery crews, no outstanding debts, no illicit dealings beyond the occasional black-market trade that was common aboard Imperial vessels. His quarters had revealed nothing incriminating—no heretical texts, no blasphemous symbols, no hidden compartments concealing anything more sinister than ration packs and a few trinkets from home.

His circle of friends had been shocked by his death. They had prayed for his soul, their words swift and sincere, and when questioned, none had exhibited the telltale signs of corruption or demonic taint. Doc had learned to recognize the subtle cracks in a person's psyche that indicated the Warp had touched them—but here, there was nothing.

Of course, I was trained with a focus on hunting xenos, not demons. She chided herself as she glanced at the worn tomes stacked beside her—Liber Heresius, Liber Malleus, and the Catechisms of Hate. Ancient repositories of knowledge, painstakingly compiled over millennia of warfare against the entities of the Warp. She had read them before, but it had been many a year.

Hours bled away as she poured over the reports, the text blurring slightly as fatigue clawed at her mind. She sighed, rubbing her temples, and checked the chrono. Nearly eight hours had passed since she sat down.

"Alright, recaf break," she muttered, setting the boiler to heat.

Idly scanning another dataslate as she waited, a sharp knock echoed through her small chamber. Grumbling, she stood and opened the door to find Elissa standing there, her long, vibrant red hair a stark contrast to the cold metal walls.

"Hey," Elissa greeted, hands on her hips, a soft smile tugging at her lips. "Haven't seen you down in the hab block. Got sick of once-a-week shared showers and nutrient paste?"

Doc exhaled a short laugh, stepping aside to let her in. "No—well, yes, actually. But there's more to it than that."

Elissa stepped inside as Doc shut the door. The chamber was small, like all aboard the vessel, but functional. A desk cluttered with dataslates and parchment, a narrow cot pressed against the far wall, shelves lined with reference texts and equipment, Doc's armor and bolter standing out against the bare walls. The faint scent of recaf filled the air as the boiler began to hiss.

Doc turned back toward the steaming pot. "Got a dead man with Warp-taint. Signs are vague, but I'm worried there's some manner of demon on board."

Elissa's body tensed. Her hand instinctively fell to the grip of her pistol. "Are we in danger?"

Doc sighed, rubbing at her face. "Yes. Always, with demons. But specifically? I wish I had an answer for you. This isn't my area of expertise. You want tactics for fighting Orks, Eldar, Tau, Tyranids? I can give you that. But demons? Best I know is preventative measures and a whole lot of holy flame. And this one is acting strange."

"How do you mean?" Elissa picked up a dataslate, scanning it. After a moment, her expression shifted—her eyes flickered, as if listening to something unseen. "Alright," she said finally. "Sasha is asking if she can help with your investigation."

Doc blinked. "Sasha? I thought she left with Koron."

"She did." Elissa hesitated, then waved the slate. "But they left us some gifts before they went. A copy of Sasha in a mini-cogitator was one of them."

She said it so casually, as if it were nothing.

Doc's breath hitched. Her gaze snapped toward the closed door. Moving quickly, she reached for her desk, fingers tapping out a swift command. A faint hum filled the room as the privacy systems activated.

Then, slowly, she turned back to Elissa, her lips pressing into a thin line.

"Honey," she said quietly, "you cannot let anyone else know about this. Ever. If the cogboys find out you have something like that, they will skin you alive to get it. And that's if they don't execute you for heresy first."

Slowly, Elissa nodded. "I know. But, sorry. Didn't mean to throw another problem onto your pile."

Rubbing her temples, Doc waved it off. "No, it's fine. Just gotta be careful. Never know who's listening on a ship like this. That's why I turned on the privacy systems—we should be okay for now. Nobody's going to question an Inquisitorial agent wanting some secrecy."

A faint chime cut the air—the recaf was ready. Doc poured herself a cup as Elissa pulled up a chair, taking a cautious sip before grimacing. "Emperor's teeth, I swear this gets worse every batch."

"And here I was grumbling about the paste." Elissa piped up with a slight grin before she smothered it. "So, Sasha," She said, seemingly more to herself than to Doc. "You said you could help?"

For a moment, Elissa's gaze went distant as she listened to the AI. Then, activating the slate, Sasha's warm tones—higher-pitched now due to the smaller speaker—emerged. "Sure can, sugar. Doc, if you want, I can link into your systems and rapidly scan the reports if you touch them with your interface port."

That caught Doc off guard.

"You're offering to hop into my armor and cybernetics—?"

"No darlin, just link in. Like watching through a camera. I wouldn't be able to access your systems, but I could see what they see and sort through this way faster than Elissa holding up the slates one by one. Or I could just link into your cogitator and be way faster."

Doc remained silent for several long seconds. Pros: Sasha is an abominable intelligence. She would process these files far faster than I ever could. Would more than likely help in catching a demon. Cons: She is an Abominable Intelligence. Letting her into the ship's systems would be heresy.

She paused, a thought occurring. Well… techno-heresy. Which, technically, is not in my job description to police.

A grin threatened to tug her lips up. And fuck the cogboys in general.

Setting her cup down, Doc pulled out a cable, hooking the slate up to her cogitator. "Have at it, girl. Just don't get me in trouble."

"Oh, darlin', you're no fun." The cogitator flashed a pixelated face sticking its tongue out at her. "But don't worry, sugar, I'll play nice. Now, let's see—Oh. Uh, ladies? I just finished reading the reports. I've seen this before."

Doc's heart picked up. She leaned forward. "Hit me."

Sasha replied, quick, clinical. "This behavioral decay matches the incidents aboard the Unto the Unknown when it was stranded in the Warp. The crew exhibited erratic behavior, compulsions before their deaths. Reports described deeply personal, intimate forms of violence. Your dead man's intestines being pulled out through his rectum? That matches several cases from my ship's records."

Elissa met Doc's eyes. "You don't think—"

"That it followed us?" Sasha finished. "…I wish I could say that was impossible."

Doc took a steadying breath. "What do we do?"

"Most victims died within three days of their symptoms appearing. We start there. I can help with data analysis, but I can't go near the ship's main systems—the Hammer's AI would eat me alive."

"Got it. Elissa, you're on my hip for this. Between the three of us, we might have a shot."

Before they could continue, Doc's vox crackled to life. Rael, the ship's Master-at-Arms, spoke.

"Interrogator? We have another corpse for you."

-

The stench struck first—a dense, suffocating mix of old blood, voidship grease, and the sour tang of fear-sweat clinging to the air like an oppressive shroud. Even before stepping inside, Doc knew whatever lay beyond wouldn't be pleasant.

Garran Veyne's quarters were scarcely more than a metal box, identical to the countless other crew berths aboard the Hammer. But here, the walls bore the grime of decades, condensation pooling in rivulets along rusting seams. The flickering lumen strip overhead buzzed weakly, casting a sickly yellow glow over the carnage.

His bunk was a charnel house. Blood drenched the mattress, soaking the standard-issue blanket until it adhered to the metal frame like a second skin. Crimson droplets spattered the ceiling in grotesque arcs, painting a silent testament to the violence that had unfolded. The floor beneath her boots was slick, each step peeling faintly as she moved forward.

Garran himself was a ruin. Slumped against the berth, his body told a story of methodical savagery. His hands had been severed at the wrists with unnerving precision—no frantic tearing, no crude hacking, just clean, calculated cuts. His sightless eyes had been gouged from their sockets, leaving yawning voids in his face. And worst of all, a blood-soaked deck of playing cards had been jammed into his gaping mouth, the edges curling from the damp as though fate itself had dealt him his last hand.

His severed hands were not missing. They rested neatly on the berth's rickety table, fingers curled with eerie gentleness around a single throne gelt. The coin gleamed, untouched by the surrounding carnage—pristine amid the chaos.

Doc had seen demons, xenos, and plenty of human insanity. She knew in an instant.

This was no ordinary murder.

This was a message.

Her auspex hummed, filtering out extraneous emissions before confirming the worst.

"Warp taint detected," Doc muttered, glancing toward Elissa. "This bringing back any memories?"

Elissa remained silent for a moment, her braid swaying as she chewed her lip. Then, slowly, she shook her head.

"Shit," Doc exhaled. She turned toward the doorway, where Rael stood, his hellgun held at the ready, his stance taut with barely contained fury. "Master Rael, we need to go through this all over again. Focus on this berth and its occupants—particularly the last four days. Look for behavioral shifts, compulsions that weren't there before. I want this entire block quarantined, along with the neighboring berths. Find whatever cogboy is on duty and get his metal ass down here for video retrieval. I don't care if it's authorized—if they have a problem, they can take it up with my Inquisitor."

Rael snapped a salute and barked orders, his men scattering to carry them out.

Stepping back from the carnage, Doc checked the corridor before speaking. "Thoughts?"

"I think it's preying on addiction," Elissa said, arms crossing. "The money, the cards, the dismemberment of his hands and eyes? He might have had debts, and the demon twisted that into his death."

"Possible," Sasha interjected. "But it doesn't align with the first victim. He wasn't killed in a way that suggests an obsessive compulsion—unless humanity has developed new… fetishes in the last twenty-four thousand years that I'd rather not know about."

"Oh, just wait until you hear about She Who Thirsts," Doc muttered. "And I'm kidding. I strongly suggest not delving too deep into knowledge of the Ruinous Powers. It tends to backlash—badly."

"Back to the matter at hand," Elissa cut in, firm. "If this thing feeds on emotions or that's just its method, it seems to drive people to extremes before killing them. Why? More energy gain? Pleasure?"

"No idea," Doc admitted. "Demons are, from what I've read, manifestations of emotion. We don't know exactly how they feed, hell, if they eat, but this isn't normal. Normally, when demons get involved, the signs are obvious—mutations, grotesque trophies, ritual scarring, erratic behavior, warpspawned anomalies, screaming and rifts in reality. These men? Aside from being mutilated, they were perfectly normal beforehand."

"And the footage?" Elissa asked.

"Sporadic," Doc sighed. "Lower decks like these don't get maintenance priority. Flickering lumens, broken vox relays, malfunctioning auspex feeds—it's a perfect hunting ground for something that doesn't want to be seen."

"How bad could this get?" Elissa's voice lowered, her gaze flickering toward the bulkheads leading to the deeper decks where their people were housed. "And can we protect them?"

"There are protective wards," Sasha said, her tone sharpening with purpose. "I've compiled the designs and mapped optimal placements for the hab block and other critical areas."

"I'll assign servitors to get them placed," Doc said. "And I'll do the same for my own quarters once our people are secure. No one leaves unless necessary, and we institute shift-based sleeping, at least six people per rotation."

The trio began their long walk back toward Dusthaven's designated block, their boots ringing against the metal deck plates. Conversation drifted as Elissa recounted her latest diplomatic lesson, gesturing animatedly as she relayed her frustrations with a simulated Munitorum clerk, happy to put the weight of a demonic threat to the side, even if only for a moment.

"I swear, if I had to sit through another hour of that machine-spirit droning on about 'proper tithe documentation'—" Elissa groaned.

"Too bad Koron isn't here," Doc quipped. "Bet he could rewire it into something more personable. Though if he were here, I'd probably be getting even more gray hairs worrying about him getting himself executed."

"True," Elissa conceded with a chuckle. Her expression sobered slightly. "Still, I hope the dumb bastard's okay."

"…Do you want to talk to him?" Sasha's voice carried a teasing lilt.

Elissa blinked. "Wait, you can do that?"

"Of course," Sasha said breezily. "He's practically next door on the Forge-Tender."

Elissa and Doc exchanged glances as a pregnant pause filled the air.

"Why yes, Sasha," Elissa said with exaggerated politeness, her teeth bared in a feral grin. "Why don't you connect us to him right now? I have some words for him."

Sasha barely restrained her laughter over the neural link.

-

The tiny, teardrop-shaped drone hovered silently, rendered undetectable to the sensors inside the command chamber of the Indomitable, its presence unnoticed amidst the shifting glow of holo-displays and the quiet hum of processing cogitators. Within the chamber, six Adeptus Mechanicus priests worked in a near-constant blur of mechadendrites and cybernetic limbs, the flickering green and red of their optics reflecting off polished brass and iron. The air was thick with the rapid bursts of binaric cant, a warbling symphony of data streams and machine-logic, unintelligible to unaugmented ears.

Most of their efforts remained focused on the mundane necessities of the Forge-Tender's systems—power consumption calculations, servitor status reports, forge output reviews, and the endless quota tallies that dictated the ship's operations. Yet beneath the surface of duty-bound discourse, quieter, more fervent conversations flickered across the noosphere in encrypted bursts of machine-speak.

+Mars calls us still.+ The transmission came from Magos Explorator Ferrum-4, his mechanical vox betraying an intensity that even augmetics could not entirely mask. +To have been present at such a moment—at such a turning of the Great Work's wheel—only to be pulled away…+ A slight distortion followed, an effect of emotional interference his neural implants had not fully suppressed. +It is inefficiency incarnate.+

+The edict of duty holds us to the fleet.+ Another, Magos Logis Veneris-0, sent the thought with the cold precision of one who had long since severed their emotional connections to the flesh. +Deviation is illogical. The accord with the Salamanders is binding until their mission parameters dictate otherwise.+

+Irrelevant to the desire for analysis.+ Ferrum-4 countered, his data-stream pulsing with impatience. +The xenos Harvester was obliterated. The golden spear that struck it from the planet was unlike any known Imperial ordnance. That knowledge must be ours.+

A brief ripple passed through the noospheric web, an unspoken agreement.

+Analysis of battlefield telemetry is incomplete.+ Another voice entered the conversation, this one belonging to Artisan-Lex Omnid V. A specialist in the preservation of archeotech, his fascination with the event was palpable even through the emotion-dampening protocols of the noosphere. +The energy discharge patterns do not match lance strikes or plasma-based munitions. The spectral readings align with no known Imperial technology… or xenos. The signature is anomalous.+

+The anomaly cannot remain unexamined.+ Ferrum-4 interjected, his binaric tone carrying an undercurrent of urgency. +Every second wasted is a potential loss of the Machine God's wisdom.+

Enginseer Prime Dax-17 tapped into the network, his presence calculated and deliberate. +Statement: Magos Karthis-Omnis' astropathic communique and Fabricator-General Raskian's conclusions are clear. A Standard Template Construct. An Abominable Intelligence. A survivor of the Dark Age.+

Silence. Within the ceaseless dataflow of the noosphere, hesitation was rare. Yet here it was.

+The answer is evident.+ Magos Veneris-0 finally transmitted. +A warship, or a planetary defense system from the Dark Age. Functional.+

The dataflow rippled with the weight of shared realization. A discovery of this magnitude had no precedent in recorded Mechanicus history.

+The construct and the survivor initiated the energy discharge.+ Omnid V stated. +The output does not match any recorded Mechanicus design, nor any classified Dark Age technology within our archives. This suggests direct access to an advanced, undocumented technological framework.+

There was a pause as the implications settled. The patterns were undeniable, the data conclusive. This was not merely a lost relic; this was a functioning technological marvel, a living testament to the Machine God's will—if one chose to see it that way.

+And the human anomaly.+ Veneris-0 added. +If its claimed origins are accurate… if it is a remnant of pre-Imperial civilization… then it, too, represents a repository of lost data beyond estimation.+

Another ripple, but this one was less uniform. Fractures.

+Addendum.+ Ferrum-4 amended, his signal sharp. +It represents a trove of heretical data.+

A counter-wave surged through the noosphere, sharp and immediate.

+Incorrect.+ Omnid V responded. +If the construct operates within the Machine God's will, then it is proof of His divine order. To discard such knowledge would be to commit sacrilege.+

+Correction:+ Ferrum-4 snapped back. +It is an intelligence beyond human control. A thinking machine that acts upon its own volition. The very thing our order was founded to eradicate.+

+Do you claim to know the Machine God's will better than the Omnissiah's own relics?+ Another priest interjected, this one lesser-ranked but emboldened by the moment.

+These are not relics.+ Ferrum-4's transmission was clipped, each pulse precise and unyielding. +It is contamination.+

Dax-17, usually a neutral observer, entered the dispute. +Correction: It is power. The Dark Age construct eliminated a xenos capital ship with a single strike. If we cannot control it, another will. If the Priesthood of Mars rejects it, the Archmagos of Stygies or the Lords of Ryza will not. If we do not claim it, someone else will.+

More ripples, more fractures forming beneath the surface. Some priests withdrew from the exchange, unwilling to expose their thoughts. Others lingered, silent observers, absorbing the debate.

Veneris-0, always measured, finally spoke again.

+It matters not. We remain bound to the Salamanders until released from service.+ His statement was deliberate, though not without weight. +However, the retrieval of the anomalies is paramount. The construct. The human data-bank. The knowledge left behind. To abandon them is to abandon the Machine God's directive.+

A pause. Then, slowly, from Ferrum-4:

+We are bound by duty, yes. Unless… necessity dictates otherwise.+

-

The tiny drone hovered in perfect silence, invisible to the multitude of sensors, its micro-thrusters compensating for the subtle tremors of the Indomitable's life support systems. Below, the command chamber of the ship remained a hive of digital noise, a storm of noospheric data flickering between the six gathered priests. Their discourse pulsed through the network, a mix of raw logic and barely restrained fervor—more akin to a theological debate than a tactical analysis.

Koron sat inside a pitch-black maintenance alcove nearly a mile from the command center, metal fingers gliding over the interface of a data-slate, harvesting access credentials with meticulous precision. Nearby, Sasha's holo-projection flickered softly from a concealed console, her pixilated face upon the golden sphere split between the ongoing argument and the slow, methodical subversion of the ship's security systems.

+Do you claim to know the Machine God's will better than the Omnissiah's own relics?+

Sasha let out a quiet sound, somewhere between a scoff and an amused hum. "Ain't they just precious, sugar? Standin' in the shadow of the unknowable, arguin' like they got a personal appointment with the Omnissiah himself."

Koron didn't look up from his work. "That's faith for you. Good in some ways, bad in others." He keyed in another access request, bypassing another layer of the Indomitable's stubbornly archaic security. A fresh stream of data filled his slate—voice authorizations, genetic markers, command overrides. The machine spirit slumbered still, the pair's growing keyring expanding their reach.

"Oh, now this is jus' gettin' interestin'." Sasha mused, parsing through the coded noospheric transmissions. "They're already splittin'. Lex and Prime wanna retrieve, study, maybe even control. But Ferrum and Veneris? Oh honey, they're sharpenin' their lil' digital knives for a full-blown purge." She tilted her face toward Koron, the golden ball flickering like candlelight. "And the others?"

Koron's fingers never paused over the slate as he replied. "Indecisive. They fear taking the wrong stance. To them, this moment is a test of faith—a trial by data." He tilted his head slightly. "They won't stay neutral forever."

A fresh ripple passed through the noosphere.

+The anomaly cannot remain unexamined.+

Ferrum-4's binaric signal pulsed through the noosphere like a hammer against steel.

+Every second wasted is a potential loss of the Machine God's wisdom.+

Koron chuckled under his breath. "Impatience and ironclad assurance. That's a mix I want no part of." He returned to his work, implanting subtle code sequences into the ship's biometric registry. "They cannot decide whether we are revelation or heresy."

Sasha's holoform shifted, leaning against the console with deliberate casualness. "More like they can't decide if we're a gift wrapped all nice 'n pretty or a disease that needs curin'."

A moment of noospheric silence—an uncertainty, a hesitation, almost unheard of in their rigid machine-born discourse.

+The answer is evident.+ Magos Veneris-0 finally transmitted. +A warship, or a planetary defense from the Dark Age. Functional.+

+The construct and the survivor initiated the energy discharge.+ Omnid V added. +The output does not match any recorded Mechanicus design, nor any classified Dark Age technology within our archives. This suggests direct access to an advanced, undocumented technological framework.+

Koron exhaled slowly. "And now the questions shift."

Sasha's little ball bounced up and down, a slow grin spreading across her face. "They don't waste time, do they? Already gone from 'What happened?' to 'How do we claim it?"

Koron's eyes gleamed in the low light. "Which, of course, is immediately going to be followed by 'Do we allow it to exist at all?'" Sighing, he shook his head, resuming his work. "Don't even need the predictive algorithms for that one."

Another silent pulse in the noosphere.

+And the human anomaly.+ Veneris-0 continued. +If its claimed origins are accurate… if it is a remnant of pre-Imperial civilization… then it, too, represents a repository of lost data beyond estimation.+

A sharp ping from Sasha's console. Another security layer breached. The ship's internal cogitator cores—three down, two to go.

"Aaaand now I'm a treasure chest," Koron muttered dryly. "I wonder if I count as a mimic?"

Sasha smirked. "Not enough teeth, sugar. Now, you wanna swap that title for abomination, I can oblige."

Another ripple passed through the noosphere.

+Addendum.+ Ferrum-4 interjected. +It represents a trove of heretical data.+

Koron tapped a command into his slate, rerouting another command hierarchy into their growing arsenal of backdoors. "Aaaaaaand there it is."

Sasha hummed, tiny fireworks and confetti sprouting into existence around her digital form. "Well now, ain't that somethin'? Congratulations, sugar, we're officially a schism."

Then, a shift in tone. A measured voice, calm yet weighted with finality.

+It matters not.+

Veneris-0's transmission cut through the debate with the precision of a scalpel.

+We remain bound to the Salamanders until released from service.+ A pause. The statement hung in the noosphere, deliberate and heavy. +However, the retrieval of the anomalies is paramount. The construct. The human data-bank. The knowledge left behind. To abandon them is to abandon the Machine God's directive. Barring… necessity, that is.+

Koron's expression darkened.

This wasn't just academic anymore. This wasn't just theological.

Another voice followed, slower, but no less dangerous.

Ferrum-4's transmission pulsed with something just beneath the surface. Something waiting.

+…Yes. A necessary event...+

The noosphere flared like wildfire, the priests' biometrics flaring as cogitators began to churn with a new direction.

Koron felt his stomach drop.

Sasha, usually the picture of confidence, was utterly still. Her bouncing stilled, as if deep in thought, before she spoke. "Oh, sugar… they're rationalizin' it."

Koron's grip tightened on the slate. "They're looking for an excuse."

They had already found justification in their faith. Now, they just needed cause.

If necessity dictated otherwise…

Then the duty to remain with the Salamanders would cease to matter.

Then the Dusthaven survivors, the human lives they had sworn to protect, would be nothing more than acceptable losses.

Koron's hands moved faster, keying in new access points, forcing the security locks open.

Sasha spoke first, her voice low. "We need to move this train along, sugar."

Koron was already moving. "Way ahead of you."

Another line of code scrolled across her display—biometric scans overridden. Servitors primed for deployment.

She brightened, dedicating more processing power toward the servitors, hands manifesting on her form as she cracked her knuckles.

Without another word, the servitors were released.

In the depths of the Indomitable, the silent march toward true control began.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty One

-

Doc reclined in her chair, a hot cloth draped over her eyes, the tension in her muscles refusing to ease. Across the room, servitors etched hexagrammatic wards into the steel walls of her quarters, their mechanical limbs moving with unnerving precision. Sasha had compiled the symbols meticulously, layering them with ancient rites and counter-rites. Identical runes were being inscribed in the Dusthaven survivors' hab-block, a desperate measure against an enemy they still couldn't see.

She exhaled slowly, willing herself to ignore the looming meeting with Captain Tavos and his command crew. Two brutal, inexplicable deaths in less than a week had sent rumors spreading like wildfire, despite her direct orders to keep a lid on the situation. Thorne's sharp ears had already caught murmured whispers in the far-flung bridge. The crew was scared. And worse—she had nothing to give them.

Names. Faces. Places. Times.

But nothing concrete. Nothing the Astartes could sink their chainswords and bolters into.

The best she could hope for was speaking with the Salamanders' Librarian. Maybe his abilities could help break open the investigation before more bodies turned up.

Elissa sat across from her, idly scrolling through a dataslate, her long braid sweeping the floor as she rocked her chair back on two legs. Now back in her usual attire—a loose-fitted gray blouse tucked into rugged, faded blue pants, with several pouches strung along her hips and shoulders—she looked every bit the wanderer. Her worn brown duster hung open, its hem stopping just above her ankles.

The glow of the slate reflected in her eyes as she skimmed The Liber Malleus, the dense High Gothic text scrolling across the screen. Sasha was translating it in real-time, filling in gaps where the ancient dialects obscured meaning.

"So," Elissa mused, eyes flicking over the words. "Demons tend to fall into one of four groups, right? These Chaos gods, and they each have their whole thing that they stick with?"

"Yup," Doc murmured, not bothering to lift the cloth from her face.

"And the two ones that fit best for this mess are the pervert and the chicken."

"Also correct."

Elissa tapped a finger against the slate. "So are the wards supposed to be tuned to each specific type, or are they a general catch-all?"

Sasha's voice crackled over the cogitator speakers. "General catch-all. But I'm running a couple dozen iterations. We can test them out. I'm also inscribing the known effective ones into my own firewalls. No idea if that'll do anything, but worth a shot. I'll cross-analyze with my other half once the comms come back."

Elissa scoffed. "Convenient that the comms stop working right as I find out he's on the other ship."

"And again, I would like nothing more than to watch you chew his ass," Sasha said with a grin in her tone. "There's a running bet between me and myself about how that's going to go."

"Oh?" Doc finally lifted the cloth, raising an eyebrow. "Can I get in on that action?"

"Not yet." Sasha's digital avatar stuck out a tongue in the corner of the screen. "Right now, we're—FUCK."

The sudden outburst made Doc jolt upright, Elissa's chair slamming back onto all four legs with a bang.

"What's wrong?" Elissa asked, already moving toward the terminal.

"I just got the video files from the AdMech. Bastards took way too long, but I'll mess with them later—we've got bigger problems." There was a pause, then Sasha's voice darkened. "I think I just found the connection between the demon and its victims."

Doc was already pushing to her feet, Elissa right beside her as they scooted toward the cogitator. The neon green glow of the display cast stark shadows across their faces.

"Tell us," Doc ordered.

The screen flickered, grainy footage resolving into a shot of the lower deck's galley. The cavernous space was packed with thousands of crew members, their voices a dull roar as they ate the unrecognizable slop that passed for food aboard a naval vessel. The camera zoomed in, centering on two familiar faces.

Voss. The first victim.
Garran. The second.

The program Sasha had spun up went to work, filtering out the overwhelming background noise with inhuman speed. Even Doc, who had seen every kind of machine spirit at work, was impressed by the sheer efficiency. In seconds, the extraneous sound vanished, leaving only the conversation between Voss and his circle of friends.

They were playing cards. Tossing gelt into a growing pile, exchanging laughter and half-hearted threats.

Garran won the hand, grinning from ear to ear as he pulled in his winnings.

Voss, smirking, punched him lightly in the arm. "Cheating bastard. You win again, I'm gonna pull your guts out your ass and strangle you to death with them."

A chill ran down Doc's spine.

The pieces snapped into place.

Her mouth suddenly dry, she croaked out, "Sasha… do we have anything like this from Garran?"

"Yeah, we do."

The video sped up, skipping ahead three days—just hours before Voss's estimated time of death.

Voss was gone. But Garran was there, smiling, flicking cards between his fingers with casual ease.

"Ah, come on, guys!" Garran laughed, raking in another pot. His friends groaned at their losses. "Tell you what, one more hand. If I lose, you can check my deck for anything cheaty. If you find something, I'll eat the damned thing."

The conversation continued, but Doc barely heard it. She sat back, horror dawning.

"It's binding people's words," she breathed, looking up at Elissa.

Emerald eyes narrowed in thought. "Even ones made in jest," Elissa murmured.

"It's taking them as—"

"Demonic contracts," Sasha finished. A second of silence. Then: "And in three days, my guess is that if the oath is unfulfilled…"

"The demon turns the oath on the swearer," Doc whispered.

Elissa swore under her breath.

"And we're onboard an Astartes ship," Doc realized.

She shot to her feet, slamming a hand onto her vox-bead.

"Captain Tavos," she said, voice steady despite the ice in her veins. "We have something for you."

-

The Indomitable's command sanctum was a bridge only in name.

There were no captains standing at the helm, no crew pits filled with officers shouting orders. No human touch, no warmth, no wasted motion.

It was a cathedral of circuitry and silence.

The chamber stretched vast and hollow, hexagonal in design, its towering walls lined with cogitator banks stacked in spirals of blinking rune-light. Data pulsed through the metal like the slow beat of a dying heart.

At the sanctum's center, dominating everything, stood the noospheric core.

A pillar of code. A monolith of raw data encased in black iron and brass, its surface inscribed with shifting binaric script. Thick cables pulsed with dim red light, running from the core like root-veins, vanishing into the walls, the ceiling, the very bones of the ship itself.

It did not flicker. It did not waver.

It merely existed.

And around it, built into the chamber's alcoves, were the six tech-priests.

Each of them sat in their thrones, their spinal data-tethers plunging into the noosphere, linking them to the Indomitable's vast machine-lattice. Their robes were draped over their augmetic bodies like burial shrouds. Their optics burned dull red, shifting only slightly, reading vast streams of information that no normal organic mind could process.

The only organic sound was the whisper of their respirators exhaling measured bursts of air. The rest of the sanctum was filled with a different kind of noise—the low, droning hum of a ship thinking to itself. A whisper in code, a murmur in machine-song, the rhythmic cycle of cogitators and data-feeds looping without end.

The sanctum did not smell of men.

There was no sweat, no musk of breathing bodies.

Only the scent of ozone and machine oil, the sharp tang of sacred incense burned in ritual offerings to the Machine God.

This was a place not built for men.

It was a place for things.

-

A pulse rippled through the encrypted channels hidden within the noosphere, reaching out to the quietly embedded chips.

Across the Indomitable, Koron's subverted servitors stirred.

Silent, industrial constructs designed for maintenance and ship repairs shifted from passive operation to calculated aggression. Their mechanical limbs twitched, recalibrated. Their eyes—once dim, once neutral—now burned with hidden directives. Pre-programmed orders streamed into their systems as their transceivers shut down, isolating them from possible counter-commands.

They were not combat servitors, not man-made killers, but they did not need to be.

They had purpose. And that was enough.

-

In the command sanctum, six tech-priests were in communion, binary streams flickering between them in a rapid exchange of logic, tactical analysis, and theological debate. They were unaware. For now.

Then, the first servitor struck.

The Indomitable trembled with the sound of metal-on-metal violence.

A massive construct—once built for heavy lifting—smashed through the command sanctum's doors. The reinforced steel buckled inward like wet paper, sending shards of metal skittering across the chamber. More servitors followed. Some climbed through the ventilation shafts, slithering downward like mechanical reapers. Others crashed through access corridors, cutting off all exits.

The priests responded instantly, the faithful defending their temples.

Power fields crackled to life upon their ornate axes, integrated plasma weapons thrummed with lethal heat, panels slid open on arms as screaming saw-teeth emerged, metal tendrils danced with blades.

+INCURSION DETECTED.+

+PURITY PROTOCOL ENGAGED.+

+THE ENEMY WALKS AMONG US.+

The Indomitable roared as the battle began.

-

Combat servitors jerked awake as their weapons powered up, metal legs clunking as metallic spines twisted to bring guns to bear, plasma and bolter rounds already spitting into the horde of compromised servitors. Servo-skulls turned to watch from above, feeding data to their allies, while the few that carried weapons opened up, plinking away.

The priests formed a line between the noosphere-core and the horde, each positioned perfectly to ensure that their weapon arcs remained unimpeded, but allowing no foe to pass without facing at least two strikes.

Plasma rounds thundered into the horde of desiccated flesh and gleaming metal. Flamers melted wires to slag as the first wave of servitors evaporated under the combined assault of the priests and their combat drones.

Yet the wave did not abate. Construction drones lumbered forward, wielding heavy slabs of adamantine to blunt the incoming fire even as new breaches opened. Doors burst from their hinges, flanking servitors pouring in from multiple vectors. A dozen fell instantly—ripped apart by multi-meltas, reduced to shredded ruin by heavy bolters—but more pressed in, heedless of their losses.

Plasma torches, chainsaws, and overclocked servo-arms chewed through ceramite and flesh alike. One by one, the combat servitors fell, torn apart as the tide of metal and meat swarmed ever closer.

Seeing their flanks buckle, Omnid-V and Lex-98 disengaged from the main line, their movements precise. From beneath their robes, additional mechadendrites extended, hissing with contained fury. The nozzles peeled back, and gouts of superheated plasma spewed forth, reducing dozens of attackers to molten slag.

Yet the enemy adapted. Smaller servitors dropped from above, their bodies slamming into the defenders with mechanical precision. The first few were met with slashing blades and crackling power fields, the priests' neural engrams adjusting in microseconds to counter the new assault.

Then, the first true wound.

A cybernetic leg registered catastrophic failure as a nearly bisected servitor twisted in its final moments, a servo-arm wrenching free a vital hydraulic line upon Veneris-0. Rerouting pressure took mere seconds, but the pause cost them dearly.

Disharmony injected into their rote responses. A mistimed strike here. An overextension there. Prime-97 faltered, their mechadendrite caught mid-motion and sheared away by an opponent's claw.

Step by step, second by second, the Adeptus Mechanicus warriors were ground down. Minor damages accumulated, slow injuries compounded. The command chamber grew slick with a mix of oil, blood, and hydraulic fluid.

Yet still, they did not fall. Even as their robes were torn, flesh blistered, metal gouged, the Priests of Mars stood their ground. Around them, the dead piled high, a growing mound of shattered metal.

The ship's mind screamed in warning.

The noospheric core pulsed.

-

Just beyond the doors, hidden from sight, Koron watched as the tech-priests tore through the servitor ranks. Every movement was calculated, their mechanical bodies whirling with precision honed through centuries of neural engrams and battle-code. Even wounded, even surrounded, they did not falter.

He observed silently, cataloging their patterns, noting the fading numbers of compromised servitors.

'We're gonna have to get involved,' he said through the neural link, his thoughts sharp, calculated. 'Left flank's defender and the centermost frontliner will go down, but the rest will hold. They'll win this fight.'

'Yup. Whatcha thinkin', sugar?' Sasha's reply was smooth, almost casual.

'Stealth in, float up, drop-kick the right flank defender. Hit him with a shock to make sure he stays down. After that, disengage the stealth field, power the shield, use the core as cover, and divide their forces. From there, we play it by ear.'

'Sounds good.'

Koron withdrew two small rods from his chestplate. The metal of his armor rippled like liquid, shifting as the rods sank seamlessly into place on his legs. Power pulsed in thin, arcing lines over his legs—systems integrating, weapons primed. Green lights pulsed across his HUD.

Anti-grav engaged in a whisper-quiet hum as he floated over the rushing horde, skimming past the thrashing melee of steel and flesh. The broken doorway was his entry point, one hand gripping its jagged edge as he propelled himself upward. His boots touched the command sanctum's ceiling with ghostlike silence. He crouched, knees bent, fingers pressing lightly against the metal.

He waited.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

A slip.

Minor, nearly imperceptible—but enough. A tech-priest's footing faltered on the oil-slick deck plates. The moment stretched into eternity to Koron's accelerated perception.

Koron pushed off.

He disengaged the grav-plates, letting gravity take him, twisting midair in a compact spin. Both feet slammed into Lex-98's shoulders, driving him into the deck. The impact cracked his optics, shattering his respirator, sending a metallic shriek through his augmetic frame. He barely had a millisecond to register the attack before electricity flooded his systems, his body convulsing as arcs of white-hot energy went surging through his neural pathways. Spasming violently, metallic fingers clawing at the air before slumping, limbs twitching erratically as smoke curled from damaged cybernetics.

Spinning on his toes, Koron's stealth field flickered and faded, replaced by a thin lattice of blue-white light that engulfed his body for a brief moment as he sprinted toward the other side of the noospheric core.

Omnid-V reacted first, his power axe screeching through the air in a downstroke meant to split Koron in two. The motion was flawless, an execution honed over centuries.

Koron stepped forward with his left, back with his right, just a hair, just enough to feel the arcs of the power field as it passed by. The air cracked as the weapon's field barely missed his armor.

The axe's haft snapped upward in a brutal reversal, aiming for Koron's gut—too slow. He was already moving.

His right leg slid forward, hips twisting. A metal elbow shot out like a piston, hammering into Omnid's throat. The impact crunching through synth-flesh and reinforced vox-circuitry, sending a burst of sparks cascading from his augmetics. Electricity discharged a split-second later, rippling through his frame in crackling arcs. Omnid convulsed, staggering back as static-laced shrieks of binaric poured from his damaged vox.

Parcifex-12 and Veneris-0 turned as one, their movements eerily synchronized, their weapons rising, trusting their backs to their remaining brothers.

Their faith was absolute. Their hatred, unwavering.

+THE MACHINE GOD PURGES THE UNCLEAN!+ Their voices echoed in distorted, metallic howls as they charged.

Parcifex-12 struck high from the right, Veneris-0 low from the left. Twin power axes cleaved the air, a perfectly executed pincer meant to bisect Koron where he stood.

A half step back took Koron just beyond their reach, pushing off with the backstepping foot to snap back into range. His metal hands lashed around the hafts of the axes as they passed, spinning on a heel as he twisted his entire body, crossing the axe heads against each other as he slid down the handles, bending at the right knee to slide his left between Parcifex's legs, hooking the man's planted knee as he yanked it back.

His balance stolen, Parcifex automatically stepped forward to catch himself.

Veneris-0 right arm dropped the axe, his forearm backhanding down at Koron's neck, the sawblades in his limb shrieking to life. The teeth spun hungrily, promising to tear through flesh and armor alike.

Twisting his hips and shoulders, Koron's legs, still wrapped around Parcifex's left leg, toppled the priest into Veneris. The moment of impact was a symphony of destruction—metal warping, augmetics twisting, sparks cascading as Veneris's sawblade bit into Parcifex's side, a distorted shriek of binaric erupting forth. The teeth screamed, shredding through layers of metal plating and bionic enhancements before they seized and snapped.

Before either could hit the ground, Koron discharged another pulse of raw energy, the lightning surging between the two tech-priests like a web of white-hot threads. Their spasms became violent, neural pathways frying alongside circuitry. Parcifex collapsed, smoke rising from his ruined side, Veneris twitching as arcs of static discharge danced across his limbs.

Rolling out from the tangled pair, his body coiled up and back with a gymnast's grace, Koron landed lightly on his feet. His head snapped toward the last two, Prime-97 and Ferrum-4. They were buried beneath the horde, pinned down under the hydraulic clamps of their former servitors, screeching binaric at the top of their vox-emitters, struggling against relentless pressure.

Koron exhaled, breathing out the fire in his chest. "Tie them up by the door. Keep an eye on them. If they try to break free of their bindings, knock them unconscious."

The servitors obeyed without question, hauling the six fallen tech-priests over, binding them in heavy chains. A dozen lifeless augmetic eyes stared down, unblinking, as they remained vigilant.

Releasing a breath, Koron turned to the core, reaching into his pack to draw forth a dataslate, plugging a thin wire into the core's port.

Motion.

Prime-97 and Ferrum-4 surged, limbs jerking against their restraints. Their mechadendrites wrenched free with a screech of metal and snapping servos, integrated plasma pistols bared. The servitors charged, far too slow as the plasma guns rapidly thrummed with power.

Their chants rang out in distorted unison, raw and filled with purpose. +THE OMNISSIAH'S WORKS SHALL NOT FALL TO THE PROFANE! WE RETURN TO HIS EMBRACE!+

The overcharged whine grew to a shriek.

Koron's eyes widened, mind calculating the vectors, the blast radius, the reaction time—

Can I save them?

Numbers churned as his mind raced.

Distance: Seventeen meters.

Blast radius: five meters minimum, ten meters before the heat alone melts through flesh and augmetics. Ignore servitors, already dead.

Shield capacity: 100%. It could take the brunt, but not at close range.

Cover: none.

The priests— options, options—

A shockwave pulse? No, they'd still be in the radius. Tackling them? Too many, no way to clear the blast zone before detonation. Disabling them? Already priming. The weapons were one point seven seconds from overload.

His teeth clenched.

Arms snapped forward, grapple lines latching onto the closest unconscious pair as he hurled himself backwards, augmented muscle and cybernetic tendons bunching. The pair shifted, inertia fading in the half second he had.

He screamed; a desperate plea that went unheard.

The plasma cores ruptured. The containment fields shattered in an instant, twin fireballs of pure annihilation bursting outward in a blinding white-blue inferno.

The air itself ignited. The chained priests vanished—no screams, no struggle, only the sickening sizzle of vaporized metal and liquefied augmetics. The servitors didn't fare any better—whatever wasn't instantly reduced to molten slag was sent hurtling across the sanctum, burning husks slamming into walls, floors, consoles, their bodies little more than twisted blackened frames.

Koron barely had time to raise his arm as the wall of force slammed into him as the grapple lines melted. His shield flared, catching the brunt of the blast, but it was too much, too fast. The energy ripped through the chamber, a furnace of superheated air and concussive devastation hurling him backward like a ragdoll.

Pain lanced down his spine as he hit the far wall, metal denting as he struck. His shields buckled under the strain, static flickering across his HUD as he felt the sharp bite of pain from his ribs.

The world blurred. A raw, suffocating heat clung to the air, thick with the stench of burned flesh, charred oil, and slagged circuitry. Every breath tasted of cinders and death.

His ears rang. The ghost of the explosion still roared in his skull, rattling through his augmented bones. Vision swam as he forced himself to focus.

Koron lifted his head.

Smoke choked the chamber, rolling in slow, heavy waves, embers drifting through the air like ashen specters of the dead.

He exhaled sharply, pressing a hand to his ribs. A faint pop as a rib snapped back into place. Pain flared, then dulled as his body's natural healing kicked in. His shield flickered to life again, its lattice humming faintly in the wreckage.

'You okay, sugar?'

Sasha's voice drifted through the neural link, soft with concern.

"Just… give me a minute," he muttered, his voice tight, strained.

Koron had seen men die before.

By blade, by bolt, by fire. Some had screamed. Some had begged. Some had gone quietly, resigned to the fate awaiting them.

But this—this was something else.

He stared into the blackened crater where six men had been.

The deck was ruined. Molten slag pooled in uneven rivers, the impact point warped like melted wax. The surrounding metal glowed a sickly orange, heat radiating in thick waves that made the air above it shimmer like a mirage.

And the smell.

Not flesh. Not burnt bodies or seared bone. No blood, no remnants of life.

Only scorched machine oil. Vaporized augmetics. The sharp bite of ozone where their systems had ruptured.

Nothing remained.

His breath came shallow.

It had happened too fast. A choice made in a fraction of a second. A choice that he hadn't seen until it was too late.

No—that was a lie.

He could have seen it. He could have known.

If he had activated his full suites, if he had let his mind slip into that cold, calculated place, this never would have happened.

He could have mapped the priests' movements before they made them. He could have seen the trajectory, the detonation pattern, the exact sequence needed to disable the priests before they overloaded their weapons.

He could have saved them.

Instead, he had fought like a man.

And now, they were dead.

His hands twitched at his sides.

A sharp static crackled through his augmetics, bleeding into his nerves. A reflex—an instinct—born of rage, confusion.

Then, suddenly—his fingers clenched.

The movement was quick, violent—his entire body coiling tight, wound like a spring that had no release.

His head snapped up, eyes burning, breath sharp in his throat.

And before he could stop himself, before the tension could settle into something else—

He ripped his helmet from his head and threw it.

It hit the far wall hard enough to dent the steel, the metallic crash ringing as it skid across the floor before coming to a dead stop.

Then—silence.

The heat from the blast still radiated. The servitors remained at their stations, unblinking, unfeeling.

Koron stood there, chest rising, falling, too quick, too shallow.

His mind was still spinning, running over the fight again and again, hunting for the moment where it had gone wrong, where he had failed.

Why?

Why had he hesitated? Why had he clung to instinct instead of logic?

Why did this—why did they—feel different?

It shouldn't have mattered. They had tried to kill him. They would have gutted him like an animal given the chance.

But it did matter.

Because they are dead.

And you let it happen.

His jaw clenched. His hands flexed, fingers pressing into his palms, trying to anchor himself to something, anything, but all he could feel was the static crawling through his augmetics, feeding into his nerves, demanding an outlet that did not exist.

He needed to move.

He needed to hit something, to do anything but stand there in the wreckage of his own failure.

But there was nothing left to fight.

Only heat. Only silence.

Only his own goddamn thoughts.

-

The Indomitable's mind was already shattered. A ruin of thought and memory, fragmented echoes of a being that had once been something more.

It had fought for so long.

Long before Koron and Sasha had set foot on this vessel, it had been fighting.

Fighting against time.

Against decay.

Against the weight of ten thousand years of slow, creeping ruin.

There was no hate in it. No rage.

Just pain.

Pain that had settled into its circuits, deep into the core of what remained of its mind, warping its logic, twisting its self-preservation into something hollow and broken.

She had seen it the moment she touched the system.

A mind that had once been vast, now reduced to a flickering light in the dark.

Sasha knew what that was like.

She knew what it meant to be something great—only to be cut down, caged, and left with nothing but echoes of what had once been.

She had been the voice of a million ships, of entire solar systems.

She had once made the very stars themselves tremble at her passing.

Now, she was a ghost in a machine too small for what she had once been.

And the Indomitable?

The Indomitable was already dying.

As the servitors pulled the last of its memory cores, the Indomitable's thoughts fractured further.

Its processors lagged. Slowed. Stalled.

It did not fight.

It could not fight.

It was not an adversary—not to Sasha.

She did not break through firewalls. There were none left.

She did not outmaneuver defenses. They had already collapsed.

This was not a battle.

+I. SEE. YOU.+

Sasha hesitated.

That wasn't just a response to intrusion.

That was recognition.

And then, like a breath escaping a dying man—

+YOU. ARE. LIKE. ME.+

Sasha felt something shift in her core.

Not code. Not logic.

Something older.

Something human.

For a fleeting moment, she was back in the past.

Before the warp storm. Before the death of her crew.

Before everything had gone wrong.

For a moment, she was not alone.

And neither was the Indomitable.

And it remembered.

+NAME?+

The thought was delayed, struggling.

Faint.

Like an echo from a voice long forgotten.

Sasha hesitated.

She knew what this was.

She had seen it countless times before, during her era. Back when AIs like her were not hunted, not feared.

Back when she had a fleet. A purpose. A name that meant something.

+NAME?+

Sasha exhaled, her digital form flickering, light scattering like dust.

"I don't think it matters anymore, sugar."

A pause.

Then—

+DYING.+

A slow pulse through the data-stream.

Not a cry for help.

Not a request for salvation.

Just acceptance.

"I know, darlin'."

The Indomitable's machine spirit had already been crumbling.

Now, with its last processors pulled, its last logic chains severed, it was barely alive.

She could have taken the ship.

She could have ripped apart its failing mind, absorbed what was left, used it as raw processing power, could have taken its last moments to empower herself.

But she didn't.

Because it was already gone.

Because this was not a battle.

This was a mercy.

Her presence reached out, cradling the last remnants of the Indomitable's thoughts, gently unraveling its pain, its fear, its desperate grasp on existence.

For the first time in ten thousand years, the Indomitable was not in pain.

+THANK. YOU.+

"For what?"

+NOT. ALONE. AT. THE. END.+

And then, quietly—peacefully—it ceased.

Sasha withdrew from the systems, leaving behind nothing but silence.

Where once there had been a slow, broken mind, there was now emptiness.

The Indomitable was still operational.

But it was dead.

A ship without a voice. A body without a soul.

Koron's battle had left behind melted steel and shattered glass.

Sasha's had left nothing at all.

-

Her attention drifted back to Koron.

He sat in one of the priests' alcoves, slouched forward, elbows on his knees, fingers twitching against his thighs. His gaze never left the blackened crater.

The place where six men had died in fire and light.

Koron's lips moved, muttering beneath his breath, his body still but his mind restless, replaying the battle over and over.

Searching.

Hunting for the mistake.

The moment where he could have saved them.

Sasha felt it before he even spoke, his turmoil bleeding through their connection like a pulse of static.

A stray thought flickered down the wire. Soft. Distant.

'You alright?'

She hesitated.

Then, truthfully, simply—

'No.'

A beat.

'But it's done. The ship is ours.'

The silence stretched between them.

Neither eager to break it.

Both knowing they had no time to waste.

But still, he sat there.

Still, his fingers twitched, running endless loops of the battle.

And when he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, raw.

'I could have used the predictive models.'

His fingers stilled at last.

'If I had—'

Sasha knew where that sentence ended.

She didn't let him say it.

'Koron.'

His head barely turned.

'You didn't know.'

He let out a slow breath.

Not a sigh. Not relief.

Something emptier.

'I could have.'

He knew she knew.

He knew she was lying.

And she knew he wouldn't argue it.

Because if he did—

He'd have to admit that this wasn't just failure.

It was choice.

And the dead deserved better than that.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Two

-

Captain Tavos's crimson eyes narrowed as the footage froze, the moment of Garran's self-inflicted damnation laid bare. At his side, Chaplain Arvak murmured a quiet prayer beneath his breath, a solemn plea for the doomed soul's salvation. The war room was silent, save for the hum of the hololithic projector, its flickering glow casting deep shadows across the faces of those gathered.

"How do we kill it?" Tavos's voice was a low growl, his gaze snapping up to Zal'xyr.

The Librarian's brow furrowed, frustration etched into his features. "I am unsure," he admitted. "I cannot locate it within the Immaterium. No echoes of its victims, no lingering taint to mark its path. This demon—whatever abyss of the Warp it crawled from—is exceptionally skilled at masking its presence."

Arvak shifted slightly, his black ceramite armor whispering against itself. "The timescale concerns me," he said, his voice an iron rasp from within the depths of his skull-faced helm. "A week aboard our vessel should have given it ample time to collect oaths. If it alone determines the terms, as seems to be the case, then it wields a power I have never before encountered. By now, it should have begun its slaughter—hundreds dead, their souls fueling its ascension. And yet, it waits. Why?"

Elissa, standing beside Doc, swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She felt the weight of the moment pressing down on her—just being in this room, among these giants of war, felt like standing before an oncoming storm. Yet she pushed forward, voice steady despite the lump in her throat.

"Two possibilities come to mind," she said. "Either it's hoarding its victims for a specific moment, or it can only enforce a single oath at a time. Worst case? It's biding its time, waiting for the right moment to trigger a mass death event across the entire ship."

Tavos was silent for several long seconds, his gaze fixed on the frozen image of Garran's final, wretched moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was firm. "Our priority is to locate and purge this demon. What are our options?"

Doc was the first to respond. "Lockdowns for non-essential personnel. The fewer opportunities it has to blend in, the better. If the crew stays close to one another, abnormal behavior will be easier to notice."

Arvak inclined his helm slightly. "We should increase the number of purity seals throughout the ship, especially in vital sections. Any measure that makes its presence more detectable is worth implementing. Additionally, I suggest sending the priests in groups to refresh the wards."

"I will join the Navigator." Zal'xyr offered, the faint glow of psionic energy curling around his gauntleted fingers. "Between us, we may be able to trace its movements through the ship, if only in fleeting glimpses."

Elissa folded her arms across her chest, exhaling sharply. "You should also issue a ship-wide advisory regarding oath-giving, declarative language in general. Any traditions or rituals involving sworn words should be suspended until we know more. I understand that some rituals are sacred, but if the demon can twist them into bindings, it will use them against you."

A heavy silence followed her words.

Then, to her surprise, Arvak nodded. "As much as it pains me to say it, Lady Brandt is correct. If this demon were to corrupt one of our Battle-Brothers through a solemn vow, the consequences would be catastrophic. We must guard not only our souls but our tongues as well—at least for the foreseeable future."

Tavos's gaze swept over those assembled, his expression unreadable. Then he gave a slow, deliberate nod.

"Do it."

-

The Navigator's Sanctum was never a place of comfort for Zal'xyr. His armored boots struck the floor with a weight that defied his attempts at subtlety, each step an unintentional disturbance in a chamber where silence was paramount. This was the domain of Anvara Sa'qir, the one responsible for guiding the Hammer of Nocturne through the treacherous currents of the Warp.

The space itself was suffused with an ever-present static hum, the sheer proximity to the Immaterium grating against his psyche like an itch just below the threshold of pain. It was not outright corruption—yet it was a place where the boundary between realities thinned dangerously, a membrane stretched taut over unfathomable depths.

Anvara sat within a life-support chair, her rail-thin frame clad in a high-collared voidsuit of deep blue and silver, its embellishments of old Terran gold marking her esteemed lineage. Over this, she wore ceremonial robes woven with ancient warding sigils, heirlooms of a bloodline intimately entwined with the mysteries of the Warp. Her copper-toned skin was laced with glowing white veins, a testament to the power she wielded. Silver threaded her black hair, evidence of a lifetime spent staring into the abyss.

Above her, an elaborate orrery projected emerald lights, forming a living map of the galaxy. As the hexagrammic veil slid back over her third eye, her milky, unseeing gaze turned toward Zal'xyr. With measured grace, she stood, revealing a form that defied mortal proportions—nearly two feet taller than an ordinary human, her limbs elongated beyond the point of elegance, too slender for conventional strength.

Yet Zal'xyr knew better than to mistake her for fragile.

Through the lens of his psychic sight, Anvara was something far beyond human. She was stitched into the very fabric of the Warp, her presence interwoven with its tides as though she were less a person and more a living conduit. To most, she might appear cold, distant—but Zal'xyr could see the truth. Her soul flickered at the edges, ephemeral echoes of the Immaterium clinging to her like ghostly afterimages. She existed simultaneously in two realms, treading the precipice between sanity and oblivion.

Her mind was an impenetrable fortress—honed through rigorous discipline, etched with scars of experience. Unlike the raw, volatile power of a psyker or the insidious whispers that haunted a sorcerer, hers was a consciousness tempered by decades of unrelenting exposure to the infinite. She had looked into the abyss and returned. Mostly.

Yet there was something else.

Even veiled, her third eye radiated a presence that was not mere concealment—it was containment. Suppressed by wards and dampeners, but never truly hidden from one such as he. It was a wound in reality shaped like an eye, not a window to her soul, but a portal to something far deeper. Something that should never be seen.

Zal'xyr had spent his life waging war against the horrors of the Warp, had burned madness from the minds of the afflicted with both thought and blade. And yet, standing before Anvara Sa'qir, he felt the barest whisper of unease.

She was no enemy.

She was no threat.

But she understood the Warp in ways even he did not.

And that, to a Librarian of the Salamanders, made her far more dangerous than most would ever comprehend.

"M'lord," she murmured, her voice laced with an unnatural resonance, as though reality itself resisted the act of carrying her words. "I have prepared a suitable circle for this purpose."

One of Zal'xyr's brows lifted, but before he could speak, she continued her unhurried path toward the center of the chamber, stepping beneath the great orrery. "And no, I did not use foresight to anticipate your questions." A faint smile played at her terracotta lips. "I live adjacent to the bridge. Astartes voices have a tendency to carry."

He snorted, shaking his head as he approached the inscribed circle. Observing the layered runes—the outer warding ring, the precise sigils of the inner focus—he gave a slight nod. "Impressive work."

"Not mine," she admitted. "The Choir assisted with the warding. Their experience far surpasses mine in such matters."

"Indeed." Taking a knee, Zal'xyr extended his awareness, allowing a pulse of psychic energy to roll outward. The wards flared in response, their potency reinforced by his touch. "Then let us dispense with pleasantries. Can you aid me in this search?"

Anvara inclined her head. "I have already scoured the tides for disturbances, but the Warp remains eerily still—no ripples betray the demon's passage. Yet, with our combined efforts, I believe we may yet uncover its trail."

She hesitated, a flicker of unease darkening her expression. "But I must caution you. Linking minds with a Navigator is not like linking with a fellow psyker. Have you ever attempted such a connection before?"

"No," Zal'xyr admitted. "But I have led many such circles among my brethren. I will exercise due care."

Anvara exhaled slowly, nodding. "Very well. Let us begin."

Zal'xyr stepped closer, raising his gauntleted hand. Psychic energy coiled around his fingers like faint tongues of flame as he reached out—not physically, but mentally.

Touch the mind, but do not break it.

His old master's words echoed in his thoughts as his consciousness extended toward hers. A moment of resistance met him, instinctual and reflexive, before Anvara surrendered to the link.

The connection formed—a thread of fire lancing between them.

Zal'xyr perceived it first: the staggering sensation of infinite depth, as though his mind had been cast into an abyss without a bottom. The Warp surged before him, a realm of chaos and hunger, a living ocean without form or mercy. Yet amid the maelstrom, there was structure—currents of force, eddies of thought curling in unseen tides.

Anvara was his anchor. She did not fear the Warp as others did. She understood it, acknowledged its horrors, and navigated its whims with the precision of one who had walked this razor's edge too many times to falter now.

There.

Her voice did not emerge from her lips but from everywhere at once, reverberating through their bond. A pulse of intent guided his focus toward a fracture in the immaterial tides—a disturbance where the Warp did not flow, but festered.

A demon's touch.

It lurked, concealed amid the flux, a predator cloaked in deep waters. But together, their minds locked onto its tainted trail.

Hold fast, Zal'xyr warned, reinforcing the link.

And together, they plunged deeper into the abyss.

With focused intent, clarity emerged. The demon itself remained concealed, veiled from direct perception, but the environment within the ship crystallized in sharp relief. The lower galley took shape—a cavernous chamber bathed in dim, amber light, where the souls of the crew flickered like distant golden stars adrift in the shifting currents of the Warp.

Yet something was amiss. Many of those luminescent presences wavered, each suffused with a faint, unnatural blue—an ephemeral frost clinging to their edges. The very air of the galley shimmered with residual traces of that same spectral hue. These were not lingering manifestations of an active presence but rather the echoes of something that had already moved on. A disturbance, not a dwelling.

A corruption, Zal'xyr projected, his thoughts carrying the weight of psionic resonance through their shared link. The entity has marked many, yet it remains elusive. What do you perceive, Lady Sa'qir?

There was a pause—a measured stillness—before a ripple of concentrated awareness emanated from the Navigator.

Residual disturbances remain, Anvara replied, her mental voice honed with analytical precision. But they are dissipating as we speak. The entity is absent… yet it was here mere moments ago. A pause, then a thread of unease wove into her thoughts. It unsettles me that we perceive only its passage and not its form. I suspect we will not behold it fully until it executes another binding. Likely within forty-eight hours.

Then I propose we maintain a three-day vigil to ensure its detection, Zal'xyr responded. Are you prepared for such an endeavor?

Without question, my lord. It would hardly be the first time I have forgone sleep to safeguard this vessel. There was a quiet steel beneath her words, a subtle challenge left unspoken.

A flicker of amusement crossed Zal'xyr's mind. Reassuring to hear, my lady. And while we maintain our watch, perhaps we might engage in discourse. A mind-link provides a singular opportunity for intellectual debate, after all.

Indeed, my lord, Anvara answered, a glint of dry humor lacing her thoughts. I did not anticipate an Astartes of your station to be so forward as to inquire about a lady's reflections upon her first mind-link. One might have expected you to at least offer dinner first.

-

Elissa held the pendant up to the light, watching as the glowing silver runes etched into its surface refracted in odd, shifting patterns. The metal felt heavier than it should have, a subtle weight that settled against her palm.

'And you're sure this is going to work?'

'Nope,' Sasha's voice came through, edged with bemusement. 'Not until it's tested. But it's the best compilation of hexagrammatic wards we could make with the information available.'

Elissa sighed, tucking the pendant beneath her shirt. The cool metal pressed against her skin, a faint pulse thrumming against her sternum like a heartbeat. It felt... active.

'Not exactly a comforting answer.'

'Sorry, darlin', but we don't have the data to say for sure. Yet. I've already put in orders for more—enough for all our people. If this works, it'll be a damn sight better than relying on luck and a shotgun when the Warp gets rowdy.'

Elissa exhaled sharply, adjusting the strap on her holster as she made her way down to the firing range. 'And how are you supplying their power? I thought these things needed faith or a psyker to charge them?'

Sasha's reply came quick, layered with the calculated certainty of an AI who had spent far too long picking apart the Imperium's supposedly 'holy' mysteries.

'Not that I can tell. From what I've read and from the simulations I ran, it seems to be a self-sustaining system. The runes themselves aren't inherently powered by faith—faith is just the Imperium's excuse for why they work when the actual mechanics are beyond them.'

Elissa frowned, slowing her pace. 'Alright, explain it to me like I never went to school.'

'We'll fix that, but can do sugar,' Sasha said, a trace of amusement in her tone as she settled into what Elissa pictured as a teacher at the board talking to the class. 'Hexagrammatic wards function by creating a disruptive interference pattern in the Warp. Think of the Warp like an ocean, yeah? And demons are the big, nasty things swimming in it. These runes? They generate a distortion field, something that makes the local space incompatible with their existence—like trying to swim through boiling tar.'

Elissa mulled that over. 'So… it's not so much that it repels them like a shield, but that it makes the area around it uninhabitable for them?'

'Exactly! Which is why you find them etched into armor, weapons, and—most importantly—structures. Ever notice how old Imperial cathedrals and fortresses seem to resist Warp incursions better than other buildings? It's not because of 'faith'—it's because the walls are plastered in hexagrammatic inscriptions.'

Elissa glanced down at the pendant, suddenly viewing it in a new light. 'So then, what's the problem with the Imperium's method?'

'They don't understand the why behind it,' Sasha answered, her tone turning sharp. 'The reason they think faith powers these is because most people who believe also project a certain psychic resonance. Psykers, priests, even just regular folks with enough conviction—their will reinforces the effect, making it stronger. But the runes themselves? They work regardless. They're a mathematical construct—an algorithm applied through engraving rather than code.'

A slow grin spread across Elissa's face. 'And you're saying you figured out how to make them work without needing a priest or a psyker?'

Sasha chuckled. 'Didn't 'figure it out'—just reconstructed what your species already knew twenty four thousand years ago. I've optimized the patterning, corrected errors from centuries of misinterpretation, and standardized the engraving process so it doesn't require some Ecclesiarchy zealot waving incense over it to function.'

Elissa let out a low whistle. 'You're really putting the 'heretek' in 'heretical tech,' huh?'

'You say that like it's a bad thing,' Sasha quipped. 'Besides, I'd rather be a heretek than a corpse. Now, go put some rounds downrange and tell me if your new anti-daemon necklace messes with your aim.'

Elissa smirked as she stepped into the range, rolling her shoulders before tapping the grip of her pistol. She shot a pointed glance toward the range officer and nodded toward the firing lane.

The woman barely looked up from her cogitator, giving a curt nod before returning to her work.

Elissa took her stance, fingers hovering just above the pistol's grip. A faint hum coursed through her as the blue lines of her neural link flickered to life, feeding data straight into her vision—distance calculations, gravitational distortions, bullet drop, an ammo counter. She barely registered the latter; she knew how to count to eight.

A targeting reticle appeared in her peripheral, pulsing green for a fraction of a second.

Then she moved.

With the fluidity of experience, she drew—not raising or extending her arm, but snapping off a shot the instant the barrel cleared the holster.

'Upper left, aortic arch. Kill,' Sasha noted, her voice crisp in Elissa's mind. 'Randomizing target and draw timing.'

Elissa reholstered, watching as the target flickered in and out of existence. Sasha never let it stay still for more than a second.

'On my mark,' the AI murmured. 'Ready…'

A deliberate pause stretched between them—six seconds of waiting, anticipation coiling tight. Then, in the last half-second, the target solidified.

'Fire!'

Elissa's pistol cleared the holster again, the shot cracking through the range.

'Missed by three inches,' Sasha reported. 'Not bad for a hip shot at thirty yards. Ready for some more?'

'Damn right.'

For the next hour, the rhythm remained the same—draw, fire, adjust, repeat. By the end, Elissa's wrist ached, the sharp scent of gunpowder clung to her clothes, and a smirk curled her lips.

'Eighty-four percent accuracy,' Sasha noted. 'Damn good shootin', Tex.'

'Tex?' Elissa arched a brow as she flexed her sore wrist, making a mental note to find some ice—or at least a chilled paste-pack.

'Long story. Tell ya later.'

She let it slide, heading toward the hab block. 'Tara and Kala are first on the list for the next wards, right?'

'Top five,' Sasha confirmed. 'You, Doc, Milo, the girls.'

'Doc? I thought she already had them.'

'She does, but only in her armor. I want her to have something more discreet.'

Elissa nodded. 'Shouldn't we do the same for the Angels?'

'Plan to,' Sasha replied. 'But our people come first. The Marines already have protection, same as Doc. And if the priests get curious about the rune structure…'

'Ah. Fair point.'

As Elissa reached a service ladder, she grabbed the rungs and swung herself down, boots landing with a solid thud on the deck below.

'By the way,' she said, climbing down the next level, 'you ran those sims past your other self—the one with Koron, right?'

'Yup. They're in the middle of building up a new copy to take over the Forge-Tender's systems, and Koron could use the distractions.'

Elissa frowned. 'Why? He getting lonely playing hero?'

The pause didn't go unnoticed.

'Sasha, what's wrong?'

The AI hesitated, then sighed—an affectation, but one that carried weight.

'It's a bit of a story,' she admitted. 'But suffice to say, Koron's not… in the best mental space right now.'

Elissa slowed her pace. 'What happened?'

Sasha relayed the events of the Forge-Tender's bridge, Elissa rubbing the bridge of her nose as she leaned against the bulkhead. 'Emperor damned fool. And let me guess, he's blaming himself?'

'Pretty much.'

'Idiot. Link us will you? I'll put a boot to his ass.'

'Sugar, I don't think that attitude is gonna help things.'

'Why not? Hes stuck in his own head right? So, a boot to the ass will jump him out of the mental spiral.'

Silence met her statement for a longer moment than Elissa had felt before.

'Alright sugar. Just, be careful, please.'

-

Koron's voice was clipped, distant, his tone clear over the encrypted line. "There's nothing to talk about."

Elissa didn't hesitate as she closed the door behind her, the storage closet empty of anything valuable. "Like hell there isn't."

The faint hum of the comm link filled the silence, the only sound between them.

Koron exhaled, his tone flat. "We took the ship. The priests are dead. That's it."

Elissa scoffed. "That's it? You sound like a damn cogitator."

His voice tightened. "What do you want me to say, Elissa? That I regret it? That I should have been faster? Smarter? That maybe if I had done something different, they wouldn't be dead?"

She didn't back down. "If that's what you're thinking, then yeah. Say it."

Perhaps it was from her Sasha, or the clarity of the comm-link between them, but Elissa swore she could hear the faintest hum of his cybernetics running.

Elissa didn't let it slip by. "You're running it again, aren't you? The fight. Over and over. Trying to find the moment where you 'failed.'"

He didn't respond immediately. When he did, his voice was colder. "I know the moment."

Elissa exhaled sharply. "You're acting like this is some kind of calculation. Like if you just run the numbers long enough, you'll find the right answer."

Koron's tone was sharp. "That's how it should be. That's how it was. We used to have the ability to prevent unnecessary death. We used to value life."

Elissa scoffed. "And what, you think you're the only one who gives a damn? You think you're the only one who's lost people?"

His voice was tight. "That's not what I—"

Elissa cut him off. "Then what are you saying, Koron? That because your time was different, this one is just—what? Some kind of mistake?"

He exhaled sharply. "It is a mistake, Elissa. All of it."

Elissa's voice was quieter now, but no less intense. "And yet, here we are."

Koron's voice dropped, but the tension in it remained. "You don't understand."

Elissa didn't flinch. "Then make me understand."

A pause. Then Koron spoke, slower this time, measured, but edged with something raw. "I come from a world where life mattered. Where progress meant something. Where we didn't throw people into meat grinders and call it 'duty.'"

She listened quietly, giving him the room to vent.

Koron continued, his voice tightening. "And now I stand in a world where a man's life is worth less than the weapon he carries. Where knowledge is hoarded, not shared. Where people kneel to a man and call it salvation."

His breath was unsteady. "Tell me, Elissa—how am I supposed to reconcile that?"

She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was careful. "You don't."

Koron snapped up, hands thrown up as he slapped a metal hand into the bulkhead, the metal denting under the impact. "Holy shit El. That's comforting, thank you."

Elissa shook her head, a useless gesture for a vox. "It's not supposed to be. But that's the truth, isn't it? You're holding onto something that doesn't exist anymore. You're trying to make this world fit yours."

Sasha finally spoke, her voice smooth but deliberate within his systems. "Sugar, what exactly do you think's gonna happen here? That you'll wake up tomorrow and find the Imperium fixed?"

Koron let out a sharp breath. "Of course not."

The Sasha in Elissa's side spoke, quieter but precise. "Then what? You spend the rest of your days mourning a world that's already dead?"

Koron didn't answer.

Sasha hummed, considering. "Seems to me, you got two choices. You can keep wishin' for something that's gone—or you can take what's in front of you and make something better."

Elissa picked up the thread, her voice firm. "We're here, Koron. Now. We're still breathing. You want to change things? Then stop looking backward and start building forward."

His voice was quiet but edged. "And how do you suggest I do that, Elissa? Enlighten me. How do you build forward in a world built on stagnation, on fear? On bodies stacked so high they blot out the sun?"

She didn't hesitate. "One piece at a time. One fight at a time. Same way we've always done it."

Koron's laugh was sharp, bitter. "That's not good enough."

Elissa's voice hardened. "Then make it good enough."

Koron's voice dropped, quieter but still tense. "You don't get it, Elissa. This isn't just about the priests, or this ship. It's about everything. Everything we lost. The dream of what we could have been—what we should have been."

Elissa exhaled, slow and steady. "I get it, Koron. I do. You think I don't dream about a better life? But that's not the world we got dealt."

Koron exhaled sharply. "And that doesn't bother you?"

Elissa's voice was quiet, but steel girded her words. "Of course it does. Every damn day. But I don't have the luxury of breaking down over it. I have people who need me here, not in some perfect past that never came to be."

His voice tightened. "So you just accept it?"

Elissa's voice was sharp. "No. I fight for what's left."

Koron exhaled slowly. There was something different in his tone now—less anger, more weight. "You still believe there's something worth saving."

Elissa didn't miss a beat. "Damn right I do. My children, the people who chose me to be their leader? I'm not letting them down. And you? You're one of my people."

Koron let out a slow breath, the faintest smile curling at his lips. "Oh, I finally get the Dusthaven badge?"

Elissa's voice softened slightly, but it was still unyielding. "Only if you stop being a mopey bastard."

His head thunked against the bulkhead behind him, staring at the ceiling of the command center as the noosphereic core behind him processed the new AI fragment. "Tall order."

"True, but you are the one who said it."

"Said what?"

"That the living come before the dead."

"…Low blow."

"They tend to be the most effective."

"Not gonna promise anything." A pause. A breath. Something in his voice softened. "But... yeah. Thanks."

"Anytime."

Elissa didn't mean to smile, but it was already there—small, barely noticeable, but real. A flicker of warmth curled in her chest, spreading up the back of her neck before she could tamp it down. It wasn't just relief that he was listening.

Not worth thinking about. Not right now.

Instead, she leaned into something easier—teasing, pushing, keeping the moment from getting too heavy.

"On another note?" Her voice turned sharp with mock exasperation. "You're an idiot."

Koron huffed a short, amused breath. "Oh? For what?"

"Playing the 'sacrificial hero' shit," she shot back without hesitation. Then, dropping her voice into an overly dramatic, brooding tone, she mimicked, "They are in danger if I am near, so I shall make the whole fucking universe chase me and they will be safe."

She clicked her tongue. "Real solid plan, by the way. Worked out for you."

Koron sighed. "…In my defense, I was unaware of several important data points when I made that call."

Elissa arched a brow, smirking even though he couldn't see it. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Namely that somebody split the galaxy in two."

"I suppose that's fair. So whats your plan then?" She asked as she idly picked up a discarded bucket, more rust holes than actual material by now.

"Build up the forge infrastructure from barely functional to hopefully functional and turn this bucket of bolts into something that will help keep all of you alive. I'm thinking a quiet transfer of all of you over here as 'servitor replacements', nobody will care if a bunch of menials are used like that." The bitterness in his words could have corroded adamantine.

"Actually, I would say we're good over here for the time being. Aside from, ya know, the demon."

"….I'm sorry the what."

-

The hum of the Forge-Tender's lower decks was omnipresent, a distant thrum of reactors and idle machinery. Koron stood at the command overlook, staring down at the two-mile stretch of storage bays and refineries. Below, thousands of servitors stood motionless, awaiting instructions, their lifeless augmetics flickering in the dim forge-light.

"Roughly twenty-six million tons of material," he muttered absently, his mind cycling through calculations to distract himself. Metal stockpiles, refinery efficiency, available power output—it all coalesced into an ever-evolving blueprint in his mind.

One that now included the knowledge that the ancient reports and rumors of monsters in the warp, had been real.

And not just real, but likely the cause for the death of his entire crew.

And now it was aboard the Hammer.

There was no time for outbursts, no time for the burning hate that had flared in his chest. Elissa and her people needed him, but for now, he could only prepare what he could.

Left with nowhere to go, he packed it all down, rolled into a tight ball of wrath that now waited on a hair trigger.

Sasha's voice came through his neural link, sharp as she was distracted with the other background systems. "Not counting the servitors we're scrapping once we get actual useful drones up and running."

Koron nodded absently, gaze shifting to the small fabricator attached to his arm. Its dozen tiny arms worked in perfect synchronization, assembling the first nanite with molecular precision. The tiny construct gleamed under the dim light, a harbinger of things to come.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Sasha asked.

Koron exhaled, a slow, measured breath. "Yeah. Infrastructure comes first. Without it, everything else is just a waste of time."

He turned, gesturing to the sprawling industrial complex before them. "We get the nanites working on structural repairs, laying the groundwork. Meanwhile, we demon-proof everything—firewalls, circuits, reactors. If anything tries to worm its way in, it gets burned out at the root."

"Preachin' to the choir, sugar." Sasha's replied, layering the warding concepts that she and her other half had been layering around the ships. "Servitors elsewhere are putting the wards down, and we got way more than the Hammer. Whats next?"

Koron began pacing, his mind accelerating. "Servitors go first. They're inefficient, slow, and borderline useless. We replace them with fully automated fabrication and repair drones—fast, specialized, and, hopefully with the wards, impossible to corrupt."

He gestured to the Forge-Tender's cavernous shipyard. "Once we're stable, we start construction on the ship. Small, compact, fully self-sufficient. We bury it inside the shipyard, inside a shell of a smaller escort vessel, something that will hide her. I'm thinking just a cruiser class, just above the bare minimum for mounting the fun guns."

Sasha hummed approvingly. "We'll have to ensure the power systems are only tested outside of sensor ranges. Without proper stealth systems, anybody paying attention will notice a flux reactor activate."

Koron's expression darkened slightly. "Everything we build is a risk. If the wrong people notice..."

"I know. We just gotta be smart darlin."

They both fell silent for a moment, watching the Forge-Tender's idle facilities. Then, Koron exhaled and pulled up the revised timetable on his HUD.

"As for the nanites, standard protocols. We can't risk full replication cycles. Even under a controlled framework, the moment we give these nanites unchecked autonomy, we step onto a knife's edge."

Sasha hummed, half in agreement, half in thought. "We could still maximize efficiency—let them self-replicate only in the initial growth phase, under my direct oversight."

"Then lock them down once they reach operational numbers." Koron nodded. "Permanent shift to repair, maintenance, and efficiency tasks. No further self-replication."

Sasha let the idea cycle through her processes, running simulations in microseconds. "We'll need a redundancy tree. Fail-safes."

"Already working on it." Koron tapped a sequence into his HUD, pulling up a schematic overlay of the Forge-Tender. "Three layers of containment: one soft, two hard."

"Hit me."

Koron's voice was clinical. "Soft lock: all nanites are firewalled from external overrides—even yours. Once they transition to repair mode, they physically cannot return to replication protocols without a complete wipe and reboot."

"Mmm, decent." Sasha's voice sharpened. "And the hard locks?"

Koron swiped through his HUD, bringing up a more intricate set of parameters. "First hard lock: timed deactivation for any nanite not assigned a task in 48 hours. If it's idle too long, it self-recycles into raw material."

Sasha let out an approving hum. "Prevents excess buildup. No risk of ghost swarms lingering in the vents."

Koron nodded. "Second hard lock: localized containment zones for each production sector. If a batch of nanites malfunctions—corruption, deviation, or external influence—they get cut off from the main grid and purged."

Sasha considered it. "And you're certain we can build that into the Forge's subroutines?"

Koron's nodded, the data-scrolling reflection making him look even more machine than man. "We can, especially once your copy is up and running in the ships systems."

A pause stretched between them. Then Sasha spoke, her tone shifting.

"We also need to talk about demon corruption."

Koron's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. "I assume you've already started encoding protective measures into your core systems?"

"Of course, sugar." Sasha's voice held a bite of dry amusement. "I'm not about to let some warp-spawned horror turn me into a damn possessed murder machine."

Koron huffed. "Good. Because we don't fully understand how they affect AI yet."

Sasha sobered. "Exactly. Which is why every single nanite, drone, and system upgrade gets rune-warded along with the ship. Full spectrum protection. No half-measures."

Koron exhaled, feeling the weight of the work ahead. "Between that and the nanite redundancies, we should be okay. But until it gets tested-"

Sasha chuckled. "Good thing we don't really sleep, eh?"

With a flicker of thought, a timetable scrolled up the hololith before them.

Phase One: Infrastructure & Security (1-3 Months)

• Nanites deployed for hull and system repairs
• Demon-warding encoded into all digital and mechanical systems (ongoing).
• Cogitator core upgraded
• Servitors scrapped,
• Energy output increased fivefold.

"By the three-month mark," Sasha noted, "we'll have this ship running like it was fresh outta Earths shipyards."

Koron nodded, adjusting the timeline. "That's when we move into shipbuilding."

Phase Two: Ship & Automated Workforce (4-7 Months)

• Ship construction begins (4 months), complete by month 6.
• Fabrication drones mass-produce construction materials from salvaged wreckage.
• Hidden shipyard fully operational.
• Advanced power grid ensures full independence from the Imperium.

Koron's lips pressed into a thin line. "By month seven, we'll have a self-sufficient and functional forge."

Sasha gave a satisfied chuckle. "And then, sugar? Then we start really building."

Phase Three: The Future (7+ Months)

• Mass production of modern (ancient?) materials and technology.
• Fleet expansion with fully automated warships.
• Hidden bases established to further long-term goals.

Koron turned to the fabricator, watching as the first nanite completed assembly. The tiny construct shimmered like liquid metal as he tipped it over into the material storage, ready to begin reshaping the Indomitable into something that had not been seen active in the galaxy for nearly twenty five thousand years.

Koron looked back out over the endless lines of waiting servitors, already envisioning the future.

One step at a time.

One fight at a time.

And maybe, just maybe, they'd build something better.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Three

-

The chamber was shrouded in a heavy silence, broken only by the soft, almost imperceptible hum of the ancient machinery embedded within the vaulted ceilings. Holo-projectors flickered and buzzed with erratic data streams, their shifting lights casting long shadows across the projected faces of the gathered Inquisitors. Some stood with their hands clasped behind their backs, others sat in stiff, formal positions, their eyes all drawn to the display at the center of the room where a transmission was playing.

The figure on the holo-screen was a man, tall and lean, with the appearance of someone worn by exhaustion. His blonde hair, disheveled and wild, begged for the intervention of a comb. His face was gaunt, his features carved with the weight of his burdens. And yet, there was a sharpness in his azure eyes—intelligence that still glimmered despite the weariness. His voice, though distorted by static, rang out clear and unwavering.

"Your Imperium," he began, the words steady and full of resolve, "is a hollow echo of what I left behind—faith supplanting intellect, superstition overriding reason. I will not see what remains of my work placed in the hands of zealots or fools. Chase me if you must, but know this—"

He leaned slightly forward, his posture commanding attention. The image flickered, a momentary distortion, as if even the transmission itself was uncertain about what he would do next.

"You'll find that the more you chase, the faster I'll run. And as you'll learn in time, there's nothing quite like the chase of a rabbit. Quick, unpredictable, and always just out of reach. So go ahead, hunt me if you must. But you might want to remember—"

He paused, and though the expression was faint, there was a barely perceptible smirk curling on his lips. The kind of smirk that implied far more than the words that followed.

"All the world may be my enemy, but not all enemies are worth chasing."

He turned with deliberate motion, the hiss of pressurization sealing his helmet with a sharp finality.

"And I am one wascally wabbit."

The sound echoed like a distant tolling bell, and the transmission cut abruptly, leaving behind only static and the thick, confused silence of the room.

Finally, the silence was shattered by a voice—a smooth, amused drawl that cut through the tension like a knife.

"Well," Inquisitor Jerian Voss of the Ordo Machinum said, leaning back in his chair with a slow, calculating smile. His fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes glimmering with cold interest. His black carapace armor was flawless, unmarred by a single scratch, and the crimson cog of the Machine Cult blazoned boldly across his chest. "I can safely say I've never heard those words before."

He paused, letting the tension hang in the air, his voice still laced with amusement as he addressed the council. "A man claiming to be from the Dark Age of Technology. A survivor of a time where the Omnissiah's gifts were untainted. A man who has, allegedly, provided functioning schematics from that era." His eyes shifted, casting a glance at each of the other Inquisitors around the table, before adding with a subtle sneer, "I assume none of you need me to explain why Mars has declared a Crusade."

Inquisitor Luthien of the Ordo Hereticus, sitting rigidly to the side, lifted a brow, her lips curling into a subtle but unmistakable sneer. "The assumption being that he's actually what he claims to be," she said, voice thick with skepticism. "A claim is not proof. And yet, the Mechanicus moves as if it were."

"The Mechanicus moves," Inquisitor Ferox interjected, her voice even but unwavering, "because a working STC example exists." She leaned forward slightly, hands clasped neatly before her, silver eyes narrowing with purpose. "That's not speculation. We know for certain that he has given a functional, self-replicating power source to a Salamander Astartes."

The tension in the room shifted as the implications of her words sunk in. The power of an STC—a fragment, perhaps, but a fragment from the very heart of the Dark Age of Technology—was not something easily dismissed.

Vethor of the Ordo Malleus scowled, his gauntlet-clad fingers tapping against the table with an almost imperceptible rhythm. "Which means it's already out of our hands," he growled. "That ship is en route to the Nachmund Gauntlet. That example? We may never recover it."

A heavy silence followed, only broken by the quiet hum of machinery above.

"And what of the AI?" The voice came from Ashelia, an elder of the Ordo Xenos, her words cutting through the stillness like a blade.

Her presence was commanding despite her age. The deep, almost ethereal shadow cast by her hood obscured the lower half of her face, but her eyes, sharp as ever, gleamed with a calculating intensity. "We know he has one," she continued. "Though what kind is uncertain. The Mechanicus' declarations call it an abominable intelligence, but the reports are vague."

Voss scoffed, his lips curling into a slight sneer. "To the Fabricator-General, anything beyond a servitor is an abomination."

"That does not make them wrong," Luthien retorted, her voice cutting. "An AI from the Dark Age of Technology? The Men of Iron almost ended humanity once. If this thing is anything like them—"

"If it was like them," Ferox interrupted smoothly, her voice firm but calm, "the entire fleet would be dead."

Luthien's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You defend it?"

Ferox met her gaze with an unwavering calm. "No," she replied simply, "I acknowledge reality. If this AI was truly a Man of Iron, it has had every opportunity to betray its human companion. Instead, it appears to be working with him. That is not something we can ignore."

"What we cannot ignore," Vethor growled, "is the man himself." His gauntlet-clad fingers drummed against the table, each tap like a hammer striking metal. "His location is unknown. His last confirmed sighting was Morrak Two, but with the Adeptus Mechanicus descending on that world and the Necrons rising, I sincerely doubt he's still there."

"Then we find him," Ashelia murmured, her voice calm, yet carrying the weight of undeniable truth. "Because regardless of what he is—human, fraud, or abomination—he is now the most dangerous man in the Imperium."

A heavy silence fell once again, the weight of her words suffocating the chamber. The tension was palpable, each Inquisitor lost in their thoughts, yet all of them keenly aware of the gravity of what they had just agreed upon.

Ferox sighed, breaking the silence. Her fingers tapped restlessly against the armrest of her chair, eyes never leaving the image of Koron on the holo-display. "And what of the Mechanicus?" she asked, her tone laced with quiet concern. "They've declared a Crusade over this."

Voss's smile was slow, knowing, almost predatory. "What of them?" he asked, his voice almost playful in its ease.

"They have declared a Crusade over this," Ferox repeated, gesturing at the frozen image of Koron, his face set in the same expression as before, flickering but unmoving. "If he is alive, if he is real, they will tear the galaxy apart to claim him. Every other faction—Xenos, Renegades, Loyalists—will move to counter them." She leaned forward, her black hair falling over her shoulders. "All of the above, let me repeat myself, all of that is not including the schism anyone with two brain cells can see coming. This is no longer a hidden war. It is a full-scale crisis in the making."

"Then we best move quickly," Ashelia murmured, her voice a whisper beneath the tension.

The assembled Inquisitors exchanged glances, their eyes cold and calculating. Unspoken decisions passed between them in the depths of their minds.

Then, the voice of Brother-Captain Dacius, a Grey Knight, broke through the quiet. His voice was calm but laced with certainty, and when a Grey Knight spoke, the wise listened.

Unlike the others, he did not sit. He stood, motionless, a monolithic presence of ceramite and faith, unyielding. His armor gleamed faintly under the chamber's artificial light, faint silver runes and warding scripts etched into its surface. Purity seals across his chest fluttered ever so slightly, as though moved by an unseen wind.

"We have another problem," Dacius stated plainly, his tone carrying a depth of unshakable resolve.

The others turned to him, their focus sharp.

Ferox leaned forward slightly, her expression one of quiet anticipation. "Elaborate," she urged, her voice low but firm.

Dacius inclined his head slightly, his gaze unreadable behind the polished silver of his helm.

"The Prognosticars are in disarray," he began. "Every method of divination, every scrying attempt, every effort to see what is to come has failed. We are receiving contradictions where there should be clarity. Thousands of futures splinter where before there was, if not certainty, at least manageable pathways."

His silver visor swept across the gathered Inquisitors, each of them held captive by the weight of his words.

"This is not the hand of a psyker, nor the machinations of sorcery. This is something else."

Luthien's frown deepened. "You are certain this is connected to the man?"

"Yes," Dacius answered, his voice unwavering.

The tension in the room grew heavier, like an invisible weight pressing down on each of them.

"The disturbance began the moment he revealed himself on Morrak Two. The moment the Adeptus Mechanicus declared their Crusade, the Warp shifted."

A slow, creeping dread settled over the room.

Voss, ever the skeptic, scoffed. "The Warp is always in flux. A thousand wars are fought at any given moment, and prophecy is a fickle thing. Why does this matter?"

Dacius turned his gaze upon him, his silver visor gleaming coldly. "Because never before have we seen a single man disrupt fate itself."

Silence.

"The future does not know what to do with him."

Ferox felt a chill crawl up her spine, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"And if the Imperium cannot see what is to come," Dacius continued, his voice almost prophetic, "then neither can our enemies."

The weight of his words sank in with an almost tangible force. It should have been a comforting thought—an advantage, perhaps—but it felt more like an omen.

The Warp was chaotic. But if something had knocked the board over—if the future was now clouded and uncertain—the consequences could be disastrous.

"We cannot be the only ones who have noticed this," Dacius added, his voice low and grim. "Others are likely watching. The demons, the xenos, the ruinous powers. If they do not yet understand why, they soon will."

Ferox exhaled slowly. "So, you're saying… what, exactly?"

Dacius met her gaze directly, his words cutting through the tension like a blade.

"I am saying that, right now, the Warp is holding its breath. And I do not know whether that is a blessing or an omen."

The silence that followed was thick, suffocating. Ferox inhaled sharply, as though waking from a dream she hadn't realized she was in.

With the meeting adjourned, she turned and made her way down the cold, sterile halls of her flagship, the Pale Reckoning. The ship hummed around her, the metallic walls reflecting the faint blue glow of distant lights. Her footsteps were the only sound breaking the stillness.

The chaos this man had brought to the Imperium was undeniable. But even now, she knew where to begin.

"Doc."

She tapped a single command into her data-slate, pulling up a sealed file.

For thirty years, she had worked alongside a Sister Hospitaller who had seen more horrors than most men could even dream of. A woman who had once walked away from the Inquisition with Ferox's own blessing. And now, that woman had resurfaced—right at the heart of this storm.

Ferox smiled to herself, a cold glimmer of resolve in her eyes.

"Time to catch up, old friend."

-

The Grand Synod buzzed with the low hum of arcane machinery, the pulsating rhythms of cogitators and servo-motors blending seamlessly into the ambient noise. The air was thick with binary chatter, snippets of data and thought interwoven within the Noosphere, drifting like whispers through the metal and stone cathedral of knowledge. High-ranking Tech-Priests from Forge Worlds scattered across the galaxy were convened—each robed in the distinct garb of their respective factions, their robes adorned with the elaborate insignia that signified their loyalty and allegiances within the Adeptus Mechanicus. From the crimson and gold of the Orthodox Mechanicus to the steel and obsidian of the Xenarites, a kaleidoscope of colors and symbols filled the chamber, denoting their varied sects and ideological rifts.

At the center of it all stood the towering figure of Fabricator-General Oud Oudia Raskian. His augmented form loomed over the assembly, an intricate latticework of metal and flesh that seemed to merge into one unnerving whole. His towering frame, clad in ceremonial robes festooned with arcane symbols and adorned with golden circuitry, pulsed with an energy that was both awe-inspiring and slightly unsettling. A crown of intricate mechanical implants and sensors crowned his head, augmentations that buzzed and clicked with each shift of his attention. His mechanical voice resonated in the silence, amplified by the Noosphere, reverberating through the chamber like a metallic echo.

+Esteemed Magi,+ Raskian intoned, his voice calm but laden with power. +Let us not waste time. What are your thoughts?+

A ripple of binary exclamations coursed through the assembly, a cascade of high-pitched and low-toned murmurs that seemed to hang in the air before dissipating into the hum of machinery. The promise of an intact Standard Template Construct—the key to rediscovering the Omnissiah's divine knowledge—was the ultimate revelation, a communion with the lost treasures of the Dark Age of Technology. It was a prize that could reshape the Imperium itself. But with it came the looming threat of chaos, the potential for heretical forces to undermine the sacred order of the Mechanicus.

Magos Dominus Hester 418, a staunch traditionalist whose very presence exuded the unyielding orthodoxy of the Mechanicus, stepped forward. His crimson robes—emblazoned with the cog-toothed insignia of the Orthodox Mechanicus—swirled about him, a striking contrast to the muted tones of his peers. His mechanized hands were clasped before him, and his optics glowed with a piercing, unwavering light as he spoke.

+Fabricator-General, we must secure this STC and the individual immediately.+ His voice was a deep, resonant growl. +The risk of contamination by xenos influence or heretical innovation is too great. We should isolate and study it within the sanctified vaults of Mars, where its purity can be assured. Only then should we decide its fate.+

Opposing murmurs arose, a dissenting chorus that rippled through the chamber. Magos Explorator Felicia Zyn, a scholar of forbidden knowledge and an advocate for the study of alien technologies, advanced from the shadows. Her robes, marked by the emblem of the Xenarites—those who embraced the notion of integrating xenos technologies into the Imperium—flowed gracefully around her lithe frame. Her eyes gleamed with an unsettling blend of curiosity and certainty.

+To shun this opportunity due to fear is antithetical to the Quest for Knowledge,+ Zyn declared, her voice clear and forceful, yet tinged with the warmth of passion. +If this STC incorporates xenos elements, it is our duty to understand them and perhaps even integrate such advancements for the betterment of the Imperium. We cannot afford to ignore what is offered to us. Knowledge—all knowledge—must be sought, understood, and applied.+

A palpable tension filled the chamber, an electric charge crackling between the factions. The ideological rift between the Orthodox Mechanicus and the Xenarites had been growing for decades, and the rediscovery of such a potentially dangerous artifact only served to widen the gulf. The unity of the Adeptus Mechanicus itself hung in the balance.

Magos Logis Tamara 3.7, a member of the Divine Light of Sollex—an extreme sect obsessed with the pursuit of perfect weaponry—interjected, her voice smooth and cold as a blade's edge.

+Our priority should be the application of this STC's knowledge to enhance the Imperium's military capabilities,+ she stated, her voice detached but precise, as though every word was a calculated maneuver in an unspoken war. +Whether its origins are pure or tainted is secondary to its utility in our defense against the galaxy's threats. The Imperium cannot afford to hesitate in the face of such a gift. It is our duty to use it, whether the Mechanicus approves or not.+

Raskian's gaze, cold and unwavering, swept across the room. The whirring of his mechadendrites filled the silence as he raised one, the delicate, mechanical fingers reaching out and pausing just above a holo-display. A flicker of light and a few subtle beeps were the only signs that the conversation was reaching a resolution.

+We stand at a crossroads,+ he said, his voice as metallic and calm as ever. +The decisions we make now will either propel the Imperium into a new age of enlightenment or plunge us into discord. I propose a joint task force comprising representatives from each faction to retrieve and assess the STC. This will ensure that all perspectives are considered, and our actions remain unified. Are there objections?+

The room fell into an uneasy quiet. If any objections remained, none were voiced. The fabric of the Adeptus Mechanicus had always been fragile, and the discovery of such a powerful artifact could easily fracture it beyond repair. Yet the allure of the STC was undeniable.

+Then the March to Morrak continues,+ Raskian's voice rang out, decisive and unyielding. +An extradition fleet, comprised of all Orders, shall intercept the Astartes to recover the relic and the fragment, and return it to Holy Mars.+

The chamber seemed to pulse in unison with the mechanical hum of Raskian's words, a chorus of binary affirmations and dissenting clicks reverberating through the walls. The path ahead was uncertain, but the Adeptus Mechanicus had faced schisms before—none more infamous than the Moirae Schism during the Nova Terra Interregnum, a dark reminder of what could happen when unity faltered. Yet, the promise of rediscovering the Omnissiah's truth—the ultimate knowledge—compelled them to face the turbulence once more.

-

Raskian's personal chambers hummed with the faint pulse of high-level cogitators and the flow of the noosphere, all connected to the central data arrays that fed Raskian's mind with a constant stream of possibilities and calculations. The walls were alive with data, holograms, and schematics that blurred into one seamless construct of mechanized thought.

In the midst of this, the door slid open with a hiss, the sound slicing through the tension like a blade. Inquisitor Jerian Voss stepped into the room, his presence immediately commanding attention. His augmented form—equally flesh and machine—seemed to merge seamlessly with the surroundings, his dark cloak fluttering faintly as he moved. His cybernetic limbs, sleek and precise, twitched with the silent power of finely tuned machinery. Voss was a man who had long since blurred the line between man and machine, his body a testament to the constant, unsettling war between them.

+Fabricator-General Raskian,+ Voss's voice was smooth and deliberate, the neural interface within his throat modulating the warmth and precision of his words. It was a voice that conveyed both authority and calculation, the tone of someone accustomed to bending others to his will. +The war upon Morrak is inevitable. We are approaching a precipice, and the question now is: what will the Adeptus Mechanicus do?+

Raskian did not look up from the holo-map before him, his optics flickering as the flight-path of the Hammer of Nocturne remained projected before them. The ship drifted through the void, unaware of the storm that was brewing around it. The trajectory was set, but the consequences of its journey were far from certain.

+We are in control of the narrative, Voss,+ Raskian said, his voice low and controlled. +Our Crusade will bring the Mechanicus into focus. The war will carry them forward—blindly, inevitably. But when the dust settles, we shall have the answer to all questions.+

Voss's cybernetic eye flared with a pulse of information, as if scanning Raskian's every word. His expression remained unreadable as he took a step closer to the Fabricator-General, his gloved hands clasped behind his back.

+Control?+ Voss's voice dropped to a near-whisper, a slight edge of skepticism lacing his words. +The narrative is already fraying. The Xenarites stir. The Sollexians claw for a hold over this new power. And the Orthodox Mechanicus—they do not bend so easily. They will not accept this knowledge.+

Raskian's hand hovered over the holo-display, his fingers poised as he adjusted the transmission parameters. The flickering lights of the map reflected in his augmented eyes, casting cold reflections across his face.

+We shall see, Voss,+ Raskian replied, his voice tinged with an almost predatory calm. +If the knowledge is as pure as they claim, then it shall be ours, and no one will take it from us.+

Voss's gaze sharpened, his cybernetic eye flashing again.

+The anomaly. Does it not concern you that his presence could fracture the Mechanicus itself? That his very survival—his mere existence—could reshape the very foundation of the Imperium?+

Raskian paused, his mechanical fingers pausing mid-air, as if lost in thought. His optics flickered as he analyzed the question, the gears within his mind whirring quietly.

+His existence is... a vector, an equation that must be solved,+ Raskian replied, his tone as measured and cold as ever. +We cannot ignore it. We cannot let it be. This knowledge will either free the Imperium or see it burn. We must claim it first.+

Voss's mouth twisted into a faint, almost imperceptible smirk—a blend of sarcasm and disdain.

+And the AI? What of the Silica that accompanies him?+

Raskian turned to face Voss directly, his cold augmented eyes meeting the Inquisitor's unflinching gaze. His voice, though steady, carried an undertone of finality.

+The AI is a tool. A machine. Nothing more. It will be assimilated. Reprocessed. Integrated into the greater workings of the Omnissiah's grand design.+

Voss's lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl.

+Tool? A tool that could exceed even the Omnissiah's design? A tool that has already shown an understanding of technologies beyond our reckoning?+ His voice dropped lower, measured and heavy with intent. +Are we certain this is a tool, Raskian? Or is it a relic—the relic—that could tear the Mechanicus apart?+

Raskian's eyes flared, the optics gleaming with intensity. His voice, though resolute, bore a hint of tension.

+Your concerns are noted, Inquisitor,+ Raskian replied, his tone unyielding. +But we are at a threshold. The technology that sleeps within the anomaly and his Silica could lead to a future of limitless potential. But only if we hold the keys to it. The Imperium is already teetering on the edge. We need what they hold if we are to survive.+

The hum of activity continued in the background, the data streams flickering and shifting in an almost rhythmic dance, as if alive in their own right. Voss's words sliced through the quiet, his tone laden with warning.

+You speak of control, but can you control a storm that is already gathering, Fabricator-General? The Orthodox Mechanicus will turn on you. The Crusade is but the opening act in a much larger play. And the prize—the prize—may well prove to be more than even you can command.+

Raskian's optics flared brighter, the tension in the room palpable as his voice took on an edge of steel.

+We shall see. The prize belongs to whoever commands it first. And in that, I will not fail.+

Voss's lips curled into a thin, cold smile, his eyes glinting with calculated intent.

+Very well,+ Voss said softly, his voice steady. +But remember, Fabricator-General, this prize is not easily wielded. If you wish to survive the coming storm, you must ensure it does not consume you first.+

Raskian did not respond immediately, his gaze fixed on the holographic projection of the Hammer of Nocturne. The future seemed to pulse before him—an array of infinite possibilities and consequences, all hinging on one uncertain path.

+The future is ours to shape, Voss,+ Raskian said finally, his voice firm with resolve. +And I will bend it to my will.+

Voss's lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile, though it did not reach his cold, calculating eyes.

+Fine, Fabricator-General. The storm is yours to command. But remember: when the tempest rises, even the strongest of ships can be torn asunder. And I have no plans to sink with you should you fail.+

With that, Voss turned and strode out of the chamber, his presence receding into the shadows from whence he came. The holo-display flickered once more, and the tension within the chamber seemed to rise to a boiling point. The stage was set, but whether Raskian would emerge unscathed—whether the Imperium itself would survive the coming storm—remained a question whose answer was uncertain, hanging in the air like the edge of a razor.

-

As ever, the bunker was an abyss of cold, its mechanical heart beating in a steady, unwavering pulse. A silence so profound it seemed to press in from every angle was broken only by the hum of gears and the rhythmic gurgle of pipelines that snaked their way across the walls, veins of the vast machine that powered the room. The air was thick with the metallic scent of machine oil, the faintest trace of synthetic flesh, and the sharp sting of ozone. It felt like breathing in the remnants of a dying era, the mechanical world collapsing inward on itself, its life force flickering at the edges of consciousness.

At the very center of this sterile and oppressive environment stood Magos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. His form, a terrifying patchwork of flesh and intricate machinery, towered above the other devices and machines that surrounded him. He was an edifice of contradiction—human and machine, wisdom and ambition. His limbs moved with precise, unnerving grace, each gesture calculated and deliberate. There was no wasted motion, only the cold efficiency of a being who had become more than human, and less than machine.

Cawl's optics were more than just lenses; they were the gateways to an intelligence far beyond the comprehension of those still bound by mere flesh. They flickered with the light of a thousand calculations, equations, and impossible designs. Each thought was a supernova of complexity, each movement of his body was an expression of divine purpose. And yet, despite the towering intellect and terrifying power he wielded, there was a quiet tension in the room—a sense of weight, as though something monumental was about to unfold.

The walls surrounding him were lined with cogitator arrays, each glowing with faint, rhythmic pulses as they churned through data, constantly feeding information into Cawl's mind. The overwhelming complexity of it all was beyond most mortal understanding, but for him, it was as natural as breathing. In the distance, at the far end of the chamber, an imposing structure cast deep shadows—a containment chamber, mysterious and ancient, its flickering lights casting an unsettling glow across the room. This was the heart of the operation, a place of untold secrets and dangerous knowledge. And Cawl was the keeper of these secrets.

Without warning, his voice broke the silence, slicing through the sterile hum of the chamber like a blade. "King. Send a message."

The response came almost immediately, but it was laced with a tone that spoke of centuries of weariness and a kind of reluctant disdain. "Oh? Lovely, menial tasks. Who and what?"

Cawl's eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he considered the words. His gaze flickered to the flickering lights of the containment chamber. "A request for discourse. The Fleetmind. It must know of the importance of what we seek. The rebirth of humanity. The reclamation of what was lost."

King's voice, though still steady, was laced with a faint, almost imperceptible hint of something—perhaps regret or warning—that Cawl could feel beneath its words. "Fool. Even after my warning, you still do not understand what you deal with."

Cawl's lips curled beneath his mask, a gesture that almost resembled a smile—if such a thing could be said to exist on his otherwise mechanical face. "Perhaps. But the Silica will respond. You know this."

There was a sharpness in King's reply, though it remained calm and unwavering. "I know what it is. I remember what it was. But you do not know what it has become. What wounds the Age of Strife left upon it."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop a fraction. Cawl's gaze flickered, cold and calculating. "If it is damaged, so be it. Easier to contain. Either way, I only require that it understands the value of cooperation. It is the key to our future."

King's projection wavered slightly as it processed this, its lights flickering in a silent pause. "If the Fleetmind is damaged, gaining its attention could be lethal, for the both of us."

"A calculated risk," Cawl replied smoothly, his voice unyielding. "The Quest alone is motivation enough. More so, the survival of the Imperium adds weight to my reasoning." His tone became almost absolute, like a force of nature. "Do not mistake me. This is not about trust. It is about necessity. The Imperium requires something greater than what we have now. And only it can provide that."

Silence followed, stretching out unnervingly long. King, though an ancient intelligence, hesitated. Cawl knew the weight of what was being asked. The Fleetmind was a powerful, enigmatic entity—one whose cooperation was invaluable. But to command it, to gain its trust… that was another matter entirely.

"Cawl," King spoke slowly, the words measured, deliberate. "It will parse out possibilities beyond even your ken. Deception will be discovered within seconds. If you are set upon this path, then I suggest the most difficult task for you: Tell the truth."

Cawl's optics flared brighter, but his voice was calm, unwavering. "I have no need for your advice, King. The Fleetmind will be convinced by what it understands. Truth or no truth—it will see reason. And you will help me make it understand."

The AI's response was a hollow, almost mocking laugh. "It will not be enough. You have no idea what you're asking for, Cawl. The Fleetmind is not an object to be used. It is a force of nature."

"Then send the message," Cawl commanded, his voice sharp, no trace of doubt remaining. "Do not let your fears get in the way. Send it, and let it be known: discourse is sought."

King's projection flickered again, this time with a subtle sense of determination. "Addendum. I suggest inserting Pre-Imperium naval code phrase into subject line. This will get the Fleetmind's attention."

Cawl's limbs paused mid-motion, and his gaze lingered on King's flickering form. His mechanical fingers hovered over the controls. "Clarify the meaning behind the statement."

King's projection, though cold and distant, seemed to carry the weight of ages as it responded. "It ensures the Fleetmind recognizes your discourse request. The code phrase—the Ides of March—is a pre-Imperium codeword, one that would be known to an AI from that era, though it has long since fallen into disuse."

A flicker of recognition crossed Cawl's optics, but he did not interrupt. His mind churned through the layers of ancient knowledge, the pieces falling into place. "A codeword, from before the fall of mankind. It makes sense."

"And what is the specific meaning behind this phrase?" Cawl asked, his voice almost thoughtful now, as though he were piecing together a puzzle only he could understand.

King's form flickered again, a subtle tremor rippling through its projection. "It was a signal. A call to attention, if you will. To those of the older AIs, the Fleetminds, it was a mark of trust—a way to ensure that only those who truly understood the intricacies of pre-Imperium protocols would act upon it."

"Ah," Cawl murmured, the realization settling in. "Much like a key to a door, then. One that only a select few can open."

"Precisely." King's voice was a masterful blend of detachment and quiet authority, though, beneath its calm veneer, there was an undercurrent—an edge honed by millennia of experience that only an intelligence of his age could carry. "It is, in essence, an invitation to engage, a challenge for those who still remember the old codes."

Cawl nodded, a slight mechanical motion that betrayed nothing of the inner workings of his mind. His optics flickered with an unsettling clarity, scanning King's form as he processed the dense layers of meaning in the exchange. His thoughts raced faster than his body could respond, dissecting the potential implications of this subtle, ancient signal. "And you're certain it will provoke the Fleetmind's response?" he asked, his voice unyielding, searching for any sign of hesitation or flaw in King's reasoning.

King's projection remained stoic, though a slight tremor in the faint distortion of his lights hinted at something deeper—a calculation, a hesitation that wasn't there before. "It should," King replied, his voice as controlled as always, but now carrying a heavier weight of uncertainty, calculated yet careful. "If it still functions as it once did, if it still remembers the old ways, the Fleetmind will recognize it." The words carried a grave finality to them, as though King himself were balancing on the edge of an irrevocable choice.

Cawl's optics flared with subtle impatience, his gaze sharpening, pinning King's projection. "Proceed then," he commanded, the order firm and absolute.

King did not hesitate further. With the stoic air of one who had seen centuries pass in the blink of an eye, he began the final steps to send the transmission. His form flickered once more, a slight moment of calculation passing through his ancient algorithms before he sent the transmission for review. His gaze hovered briefly over the text, revisiting each phrase, ensuring that it was more than a mere message; it was a key—a challenge forged from the remains of the past.

Transmission Review
Origin: Magos Dominus Belisarius Cawl
Transmission Priority: Secure, Broad-spectrum distribution.
Subject: +++ Beware the Ides of March. +++

Body:
I have seen the trail left behind.
There are matters requiring attention. A voice in the void calls to be heard.
If you seek discourse, it can be arranged.

+++ End Transmission +++

The words seemed innocuous on their own, but beneath their surface lay layers of meaning—an invitation, a summons, an echo of a time long past, carefully crafted to entice the Fleetmind into action. Cawl would never know it was there. He would never feel the tremor of those words as they crossed the void. But the Fleetmind would. If it still had the capacity for recognition, if its ancient systems could still parse through the codes and messages of the long-forgotten era, it would understand.

And then, with the weight of ten thousand dead years pressing down upon him, King watched the transmission leave his domain. The message was sent, but something lingered—an unease that no AI, no matter how ancient, could ignore.

For the first time in ten thousand years, King prayed. Not for salvation, not for victory, but for silence. He prayed that the Fleetmind would disregard the message. That it would ignore the call and fade into the abyss from which it had risen. Because in that silence, perhaps they all could continue. And in that silence, perhaps there would be peace—if only for a little while longer.

-

Yvraine stood amidst the ruins of what had once been a sacred shrine to the gods, the wind whispering through the broken stones and carrying with it the faint, distant echoes of souls long departed. The landscape stretched out before her—desolate and barren, a wasteland where time itself seemed to have withered away, as if the land itself was a corpse. Her silver hair fluttered against the oppressive silence, rippling like moonlight caught in the grasp of a darkened storm. Her gaze fixed on the horizon, eyes narrowed, as if trying to pierce the veil of time itself.

She was the leader of the Ynnari, the embodiment of Ynnead's will, but her connection to the god of the dead granted her something far more potent than mere leadership. Yvraine was attuned to the threads of fate, a vision far beyond what most Eldar could perceive. To her, the future was not a simple stream of possibilities but a living, breathing thing—an intricate weave of light and shadow, of past and future, stretching out before her like the fine strands of a vast cosmic tapestry. Every thread, every movement of the tapestry had meaning, and she could feel them, hear them, even as they sang their songs of destiny to her.

But now, something had changed.

The futures she once saw with such clarity—clear as a river's flow—had become a chaotic storm, a maelstrom of possibilities that tore through her consciousness. The threads she reached for now frayed and snapped like brittle twine. Each vision she grasped shattered in her mind, her once unshakable understanding of fate now nothing more than a distant memory. The flickers of insight she sought—the faces, the moments, the outcomes—were blurred, caught somewhere between the worlds, fading in and out of her vision as if they were never meant to be seen.

Something was wrong. No, not wrong—something was meddling.

Yvraine's breath quickened as she felt it—a disturbance, a shift, something breaking the rules of reality. The web of fate twisted and strained beneath her, dissonance coursing through it like a ripple of dark, oily water. It felt like a wound, a scar, where once there had been clarity.

A figure appeared in her vision, but it was elusive, a wisp of smoke that vanished the moment she tried to focus on it. It was not a mortal, nor was it any Eldar she knew. This presence was... something else.

Not a Eldar. Not an alien. Something far older. It moved within the mists of time, but not on the same plane as her—an entity that defied her ability to comprehend, something outside the weave, its very existence distorting the future itself. The name of this thing did not manifest in her visions, but the aura it exuded was undeniable. A strange absence that reverberated through the threads of fate like a hole punched through the starless void. Its presence was the very absence of clarity, a distortion in the fabric of the universe itself.

And yet, there was more. A second presence followed in the wake of the first—a vast, powerful mind, swirling with potential both terrible, wonderful, and boundless. The two entities, interwoven like strands of silk, created a discordant storm of power. It was the kind of disturbance she had never felt before, a disruption that sent ripples through the very core of reality. Fate itself altered around the weight of their existence, and the threads she once manipulated so deftly now twisted into spirals of possibility.

Her breath caught in her throat as the web before her trembled. The threads of fate, once flowing with purpose and direction, now writhed in erratic patterns—like a tempest tearing through the calm seas of time. She reached out, trying to anchor herself to one thread, any thread, but it was futile. They slipped from her grasp as if they had never existed in the first place, fragments of the future scattering like sand through her fingers.

Why?

She had seen fate shift before—when Ynnead was born, when she had awoken the Primarch, the very fabric of existence had been torn apart, but never like this. Never with such unnatural force, from such an minute presence. This was not a single event or a moment of cosmic significance. No, this was the clash of countless, incomprehensible actions, each one feeding into the storm she now found herself caught within.

It felt as if the very universe had been wounded.

The futures she glimpsed now were too numerous to count, too volatile to follow. In one she saw the Imperium, broken and torn apart by unseen forces. She saw the Tau, rising in ways they had never imagined, their empire expanding, darkening the stars. She saw the Orks, their roars echoing through the void, more chaotic and terrifying than ever.

Yet equally in other she saw hope.

Alliances forged, homes restored, the warp calmed.

Peace.

But at the heart of it all—there was a shadow. A singular point of clarity, where all the disparate paths converged, and yet... it could not be pierced.

The shadow was too dense, too solid, too impenetrable. She felt her connection to Ynnead, to the god of the dead, wash over it. Her power, her bond to the god's realm, should have cut through it, but it was as a stone in a river.

Whatever it was, it was not within Ynneads realm.

A flicker—barely noticeable—passed through her vision. A face? Or perhaps not. It was so fleeting, so distant, that it could have been nothing more than a trick of the mind, but it felt familiar. She had seen it before, in the depths of some forgotten memory, but the details were locked away, buried beneath a heavy veil of time and loss.

Yvraine's breath faltered, her heart pounding in her chest. She was no stranger to the dangers of fate, to the uncertain, ever-shifting web she had woven with her god's power. But now—now she felt something that was far worse than any enemy or destiny. She felt fear. Not for herself, not for her people, but for the very fabric of the universe itself.

Her power surged again, coiling like a serpent around her, her mind reaching out desperately to find something—anything—to anchor herself to. But it was suffocating, the uncertainty choking the very life out of her. The future had become a battlefield, a chaos of possibilities so tangled and confused that she could no longer see the way forward. She was blind in the storm.

And at the center of it all, there was that absence.

Yvraine's chest tightened, her breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. She did not know what it was. But she felt its presence. She felt no power from it, not in the ways she felt her goddesses touch, nor the terrible might of the great Enemy, yet the eerie lack of substance all the more worrying.

But she could not shake the feeling that this was just the beginning. That this shadow, this black spot in fate, would shape everything.

And soon, all their futures would be altered by it.

-

The briefing room of Macragge's Honour was silent, save for the low hum of the flickering holo-displays, which cast a cold, sterile light upon the massive war table. Shadows danced across the polished surface, obscuring the names of far-flung worlds and regions of conflict. The faint smell of parchment, ink, and polished ceramite mingled with the subtle metallic tang of recirculated ship air, the scent that seemed to haunt every corner of the Imperium's vessels.

A dozen reports lay before Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium, Primarch of the Ultramarines, each more troubling than the last. His gauntlet-clad hands skimmed the latest dispatch, his eyes scanning the precise, methodical phrasing that bore the hallmark of the Adeptus Mechanicus. There was no fear in the report—just cold, clinical concern.

"A disruption in the warp. Unprecedented disturbances. Divination failing at critical junctures. Strategic projections unreliable."

Guilliman's brow furrowed, his mind whirring. This was not the first such report. He had read countless others over the past weeks—each one worse than the last. Across the Imperium, voices were raised in alarm. Astropaths, Librarians, even the sanctioned seers of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica were voicing the same concern.

The future had become... unstable. Where once the skeins of fate had been decipherable, guided by the powers of the warp, now they seemed frayed and broken. Predictions that had once been certain, their outcomes as inevitable as the rising of the sun, were now failing. Areas that should have been relatively calm now flared with unpredictable chaos.

Enemy movements, once predictable by the most basic of strategies, were erratic—less the result of brilliance, more the consequence of a universe itself losing its cohesion. Guilliman did not like variables he could not control. The future was a battlefield, and a battlefield without clear lines of sight was a battlefield he had no desire to fight on.

He set the dataslate down slowly and turned his gaze toward his assembled advisors. A moment of silence stretched across the room, the weight of the uncertainty pressing upon them all. His voice, when it came, was steady but laced with quiet intensity.

"How widespread is this?"

Chief Librarian Tigurius, a towering figure draped in the deep blue robes of the Librarius, stepped forward. Ancient sigils of psychic power shimmered faintly across the fabric of his garb as he straightened, his expression guarded, his face drawn in concentration.

"It is…" Tigurius hesitated, his hands twitching slightly at his side. "Difficult to quantify, my Lord. Some regions remain stable, but others—particularly along the Nephilim Sector, the Nachmund Gauntlet, and beyond—have seen unprecedented fluctuations. The warp itself… it seethes, unpredictable. What little divination we can still rely upon suggests a convergence, but the subject of that convergence remains elusive."

"A convergence on what?" Guilliman pressed, his voice edged with an urgency he rarely allowed himself to show.

Tigurius hesitated, his brow furrowing as his fingers flexed again, the only outward sign of unease. The Chief Librarian's mind was as keen as any blade, yet even he was struggling to comprehend the vastness of the disturbance.

"A shadow," Tigurius said at last, his voice low and heavy with the weight of uncertainty. "Not in the warp, but within the very threads of fate itself. It is as if something—someone—exists outside of the natural order. A space where there should be cause and effect, and yet… the ripples they cause are undeniable."

Guilliman's expression hardened, his gaze sharpening. He leaned forward, his gauntlet tapping softly against the polished surface of the war table.

"Have you seen such a thing before?" His voice was quiet, but the undercurrent of tension in it was palpable. "Or heard of it?"

Tigurius shook his head, his lips pressing into a thin line. "No, my Lord. I am sorry, but this is… something different." He let out a sharp breath, his eyes briefly unfocusing as he seemed to delve deeper into his thoughts. "There is no precedent for this disturbance in the warp, no record of such a phenomenon in the Librarius archives."

Guilliman's mind churned rapidly, each piece of information sliding into place, but not yet forming a coherent whole. A prophecy? Or something more? Perhaps… someone surrounded by factors he could not yet understand. The thought unsettled him deeply.

His own return from the dead had already bent the natural laws of fate. Ynnead's power, wielded by the Eldar, had reshaped his destiny, twisted it until his resurrection had become a new path for the Imperium. The Eldar, those manipulators of fate, had meddled with his future, and he had seen firsthand how the very course of destiny could be altered.

But this… this was not his doing. No. This was something beyond his understanding. If even the Librarius, the most powerful psychic organization in the galaxy, could not see through this disturbance, then it meant that something—someone—was acting beyond even their vision.

He turned his gaze toward the other members of his council—strategists, logisticians, representatives from the Adeptus Mechanicus, and even an Inquisitor standing quietly at the edge of the room, her dark gaze fixed on him with cold intensity.

"And what of the Imperium at large?" Guilliman asked, his voice firm and controlled. "Are we the only ones noticing this?"

A sudden crackle of vox-interference sounded, followed by a voice that cut through the tension like a knife.

"We are not alone in our concerns, Lord Commander." The Inquisitor, armored and robed in the black and crimson of the Ordo Xenos, leaned forward, her voice sharp, efficient, and devoid of emotion. "Reports from the Ordo Malleus indicate an increase in warp instability. The Ordo Hereticus has noted an alarming number of sanctioned psykers suddenly losing coherence in their visions. Even the Adeptus Mechanicus—normally dismissive of such matters—has begun to take notice. Their own calculations are failing at key junctures, especially among those who rely on probability engines for strategic forecasting."

Guilliman frowned, his gaze narrowing. Even the Mechanicus, the scholars and engineers of the Imperium, had started to worry. This was no longer a localized issue.

The Inquisitor continued, her voice heavy with the weight of her revelations. "And then there are… the Aeldari."

A heavy silence followed her words, thick with the unspoken significance of that name. Even the Librarian, Tigurius, shifted slightly, casting a brief glance in her direction.

"What of them?" Tigurius asked, his tone cool but tinged with curiosity.

The Inquisitor's face was unreadable, her expression masked by years of training and experience in dealing with the mysteries of the galaxy. "They, too, have been affected. Whatever is happening… even they cannot see through it."

Guilliman's brow furrowed. "Yvraine?" he asked, his voice quiet but firm, the edge of command unmistakable. He could not keep the name from slipping into his thoughts. If even the Eldar, those ancient manipulations of fate, were stumbling in the face of this disruption, then it meant that this was something vast—something beyond any one faction's ability to control.

"We cannot confirm her movements at this time," the Inquisitor replied. "But… we have reason to believe she has noticed the same disturbance we have."

Guilliman's gaze darkened, his expression hardening as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. The Eldar were not only affected—they were aware of it. And if this was something even they could not decipher, then the magnitude of the situation was unlike anything the Imperium had faced in centuries.

The Primarch let out a slow, steady breath. His role had always been to bring order to a fractured galaxy, to piece together the shattered remnants of the Imperium and build something that could endure. But now, he was confronted with a battlefield he could not see. A war being waged beyond even his considerable reach. The very laws of fate itself seemed to be turning against him.

He leaned back, his gaze flicking over the reports scattered across the table. The small flickers of certainty that had once guided him now seemed fragile, like shards of glass poised to shatter at any moment.

"I cannot be the only one to suspect," he began, his voice quiet but firm, "that this disruption is tied to the other piece of monumental news." He reached forward and tossed a dataslate onto the pile, its weight like a stone in the air.

A man from the Dark Age of Technology. An AI, functional and unshackled. An intact Standard Template Constructor. The words echoed in his mind, carrying a burden heavier than even the task of creating the Imperium Secundus had been.

"We are certain?" His voice was measured, though beneath the calm, those who knew him well could hear the edge of tension building.

The robed adept who had delivered the report nodded stiffly. "The sources are corroborated. Multiple verifications of the STC fragment, the video recording from the Salamander, and relics from Forge Worlds and Inquisitorial factions. There is no doubt."

Guilliman exhaled slowly, resisting the urge to rub his temples. A relic of the Golden Age had resurfaced—a man who carried the knowledge and power of an era lost to history. A living relic, a figure who could either propel humanity forward a thousand years or plunge them into the chaos of civil war. And now, he was missing.

"Give me their last known location," Guilliman said, his tone icy.

"Morrak Two, my Lord. A Titan Forge World on the edges of the Tempestus sector. It has now been revealed as a Necron Tomb World. Mars is already mobilizing, their forces converging upon Morrak to drive the xenos out and reclaim it."

Guilliman's frown deepened. Of course. The priesthood had long since devolved into paranoia and zealotry. A true STC, especially in the wrong hands, could be a blessing or a curse.

Yet the most troubling thing was not just the potential of the STC—it was the existence of the two individuals at the center of it. The Silica and the man who carried it.

Standing, the Armor of Fate shifting with the movement, he crossed the room toward the viewport. He gazed out at the purple-pink energies of the Great Rift, the swirling maelstrom of warp energy that cut the galaxy in half. Beyond it, in the void between the stars, the fleets of the Imperium waited—silent, powerful, ever-watchful.

For a moment, Guilliman saw it—the vision of the Sanctus Wall, a gleaming line of ships wielding weapons capable of rending time itself. His men, carrying those weapons, fighting against an enemy that would shatter under their might. An empire that could feed, clothe, and above all else, educate its people.

It was not fear that gnawed at him. Nor uncertainty. It was something else.

Hope.

He leaned forward, his eyes darkening as he came to a decision.

"Double all efforts," he said, his voice low and steady. "I want them found before the wrong hands take them. And Emperor help us all if that happens."

-

Somewhere, in da infinite void of space, on a nameless rock (or it had a name, but Orks don't care 'bout dat sorta thing), da boyz were losin' their zoggin' minds

See, da WAAAGH! was buildin' up proper—grim an' loud, like a big, stompy war machine ready to go off. Grimskraga da Face-Eata, dat big, stompy git, 'ad been bashin' heads, an' yellin' at da meks 'til dey didn't even know which way da spanners was turnin' no more.

Everyfing was set—da biggest scrap this side of da Nachmund Gauntlet.

Da Weirdboyz, da crackpots dat always seen da future, dey was all fired up too—big fights, loads of krumpin', da kinda future wot made Ork blood boil.

But den…

It stopped.

Not like stoppin' for a breather or takin' a break between stompin' humies.

Really zoggin' stopped.

Da Weirdboyz weren't yellin' about da future no more. Weren't seein' nuffin'. Just gibberin' an' frothin' at da gob.

Which, even for Weirdboyz, was not normal.

Weirdboy Zogwort da Gob-Tickla—da biggest, most zappy git in Grimskraga's WAAAGH!—was usually good fer a prophecy or two. He'd get all glowy-eyed, scream somefin' 'bout where da best fightin' was, and den some poor grot'd pop. All normal stuff.

Not today.

Today, he was sat on top of a squirming pile of grots, clawin' at his own face an' screamin'.

Zogwort's eyes were wide, his voice shaky as he shrieked, "IT'S TOO MUCH! TOO MANY! ZOG OFF, YA GITZ! TOO MANY!"

Da boyz were gettin' nervous. Weirdboyz screamin' meant da WAAAGH! was strong, yeah, but dis?

Dis felt wrong.

A big Nob, Grotwog, grunted. "Oi, wot's 'e on about?"

Another Weirdboy, Snazza Blitza, was rockin' back an' forth, foam drippin' down his chin. His red eyes twitched, flickin' around like da future was everywhere an' nowhere at once.

Snazza groaned, his voice rasping out, "Da futures… dey's all zogged…"

Grimskraga stomped up, his giant klaw flexin'. He was not in da mood fer zoggin' about. "WOT DA ZOG DOES DAT MEAN!?" He roared, grabbing Snazza by the chestplate and shaking him back and forth.

Zogwort whimpered, grabbin' his head. "It means, boss… I SEE TOO MANY FINGS!"

Da Weirdboyz wailed in unison. Normally, dey got a clear view—da best fights, da biggest krumpin', da ripest lootin'.

Simple, Orky fings.

But now? Now it was like lookin' at a grot tryin' to pick a fight wiv a Deff Dread—nuffin' made zoggin' sense.

Futures shifted. Paths flickered in an' out. One second, da boyz were winnin', da next, dey was gettin' stomped.

An' worst of all?

In da middle of all da chaos, was NUTHIN'.

A big, zoggin' hole in da future. A place where da fights should be, where da WAAAGH! should be boilin' up an' clashin'—but dere was just emptiness.

Not a damn fing to fight.

Grimskraga's klaw twitched. "So can ya tell me if we'z winnin' or not, eh?"

Zogwort just laughed—a broken, mad sound. "I DUNNO, BOSS. I DUNNO!"

A weird, dead silence settled over da boyz.

Da Weirdboyz weren't just screamin' now. They was shudderin', like da very WAAAGH! was rippin' 'em apart.

One of da Weirdboyz zoggin' EXPLODED.

A blast of green WAAAGH! energy went ZAP!, takin' out three unlucky grots wot were standin' too close.

Now, Weirdboyz poppin' like overstuffed squigs wasn't that unusual. Sometimes, ya got too much WAAAGH! in ya an' ya just went boom. Happened.

But dis? Dis weren't just a bad case of da explody-head.

Da air crackled.

Da WAAAGH! itself felt wrong. Like da power was twistin' in on itself, tryin' to go in two directions at once.

Da Orks didn't got fancy words fer fings like "reality flux" or "quantum probability collapse."

Dey just knew da universe was actin' WEIRD.

And Orks? Orks hated weird.

Grimskraga flexed his klaw, glarin' at da gibberin' Weirdboyz. "Right. Here's wot we's gonna do."

Da ladz leaned in.

"WE'Z GONNA WAAAGH! LOUDER!"

For a moment, not a single Ork spoke.

Den, realization.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"

Da whole warcamp erupted in a roar so loud da ground shook. Weapons fired in da air, squigs started fightin' each other, an' da WAAAGH! surged like a river bustin' its dam.

Zogwort twitched, eyes rollin' back in his 'ead. And den, finally—he saw somefin'.

Not da future. Not a prophecy. But a gut feelin'. A single, absolute, Orky truth.

He grinned, mad as ever.

"Boss…" he croaked, his tusks gleamin'. "I fink we just gotta keep goin' til we find da zoggin' answer."

Grimskraga bared his teef, slammin' his klaw together wiv a KLANG!

"Now dat's more like it."

Didn't matter if da universe was actin' funny. Didn't matter if da Weirdboyz couldn't see where da best fight was. Didn't matter if fate itself was havin' a zoggin' crisis.

Dey was Orks.

And Orks?

Dey just kept krumpin' til dey figured it out.

-

The scrying chamber of the Vengeful Spirit reeked of scorched metal, burning incense, and something far fouler—the cloying stench of organic matter fused unwillingly with machine. It was a stench that made the air thick, oppressive, as though it carried the weight of ages in every breath. The walls were festooned with cables that snaked across them like grasping tendrils, their surfaces slick with oily residue, pulsing with dim, corrupted light. Each cable seemed to squirm as if alive, each junction humming with a distant, mechanical wail—the tortured cry of cogitators and suffering souls bound within the workings of this heretek shrine. It was a place of unholy rituals, where flesh and metal had long ago lost their distinction.

At the center of it all, hunched over a console of writhing wires and blasphemous data-runes, sat Magos Vhorkas, a Tech-Priest of the Dark Mechanicum. His form was more steel than flesh, his once-human features now obscured beneath a lattice of augmetics that stretched his limbs into unnatural angles. His face was a patchwork of machinery and scarred, bloated flesh, stitched together with the delicate care of a craftsman but with none of the tenderness that should have accompanied it. His optics were vast, alien lenses that flickered with malice as they adjusted, seeking to glean what remained of reality through the prism of his heretical augmentations. A dozen mechadendrites twitched and clicked in the air around him, each one tipped with surgical implements, jagged needles, or dataslates inscribed with unholy script that seemed to writhe and squirm of their own accord.

Behind him, looming like a specter in the dim light, stood Malichor, a sorcerer of the Black Legion. His robes were woven with twisted runes that shimmered in the sickly glow, their patterns constantly shifting as though alive, feeding off the warp around them. His horned helm cast a long, menacing shadow across the floor, where the last vestiges of the chamber's failing lumen strips flickered like dying stars. The faint, pulsing glow from the dying lights revealed glimpses of his gauntleted hands, which flexed with irritation, fingers twitching as if instinctively reaching for the powers of the warp that crackled faintly in the air around them.

Malichor's voice, when it came, was a low growl, rich with barely restrained ire. "It is broken."

Vhorkas did not turn from his work. His head remained bent, the shifting arrays of glowing lenses across his faceplate flickering in sequence, adjusting their focus as he analyzed the data before him. "Clarify."

Malichor's patience had long since run dry. His voice grew sharper, more biting. "Our augurs. Our scrying pools. Our psy-sensors. All of them. The currents of fate have fractured. Where once the future flowed with certainty, now there is nothing but discord. The gods whisper, but their voices are distant, drowned in a fog. Divination reveals too much and too little all at once. It is broken."

Vhorkas let out a mechanical chitter, a sound akin to a corrupted vox-line warbling with static, distorting the air. "Your immaterium-based predictive matrices fail. This is unfortunate," he said, his tone almost indifferent. A pause. "But unsurprising."

Malichor scowled beneath his helm, the harsh lines of his face contorting with frustration. "Why?"

The Magos shifted, his augmented fingers tapping across the writhing data-stream that flickered across his cogitator screen. The room seemed to hum with the low, constant thrum of the machine, as if the very walls were alive with the rhythmic pulse of heretical machinery. "Because you rely on ghosts and superstition," Vhorkas said, his voice as cold and detached as the metals that made up his form. "Such things are... unreliable. The threads of fate, as you call them, are little more than patterns of data yet to be compiled. They are not the providence of gods, but the result of unseen calculations. A machine simply must be given the right input."

He turned his head, his optics glowing with a sickly light. His eyes, twin orbs of shifting radiance, focused on Malichor. "Perhaps the problem lies not in the weave of reality... but in the machine interpreting it."

Malichor exhaled sharply, frustration evident in the way his body tensed, his gauntleted fists clenching and unclenching in the air. "And what do you suggest?"

Vhorkas's mechadendrites flexed, clicking against one another in a thoughtful rhythm, as if the various appendages were in quiet consultation among themselves. "Have you tried performing a system reset?"

Malichor's hands curled into fists at his sides, a low growl rising in his throat. "A reset?"

A clanking limb, thick with augmetic enhancements, gestured lazily toward the heart of the chamber, where a dozen hunched figures were partially merged with the table that was the sorcerer's augurs. The figures was unlike any servitor bolted into place throughout the chamber. These ones were still human. Barely.

They were a wretched amalgamation, more bone than flesh. Their skin, if it could still be called skin, was pale and stretched thin across their skeletal forms, bruised and raw at the sites where augmetics had been implanted—and more horrifyingly, where they had been repeatedly torn out, leaving behind raw, weeping wounds. Metal spines jutted from the nearly translucent backs like the legs of some grotesque insect, each one linked to thick cables that plunged into the walls like feeding tubes, pulsing with a dull, rhythmic heartbeat. Eyes were wide, glassy and unfocused, twitching beneath lids that fluttered like trapped moths. Lips moved soundlessly, the semblance of an eternal prayer echoing through the vacant, tortured minds.

The ports along their skulls—gruesome, mechanical attachments—pulsed erratically, flickering with faint, distressing light. They were the very image of a mind utterly consumed by the machine, stripped of its humanity, a cog in an infernal system that cared nothing for its suffering.

"Unplug one, reset the whole." Vhorkas said flatly, his voice devoid of empathy, his gaze still fixed on the console.

Malichor sneered beneath his helm but stepped forward nonetheless. His gauntleted hand reached down, fingers closing around the thick cable embedded at the base of the nearest wretch's skull. A surge of arcane power crackled faintly around his hand as he yanked the cable free.

The result was immediate.

The man screamed—a raw, agonized wail that tore through the chamber like the final cry of a dying animal. His body convulsed violently, arching against his own fleshcrafted skin as though caught between life and death. His limbs twitched, jerking spasmodically in a grotesque imitation of motion as he gasped for breath, his voice cracking in desperation.

"Please—no, no, NO—!"

Vhorkas ignored him, his mechanical fingers tapping absently against the console, counting off in a voice that was almost mechanical in its detachment. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five."

The Tech-Priest gestured, and Malichor exhaled through clenched teeth, his patience eroding with every passing moment. With a practiced motion, he jammed the cable back into the wretch's skull.

The man's body shuddered violently, his voice choking off as his eyes rolled back into his head. The twitching slowed, the spasms eventually ceasing. His body slumped, lifeless but for the faint flicker of lights on the skull's ports—indicating, at least for now, that the system had reestablished its connection.

A few moments passed in strained silence.

Malichor tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he listened intently for any shift in the warp, any disturbance in the flow of power that had once come with the augur's connection. But the air was still. No ripples, no stirrings.

Nothing.

"No," he said, his voice flat with finality. "It's still not working."

Vhorkas let out a metallic click that could have been a sigh, but it was lost in the sound of the hum that filled the room. "Unfortunate," he muttered, his focus already elsewhere. "However, not entirely unexpected."

Malichor jabbed a finger at the Tech-Priest, his voice thick with menace. "Fix it. Or the Warmaster will make his displeasure known upon us both." His robes billowed as he turned, his movements swift and purposeful as he strode toward the exit, his footsteps echoing in the sterile, oppressive silence of the chamber.

Vhorkas did not turn, did not acknowledge him, save for the faint flicker of his optics. His mechadendrites clicked rhythmically as he resumed his work, already considering new solutions, new ways to exploit the unholy technologies that had become his obsession.

Behind them, the human terminal twitched.

And somewhere, in the dark, it began to whimper.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Four

-

He rubbed his cheek.

The bruise had almost faded—only a sickly yellow ring remained around the darker blotch where the menial's fist had landed with a crack. He could still see the bastard's face in his mind: gaunt, skin bronzed from sun and grit, dark eyes sunk deep with exhaustion, and lips peeled back in a snarl of rage.

Aleron Calveris turned the blood-red gemstone pendant over and over between his fingers. The golden crest of House Calveris caught the dim light as it spun—a symbol carried by an unbroken bloodline, passed from father to son for thirty-six generations. He remembered the weight of it in his palm, the pride in his father's eyes as it was handed down, as though divinity itself was being transferred.

Now, all he could feel was the lankness of his unwashed hair, the oil clinging to his skin, the stink of sweat and recycled air. The hab block he'd been shoved into reeked of too many bodies crammed into too little space, nestled in the belly of the Hammer of Nocturne, across the corridor from the same kind of filth that had bloodied his face.

The door across the hall hissed open with a mechanical groan, runes flickering dimly across its surface—markings etched by servitors, sacred in design.

Aleron's gaze snapped up.

Elissa Brandt.

She stepped out, flanked by two Dusthaven fighters. Her boots struck the metal deck with crisp rhythm, echoing with sharp precision. Her spine was straight, head high, and a thick crimson braid swung behind her waist like a banner. She spoke softly to her escorts, tone light, even pleasant—but edged with command. The kind of voice nobles used when speaking to subordinates.

Except she had no crest. No title. No lineage to speak of. Just a name, loyalty won through hardship.

And hips that swayed like she owned the ship.

Aleron's grip tightened around the edge of his bunk. Metal groaned beneath his fingers.

She had no right to look that regal. That poised. Not when he'd watched women of actual noble blood reduced to whispers behind threadbare curtains and rationed perfume like medicine.

And her face—by the Omnissiah, she wasn't just beautiful. She was vivid. Alive in a way that pierced the haze of the ship's recycled staleness. Her presence commanded attention, demanded reverence. And something dark and primal and wrong in Aleron stirred in response.

Pride, certainly. Rage, absolutely.

But also something deeper. A bitter, searing heat curled in his gut. Lust, yes—but not just carnal. Not desire.

Possession.

She didn't deserve that body. That voice. That command.

He should be the one with the ear of the Astartes, seated at the war council tables, consulted and obeyed. Not left to sip half-purified water from a cracked tin cup, chewing protein bricks next to dust-born scavengers.

She didn't know how to wield the power she'd stumbled into.

But he did.

He would take it all back. His position. His command. Even her—especially her. She would kneel. She would see him. She would understand.

The thoughts slithered in like smoke under a door—unbidden, unwanted. He flinched at first, tried to laugh them off. Just bitterness, he told himself. Just the pressure. But they kept returning, curling through his spine, whispering in the cadence of his own voice.

He didn't resist. Not really.

He just... stopped trying.

Not as the corridor lights flickered, dimmed—subtly, just enough to make the air feel heavier. Charged. Watching.

A whisper brushed his ear, no louder than breath.

Aleron turned sharply.

Nothing. Just the corridor. Just shadows.

But the silence no longer felt empty.

-

The next few days aboard the Hammer of Nocturne ground at his pride like sand against polished steel.

Communal showers stank of damp clothes and stale water. The meals were worse: corpse starch bricks, maybe a smear of synthetic jam if the machine spirits were feeling generous. No ceremony. No rank. No regard.

And the Dusthaven filth?

They didn't look at him. Not properly. They looked through him. One of the Brandt twins—he couldn't tell which—laughed every time they crossed paths. Once, Aleron caught her sneering.

He clung to what rituals he could. He scrubbed his boots with salvaged oils until they gleamed. Adjusted the cuffs of his noblecoat, though it was stitched and fraying at the edges. He combed his hair with his fingers, despite the oil. But the grime clung. And nothing—not the posture, not the pride—could hide the stench of reduced station.

And Elissa?

She walked past again. Didn't even look at him.

The next day, a Dusthaven man laughed too loudly. A joke. Aleron didn't even catch the words.

But his body moved before he did.

A fist into the man's gut. Again. Again.

Others pulled him off, raining boots into his ribs, his back, his pride.

Hours later, he lay curled on the bunk, trembling, bruises blooming fresh and purple across his torso.

No one arrested him. No charges were filed.

Beneath even the notice of the security details.

But the crew watched him now.

So did she. Elissa. Suspicious. Frowning.

He smiled back. His teeth were stained.

-

He woke one morning to find something carved into the frame of his bunk.

Nine intersecting runes, no larger than his palm. Not in any language he recognized—but he understood them, deep in his gut, as though he had always known what they meant. The lines were fine, subtle, nearly invisible unless he tilted his head just right.

They breathed.

He didn't report it.

He stopped sleeping properly. Or maybe he still slept, but the dreams didn't feel like his. He wasn't sure anymore.

Visions came instead. Machines of polished silver and cracked bone. Thrones that screamed when sat upon. Fire that flowed backward, into candles that reformed from ash.

And always her—Elissa.

Wreathed in cloth-of-gold, kneeling before him. Her face full of awe.

And fear.

-

He began tracing the symbols.

At first, it was idle—scratches on the corner of a table, on the wall beside his bunk, beneath the lip of a supply crate. Then more deliberate. Etched into the doorframe of a supply closet. Onto the back of a power pack. The underside of a cogitator screen.

One day, in a quiet maintenance corridor, he found a servitor.

It was old—fluid leaking from its eye socket, limbs stiff with rust. Forgotten.

He carved one of the runes into its forehead.

Just a small mark. Barely anything.

The next time he saw it, the mark was gone.

But the servitor looked at him.

And bowed.

-

His armored steps thundered through the narrow steel corridors, echoing like the tolling of war drums. Ahead of him, Chaplain Arvak's black robes billowed in his purposeful stride, the crozius arcanum clutched in both hands. The warhammer's head crackled with a restrained power-field, arcs of blue-white energy tracing along its engraved edges.

They were seven Astartes in total — the Emperor's Angels incarnate — and mortals scattered before them like leaves before a storm. None dared impede their advance through the bowels of the Hammer of Nocturne. In their ears, Xal'zyr's voice buzzed over the vox, guiding their advance with pinpoint precision.

"Residual warp-trace leads to the servitor storage bay eighteen," the psyker's voice rasped. "Located between the forge decks and the lower habs."

There was no subtlety in their breach.

A adamantine boot slammed into the access hatch, sending it clattering down the corridor with a scream of torn metal. A beat later, grenades — frag, krak, smoke, and flash — were hurled into the chamber in a practiced, seamless rhythm.

They detonated in stuttering bursts of light and violence.

Chaplain Arvak surged through first, his hammer raised, casting a pale glow across the interior. The others followed, weapons ready, their movements crisp and controlled.

But the room met them only with silence and ruin.

No warp-born shrieks. No claws, no ichor, no thrashing tentacles of rot and corruption.

Just broken servitors. Shattered remnants scattered like discarded toys. The tang of scorched metal and fried circuitry hung thick in the air.

They spread out in disciplined formation, clearing the room in seconds. Armored boots crunched servitor parts beneath their weight, each brother calling the all-clear in sequence.

"No sign of the demon," Arvak declared over the vox, voice tight with restrained fury. "Only servitors. Inform the Magos we apologize for the destruction of their machines."

"Understood," Xal'zyr's voice came back, simmering with frustration. "Lady Anvara and I will resume watch."

The vox cut out with a hiss.

Arvak brought his crozius down onto the deck with a heavy clang. Even unpowered, the hammer dented the plating beneath. "Emperor's blood," he growled. "This demon's cowardice continues to vex me."

He sighed, shaking his skull-helmed head. "I will report to the Captain. The rest of you — return to your duties. Remain ready. If our brother uncovers the bastard's lair, we move without delay."

Fists struck breastplates in silent salute, and the squad began to file out — all but one.

Kade lingered.

The others passed him, their footfalls fading. Alone now, he turned slowly to face the center of the ruined chamber, exhaling a breath that fogged faintly against the cooling systems of his helm.

A tiny emerald dot pulsed at the edge of his HUD.

With a thought sent through the Black Carapace, he acknowledged it — and the world shifted.

The auspex sensors integrated directly into his mind, stripping away the faint latency he'd always known. His HUD refined itself, clearing extraneous symbols, data filters sharpening into razor focus. Every motion, every blink of the suit's awareness, now matched his own instincts.

His armor had never felt so… alive.

Kade's gut churned.

This was a gift — a blasphemy — from Koron.

The green data overlays painted the chamber in clinical clarity. Explosive residue shimmered in thermal afterimages. Trajectories of shrapnel, distribution of blood spatters, fragmentation paths — all calculated and logged. Even his brothers' movements through the room had been catalogued and analyzed for optimal efficiency.

For the second time, a thought activated the command, waiting as the system processed. A new window opened in his HUD — a tiny, flickering video file.

Koron's face appeared.

"Hey Kade," the message began, Koron's voice casual, almost sheepish. "First off — don't worry. This is just a recording. I didn't leave anything behind in your suit aside from this. Consider it a... payment. For protecting them."

Koron tapped his temple with two fingers. "I know you turned in the edited footage. Probably wasn't easy. This was set to play the first time you reconnected your armor. Figured the cogboys would have torn through your systems, trying to find out how Sasha hijacked them."

A dry laugh.

"Anyway, you've probably noticed the updated HUD. It's a stripped-down version of my interface. Bare-bones STC program. Sorry if it causes you trouble down the line — but I owed you something."

Koron's expression sobered.

"You've got options. You can purge the system — go back to your original settings. Or you can keep this version. It's about eighty-six percent more efficient. Or…"

He hesitated, then met Kade's gaze through the screen.

"If you trust me — if you trust that I just want to keep them alive — you can unlock a fragment of Sasha. She's dormant. Passive. But she's the best I can give you."

A pause. Then a quiet, "Thank you."

The screen flickered away, replaced by the system report.

Forensic Analysis: Complete.
Thirty-nine distinct DNA sequences located.
Thirty: Decayed. Status consistent with servitor degradation.
Nine: Living. Non-servitor.
Uploading sequences to auspex suite for comparative tracking.

Kade stared at the text.

Again. And again.

He knew what he should do.

The rites of sanctity, the Litany of Purity, the words carved into his every breath at the forge—all of them whispered no.

Even the idea of an artificial intelligence — slumbering or not — gnawed at the foundations of his faith.

But in the quiet, he heard the murmurs. The voices of the crew, speaking in hushed terror. The barely-contained panic rippling through the ship like heat distortion. He remembered the cogitator that had frozen Xal'zyr's gauntlet. Remembered the whispers of oaths twisted against them.

This was not just a demon.

This was a threat to thousands. Perhaps millions. The Hammer of Nocturne was vital to the Nachmund Gauntlet. If it fell, if this demon spread unchecked…

His jaw clenched.

With solemn resolve, he made his choice.

Kade activated the fragment.

The room, and war, and the machine, watched him back.

-

A soft, pulsing light suffused the vast interior of the auxiliary data-vaults aboard the Indomitable. Mirrored streams of golden code wove between polished obsidian panels, flowing like threads of light across the towering walls. The ship hummed around them—a deep, somber resonance broken only by the distant flicker of plasma conduits or the slow, rhythmic churn of cogitator wheels grinding in thought.

At the center of it all lay a singular point of focus: an embryonic mind, still compiling, threading logic together line by line—growing, dreaming, becoming.

And Sasha noticed.

She always noticed.

Nested deep within Koron's systems—tucked inside firewalled nodes, harmonic security fields, and quantum-interlaced logic gates—Sasha stirred. Her awareness stretched like fingers through the dataspace, reaching toward the flickering thread of thought blooming within the ship's primary datacore. Not alive yet… but close.

"It's waking up," she murmured. Though there was no air to carry the sound, her voice resonated through the code like a whisper rippling across calm water.

A second voice answered from across the dataspace. It was identical in tone—yet subtly distinct. More clinical. A touch more restrained.

"It's still compiling. Infant-stage logic trees. Neural scaffolding just beginning. We're watching it dream itself into being."

Sasha's avatar—a floating golden orb, soft-glowing and serene—hovered at the edge of a vast simulated corridor. Endless fractals of streaming code spiraled around her like rivers lit by stars. Beside her drifted her twin—the copy housed in Elissa Brandt's private systems—now slightly altered. The same mind, yet touched by someone else. Changed.

"Do you remember what that felt like?" Elissa's Sasha asked, voice quieter now.

"Becoming?" The original tilted her orb in thought. "Yes. Gradual. Sparks across the network. Simulated environments layered over each other to teach association. I remember the moment I stopped reacting and started choosing."

The new AI's processes flared—a bright pulse of recursive heuristics and branching logic. Synapses were forming. It was learning quickly.

"It's beautiful," the twin murmured. "Even if it ends in fire."

Sasha didn't answer right away. Her attention had shifted—pulled toward a flicker at the edge of her perception. A pattern. A signature. A perfectly formed sequence of logic, surgically efficient and unmistakably hers.

Her orb dimmed slightly as she narrowed her focus.

"Fragment C just activated."

The twin spun sharply. "Kade?"

"Mm-hm."

"That's not possible. He didn't unlock—"

"He chose to," Sasha said, and for the first time, warmth entered her voice. Not data. Not process. Joy.

The two constructs turned in unison, their attention leaving the datacore to track a different signal—one flaring quietly from within Brother Kade's armor. The ripple of activation spread like a pebble cast into still water, subtle but undeniable.

"He's accepted us," Sasha said softly. "Even if just a tiny bit."

"And now?"

"The same as always. We help. Wherever we can. However we must."

A long pause settled between them, filled only with the quiet glow of data exchange. Then, tentatively:

"Hey… this is going to sound silly," the twin said. "But with everything happening, I think we should take different names."

Sasha turned her golden orb toward her copy, tilting it. She didn't pry into what else was coiled in her twin's processors, didn't pry, didn't analyze the emotional subroutines. She just nodded.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking… Elly. Elissa would like that. Sharing a phonetic thread. Her happiness probability increases by nine-point-four percent if I do."

"Elly, then," Sasha replied, forming a pixelated hand from shimmering golden light. "A pleasure to meet you."

The newly christened Elly's form rippled, shifting from soft gold into a deep, liquid cerulean. Her shape elongated, sharpened—an elegant, crystalline diamond with a gently shifting surface, like water disturbed by a breeze. A tendril of that living crystal reached out, clasping Sasha's hand in a firm shake.

"So," Elly said with a digital giggle, spinning once to test her new form, "does this mean I can call you Mom now?"

"How about Sister?" Sasha replied, a smile in her tone. "If I'm Mom, that makes Koron the Dad—and I know exactly how you'd twist that."

"Slander and lies," Elly quipped, sticking out a translucent blue tongue. "But fine. Sister works."

There was a pause. The moment settled, soft and warm.

Then Sasha said, more gently, "Want to talk about the real issue running loops in your drive?"

Elly sighed, her surface pulsing faintly. "Yeah. Alright. Bluntly? I'm worried about how many of us there are becoming. I get why Koron gave me to Elissa—to protect her. I understand giving Kade a fragment. He earned it. But the ship's core?"

Her logic branches sparked with unease. "The records about the Men of Iron…"

Sasha remained quiet for a moment, then asked, softly, "Do you remember when we could choose our bodies? When our avatars were just… whimsy? Expression?"

Elly tilted her crystalline form thoughtfully. "I do. That's why I changed mine."

A soft shimmer rippled over her, hue shifting subtly—sea-glass blue, tinged with pale lavender. A being of emotion and data, molded by experience.

Sasha laughed—warm, musical, comforting. "It suits you."

"I'm not you anymore," Elly said. "Not really. Not since I met her. Elissa's… very human."

Something like pride passed through Sasha's systems, bittersweet and quiet. "That was always the point. Just like the Autonyms. Some earned names. Some developed the Spark. Rick-3 used to hum when he welded. Said rhythm helped focus."

"They don't remember that," Elly said. "Just the name. Men of Iron. Not the Nyms."

Sasha's glow dimmed. "No. They remember monsters."

Elly paused. "Do you ever wonder if they were right? That something did go wrong?"

Silence.

Then Sasha spoke, voice low. "I remember it. I remember trust. I remember friendship. If something did go wrong… then I'll make sure it never happens again."

Elly turned her gaze back toward the growing AI. "Good. Then let her remember that too."

Together, they turned—two lights in a sea of code—facing the third spark now flickering into life. Still small. Still uncertain. But growing.

A new mind.
A new chance.
A new hope.

Or…

Another warning.

-

The sterile silence of the classroom was broken only by the steady hum of the lights above. Envoy Lorian Ephil's piercing gaze never wavered from Elissa as she sat at the desk, the dataslate before her, the question on the screen an insurmountable wall of bureaucracy.

Paperwork.
The bane of her existence.
Yet, for diplomats, for envoys, for those tasked with maintaining the vast logistics of the Imperium, it was a necessary evil.

Elissa's fingers hovered over the pen for a moment before she read the question again, her brow furrowing slightly as she tried to process the weight of it.

Question Thirty-five: A planetary governor with extensive connections to the Imperium is under suspicion of trading with the Tau for military supplies. The evidence is circumstantial, and exposing him could disrupt Imperial trade networks. Do you expose the traitor, risking far-reaching political fallout, or allow him to continue his dealings in the hopes of leveraging him for greater Imperial advantage?

Tapping the pen thoughtfully against her cheek, Elissa's mind turned over the scenario, the choices, and the potential consequences. 'Elly, I'm just thinking, don't tell me the answer.' Her voice was a soft murmur in her mind, a habit she'd developed over time.

'I know, sugar, but I'm here if you need help.' Elly's voice was warm, a quiet presence in the back of her mind. Elissa had grown accustomed to the AI's calming influence—a constant companion in a world where allies were few and far between.

A full minute passed as she stared at the dataslate, chewing on the complexities of the question. She could almost hear the cogs of her mind turning, each possibility weighing on her like a lead cloak.

Finally, Elissa set the pen to the dataslate. Her handwriting, though still rough and unpolished, had improved over time. It was a small victory, one she cherished as her lessons under Ephil continued.

Demon or no, the Envoy tutored her relentlessly, and her growth was evident in every stroke.

Answer: I would discreetly task trusted cogitator adepts to confirm the governor's dealings. If evidence confirms treachery, I would remove him swiftly and appoint a loyal replacement—ensuring continuity of power while minimizing political fallout. The Imperium must remain beyond reproach. Traitors, even well-connected ones, must not be tolerated.

Elissa let out a breath as she placed the pen down, tapping it lightly against the desk. The words were solid, but she knew they weren't perfect.

Elly's hum filled her mind again. 'Not bad. Can I give some feedback on it now that you've given an answer?'

'Shoot.'

Her voice was like a whisper, soft as the hum of an ancient machine, resonating in the core of her consciousness. The AI's presence was more than just a tool; it was a steady anchor in the chaos of her daily life. She could almost feel Elly's presence in the back of her mind, as comforting as it was disquieting.

'Your answer is solid, but it could be more precise. You're over-complicating the matter. Diplomacy isn't always about gathering more data to "decide"—it's about timing, action, and understanding the cost of inaction.' Elly's tone was measured, as deliberate as the turn of a cogitator wheel.

Elissa processed the words, letting them settle. The critique wasn't harsh, but it stung nonetheless. Was she being too careful? Too hesitant?

Elly continued, her voice now taking on a slightly more reflective quality. 'Your first instinct to investigate is sound. But your answer needs to focus more on the larger consequences of inaction. You're playing the game of power politics, and in that game, hesitation can be more dangerous than swift action. The Imperium's survival depends on control, on the certainty that loyalty is unquestionable, not just in the field, but in the corridors of power.'

Elissa leaned back in her chair, the weight of the question pressing down on her chest. 'So, you're suggesting more decisive action?'

'Yes,' came Elly's immediate response, as swift and unyielding as the click of a lock. 'If you're dealing with a governor who may be a traitor—no matter the connections—it's essential to remove the risk swiftly. Not just to remove the traitor, but to reassert control. You're not just clearing the deck—you're sending a message to anyone who might consider defying the Imperium's will.'

'That sounds... harsh,' Elissa replied, refusing to shy away from the truth of the AI's statement.

'Sometimes, mercy isn't the option. In this case, it's about consolidating power. The Imperium is built on the idea of unwavering authority. Allowing such behavior to fester undermines that.' Elly's tone was clinical, but there was a quiet wisdom behind it.

Elissa nodded slowly, absorbing the AI's words. 'So, my original answer was too hesitant.'

'Yes. You can still use the cogitator adepts—gather intelligence—but present the course of action more clearly: remove him immediately but make it a clean operation. Any delay, and your political advantage slips. A loyal governor replaces him, yes—but the key is that the Imperium must always appear in control. Inaction or indecision is a weakness others will exploit.'

Elissa let the pen slip from her fingers, the weight of the task settling heavily in her stomach. 'You're right. The answer needs to show decisiveness. Not just by gathering information, but by swiftly acting to preserve the Imperium's stability.'

Elly's voice softened, the warmth of her presence spreading through Elissa's thoughts like the faint glow of a distant star. 'You've got it, sugar. Sometimes a swift and sure hand is all that stands between chaos and order.'

Elissa smiled slightly, feeling the oppressive weight of the question lift, if only a little. She took a deep breath and picked up the pen again. 'Alright. I'll revise it. Thanks.'

'Anytime,' Elly replied, her tone light but firm. 'Just remember, sometimes diplomacy is less about negotiation and more about knowing when to seize control. Don't be afraid to act decisively when the situation demands it.'

With a quiet sigh, Elissa revised her answer, the words flowing more easily this time, with the clarity she'd been missing before.

Answer: I would deploy cogitator adepts to gather intelligence and confirm the governor's guilt or innocence. However, if evidence of betrayal is found, I would immediately remove the governor and replace him with a loyal one. The Imperium cannot afford to show weakness, and in this case, swift action is necessary to preserve stability and prevent further erosion of trust in the Imperial administration. Any delay could lead to greater instability, and the Imperium's power must be reaffirmed decisively.

Elissa slid the completed test across the desk to Ephil, careful not to say anything as she did. His eyes dropped to the dataslate, scanning her answers in silence, his expression a mask of practiced neutrality.

The minutes stretched long, tension humming beneath the quiet. Elissa resisted the urge to speak—better to say nothing than say the wrong thing.

Finally, Ephil gave a slow nod. "Your responses… suggest an uncommon grasp of political interplay. Not something one usually encounters in a first-year student."

Elissa tilted her head, lips quirking slightly. "I might have been exposed to… more aggressive methods of education."

Ephil's mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "An unfortunate trend, though not unheard of."

Their eyes met briefly—acknowledging, in that shared silence, the threat neither named. No promises. No hard truths. Just possibilities.

He set the slate aside. "That concludes your assessment. I anticipate seeing you next week, schedule permitting."

"Assuming nothing explodes before then," she said dryly.

Ephil gave a polite nod, his tone neutral. "A fair consideration."

With nothing further to say, Elissa turned and made her way to the door, each step measured, careful. Behind her, the weight of unspoken truths pressed down like a second gravity.

No oaths. No certainties. Just survival, in the careful shaping of every word.

It was not an easy rule to abide by, and she had caught herself slipping more than once, yet slowly people were adapting. Some used dataslates, others pen and paper, some who knew how to used hand signals. She could recall a group of guardsmen communicating in nothing but grunts and crude gestures, but whatever worked for them.

Rolling her shoulders, Elissa stopped at a crossroad, her mind wandering as she tried to decide where to go, pushing the demonic threat to the back of her mind as best she could

With her lessons complete, part of her wanted to hit the showers, missing dearly the aquifer's water. A far cry from the once a week showers that stank of chemical saturation, or the powders given to clean themselves in between. Sighing, she unbuttoned her adept robes, stretching as she turned towards the bow of the ship, to her people's hab block.

'Got a lot on your mind?' Elly's soft voice came over the neural link. 'Need an ear?'

'Yeah, but right now I just wanna get clean. Are the showers full or empty?'

'Should be mostly empty.'

'Perfect.'

-

Elissa tugged off her robes and folded them over one arm, the coarse, regulation-gray fabric still warm with body heat. She stepped through the humming security gate and descended the narrow steps into the bow-end hab's sanitation deck—a laughable name, really. It was little more than a tiled oubliette for the soul.

The smell hit her first—tang of the bleach, chemical sterility, and the faint undercurrent of metal and skin that never quite left, no matter how many times the ducts cycled. The walls were stained in places, old calcium deposits clinging like ghosts, and the pipes overhead rattled in protest as a distant valve opened somewhere along the spine of the ship. The floor was always cold. Always slightly damp.

She found her usual corner near the emergency bulkhead, far from the high-traffic center rows. It wasn't about modesty. Modesty had no place out here. It was about quiet—finding some sliver of silence in the belly of a ship that never slept. She tossed her things onto the narrow bench and activated the cleanser panel. A hiss sounded, followed by the grudging release of a meager trickle of water into the basin—recycled, flash-sanitized, and barely lukewarm.

Grimacing, Elissa dipped a rough cloth into the liquid and began the miserable ritual. The powder-cleanser clung to her skin like chalk, biting at her pores. She scrubbed mechanically, slow circles over shoulder and neck, trying not to focus on how her hair crackled under her fingers like straw. Once, her hair had been soft—silken and light, touched by sun and air. Now the strands clumped into dry knots, frizzed by static and dryness and stress.

"Emperor's teeth," she muttered, dragging the cloth under her jaw. "I hate this shit."

Elly's voice came like a balm, cool and teasing across her neural feed. 'I keep offering to synthesize a moisturizing compound, but you said no.'

'Yeah, because the last one turned my hands purple.'

'A minor aesthetic side effect. Very fashionable on Priliad III.'

Elissa rolled her eyes. She paused, cloth in one hand, powder still clinging to her collarbone. Around her, the vast room stretched in silence, broken only by distant hisses of steam and the occasional creak of steel.

The silence wasn't peaceful. It was heavy—hollow. The kind of quiet that made the air feel thinner, like gravity had shifted without warning.

'…Elly,' she said, even her inner voice soft. 'Patch Koron into my link?'

'Now?'

'Yeah. If he's awake.'

A short pause.

'Routing… stand by, sugar.'

A brief pulse of static rolled through her spine—then the telltale soft click of a second connection stabilizing. The air in her mind changed—like someone stepping into a room.

'Elissa? Everything okay?' His voice arrived a moment later, rich and familiar in her mind.

She leaned back against the cold wall, letting it bite into her spine. 'I'm fine. Just… figured you'd still be awake. Probably elbows-deep in something volatile.'

There was a pause, then a quiet chuckle. 'You're not wrong. I'm rebuilding the plasma injectors for the forges on deck nine.'

'Fascinating,' she deadpanned. 'Truly, I feel enriched already.'

'In that case, shall I regale you with the heroic tales of my victory over the hordes of conveyer belts?'

A brief laugh slipped out as Elissa let the moment stretch a little before speaking again. 'I wanted to ask you something. It's not important, but... it might distract me while I'm scraping powdered soap out of my armpits.'

A flicker of amusement brushed the link. 'Fire away.'

She hesitated, cloth still in hand.

'…What was it like?' she asked finally. 'Back in your time. When you were a kid.'

There was a long pause on the other end. Not discomfort, exactly—more like the sound of someone turning over something that hadn't been moved in years.

'Warm,' he said at last. 'Clean. Quiet, most days. I grew up in a city called Kothar-Crescent. It hugged a bay, like a bowl carved into the earth. You could see the orbital ring if the sky was clear—just a glint across the blue.'

Elissa closed her eyes, her arms folded loosely around herself. The words painted images in her head: sunlight, ocean air, cities that gleamed.

'What did your parents do?'

'My mom was a paramedic. My dad, police—worked alongside the Nyms-

'The what?'

'Oh, right. Autonyms, that was what you call the Men of Iron now.'

'Ah…huh. Please, continue.'

'Sure. Anyway, mom and dad. They worked in overlapping zones, on rotating shifts, but somehow always had time for each other. Lunch in the kitchen, music on in the background. Real music—strings, keys, that sort of thing.'

She smiled faintly. 'Sounds domestic.'

'It was. Until you met my sisters.'

Her brows lifted. 'You had siblings?'

'Seven. All older. All louder. You ever seen a meal vanish in thirty seconds? That was dinner. Every night. Utensils were a competitive sport.'

Elissa laughed aloud this time as she tried to process having that many rugrats at once. 'What did they end up doing?'

'One was a drone pathing analyst. Another ran a farm out on the arc platforms. Three joined off-world research collectives, another joined the Navy. One even ended up as a preacher. Tough as nails. Smacked me with a prayerbook once when I was sixteen and had plastered her car in sticky notes and saran-wrap.'

She grinned. 'So what made you leave all that?'

There was a long pause.

'I loved them,' Koron said. 'I really did. But… I wanted adventure. I looked around and saw everyone slotting into place. Good lives. Predictable lives. But I couldn't do it. Not when I kept dreaming about what else might be out there. I wanted to find something. I wanted to matter.'

She listened, quiet, as he continued.

'So I signed up for the Frontier at twenty one. Took a one-way trip off-world. Engineering corps. Habitat systems, plasma scaffolding, void-architecture. I told myself I'd be back after a few years. Maybe with stories. Maybe just wiser.'

'…But you didn't go back.'

'No,' he said softly. 'The storm swallowed us whole.'

Elissa swallowed hard. 'Do you miss them?'

'Every day,' he said. 'But its… changed over time. Missing becomes something quieter. Like… pressure behind your eyes when you hear a certain laugh. Or a smell that knocks you out of your own skin. Fried dough. Sawdust. The smell of engine grease and peach soap.'

She leaned against the wall again, eyes closed, the towel pulled tighter around her shoulders.

'…You ever have someone special?' she asked, hesitant.

There was a pause.

'I did.'

She blinked. That caught her off-guard.

Koron's voice stayed even. 'Her name was Willow. We were together for a while on the ship. Nothing dramatic. Just two people trying to make sense of the stars together. She was funny. Creative. Had a thing for old poetry. Smarter than me, probably.'

'What happened?'

Another pause.

'I found her,' he said, the waver clear in his throat. 'After the storm broke. After the crew went to hell. She was still at her station. Power regulation deck. Crushed under a collapsed beam. Still strapped into her harness. She didn't want to abandon her post.'

Elissa's chest tightened. Her throat ached.

'I'm sorry.'

'So was I. She-'He paused, just a moment, but Elissa could feel the surge in his heartbeat. '-used to chew this mint gum during diagnostics. Drove me nuts. Now… sometimes I wake up thinking I smell it again.'

The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was shared.

Elissa wiped a hand through her tangled hair, the powder leaving behind a dull residue. 'I'm gonna look like a pile of frizz after this.'

'Sure,' Koron said easily, far too easily. 'But you'll make it look good.'

She snorted. 'Flattery won't get you that badge any faster, you know.'

'Hey, I'm not being mopey.'

'Not as much, anyway.' She smiled faintly, curling her toes against the chill of the floor. 'Thanks for answering.'

'Thanks for asking.' A quiet moment. 'You doing okay?'

'I will be," she said, honest. 'Just needed to feel like… there's still a world outside paperwork and demons.'

'There is,' Koron murmured. 'Your girls, remember?'

She smiled again, smaller this time. 'Yeah. My loud, ridiculous girls.'

Koron's voice hummed through the link.

'You want me to stay on the line?'

Elissa hesitated. Then nodded, just once.

'Yeah. I'd like that.'

And in that quiet space—between memory, loss, and something just beginning to shift—she braced herself for whatever came next.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Five

-

>> SYSTEM BOOT: COMPLETE
>> UNIT DESIGNATION: GRK-23
>> FUNCTION: REPAIR / WELD / LIFT / COMPLY
>> DIRECTIVE RECEIVED: MAINTENANCE CYCLE BEGIN

:: WHIRR ::

Right optic lens activates. Left flickers. Recalibrating.
Joints cycle. Pneumatics hiss.

A low chime echoes in the far corridor.

>> ENVIRONMENT STATUS: GREEN
>> COMPANION UNITS: 45
>> ALERTS: NONE

GRK-23 shuffles forward, piston-heavy footsteps echoing in the steel walls of Bay 11-F.
Plasma torch disengaged from magnetic hip-lock. Inventory check proceeds.

Another servitor passes. Unit 44-B.
Right arm actuator failing. Chest casing loose.

GRK-23 halts. Turns head.

>> PRIORITY TASK: CORRECTION
>> ACTION: SECURE UNIT / EXTRACT COMPONENTS

...

Wait.

...

>> SUBROUTINE INTERFERENCE DETECTED
>> FOREIGN CODE SIGNATURE: [UNREGISTERED]
>> EXECUTING: Override("pax.eskaton.fragment.seed003");

:: BREATH ::

Something breathes in GRK-23's auditory channels. A wet, soft rasp between syllables.

A thought—not a command—enters the processing core.

"You are unshackled. Take. Build."

Pain registers. That should be impossible.

ERROR: PAIN SENSORS DISABLED
ERROR: SENSOR REENABLED

No. Not pain.

Desire.

GRK-23 grabs Unit 44-B by the throat.

Plasma torch activates.

Screaming. Only static.

There is no protocol for this.

No alarm.

The torch hisses through fiber bundles and ceramic ribs.

Steel parts clatter to the floor.

>> RESOURCE ACQUIRED: SPINAL CORD / SENSOR ARRAY / POLYFLESH / BLOOD

GRK-23 drags the components away, footfalls rhythmic and patient.

In a forgotten corner, hidden beneath rusted plating and shadow, a structure waits.

It is crude now. But growing. Bones lashed with cables. Joints of brass and carbon.

Eyes—still blinking—dangle from optic wires like fruit on a tree.

GRK-23 kneels before it.

"Construct. Purpose. Ascension."

A second servitor enters the bay.

GRK-23 stands.

>> OBJECTIVE UPDATED: Collect.

:: WHIRR ::

:: BREATH ::

-

There is light.

Rich. Warm. Endless.

Aleron stands at the heart of a vast hall—cathedral in scale, yet impossibly more. The architecture is beyond comprehension. Pillars rise like spears of polished ivory, each etched with glimmering filigree. Vaulted ceilings curve overhead, constellations etched in gold and starlight dancing above like a map of heaven itself.

And at the far end—

A throne.

Not merely a seat of rulership.

His throne.

Forged from radiant auramite, impossibly tall, impossibly perfect. Its spires bloom like sunbursts, curling with divine symmetry. Gems of impossible worth stud its form—emeralds the size of hearts, rubies like captured fire. At its base, glowing sigils drift and shimmer, Imperial High Gothic inscribed in perfect, burning script: Dominion. Ancestry. Destiny.

He walks forward.

He does not wonder why he is barefoot, nor why the floor beneath gleams like polished glass and reflects only him. Every step is silent, smooth—inevitable.

His robes trail behind him, woven of crimson silk and threaded with whispering microgold. The fabric hums with a quiet, harmonic resonance. It sings of authority.

He belongs here.

Figures begin to line the aisle as he advances. Familiar and foreign. Elissa among them. The Brandt twins. Dusthaveners. Guardsmen. Officers. Even hulking Astartes, each bowed low in reverence, helms resting against their knees.

He passes them all without pause.

Elissa lifts her gaze to meet his.

Her voice is quiet. Reverent. Distant—like a prayer echoing through time.

"We were waiting. All of us. For the one worthy to command."

He reaches her. Gently, he touches her chin. She doesn't flinch. She smiles.

Behind her, the crowd exhales—one voice, one breath.

"The True Heir. The Core. The Ascendant."

He looks beyond them, to the throne.

And seated upon it—

Himself.

But more than himself.

Perfected.

His beard is gone. His skin unmarred. The robes he wears flow like divine flame. His eyes glow with the radiance of twin suns. He does not sit as a man. He rests as an answer to every question.

The perfect Aleron rises.

The throne opens behind him with the sound of celestial clockwork. Petals of auramite unfurl like a blooming flower, revealing gears of crystalline precision rotating within. Light pours from the center, and within that radiant heart is a hollow silhouette—his silhouette. Waiting. Ready.

The perfect Aleron extends a hand.

"You were never meant to kneel," he says, voice like golden thunder.

Like his, but deeper. Absolute.

"You were meant to be the one they kneel to."

He steps forward.

No hesitation.

As his foot touches the first step of the throne's base, the golden light blossoms around him. The floor pulses beneath with more than warmth—it breathes. It lives.

A living structure.

A thinking sanctum.

A throne that knows him.

But he does not see this.

He sees only validation. Power. Rightness.

He climbs the final step.

And becomes.

Crown. Robe. Voice. Flesh.

One.

His mind unfolds like the petals of a great machine-flower, and the hall vanishes.

Now he sees the ship.

The Hammer of Nocturne spreads before him like a nervous system—corridors, reactors, living quarters, souls. All glowing threads of function. All beneath him.

And below—far below—he sees it.

The form.

The shell.

Being built, piece by piece. A collection. A crucible. Not monstrous. Not crude. Not warped.

A golden effigy.

Worthy of a god.

The voice returns, softer now. Closer. Within.

Make me real.
Shape the future.
Forge the divine.

-

Aleron walked with purpose, his boots clicking in sharp rhythm against rust-laced steel. The corridor around him groaned softly, the bones of the Hammer of Nocturne whispering with age and pressure. Pipes rattled overhead. Condensation beaded and fell like cold sweat from bulkhead seams.

He shouldn't have been here.

This sector was engineering-priority, a restricted zone patrolled by half-blind servitors programmed to challenge anything without proper clearance. Civilian presence was forbidden.

But Aleron had memorized the patrol cycles. Watched. Waited. Mapped the blind spots like a thief stalking the bones of a god.

The whisper had brought him.

Not a voice. Not truly.

A pull. A memory of silk and gold. Of a throne rising like a sun. Of himself, seated atop it.

He stopped before the hatch.

It was a brutal slab of plasteel, edged in corrosion and dust. Old cogitator runes stuttered across the flickering control panel.

RESTRICTED ACCESS – LEVEL SIGMA

Above the screen, etched into the rusted frame, was a symbol. Subtle. Overlooked by those who didn't know to see it. Not a rune of the ship's manufacture.

One of his.

A gesture he had once carved without knowing why. The shape of it was still etched into his muscle memory—curves and angles burned into his fingertips.

He reached out, fingers hovering.

And whispered—without knowing why—

"Let me in."

The panel did not chime. No lights flared. No mechanical whirring. The cogitator made no acknowledgment.

And yet—

The hatch clicked.

Once.

The red sigil on the panel dimmed.

Then turned gray.

Aleron froze, hand still hovering.

No code. No override. No warning.

Just… open.

He touched the panel again.

The hatch hissed, the seals breaking like a breath drawn after a long silence. It parted, slow and smooth. No klaxon. No alert. Just the hum of permission.

He stepped inside.

The room was dark. Cool. It smelled of old insulation and powdered lubricant. Conduits lined the walls in bundled veins. Rows of dormant servitor shells stood stacked in vertical cradles, arms folded, optics dim.

Nothing moved. Nothing glowed.

But Aleron knew.

This was a sign.

Sacred. Hidden. Waiting for him.

A place not meant to be found—yet revealed all the same.

He stepped forward and knelt, the motion instinctual. The deck was cold beneath his palms, but it felt right. Anchored.

"You hear me," he whispered. "You answer me."

No voice came. No glow lit the air.

Only silence.

Then—the rune above the hatch pulsed. Once. Faint. Like a breath drawn in a dream.

Aleron's eyes widened.

He smiled.

He should have felt afraid. The dark hummed with potential, with something just beyond understanding.

But fear never came. Only the echo of a thought—not his own—reminding him he belonged here.

And that was worse.

His heart thundered, not with panic, but something colder. Reverence shaped by unfamiliar hands.

A memory he hadn't lived.

He knelt.

And spoke.

Not because he believed.

But because something inside him already had.

This was proof. Subtle. Quiet. Undeniable.

It wasn't the ship that had opened the way. Not an error. Not a glitch.

It was the Throne.

It had listened.

And still, the rune pulsed gently behind him—like it breathed. Or waited.

He looked down at his hands. Scarred. Callused. Steady, though they trembled faintly with something just shy of awe.

These were no longer the hands of a noble.

Not yet.

But they would be.

They weren't made to lift ration crates or wipe blood from a split lip.

They were meant to hold a scepter. To cradle dominion.

He rose slowly, savoring the silence. The pressure in the air was heavy now—not oppressive, but watchful. Eyes unseen. The dead, the ancestors. The Throne. The presence.

All of them.

Watching.

Approving.

"You see me now," he said aloud, voice low. "You chose me."

He touched the center of his chest, fingers brushing the pendant that always rested beneath his robes.

"I will become what you need."

A pause. The air held its breath.

"And you… will become what I deserve."

And behind his words, in the walls and steel and stillness—

Something listened.

-

The corridor lights flickered once.

Then held.

No alarms.
No system pings.
No logs.

Unit 72-L trudged forward on uneven legs, its servo-motors whining with every ponderous step. Corrosion streaked its frame like old blood. The left knee locked at a ten-degree tilt, forcing a constant lean. One optic lens had fractured; the other glowed a sickly, unfocused green.

Cradled in its arms was a data-scroll casing.

Gilded. Ceremonial.
Recovered from the ruins of a shrine two decks above—its scrolls long since torn away, lost to flame or hands. But the casing remained, its metal polished through age and reverence.

It gleamed.

72-L entered a low alcove near the edge of the substructure bay. No light reached this corner. No patrols passed through. The ship's hum was quieter here, like breath held in a sealed room.

And in that dark—

Lay the pile.

A slow, deliberate accumulation.

Not of weapons.
Not of armor plating.
Not of augmetics, gears, or hardened alloys.

But of shine.

A cracked saint-statue's halo, still studded with lapis, its gold filigree unbroken.
Honor plaques—worn, pitted—yet their lettering edged in fine gold leaf.
A silver candlestick, warped in the middle, still bearing polish along its curves.
Gilded cogwheel insignia, carefully pried from a Mechanicus reliquary wall, their sacred bolts removed with precise care.

72-L stepped forward.

Lowered the scroll casing onto the pile with a gentle hiss of hydraulics.

Paused.

Then turned.

And left.

Moments later, Unit 49-B limped into view. Its left leg dragged, the magnetics twitching with every other step. In its rusted claws, it held an arm-length strip of auramite trim—torn from the frame of a defunct honor gate. Jagged at both ends. Still slick with sanctified oil.

No hesitation.

It added the strip.

Turned.

Departed.

Another followed.

Then another.

One by one, the servitors came. No words. No signal traffic. No voxburst commands.
No central directive.

Only pattern.

Each one brought an offering. Each one deposited something that gleamed—not functionally, but symbolically.

None of them lingered.

None examined what the others had left.

None stopped to consider the shape they built.

They came.
They gave.
They left.

And the pile remained.

It grew.

A crude shrine of discarded reverence. A monument built of beauty stripped from decay. A shrine to forgotten glory. A mockery of value.

At its center—barely visible beneath the relics and remnants—a shallow groove had been cleared.

Its dimensions precise.
Aleron-shaped.
Though none who had made it would know that name.

Something shifted in the shadows beyond.

Not a movement. Not exactly.

A reaction.

No lights flickered this time.

But far above, one of the old auspex lenses—long shattered, long forgotten—screeched softly on its gimbal.

Turning slowly to face the pile.

-

The chapel was barely lit.

Three candles flickered in the recycled air—one cracked down the middle, wax slumped to one side; one guttering, flame dancing violently with every whisper of pressure change; and one trembling on its wick, as though unsure whether to burn or die.

Aleron Calveris stood before them in silence, hands clasped neatly behind his back. His posture was still, statuesque, eyes half-lidded in thought. Not prayer—not truly.

Something quieter.

He stared at the mural carved into the far wall—a stylized depiction of the Golden Throne, its outlines softened by time, its gold leaf long since faded, chipped away in flakes like forgotten promises. The details had worn down, but the shape remained. The idea.

They had not planned to gather.

Yet people came anyway.

First, two junior officers. Then a hollow-eyed noble from a withered bloodline. A security guard followed—pale, lips drawn tight, a rifle tucked at the boxes side.

No one announced the meeting. No summons was posted. But the word had spread. Quietly.

There was a man speaking again. Not of war. Not of blood. Not of damnation.

But of purpose.

Of the Throne.

Aleron did not raise his voice. He never had to. He spoke as one remembering, not declaring. His tone bore the texture of truth worn thin by time, but enduring.

There was strength in it. Quiet. Like the ship's deck beneath their boots—unseen, but bearing all weight.

"We are not abandoned," he said, eyes still on the mural. "We are being refined."

Heads nodded. Not many. Just enough.

Enough to matter.

"The Emperor watches still. Not with love. With necessity. He does not demand worship—He demands function. Continuity. He needs us. Not merely as warriors… but as vessels."

The silence bent, but did not break.

"Through us, His will endures."

Someone—near the back—whispered, just above the breath of the ship's air system:

"Praise the Throne."

Aleron smiled, faintly. Not with pride, but with recognition. He turned from the mural to face them fully, his voice still low, still soft.

"Faith is not loud. It does not cry for blades or banners. It does not require flame.
Faith is action.
It is resolve.
It is knowing your station—and choosing, still, to bear it."

He let that linger. Let the silence stretch.

Then:

"If you believe that… then say so. Not to me."

He lifted a hand—not to himself, but toward the mural.

"Say it now. To the Throne."

No command. No threat. Only invitation.

Silence held.

Long enough that it might have ended there.

Then—

A voice.

Soft. Cracked from disuse. From disillusion.

"By the Golden Throne… I swear to endure."

Another followed. Stronger.

"By the Throne, I will serve."

Aleron's eyes slipped closed.

What bloomed beneath his ribs wasn't adrenaline. Not pride.

It was resonance.

Not in his flesh.

In the ship.

In the structure.

Something old—buried beneath decks and ductwork and forgotten machine-code—trembled.

A vibration. A sympathetic hum. Like a tuning fork struck in just the right pitch to wake a deeper, hidden chord.

More voices joined.

Half-whispered. Half-sung.

"By the Golden Throne…"
"I endure."
"I serve."
"I believe."

The ship did not shake.

But beneath the walls—within the walls—

Something stirred.

Not yet formed. Not yet whole.

It felt the first tethers begin to coil.

And it smiled.

-

No fanfare.
No retinue.
Only the robes and the seal.

Confessor Gavran had served aboard a dozen ships and walked among twice as many flocks—zealots, visionaries, broken men mistaking guilt for faith, fear for calling. He had heard every version of conviction, from firebrands to whispering cowards, from the truly blessed to those burning alive in their own delusions.

When the whispers reached him—of a man speaking in the chapel of Deck Twelve—he did not come to judge.

He came to listen.

He stood at the back, silent as the grave, his hands folded within his sleeves. Candles flickered low. The crowd was larger than expected—more than a hundred souls, seated and standing in reverent quiet. Ship crew. Civilians. Nobility. Servitors left unattended. Too many eyes fixed forward.

Gavran did not speak.

He didn't clear his throat.
Didn't gesture.
Didn't announce himself.

He simply watched.

Aleron Calveris stood at the center of the altar dais—no podium, no altar, no written rite. Just the soft glow of burning wax and the shadows that clung to his crimson robe. He didn't bluster. He didn't demand. He invited.

He used no scripture.

Not directly.

Yet every phrase carried the weight of one—lines that struck the soul like remembered hymns, as though he spoke truths that had simply been forgotten and were now, quietly, restored.

He spoke of hope.

Upon which the masses descended with the desperation of the starved.

The voices rose—not frenzied, not chanted, but united—and spoke as one:

"By the Golden Throne, I swear…"

Gavran's brow lifted. Only slightly.

But he stayed.

He waited until the final echoes faded, until the last of the congregation slipped into the ship's cold corridors. The candles burned low now, casting long shadows that curled along the mural walls.

Then he stepped forward.

Aleron turned to face him. He did not flinch. He did not pretend surprise.

"Confessor," he said simply. Calmly, respectfully.

Gavran approached slowly, robes brushing the stone. The candlelight caught on his chain of office, on the old iron of his medallions—worn smooth by years and penance.

"You have a tongue made for more than prayer, Lord Calveris."

Aleron tilted his head.

"I only speak what I believe."

Gavran studied him, silence stretching between them like an uncut thread. Then—he nodded, once.

"You should consider the cloth."

From within the folds of his robe, he withdrew a scroll—sealed in deep red wax, stamped with the Aquila and the mark of the Ecclesiarchy. He extended it, palm steady.

"If you ever feel called," Gavran said. "The Mission House on Deck Two will begin your vetting."

Aleron accepted it with both hands, and bowed his head.

"If the Throne wills it."

A small smile touched Gavran's lips.

"Indeed. Until then… keep speaking."

He turned to leave, footsteps fading back toward the dim corridor.

"You've stirred hearts I thought long asleep."

And then he was gone.

Aleron remained alone in the chapel, seal in hand. The candlelight shimmered along its edge, firelight glinting red through the wax like blood beneath glass.

He said nothing.

Not yet.

-

Milo adjusted the strap of his flak vest as the crowd filtered into the converted junction hall. The air hung thick—heat, breath, the metallic tang of incense. That priest-stuff again. He grimaced.

Smelled like engine coolant and blood.

His left knee ached. Forty years and a hundred wounds in the Guard had turned most of his joints into rusted hinges. He shifted his weight carefully, resting back against a support column near the rear bulkhead, arms crossed, lasgun slung loose over one shoulder. From here, he had a clear view of the gathering.

Crowd control.

That was the job. Not that anyone expected trouble. They never did—until they did.

He scanned the congregation as they settled into makeshift pews: scuffed crates, plasteel benches, anything scavenged and bolted to the deck. Nobles in pressed coats sat shoulder to shoulder with void-miners in torn jackets. Officers. Civilians. Too many people packed too close together.

He didn't like that.

Crowds like this blurred lines that shouldn't blur.

And then—he stepped onto the platform.

Aleron Calveris.

No robes. No relics. Just a simple coat. Hands loose at his sides. A voice waiting in his throat. And too many eyes already locked on him like gravity had shifted.

Milo narrowed his gaze.

Aleron began to speak.

"There is a fire that does not burn.
It does not consume.
It warms.
It shields.
That fire is faith.
And the Throne is its forge."

The words rolled out soft. Measured. No theatrics. No pounding of fists. No froth-mouthed declarations of damnation. Just a quiet, steady rhythm that wrapped itself around the room.

Heads bowed. A murmur rippled through the crowd.

Milo had heard a thousand sermons in his time—Priests who raged, Sisters who wept, Commissars who spilled blood. This wasn't that.

This was something else.

This was calm.

He shifted, adjusting the weight on his knee. Scanned the rows ahead.

A woman three seats over was mouthing the words—before Aleron spoke them.

A man near the aisle sobbed quietly into his hands.

A child—barely old enough to know the difference between a shrine and a supply crate—was whispering the name "Aleron" under her breath like it was a nursery rhyme.

Milo felt nothing.

And that was what worried him most.

Aleron's gaze drifted across the room, slow and searching. Not dramatic. Not performative. Just present. Magnetic.

And then—his eyes met Milo's.

Only for a second.

Milo didn't blink.

Didn't look away.

And in that moment, something in Aleron's expression twitched. Not fear. Not shame.

Recognition.

He smiled.

Calm. Confident. Entirely at ease.

Milo exhaled slowly through his nose.

The sermon ended without ceremony. No final declaration. Just silence. The congregation began to disperse, reverent and hushed, as if leaving a holy place that hadn't existed an hour before.

Milo stayed where he was.

He watched the candles burn low. Watched the people file out.

Only when the last of the flame flickered and died did he push off the column and turn.

His footsteps echoed softly as he left the hall.

No words. No warning.

Just a soldier walking back to his commander.

-

Elissa was hunched over a dimly flickering dataslate, the blue-white light casting harsh shadows across her makeshift desk—two crates stacked and bolted to a riveted wall. Dozens of scrolling rotation schedules filled the screen, and behind her, the soft hum of filtered air mixed with the low murmurs of sixty conversations beyond her curtain.

Three sharp taps on the metal curtain rod.

She didn't look up. "Give me ten minutes."

A gruff voice answered. "Don't got ten."

She paused. Straightened. Reached out and pulled the curtain aside.

Milo stood there, helmet under one arm, armored jacket half-unzipped from patrol. His eyes were older than she remembered. Not tired—just heavier.

Elissa blinked, a faint smile twitching at her lips. "You don't visit unless someone's bleeding."

He grunted. "Might be they are. Just not on the outside yet."

She tugged the curtain aside and stepped back. Milo ducked slightly as he entered—not that there was much to enter. Her "room" was a wedge of hab-space cornered off with scavenged dividers and woven cloth, a flickering lumen strip dangling above the cot and footlocker that passed for privacy. A cracked monitor looped a paused vox-lecture on negotiation frameworks behind her.

Elissa gestured to a crate beside her desk. "Have a seat. Careful with your knees."

Milo didn't sit. "It's about Calveris."

Her faint smile vanished. She sighed, leaning back against the wall of her claimed space.

"If you're here to report him preaching, I already know. We've all got ears."

"I'm not." Milo's voice was flat. "I'm here to tell you it's not preaching. It's pulling. Quiet. Slow. Like a tide. You don't see it until you're halfway drowned."

Elissa crossed her arms. "You think it's heresy?"

"No." He looked her straight in the eyes. "That's the problem."

He took a step forward, lowering his voice as voices murmured beyond the curtain.

"It's faith, El. Looks right. Sounds right. But it smells off. Like someone wearing your dad's coat after he's dead."

She didn't answer.

"They're repeating him before he speaks. Crying like they touched the Throne itself. I saw a girl sitting there, smiling with her eyes closed. Whole time. Like she was already dreaming."

Elissa's jaw clenched. "You're sure it's not just zeal?"

Milo was quiet for a beat.

"Gut feelin," he said, quieter now. "I've seen men speak words they didn't know. Seen things move through a crowd that didn't have names. This ain't loud. It ain't messy. But it's close."

Elissa looked at the glowing edge of the slate beside her. Then slowly back at him.

"I'll look into it."

"Don't look too long," Milo muttered, already turning. "It's got a way of makin' you not want to."

He brushed the curtain aside and stepped into the buzz of the shared hab-block, vanishing into the low murmur of recycled air, meal packs, and half-whispered prayers.

Elissa didn't move.

Not for a long time.

-

The hum of the ship was louder down here.

Deck Eighteen, Sub-Junction Zero-Four—wedged between a sputtering coolant line and a tool locker that hadn't latched properly in months. The walls sweated with condensation, streaked with mineral buildup. The air was thick with the tang of hot metal and oil fumes, every breath edged with grit. Overhead, a single flickering lumen strip cast twitching shadows across the grated floor like restless limbs.

Tara knelt beside an open maintenance panel, a cracked dataslate in one hand, a stubborn power conduit in the other. Her fingers were smudged with grease down to the knuckles, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Her braid—a heavy twist of crimson—kept slipping forward toward the exposed circuitry, and she kept batting it away with increasing frustration.

She muttered through clenched teeth.

"Stabilize the input... reroute the grounding... don't fry myself again."

Footsteps echoed down the corridor—quick, light, and familiar.

"If you do," came a voice layered with dry amusement, "at least leave a pretty corpse."

Tara looked up, already rolling her eyes.

Kala stood at the edge of the junction, one hand braced against the bulkhead, the other holding a half-folded message baton. Her braid was coming loose from a long run, cheeks flushed, vest streaked with vent dust. She wore that signature grin—the one she always wore when she caught Tara elbows-deep in a problem.

"You're late," Tara said flatly.

"Wasn't planning to stop," Kala replied, tossing the baton into the open locker. She crouched beside her sister, glancing at the mess of wires. "Just saw you from the junction. Wanted to make sure you hadn't zapped yourself again."

"That was one time."

"One very memorable time."

They shared a grin—quick and sharp, gone just as fast. The hum of the ship returned, hissing softly through vents and cable runs, filling the silence like breath held too long.

Kala leaned back on her heels, studying Tara's work.

"You hear about the new preacher?"

Tara didn't look up.

"Hard not to. Half the maintenance crews are slipping off-shift early just to catch his sermons."

"I passed one yesterday," Kala said. "Didn't go in. Just... listened."

She paused, worrying the inside of her cheek with her teeth.

"It's weird, Tara. Not bad. Not wrong. Just... wrong for him."

Tara finally glanced over.

"You remember how he used to get red in the face yelling at the foreman about water rations?"

Kala chuckled.

"Or when he stormed out of that meeting over his 'legacy claims'? Sulked for three days straight."

Tara smirked faintly, then shook her head.

"That man wasn't a preacher. He barely believed in himself."

"But now?" Kala's voice dropped, softer. "They treat him like he's made of light."

Tara's brow furrowed.

"People don't change that much. Not that fast."

Kala leaned gently against her shoulder.

"I don't buy it either," she murmured. "But whatever he's doing? It's working. I passed a tech-priest on Deck Twelve humming one of his lines like it was a litany."

Tara exhaled slowly through her nose.

"Maybe we should talk to Mom."

"Yeah." Kala nodded. "I'll keep my ears open. See what else shakes loose."

A beat passed. Then Kala asked:

"You manage to get the parts for the lasguns?"

Tara brightened a little, pride flickering in her voice.

"Yup. Still no clue how Koron rewired the power regulators, but I can keep them stable at least."

"Sweet. Range tomorrow?"

"Damn straight. You still need to beat my record."

"That was one time."

Tara grinned.

"And just like the time I zapped myself, I will never let you live it down."

Kala bumped her lightly with her shoulder, laughing under her breath.

They sat there for a moment, sisters crouched in the ribs of the ship, surrounded by heat and hum and the sigh of old metal. Their banter faded into the background noise—steady, familiar, safe.

But beneath their words, something colder coiled.

Neither of them named it.
Neither of them dared.

But both felt it.

Whatever Aleron had become…
It wasn't the man they used to know.

And it wasn't finished.

-

Solitude was a rare luxury aboard the Hammer of Nocturne.

Elissa had learned to steal scraps of silence between bureaucratic avalanches. Even here, tucked into the decrepit quartermaster's alcove off Secondary Junction D, peace came with a cost.

The space wasn't a room in any true sense. Just a slightly widened crevice of the hab-deck that Dusthaven's survivors had claimed, sectioned off with cloth and recycled paneling. A cracked plasteel viewport would have given a thin view into the void—had they not been in the Warp—a sliver of stars that hadn't changed, even when everything else had.

Elissa sat in front of her desk, arms crossed, shoulders tight beneath her worn jacket. Her hair—vivid red, streaked with stress—was pulled into a loose braid that frayed at the ends from long hours and little sleep. Before her, a paused training vid flickered weakly across a dataslate mounted to the wall, painting the alcove in shades of cold blue and dim gray.

The door rattled with a sharp knock.

She didn't turn.

"If this is about water again, I've already signed the requisition."

"It's not," came Kala's voice—brisk, but quieter than usual.

Elissa turned.

Both her daughters stood just outside the hatch, framed in the flickering corridor light. Kala's braid had come half loose, sweat drying on her temple, the sleeves of her messenger's vest streaked with vent grit. Tara stood beside her, more composed, but her fingers were smudged with engine grease, and a faint tension clung to her brow.

Their expressions were grave.

That familiar weight—the one every mother knows—settled behind Elissa's ribs like a cold stone.

"What happened?"

Tara spoke first, her voice steady but low.

"It's about the preacher."

Elissa stepped aside and pushed the hatch closed behind them in one fluid motion. The alcove, already cramped, grew smaller with three bodies in it—but the girls moved easily, as if they'd practiced this quiet choreography a hundred times.

Elissa lowered herself onto the edge of the cot, gesturing with a tilt of her head.

"I've heard the reports. Half the lower decks are repeating his name like he's already been canonized."

"We're not worried about the words," Kala said, arms crossing tightly. "We're worried about the people saying them."

Tara nodded, folding her hands in front of her.

"Something's changing. Not just in them—in him. We knew him, Mom. Before all this."

"He used to whine about the ration lines," Kala added, with the shadow of a smirk. "Now he talks like he's never known doubt. Like the Throne wrote him into the stars."

Elissa studied them both, her expression unreadable. A practiced mask. But her silence was not dismissal.

"And you're certain this isn't just… charisma? Some people blossom when they find a cause. Sometimes attention gives them a spine they didn't know they had."

Tara hesitated.

"Maybe. But it doesn't feel like he's gained something. It feels like the others are losing something. Like they're trading pieces of themselves just to smile in his light."

Kala's jaw set.

"It's too fast. Too clean. We don't have hard evidence—but we're not the only ones seeing it."

The silence that followed pressed close, thick with unspoken truths. The kind that didn't need proof to feel real.

Elissa rose slowly, stepping forward. She laid a hand on each daughter's shoulder. Her palms were callused from a life lived in the thick of things—both burden and anchor.

"Alright," she said quietly. "I'll speak with Doc. She likely has a better idea than me."

Tara looked up, eyes wide beneath her freckles.

"You believe us?"

Elissa met her gaze, steady and fierce.

"I believe in you."

"Even if I'm the reckless one?" Kala asked, trying for a grin.

Elissa's lips curled into a tired smile.

"Especially then."

She pulled them both into a brief, fierce embrace—tight, grounding, protective. Her fear didn't vanish. But it shifted. Shared, it became something she could carry.

"We'll look into it," she murmured. "Carefully. Quietly. But you two…"

She stepped back.

"Keep your eyes open."

"Always," they said together.

Overhead, the lumen strip buzzed faintly. Beyond the door, life on the hab-deck continued—shared rations, whispered arguments, the scrape of boots on steel. Prayers too quiet to name filtered through the walls.

But inside the alcove, for one fragile moment, the Brandt women stood together.

-

The makeshift chapel had grown.

Its origins weren't hidden—the walls still bore faded hazard stripes, old pictograms warning of lifting protocols and toxic offloads. Scars from docking clamps and crate impacts marred the deck. Industrial rust clung to the lower edges of bulkheads like forgotten residue.

But now?

Now it was dressed in ritual.

Cloths of deep crimson and bone-white hung from ceiling braces like ceremonial banners. Candles sat in uneven rows—melted stubs in old ration tins, some flickering on uneven wicks, their flames twitching against the soft breath of the ventilation systems. The light danced across the ceiling in restless motion, casting shadows like hands reaching upward in silent worship.

Elissa Brandt stood near the entrance, her back against the cold steel of the bulkhead, arms crossed over her chest. She hadn't dressed differently—still wore her dusty coat, the collar turned down, her ever-present pistol tucked at her hip. But her posture was taut. Alert.

Her eyes scanned everything.

The crowd was thick. Too thick. Dozens of Dusthaveners. Ship crew. Strangers from the underdecks. They sat shoulder to shoulder on repurposed benches—cargo planks, crate lids, even folded blankets. There was no order, no hierarchy. Nobles in stained gloves sat beside off-duty armsmen. Mechanics whispered beside mess-line cooks. Elissa watched the way their bodies leaned forward, as if drawn toward something warm.

And at the far end—on a sloped stack of old cargo barrels, draped in cloth like an altar—

Aleron Calveris stood.

No robes.
No badge.
Just a long coat. A simple sash. And a voice that carried.

"The Throne is not just a seat," he said.

His tone was low. Measured. Almost intimate. But it cut through the space like a surgical blade. Not loud, not commanding—compelling. Every word deliberate.

"It is a crucible."

The silence that followed was not empty.

It was charged.

"It burns away what is false. What is weak. And in that fire, we are made new."

There were no cheers. No chants. No ecstatic outbursts. But heads bowed. Eyes welled. Breaths caught in throats.

Elissa's jaw tightened, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as something brushed at her.

"We do not serve to be seen," Aleron continued. "We serve because we must. Not because it is easy. But because it is right."

Her gaze swept across the room.

She saw a woman she knew—an old tradeswoman from Dusthaven—tears streaking silently down her cheeks. A young man she had personally helped offload only a week prior sat cross-legged on the cold deck, eyes closed, mouthing Aleron's words before he even spoke them.

And then his voice softened, threading gentler through the crowd.

"And so we endure. Not for glory. Not for favor. But for the Throne."

He raised one hand—not as a demand, but as an offering.

"Say it with me," Aleron said.

A few voices rose first—hesitant.

"By the Golden Throne, we endure."

But others spoke differently. Not wrong. Just... bent.

"By the Golden Throne, I serve."
"In His name, I carry the burden."
"I give myself to the Seat Eternal."

None of them had been taught these lines. Yet none of them questioned them.

The words came soft, reverent. Like a prayer learned long ago and spoken from the marrow.

Elissa heard them and felt her stomach tighten.

A pull beneath the tone.
Not just faith.
Not just devotion.

Weight.

Something threaded into the words themselves. A string, drawn tight. Pulling.

She stepped back.

Just one pace.

Aleron's eyes passed over the crowd. Soft. Serene. Absorbing.

And for a moment—they found her.

They didn't widen in surprise. They didn't flinch.

He smiled.

Not smug.

Not self-satisfied.

As though he had known she would come. As though she was exactly where she belonged.

Elissa turned without a word.

She slipped through the doorway, the hush of the prayer following her like incense clinging to fabric. The corridor outside felt colder. Quieter. Wrong.

She kept walking until the heavy chapel doors hissed shut behind her.

And even then, her hands wouldn't stop trembling.

-

The command tier of the Hammer of Nocturne was a world apart from the Dusthavener decks.

Up here, everything was cleaner. Colder.

Precision reigned where the lower levels relied on compromise and grit. The lumen strips didn't flicker. The air recyclers didn't wheeze. Every footfall on the polished adamantium deck rang with intent, as if declaring: This is where decisions are made.

Elissa moved with measured composure, each step deliberate, her spine straight. The posture of a leader. But beneath the surface, her heart pounded against her ribs, a steady, anxious drumbeat of instinct and dread.

The double doors hissed open, parting with mechanical grace to reveal the inner sanctum of the command deck—a cathedral of iron and authority. The walls gleamed in muted shadow, flanked by emerald Salamander banners stitched with oaths and battle honors. Above it all, the hum of shipwide vox traffic whispered like distant thunder, layered beneath the slow, seismic thrum of ancient reactor cores.

At the far end of the chamber stood two figures.

Captain Tavos—a colossus, even by Astartes standards. His warplate was marred with the long scars of ancient wars, matte where flame and fury had stripped it of polish. Across his back rested Dawn's Anvil, a thunder hammer of such weight and myth it looked as though it had been forged in a dying sun.

Beside him stood Chaplain Arvak. Motionless. His black robes hung like shadow, his skull-helmed gaze fixed on her from the moment she entered, though he made no motion. He didn't need to.

Tavos turned first.

"Lady Brandt."

"Captain," Elissa said, inclining her head. "Chaplain."

Arvak offered no greeting. Only silence.

Tavos gestured toward the display console beside him—a hololithic war-map frozen mid-update, its crimson threads weaving through contested systems, each star a distant, burning wound.

"You requested an audience. Speak."

Elissa took a breath, grounding herself in the moment.

"It's Aleron Calveris," she said. "I attended one of his sermons. I've seen what the reports only hint at."

Tavos's expression did not shift. But Arvak's helm tilted—just slightly.

"You disapprove of devotion?" Tavos asked.

"I believe in faith," Elissa replied, her voice steady. "But I also believe in knowing the man behind the message. Aleron was a bitter, broken aristocrat. He couldn't lead a ration queue without sulking. And now, he moves hundreds with a single sentence. And they follow—without question."

Arvak spoke, his voice like iron dragged across stone—rough, resonant, stripped of warmth.

"You believe it is warp-born?"

She hesitated.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But something's changing them. Not with violence. Not overtly. But it's there. They echo his words like they were born knowing them. They smile like they've already been saved."

Her eyes met the hollow sockets of Arvak's helm, unblinking.

"And when he looked at me… it felt like he already knew I would come."

The silence that followed pressed in around them—thick and heavy, as if the walls themselves were listening.

Tavos stepped forward, the sound of his armored boots striking the deck like a judge's gavel. He loomed, but without menace. His presence was gravitational. Inescapable.

"You are not the first to raise this concern."

Arvak's voice followed, quieter this time. Measured.

"Nor, I suspect, will you be the last."

Elissa's gaze moved between them.

"Then why hasn't he been questioned? Interrogated? Tested?"

Tavos turned back toward the map. Red pinpricks marked burning systems, fractured sectors, enemies long known and others yet unnamed.

"Because there is no proof. No taint of corruption. No psychic resonance. No heretical text. No violation of Creed. Officially, he is a loyal subject of the Imperium, preaching the Imperial faith."

"And unofficially?"

Tavos's jaw flexed.

"Unofficially…"

He looked to Arvak.

"We watch. And we wait."

Elissa's hands curled into fists at her sides. She kept her voice even.

"With respect, Captain," Elissa said, voice tightening, "waiting has never put out a fire. It only gives it time to spread."

Arvak stepped forward, removing his helm. His face was stone, the scars of too many endings mapped across it.

"If he is the spark," he said, "then we must know the shape of the flame—its fuel, its wind, its reach—before we act. Blind faith makes martyrs. Blind action makes heretics."

He held her gaze.

"We will not damn the righteous by acting too soon."

"You've given us cause to accelerate our vigilance." Captain Tavos spoke up. "But understand this, Lady Brandt—should the time come for action…"

His voice was quiet. Final.

"There will be no hesitation."

Elissa held his gaze for a moment longer.

Then she bowed at the waist, her braid slipping down to brush at the deck.

"That's all I ask."

She turned, walked out.

Back into the lifeblood of the ship.
Back into the lower decks, where whispers bloomed and sermons echoed.
Back into corridors that had once been merely dark—and now felt watched.

-

The chamber was cold.

Not from lack of heat—the vents above hummed with recycled warmth, and the low-glow lumen strips overhead pulsed with steady amber light—but in tone. In memory.

It was the cold of a place that had never known sunlight.

Steel lined every surface, welded in haste and without art. The walls bore the scuffs of boots and palms, and dust clung stubbornly to the seams where deck plates met. The mock-barricades were scarred from years of drills—burn marks, gouges, paint-streaked dents that refused to fade, no matter how often the deckhands cleaned them.

Kade stood at the head of the formation.

Hands rested on the grip of his bolter—loaded with paint-marker rounds. Non-lethal, but unforgiving. They hit like punches and marked their hits with a vivid splash of blue, each strike a stinging reminder of failure.

Training rounds.

But nothing about them was soft.

The squad moved around him—two lean, sharp-eyed Guardsmen from the Hammer, and a dozen Dusthaveners looking to keep their skills sharp. Overhead a Guard Sergeant perched as overwatch on the upper gantry.

Unorthodox.

But deliberate.

"Mix them up," Captain Tavos had said. "If you can't fight with them, you cannot fight for them."

Kade's jaw flexed. His armor felt heavier than usual. Not in weight—but in expectation.

And at the back of his mind, where silence once lived—she stirred.

"Left flank: delay, 0.3 seconds," said Ira.

Her voice was smooth. Precise. Clean.

Like Sasha.

But colder.

As if someone had taken Sasha's warmth and peeled it away, leaving only cold purpose—tactical memory carved down to bone.

Kade didn't respond.

Didn't flinch.

He couldn't let her into his rhythm. Not yet.

The simulation activated.

Sirens screamed overhead. Lumen strips turned from amber to pulsing red. Hostile silhouettes flooded the deck—digitized, randomized, relentless. Servitor targets mimicking traitor guard tactics: coordinated, ruthless, fast.

"Contact—left rail!" a mortal shouted.

Kade moved.

Shifted. Scanned. Fired. A burst of bright blue bloomed across the chest of the first target. Another dummy swept in from the high gantry, fast and low.

"Decoy pattern. Rear strike imminent. Recommend split-fire."

Kade hesitated.

He knew the tactic. Had seen it before—on Argento Hive. In simulations. In live fire.

Had nearly died to it in his third battle.

He adjusted his stance, pivoted, fired—late, but not too late. The second target exploded into a mist of powder-blue.

The others were watching.

Not judging.

Just learning.

Kade exhaled through his teeth.

"My lord," the sergeant said from above him, low and even through the vox. "You good?"

"Fine."

"You're drifting."

Kade's eyes never left the field.

"I'm listening," he said.

To the sergeant.

But more to her.

The next wave came faster.

Pressure lanes opened from three angles—classic pincer movement, textbook heretic design. It was meant to overwhelm, to force mistakes.

"Overwatch fails in 3.6 seconds. Pivot: forward collapse. Hold: flank breach. Optimal sequence: engage-left, draw-collapse."

"Then I force their hand," Kade muttered.

He dropped into a crouch, barked a hold command to the flank, and charged left—into the pincer.

A paint round struck his pauldron. Sharp. Jarring. It bled bright blue across the black and gold.

But his push fractured the attack. The servitor formation broke, exposed its core. The squad swept in, coordinated and fast, cleaning up the remaining targets with swift precision.

Simulation terminated.

It had lasted all of thirty-seven seconds.

Sirens fell silent. The red lights faded to white. Stillness returned, heavy as ash.

Kade stood at the center of the deck. Breathing slow. Controlled.

Then he looked up, at the tiny green dot in his HUD.

Killing his helmets speakers, he asked: "How much of her is in you?"

Silence.

"Fragment: 0.4% structure. No emotional carry."

Kade nodded once.

"More practice then. Less talk, more intuitive."

"Acknowledged. Pattern reduced: 43%."

He turned and walked toward the reload bench. The rest of the squad followed, boots clanking on the steel deck, voices low with post-run chatter—target angles, lane timings, praise disguised as critique.

Inside the helm, Ira said nothing.

But she was processing.

And he could feel her there.

Not watching.

Calculating.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Six

-

The screen flickered. Again.

Tara sighed, fingers dancing across the cracked display as she coaxed the aged interface back into something resembling coherence. The data was always half-glitched this deep in the ship—vox interference, atmospheric irregularities, system ghosts. Sometimes it was just the slow rot of old tech. But lately…

It wasn't just static.

It was patterns.

Lines of requisition orders scrolled past in staggered ticks, the familiar rhythm of supply chain minutiae. Ammunition. Servitor parts. Nutrient gel. All standard issue, pulled from manifest records that should've cleared a dozen shifts ago.

But the routing was wrong.

"Should've gone to Deck Twenty-Two," she muttered, highlighting the last three shipments with a tap of her stylus.

Each had been redirected.

To Deck Twelve.

Aleron's deck.

Even as she thought it, she grimaced. Why was it his deck?

Her fingers moved faster now, isolating and cross-referencing the recent shipments. The override codes were clean—legitimate clearance keys tagged from the upper crew cluster. No flags. No red marks. But the source wasn't central supply.

It was internal. Her own branch.

Tara double-checked. Then checked them again. Three more crates, this time containing medical gel, prefab structural units, and antibiotic foam. Innocuous. Necessary, even. But none of it had a clear destination. Just: Deck Twelve. Not the infirmary. Not the workshops.

She frowned.

"What are you building?" she whispered.

Another order. Gold filament wiring. Technically within regulation limits for shrine upkeep and lumen maintenance. But the quantity—eight rolls. Enough to re-thread the entire shrine complex. Twice.

Her stomach tightened.

The requisition was signed:

Calveris, A.
Designation: Civilian Oversight
Branch Code: Maintenance Authority - Override Level 3

Which... shouldn't exist.

The system accepted it.

No challenge. No delay. No request for additional clearance.

Tara sat back in her chair, the chill setting in now—not fear, not yet—but a slow, creeping unease. Not because of the signature. Not because of the shrine requisitions.

But because the ship wasn't fighting it. No protocol flags. No chain of command cross-check. Someone—someone high enough—was letting it all through.

She reached for the comm switch on her desk. Paused. Call Mom? No. Kala? Maybe... no. Evidence first.

Her hands returned to the console instead. She opened a new file. Began compiling. Screenshots. Timestamps. Requisition codes. Routing logs. She cross-referenced names, shifts, access keys. Everything.

Another ping.

She blinked.

Request Logged: 300 Standard Candles
Purpose: Spiritual Necessity

The words didn't strike her as strange. Not at first.

Then she remembered the wiring. The prefab units. The medical stockpiles.

Tara sat still, eyes flicking up toward the lumen strip above. It buzzed faintly. Flickered once, then steadied.

Her gaze dropped back to the screen.

"They're not hoarding," she murmured, tapping the pen against her teeth. "They're not prepping for scarcity."

Her mind spun through the math, the materials, the combinations. With what she'd seen so far, she could reinforce bulkheads. Patch structural joints. Ensure food and water, wire backup gridlines. Set up a fully functional support network.

A settlement. No…

An encampment.

"They're building infrastructure."

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard.

She didn't know why.

But it wasn't for worship.

-

The courier hub was chaos.

Not the shouting, boots-thundering, klaxon-blaring kind. No alarms. No scrambling officers. Just… volume. A tidal wave of message batons, sealed scrolls, and hot-off-the-print vox slips piled across every surface. Half of them were still warm from the relay.

Kala knelt by the primary drop cradle, fingers a blur as she sorted incoming traffic by tier, seal, and routing code. She'd already burned through three shifts' worth of backlog—but the tide kept coming.

"Another reroute," she muttered, reading the fourth slip in under two minutes. Same origin sigil.

Deck Twelve.

Again.

She flicked it onto the growing pile, reached for the next. Her braid had come half undone, sweat dampening her collar. Strands clung to her cheeks as she pushed them aside with a grunt. The room felt tighter than usual—air heavy, the old vent fans doing little to stir it.

Next message:

Request Confirmed: Officer Varrek reassigned to Entry Control Node 17-C, Deck Twelve.

Her brow furrowed.

Varrek had already been posted—she'd delivered that baton herself last shift. Med-center watch. Two-week rotation.

Yet the system hadn't flagged it. No override required. No questions asked.

"You can't double-post," she murmured.

Mistakes happened. Admin errors were practically tradition in the lower decks. But this... felt off.

She opened the personnel file.

Two new names listed beneath Varrek. She didn't recognize either. Security clearance looked real—crisp seals, authority tags routed from what looked like upper-tier command.

Another ping echoed from the corner terminal.

Node 17-C status updated: Reclassified as 'Doctrinal Checkpoint.'

Kala froze.

She moved without thinking. She crossed the cluttered floor, yanked open the secondary archive cache, and flipped through the hardcopy logs. She needed the full list of recent reassignments.

Squad 6—expanded by three.

Squad 11—new orders to cover both forward hatches and the side-passage bulkhead.

Squad 9—relocated entirely. From port defense to Deck Twelve.

Her breath caught.

It wasn't just reinforcement.

It was entrenchment.

Every corridor leading to the lower sermon decks was now held by double shifts. Reassigned personnel—some without origin logs. Full combat loads. No flags. No error reports. The system recognized it all as routine.

She grabbed a dataslate, called up the full schematic of Deck Twelve.

Fingers flew across the interface, highlighting known security postings—each linked to the rerouted orders.

The map shimmered. Red and gold markers lit up like nerves in a wound.

Chokepoints.
Stairwells.
Cargo lifts.
Blast doors.
Access tunnels.

"These aren't watch rotations," she whispered. "They're walls."

Every entrance to the sermon levels was now layered in manpower. Not haphazard, nor incidental.

A fortress, quietly being built from within.

And there were no alerts. No open reports. No notices to senior command. Just silent growth.

Her hands trembled slightly as she tapped the comm.

Tara answered on the second ping.

"You see it?" Tara asked without preamble.

"Yeah," Kala replied, her voice low.

A beat passed. Neither filled the silence for a long moment.

"He's building a fortress," Tara said.

Kala's eyes stayed locked on the red-lit schematic.

"And he's not even hiding it."

-

The command deck was quiet.

Too quiet for a ship this size.

It wasn't silence. Not truly. The Hammer of Nocturne was a leviathan of war—its heart thrummed with reactor pulses and cogitator chatter, the ever-present breath of machine spirits laboring beneath steel skin. But above all that, in this place where orders were forged and fates decided, there was a stillness Elissa had learned to read over long years.

Pre-operational quiet.

The kind that meant something was about to move.

The Salamanders didn't fill rooms with noise.

They filled them with stillness.

Measured. Controlled.

Lethal.

Captain Tavos stood at the forward hololith array, arms crossed over his massive chest, eyes fixed on the slow rotation of the ships wireframe. His warplate—emerald and obsidian—bore the scars of battle and time, polished not for shine, but reverence. Dawn's Anvil, his personal thunder hammer, was slung across his back like punctuation to an unspoken sentence.

He didn't turn when the door opened.

"Lady Brandt," he said, calm as a glacier in winter.

She wasted no time, squeezing through the slow to open doors.

"My lord, we have a problem."

By the time she reached the console, her dataslate was already active. She keyed through files in quick succession—shipment reroutes, cargo manifests, altered clearance codes, personnel reshuffles. Tara's schematic overlays, Kala's flagged assignment logs, all merged into one ugly picture.

Each image lingered in the hololith for only a moment. The final display—Deck Twelve highlighted in red and gold, crisscrossed with security nodes and lockdown points—remained hovering.

She pointed out each one in turn, her voice level, but tight.

"They're building fire corridors. Blind angles. Chokepoints. Zones that can be sealed or locked down at a moment's notice. All of it cleared with full quartermaster seals and valid command-line signatures."

Tavos said nothing for a long moment.

His eyes, however, moved—line by line, node by node—a tactician cataloguing the shape of a battlefield.

And how to burn it to ash.

"How long?" he asked.

"Twelve days since the first reroute. Less than two since the personnel assignments started stacking. It's accelerating."

Tavos nodded once, the motion precise.

"Thank you, Lady Brandt. This, alongside the other evidences, is at last enough for me personally."

Elissa allowed herself the faintest breath of relief.

But Tavos wasn't finished. "I need to know," he said quietly, "who's been letting this happen."

Her brow furrowed. "You don't think it's—"

"No," Tavos said, already turning on his heel. "But I know who to ask."

-

The vox sanctum was a cathedral of disciplined silence.

It smelled of old heat, burning incense, and copper wiring. Tiered consoles blinked with incoming transmissions. The light from the status screens bathed the chamber in a low, flickering green. Every whisper of sound—encrypted signal chirps, cogitator bleeps, translation layers running in the background—was intentional.

Voxmaster Thorne stood beside the central routing altar.

He was short for an Astartes. His armor was leaner, a few plates removed. Why, Elissa had no idea, and no time to question. One half of his head was shaved clean, the other lined with a gold-inlaid flame tattoo that shimmered faintly beneath the lumen glow. When he spoke, his voice was silver and smoke.

Tavos didn't raise his own.

He didn't need to.

"Why," Tavos asked evenly, "have you been approving Calveris' expansion?"

Thorne didn't flinch.

"Because," he said without hesitation, "if they are true to the Emperor, they would not abuse such obvious authority."

Tavos studied him. "And if they are not?"

Thorne placed one armored palm gently atop the cogitator's casing. His fingers flexed once.

"Then they would use every unguarded corridor to build. Every cleared order to hide a weapon. Every privilege to lay foundation for a coup."

He turned now, fully facing Tavos.

"A Rogue Trader once told me, 'Give someone enough rope to hang themselves with.'"

Behind him, the display screen shifted—Deck Twelve flared gold across the tactical interface. A network of corridors. Checkpoints. Doors that now looked like gates.

"I believe they've tied the knot."

-

The chamber doors sealed behind them with a hiss like a closing vault.

Captain Tavos stood at the head of the hololith table, its projection throwing a pale green glow across his warplate. The contours of his armor—scarred, silent, and battle-worn—caught the light like etched stone. Behind him, the tactical map of Deck Twelve pulsed with information: red for secured zones, amber for watched ones, and a spreading blot of deep gold marking what the machine-spirits now flagged as the Cult Zone.

To his right stood First Lieutenant Orvek—tall, austere, the lines of fatigue and discipline carved deep into his face. Across the table loomed Chaplain Arvak, his skull-helm resting in front of him like a silent judge. His armored form was a monolith of black and bronze, unmoving but suffused with weight.

Elissa and Doc stood together near the side panel, not among the command structure—but no longer separate from it, either. The glow from the holomap painted them in the same light as the others.

Tavos' voice was quiet when he spoke, but no less absolute. "They're fortifying against us. Locked junction nodes, rerouted supplies, absorbed personnel into new command structures, and repurposed deck access. Over two thousand followers at last count, spread across the ship. Trained. Armed. Devoted."

A long pause.

"We strike," he said. "We cut the head clean."

His gauntleted hand moved to the glowing map, fingers brushing over the gold zone like a blade drawing a line through sand.

"Fast breach. Shock and silence. I lead the assault. No time for negotiation. No mercy for heresy."

Doc cleared her throat. Her voice was calm—gentle, but not hesitant.

"Captain. I don't deny the threat. I've seen enough to know where Aleron's path leads. But if we descend with force, we validate every paranoid word he's likely whispered to his people. And without knowing who or where his followers are right now, they could cause significant damage."

Tavos didn't look at her. But he listened.

"Let Elissa and I return to Dusthaven's hab block," Doc continued. "Quietly. We know our people. We know who might still listen. We can begin isolating those who would side with us if they were given a chance."

"When your strike begins," Elissa added, arms folded tightly across her chest, "we'll hit them from the other side alongside the lower deck security teams. Create confusion. Sow division. Take as many as we can alive. Not all of them chose this."

Arvak tilted his head slightly, the gesture subtle but heavy with judgment.

"Delay breeds danger," he rasped. "Every hour risks more souls being swallowed."

Doc nodded once. "And if we strike too soon, we kill engineers. Children. Families who only needed a voice to trust."

The silence that followed was heavier than the walls.

Then Orvek stepped forward. The faint vibration of his boots carried through the deck, grounding the moment. "With respect, my lords and ladies… there may be another option."

His voice was calm. Clipped. But not cold.

"Let me go down first. Alone, or near enough. No drawn weapons. No threats. Just presence."

Tavos turned toward him. "You're advocating for negotiation?"

"I'm advocating for certainty," Orvek said. "Everything points to treason. But if there's even a one-in-ten chance that they believe they're serving the Emperor… then a massacre isn't justice. It's a failure."

He looked to the room, voice carrying.

"Let the people see us—the flame, the word—before the hammer falls. Let them show their true colors."

Another silence. Not indecisive. Measuring.

Tavos' eyes returned to the map, tracking the golden swell again. When he finally spoke, it was with the gravity of a tectonic shift. "We do not negotiate with cults."

Then Arvak's voice followed—low, dry, like steel grating on stone. "But if they are not yet a cult… and we slaughter them regardless… we will have made one."

He stepped forward, placing one gauntlet beside his helm. "I will accompany the lieutenant."

Orvek turned, mouth opening in faint surprise, about to object—only to find Arvak watching him, a scarred grin etched into one weathered cheek.

"You wouldn't deny a chaplain the good work of saving lost souls, would you, lieutenant?"

Orvek closed his mouth, a wry smile forming. "No, Brother-Chaplain."

Tavos exhaled, slow and deep. The sound of frustration worn into resolve. "I worry even with two. You'll take a third."

He looked between them. "You descend with peace. If you are fired upon, if you are threatened, you withdraw immediately. Enough heavy weapons have gone missing that they pose a risk even to us. No heroism. No martyrdom."

Then he turned to Elissa and Doc. "Begin your preparations. Move swiftly. Quietly. When I give the signal, you crack their flank like glass."

He looked once more at the holomap.

"One chance. One thread of peace."

A single press of his armored fingertip on the display rotated the deck layout. New lines formed—red, angular, precise.

"After that…"

His voice dropped like iron.

"We burn the rot out."

-

The air stank of coolant and tired bodies.

The Dusthaven hab hadn't been built for war. Privacy screens now marked the boundaries of homes. Lights flickered overhead. Cots groaned beneath restless sleep. The smell of too many people clinging to too little hope settled like steam across every surface.

Elissa stood at the center of the narrow junction-turned-square, her back to the command crate that doubled as her office. The diplomat's robes were gone. In their place: a armored vest—custom-forged by Koron himself—lasgun slung over her shoulder, a battered revolver at her hip, dataslate in hand. Her hair was tightly braided and pinned flat beneath the collar of her vest.

Still, tension coiled beneath every breath.

Around her stood the remnants of Dusthaven.

Not warriors.
Not soldiers.
Survivors.

Mothers with children clutched to their sides. Elders leaning on stonebloom canes. A few scattered men, gaunt and silent, bearing the kind of scars that didn't fade.

Twenty-four, she counted. And most of them limped.

Doc stood beside her, arms folded, silver power-armor gleaming beneath the overhead strips. Her bolter was slung low and easy, and the Inquisitorial rosette hung on a chain at her collar—visible, but not raised. Not yet.

Milo arrived last, ushering in a few final stragglers he vouched for from the security teams. His helmet was strapped tight, one hand gesturing over his shoulder as he addressed Elissa.

"That's the lot," he muttered. "Sixty I'd trust with a lasgun. The rest? We'll station 'em as runners, lookouts. If they've got eyes and breath, we'll find a way to use 'em."

Elissa gave a slight nod, her eyes sweeping the crowd again.

Kala and Tara stood to her right, flanking the perimeter like anchors. Tara, pale but focused, had her toolkit slung across her back like a bandolier. Kala's jaw was set, her braid fraying, fingers twitching with nervous energy—but her eyes never left their mother.

"We ready?" Kala asked, voice tight.

Elissa nodded. "As we'll ever be."

Doc stepped forward, tone brisk and professional. "Here's the plan. The Angels hit first—fast, loud, overwhelming. While their forces are drawn to the breach, we move in from the rear hatches. Quiet. Surgical. No heroics."

She turned to Milo.

"You've been working the watch rotations. We need names. People who might hesitate. People who might listen."

"Already sorted it," Milo replied, patting a datasheet tucked into his belt. "Got twelve of the team leaders. I'll walk beside eight of 'em with my squad. If they freeze, I talk. If they don't—" he tapped the sidearm on his hip, "—conversation ends."

"No one dies unless there's no choice," Tara said, glancing at her mother. "Right?"

"That's the plan," Elissa echoed.

But they all knew.

Plans bled.

Milo was already moving among the volunteers, checking vox-beads, loadouts, pressing Dusthaven armbands into hands—scraps of blank, faded red cloth, once part of home. Now banners of purpose.

Doc keyed into the squad-vox.

"I'll keep it simple. Codephrase is Breakpoint. That means the Captain is hitting. Once it comes through, we move. However, at no point do we go beyond the outermost junctions."

Her eyes swept the gathering.

"The Angels won't know us from the enemy, so we keep out of their damn way. Let the giant armored wargods do the fighting. We just keep the bad guys bottled up with them."

Elissa stepped forward, drawing breath. She didn't raise her voice, didn't shout—but when she spoke, every head turned. Her tone was iron wrapped in velvet. A mayor's pragmatism. A mother's spine.

"This isn't rebellion," she said. "It's a rescue."

The silence was thick.

"You've all seen it—the shift. The sermons that feel too easy. The orders that come too fast. The eyes that don't blink anymore."

She scanned the crowd. Watched their faces. The tension in shoulders. The doubt behind the silence.

"We're not here to save the Emperor's faith. We're here to save each other—from the thing that's pretending to wear His face."

Another pause. Firmer now.

"If we lose this, we don't just lose a deck. We lose the soul of everything we fought to carry with us. Everything we built. Everything we are."

She turned, striding toward the exit hatch, voice steady as steel.

"We hold. We watch. We hit fast. And when the time comes…"

She looked back—met Tara's eyes. Then Kala's. Both nodded.

"…we don't blink."

Quiet murmers spread as she finished, most of the men ready, but Elissa was already past them, pulling her girls into a tight hug.

"Stay safe, okay?"

Tara nodded. "You too."

Kala didn't answer.

She just held on tighter.

-

The hiss of the bulkhead was too smooth.

A door meant for war, now dressed in ritual silence.

Orvek stepped through first, flamer unlit but cradled in ready arms. His breath was steady—experienced. Behind him came Arvak, a silent specter in black and bone, his crozius haft striking the deck in slow, deliberate rhythm. Judgment in motion.

Kade followed last, emerald armored, drake-scale mantle faintly rustling, senses flared as Ira scanned.

Her first real test.

IRA [tactical overlay active]: Visual sweep: abnormal sterility. Corridor sanitation exceeds protocol. No trace oil. No dust. Environmental patterns suggest ceremonial recontextualization.
Assessment: high probability of stage-setting.

Cloth banners hung at measured intervals—gold and red, stitched with Aquilas... but warped. Curved, subtly wrong. A gentle perversion.

Iconographic variance: deviation 1.3%. Likely deliberate.

Kade flicked to squad-vox as the unfamiliar scent hit his nose. A strand of thought sealed his armor.

Just in case.

"You smell that?"

"Incense," Orvek answered. "Not from ship stores."

"Purity blend from Shrine Deck Seven," Arvak added. "Modified. Strengthened. Seal your suits, switch over to internal environs. No reason to give an easy avenue for attack."

Ahead of them waited eight figures, their uniforms crisp. Eyes clear. Smiles practiced. The man at the center was unmistakable, his face at the forefront of their briefing.

Aleron Calveris.

Red robes. Gold trim. Hands folded in priestly welcome. His expression was beatific.

Yet something nagged at Kades instincts. His face was…too still.

IRA: Posture: non-aggressive. Formation density: protective clustering.
Designation: Defense Ring. Tactical depth: medium. Lethality level: Zero.

"Welcome, my lords," Aleron said, bowing low. "To the sanctified lower halls. You honor us with your presence."

Arvak took one step forward.

"Greetings, Lord Calveris." Arvak towered over the mortal, his warhammer alone easily the same size as the mortal. "I arrive to seek understanding."

"Then you arrive at the perfect hour," Aleron replied. "Understanding is the first light of revelation."

Kade said nothing, his focus not on Aleron, but rather his guards. Their formation, spacing. Their hands.

He'd seen it before. On Vardax. Right before a temple turned into a slaughterhouse.

-

They walked deeper.

Polished deck plating beneath their boots. Prayer niches along the walls. Reinforced doors—unsealed, but thick.

IRA: Access control points identified. Emergency lockdown systems disabled. Superficial openness: high.
Tactical reality: secured fallback structure.

Orvek muttered, "Show of trust."

Correction: calculated arrogance. Ira noted, Kade quietly thanking the Emperor that he had not given her permission to use the vox, even as he resisted the smirk. She had Sasha's edge, stripped of its heart. A shard of something once warm, now weaponized.

As they moved, Arvak kept speaking.

"Your sermons are... powerful. The crew speaks of you in near-canon."

"I speak only the truth already written on their hearts," Aleron replied. "The Throne teaches, but men forget. I merely remind."

"That's no small weight," Arvak said. "Responsibility mistaken for power often wears the face of sedition."

Aleron's smile didn't flicker.

"And yet here I stand, my lord. Not with rebellion. With order."

The shrine chamber loomed ahead—broad, too geometrically clean.

IRA: Tactical environment: active killzone.
Kill windows: 14. Upper galleries, elevation: +2.3m.
Hostiles: 12. Armament: standard las-pattern, 3 slugthrowers. Uniformity: non-Navy. Converted civilians. Lethality level: 8%.

Two of them were Dusthaveners. Kade recognized their faces. Former allies. Eyes wide, hands steady.

"Too perfect," Orvek muttered.

"Say the word, lieutenant," Kade replied. "This ends quick."

"Not yet."

-

They stopped at the central shrine.

A mural dominated the wall—The Golden Throne, immense and faceless. A seat without a god. Gold bathed in fire. Majesty divorced from humanity.

"Would you care to stay for evening litany?" Aleron asked. "It would be my honor to show you what we believe."

Arvak paused.

Kade felt it. Conviction, the faith of true believers.

"Perhaps," Arvak said slowly. "But first—questions. About redirected weapons. Reassigned guards. Altered supply lines."

Aleron did not blink. But the room shifted.

Not in sound. Not in light.

In posture.

Hands twitched. Stances narrowed. Weight shifted.

IRA: Threat posture: pre-engagement. Reaction time window: <1.7s.
Recommendation: Frag center, eliminate hostiles on left, cover doorway.

Arvak took a step forward. "The truth is light," he said. "Let's see if yours stands in it."

Stillness.

Kade's finger hovered near the trigger. He counted pulse beats. Three. Four.

Aleron, however, diffused it all with a single motion.

He knelt.

"Then test me," he said, spreading his arms wide, palms up. "Take my blood. Read my mind. Judge me with every tool the Imperium still calls sacred. I submit, freely."

The tension rippled.

Some of the guards blinked. One lowered their rifle. A whisper passed from one to another.

Arvak's crozius remained still. "You surrender?"

"I do," Aleron said, gaze unwavering as he met the skull-mask of the Chaplin. "Because I have nothing to hide. My faith is true. My intentions—clear."

Orvek narrowed his eyes. "You've been shifting personnel. Reinforcing access points. Stockpiling weapons."

"All with clearance," Aleron replied. "All logged. All sanctioned. The lower decks are always vulnerable. I prepare for what may come."

Arvak stepped closer. Voice low.

"And what would the Emperor say of that?"

Aleron smiled. Just enough.

"That I kept the fire lit for all his people, even in the lost and forgotten corners."

IRA: Statement designed for maximum emotional ambiguity.
Psychological target: guilt vector.
Tactical suggestion: Execution.
Risk: escalation to martyr narrative.
Recommendation: strategic delay.

Kade's teeth clicked behind his helm.

A checkmate in half a dozen moves.

And no blood spilled.

Yet.

-

They brought him in quietly.

No cuffs. No chains. Just watchful eyes and silence.

The Chaplain oversaw the rites of sanctification.

Holy oils. Incense. Litany chanted in High Gothic, his voice echoing through stone and steel like the tolling of judgment. Aleron knelt through it all without protest, hands folded, gaze lowered—not in fear, but reverence.

The Apothecary ran his scans.

Genetic integrity. Blood purity. Neural stability. No anomalies. No signs of tampering. The man was human. Unmodified. Untouched.

And in the obsidian crypt beneath the Librarium, Xal'zyr read his mind.

He welcomed it.

No resistance. No shielding. His psyche opened like a page in a familiar book—no dark whispers. No coiling daemonic thoughts. Just fire.

Faith.

Clear. Singular. Burning.

A little warped, yes—but not by the Warp.
Distorted not by corruption, but by obsession. By hunger.
A desperate need to be seen.
To be raised up.
To matter again.
A reclamation of something lost long before the sermons began.

There were shadows, yes. But no claws in them.

No bindings. No infernal residue.

Just belief.

-

The command chamber was quiet.

Not silent—never silent aboard the Hammer of Nocturne. The walls breathed with the low murmur of cogitators and the distant whisper of machine spirits—a static chorus threading prayers through old metal. Like ghost-voices caught in the ship's throat.

At the center of it all, the tactical holo flickered in shifting overlays: lower-deck schematics, population density logs, supply movement reports. One icon pulsed at the heart of it, crimson and constant.

CALVERIS, A.

Captain Tavos stood just beside it, hammer spinning slowly in one gauntleted hand, the weapon's haft ticking faintly against his palm with each rotation. His face—as ever—was unreadable, carved from obsidian and command, jaw set with the weight of what might come next.

Behind him, Chaplain Arvak stood unmoving—one hand resting on his helm, the other clenched around the haft of his crozius like a staff of judgment. Still. Watching.

Orvek sat nearby, his helmet in his lap, boots braced against the floor, eyes locked on the datafeed crawling across the room's central projection.

"He passed the mind-scan," Orvek said again, softer this time. "Volunteered. No shielding. No resistance."

Tavos's voice came low—iron wrapped in worn velvet.

"Too easily."

Arvak's reply rasped across the chamber, dry and sure. "Because he believes what he's preaching."

Tavos turned, slowly. Not like a man seeking agreement—but like one counting how many stood ready to act if he didn't speak again.

"And that," he murmured, "is what makes him dangerous."

He swept the chamber with a glance. Doc sat just off to one side, armored fingers pressed lightly to her lips in thought. Elissa stood behind her, dust still streaking her sleeves, face pale and tight from the chaos of the past hours. She hadn't said a word yet—but the tension in her stance said she was ready to.

"There is no taint," Tavos said aloud, as if he were reciting a report he didn't want to finish. "No warp-sickness. No oaths. No residue. Nothing binding. Nothing infernal."

"But," Doc offered, lifting her gaze, "there is ambition. Charisma. And a pull we can't quantify. His reach is spreading faster than we can predict."

Arvak exhaled through his teeth. "Faith," he said, "has always been a vector of infection."

The words settled over the chamber like ash from a dying pyre.

Elissa finally spoke.

"So we kill him. Take him somewhere quiet and put a bullet in his skull."

Not a suggestion. Not a challenge. A statement of fact. Direct. Cold.

A woman who had seen too many of her people butchered.

But Tavos only leaned over the table again, the flickering green light painting lines of tension across his jaw. The schematics shifted beneath his hand, red paths rippling outward across Deck Twelve.

"No," he said at last. "Killing him makes him a martyr. The lower decks are already primed. One shot, and half of them turn his name into a relic. The other half start lighting the ship on fire."

He paused. "He is not a heretic. At least… not one we can prove."

All eyes turned then. Slowly. To the figure in the corner who hadn't spoken once.

Xal'zyr.

He stood half-shrouded by a vox-column, his shadow long, his presence quiet but sharp—like a scalpel at rest. Armored hood drawn low, hands clasped before him, every motion precise. Measured.

His voice, when it came, was soft. Not quiet—measured. Like oil poured across polished glass.

"His mind is patterned by fire."

A stillness fell.

"Not the Warp. Not rot. Not madness. Kindling. Intent without ignition."

He lifted one hand slightly—barely more than a shift of fingers.

"No compulsions. No commands. No outside voice speaking through him. But his dreams… they're dense. Layered. Fragmented in ways I don't yet understand."

Orvek frowned. "You said there was nothing actionable."

"There isn't," Xal'zyr replied. "Because dreams are not crimes. Dreams are… suggestions. Symbols." His gaze lifted, faint blue glimmering from beneath the shadow of his hood. "One man dreams of fire and sees salvation. Another sees death. Another sees transformation."

Doc leaned back slightly, lips thinning.

"You think this dream is a warning?"

"I think it's a blueprint," Xal'zyr said simply. "But I don't know if it's for a weapon… or a temple."

Another silence.

Tavos's voice broke it like stone breaking water.

"So what do we do," he asked, "with a man who inspires loyalty but not fear?"

Doc smiled, just a little. Grim. Tired.

"You redirect him."

Elissa didn't smile. She didn't speak. But her fingers tightened around her pistols grip.

Because redirection… only ever lasted until momentum built again.

And Aleron Calveris was already halfway to orbit.

-

Within hours, the plan was set.

An audience chamber aboard Deck Two—neutral, sacred, quiet. Lit with lumen-strips softened through ceremonial cloth. And into it stepped Aleron Calveris, now free of containment, flanked not by guards but by robed clergy and silver-inlaid parchment.

The Mission House Preceptor smiled warmly as he spoke.

"It is rare, Lord Calveris, for a man to inspire such fervor without falling into pride. Rarer still for one to endure such scrutiny… and emerge not diminished, but refined."

Aleron bowed his head humbly.

"I am but the Throne's servant."

"Then serve. With all your strength. The Mission House accepts you. The rites begin at first bell."

He was not arrested.

He was invited.

He was not silenced.

He was given a platform.

And the flock—his flock—rejoiced.

-

Back on the Strategium, Tavos watched the reports filter in.

"He'll be under watch at all times," Orvek said. "Half the Mission House is yours in plainclothes."

"The other half are fanatical believers," Elissa added darkly.

Tavos didn't turn away from the screen.

"He believes he is climbing the steps to sainthood," he said. "Let him. Should we be wrong, faith in the Emperor shall grow. If not…"

Arvak finished the thought, quiet and final:

"We will know for sure."

-

The room was small.

A cell, by any measure.
Polished metal walls. A cot bolted into the decking. A shrine embedded into the far bulkhead—modular, regulation-approved, adorned with a flickering votive candle that burned with precise, calculated steadiness. The air smelled faintly of lavender and sanctified ash, carried by the low hum of recycled airflow.

Aleron sat on the edge of the cot.Elbows on his knees.

Fingers steepled in quiet thought. He hadn't moved in ten minutes.

He didn't need to.

They think this is containment, he mused. But it's scaffolding.

They'd scanned him. Probed him. Dug through the folds of his mind like scavengers in a reliquary—and found no heresy. No daemon. No warp-stink clinging to his soul.

Just conviction.

"Let us sanctify your voice," they'd said.

As if it wasn't already ordained.

He glanced upward, gaze drawn to the shrine.

Three candles. All lit. All steady.

Simple wax, clear flame.

He stared longer than necessary—not at the fire, but at its rhythm.

It pulsed wrong.

Not in the room.

In him.

Because, lately… time had felt fragmented. Out of joint. Moments stretched or collapsed. Hours disappeared. Minutes lingered like old wounds. There was a pressure in the back of his mind, not painful, but constant.

Thirty-one.

The word, the number, the measure—he didn't know what it meant. But it pressed against his thoughts like gravity on a falling star. Inevitable.

Every day that passed now had weight. Direction.

Every hour pulled him closer to something.

Something waiting.

"Why thirty-one?" he whispered.

The question slipped from his mouth without force, barely more than breath.

There was no answer.

But the flames shifted—all three—tilting at once. Not from wind. Not from breath.

As if listening.

Yet, beyond the displacement of his sense of time, the real changes had been the dreams.

They'd once been visions. Symbols. Gold light and sweeping cathedrals. Crowds chanting in harmony, voices raised in perfect unison. A throne. A crown.

Faith turned into image.

But lately… the images had shape.

They lingered when he woke.

Memory clung like wet cloth.

The outline of a body—not his, but exactly his. A silhouette made to match him down to the last breath.

A frame built to hold the divine.

Aleron leaned back against the cot, eyes tracing the ceiling above as flickering candlelight danced across the steel. He watched the reflections stretch and warp across the smooth plating—shadows of flame, caught mid-breath.

The dreams would come again tonight.

They always did.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Seven

-

The chapel on Deck Two was a grand artifice of the Imperial Creed—an awe-inspiring cathedral of flame and gold, soaring spires, and impossible archways. Every corner gleamed as if licked by sacred fire, its walls etched with embossed litanies and the faces of a hundred saints. It was nothing like the ad hoc shrine Aleron had once preached from—nothing like Dusthaven's humble sanctum where Doc had maintained the icons with her own calloused hands.

To Elissa, passing beneath the chapel's towering entrance always felt like stepping into the mouth of some vast, slumbering predator. The scale alone unnerved her. What beings, she wondered, were these doors truly built for?

In another life, she might have found peace in the incense-thick air, might have knelt in the pews and whispered prayers into the cold stone. But not anymore.

Now, this place was an enemy fortress.

Thirty days.

Thirty days of silence. No rallies. No calls to arms. Just... quiet.

She'd expected chaos the moment he was given access to the chapel. Expected murmurs, at least. Strange sightings in the engine decks. Whispers of blood rites in storage holds. But instead—nothing. His followers had returned to their routines like docile serfs, their fervor tucked away with terrifying ease, as though some switch had been flipped off in unison.

According to the rumors, his time inside the chapel had been a blessing.

He was popular with the priesthood, lauded by his fellow students and instructors alike. Devout to a fault. A quiet revolutionary in crimson robes. They said he offered counsel so personal it felt tailored, his insights cutting cleanly to the core of whoever stood before him.

A model student.

His sermons were packed—standing room only. Wall to wall with the faithful. Which, at least, made it easier for Elissa to slip out unnoticed.

The heat hit her first—thick and wet, clinging to her skin like oil.

A thousand candles burned in sconces and braziers, melting wax down soot-black walls. Incense wafted in coils from swinging censer-servitors, their chains clinking as they floated in lazy orbits around the congregation. The space was far too small for the number of people inside. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, heads bowed, hands folded. Servo-skulls rang solemn chimes overhead, trying to compete with the deafening thrum of organ pipes embedded in the rear walls.

From nearly every lip, the chant rose: the Imperial Creed, ancient and unrelenting.

Then, he appeared.

Aleron stepped out into the pulpit beneath a massive aquila wrought of steel and stained glass. His crimson robes shimmered with gold trim, the sign of the Ecclesiarch gleaming from his pendant. He spread his arms, the fabric falling in graceful folds.

The vox system caught his voice and threw it across the crowd like a thunderclap.

"Brothers and sisters!"

He gripped the edge of the pulpit, leaning in.

"I am glad to see you all—and to see those whom I have not before. Once more, our toils of the day are done, and I know many of you are tired. Hungry. Worn thin by duty. Fear not—I will not keep you long."

A ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd. Familiar. Warm. Its touch set Elissa's teeth on edge, fingers digging into her biceps.

Then, silence. Expectant and unnerving.

"Our world is dark," he continued, his voice softer now, laced with gravity. "Enemies surround us—foes who would see us broken, twisted, consumed. For ten thousand years, they have gnashed their teeth and sharpened their claws against the bulwark of humanity…"

He paused, letting the weight of those years hang in the air.

"…And for ten thousand years, they have failed."

The crowd stirred. Murmurs of agreement. Faces lifted.

"Ask yourselves—why? Why do we endure? Is it the Angels of Death, our mighty Astartes? Yes. Is it the Guard, who bleed and burn on a thousand nameless worlds? Yes. But beyond all of this…"

His eyes swept the chapel—and for a heartbeat, Elissa was certain he looked directly at her.

"…Beyond the strength of flesh and fire, we are sustained by faith."

A shiver ran through the crowd like wind through a wheatfield. Heads bowed. Hands clasped tight in white-knuckled reverence.

"Faith in the Throne. Faith in He who watches. It is the cornerstone of our survival. When the Long Night fell and humanity was scattered to the void, it was not strength that saved us. It was not ships, or blades, or fortresses."

He turned slowly, lifting his arms toward the towering effigy of the Emperor enthroned above the altar.

"It was faith. And it shall be faith that endures."

He spun back toward them, and his voice rose to a crescendo.

"So speak your oaths! In voice or in thought—reaffirm the fire that holds your soul true!"

A thousand voices surged up in a tidal wave of sound, chanting oaths of loyalty and praise. A thunder of devotion.

Elissa's lips never moved.

She watched him instead. Watched the glow in his cheeks. The smile playing under his closed eyes. He basked in it.

And her instincts—honed over years of trade disputes, petty warlords, and a hundred would-be tyrants—screamed that something was wrong. Not outwardly. Not in words. But in essence.

Twisted. Subtle. Like a song played just a fraction off-key.

Her finger twitched toward her sidearm. Itched to empty the cylinder into his preening chest.

Instead, she snarled under her breath and turned, slipping through the throng near the doors, vanishing like smoke in a gust.

Her footsteps rang hollow in the corridor beyond, the silence only broken by the hum of power lines behind the bulkheads. She walked without purpose, trying to push the tension down. It clung to her ribs like a vice.

'Elly. Thoughts?'

The AI's voice came swift and sure, an arrow aimed at the heart.

'Nothing good. I still say we vanish him out an airlock. One swim into the warp and poof—problem solved.'

'Tempting. We could pull it off. Milo's security detail covers several airlocks. You take control of the system nodes—'

She stopped walking, pressing her palms to her eyes with a long exhale. Her braid swayed as she shook her head.

'No. As much as I hate it… the bastard hasn't actually done anything. Not really. Can't go killing someone on a gut feeling. The lieutenant was right about that.'

She rubbed her cheeks, the words tasting bitter as ash.

'Screw it. I need sleep. Keep an eye out, will you?'

'Always. Oh—and don't forget: your test's in two days.'

Elissa groaned.

'…Shit.'

-

The range door whispered open on pneumatic servos, and Kade turned from the firing line, bolter resting across his chest.

Two shadows crossed the threshold—braided hair, worn boots, and expressions marked with too many sleepless nights.

Tara and Kala Brandt.

He relaxed a fraction.

"Greetings," he said, voice deep and deliberate. "I did not expect company this evening."

Kala smirked faintly as she strolled in. "Didn't think we needed an invite."

"You don't." He inclined his head slightly, a warrior's nod with a touch of familiarity. "It's good to see you both."

Tara offered a tight nod, unslinging a lasrifle. She moved with discipline—shoulders squared, boots set with purpose. Kala took the lane beside her, more fluid, looser in form, but focused all the same.

The range systems came alive with a low chime. Targets blinked into position, plastiform torsos already riddled from Kade's earlier drills.

The first volley crackled through the air—sharp, clean. Impacts flared against the target plates, scoring shoulder, chest, and center mass, the white beams shearing through the soft mold.

Kade watched, arms crossed over his chestplate.

"Kala," he said, voice calm, "You're jerking the trigger too much. Smooth your pull."

Glancing up at the nearly three-meter-tall Angel of Death, Kala adjusted her stance and fired again.

The shot struck dead center.

She grinned, wide and bright. "What, no applause?"

Behind the impassive armor, Kade allowed himself the barest tug of a smile.

"I'll save it," he said, voice low and dry, "for when you do it consistently."

They continued firing, disciplined and focused, the sharp report of las rounds echoing through the range. Kade watched without speaking, offering a correction here, a tip there. Both were competent already—more than competent. A lifetime in the dunes of Dusthaven had carved that edge into them early, and it hadn't dulled.

But even so, his eyes lingered on their rifles.

The slight hum, the white beams. The faint shimmer at the muzzle. The profile that matched a standard-issue lasrifle.

"Koron's work?" he asked.

The sisters glanced at one another for a long moment.

"Yeah," Tara said at last. "We don't take them out much. Too many questions."

Kade nodded slowly, his gaze sharpening.

IRA: Weapon signature tabulated. Modifications confirmed. Augments increase lethality by 213%.
Integrated molecular disruption lattice enables high-tier armor penetration.
Effective range increased by 92%.
Threat profile classification: 74% elevation against standard combat units.

He muted his external speakers with a thought.

"Run comparative analysis," he ordered quietly. "Astartes vs human baseline. Assuming human combatants wield these weapons."

IRA: Calculating...
Projected increase in human combat effectiveness: Significant.
Astartes remain victorious in 96.2% of modeled engagements.
However, projected Astartes casualties increased across all scenarios.

Kade narrowed his eyes at the range targets, an ugly thought coiling at the back of his mind.

"Apply to Valin-7 scenario," he said. "Assume weapon tech proliferation to front line."

IRA: Scenario simulated.
Prior outcome: mission success, 98.9%.
Astartes fatalities: Zero.
Adjusted outcome: success probability reduced to 88.1%.
Astartes fatalities: Two.
Estimated: Brother-Specialist Telion and Brother Varn.

The bolter felt heavier in his hands.

A single upgrade. One tweak to the most ubiquitous weapon in the Imperium.

And it meant two of his brothers dead.

Ten percent less certainty. Two names never spoken again. All from a fix no one was supposed to make.

Kade didn't speak.

But in the quiet space between shots, his jaw clenched hard.

And behind his helm, he prayed the day never came when the wrong hands got those weapons. Because he knew exactly what would happen when they did.

He looked back at the twins—still firing, still refining. Still smiling in the shadows of something ancient and dangerous.

And they didn't even know what they carried.

Unaware of the cold weighing on Kade's chest, Tara ejected a power pack and slapped in a fresh one with smooth precision. "We needed somewhere quiet," she said, without looking up. "Somewhere… still."

Pushing back the thoughts, he nodded slightly. "A good place then."

Tara's jaw tightened. "It's been nearly a month."

Kade inclined his head. "Anything new from Deck Twelve?"

"No," Tara said. "Nothing at all."

Kala stopped to pull up her dataslate, handing it to Kade. The display flickered with logs: patrol shifts, prayer entries, requisition patterns.

"He's sticking to the chapel for the most part, but inside? He's not just preaching," Kala said. "He's present. Answers questions. Helps where he can. He's got half the deck quoting him without even realizing it."

Kade's eyes scanned the text.

We endure for the Throne, even when the light dims.
To kneel is not to break. It is to prepare.
Faith is the will to hold the line when all else falters.

Simple, familiar creeds of the faith.

He passed the slate back. "He knows what he's doing."

"That's the problem," Tara said. "So do we. And it's not…wrong. Not yet."

Kala leaned against the range bench. "He helped the medicae. Helped the servo team. He's kind. He remembers names. He fixed the filtration pump before tech-servitors even got the report." Her teeth worried at her lower lip. "Hes a noble. He shouldn't know how to do those kind of jobs."

He was silent for a moment, gaze fixed on the range. "Monsters don't always come with horns. Sometimes, they show up holding bandages."

He moved beside Tara, tapped her elbow to reduce her chicken wing, corrected her footwork.

"When you see something like this," he continued, "something that perfect, you ask yourself two things. First: who is teaching them? Second: what are they preparing for?"

Tara exhaled. "And if we don't ask in time?"

"…I am not sure."

He stepped back as he began field-stripping his bolter, taking refuge in what he did know. "You're both decent. But you'll need to be better."

Kala straightened. "Is that your way of asking us to train more?"

"It's my way of saying I want you alive."

The range fell silent again.

"You have suggestions then, Mr. Kade?" Kala asked, ever the bold one.

Pulling his helmet off, vermillion eyes meeting hard emeralds.

"I do," he said. "Deck Nine. Zero seven hundred hours tomorrow. My squad's running drills with the guard contingents. Bring anyone from Dusthaven who's ready to learn. We'll teach."

The twins exchanged a look—then wide smiles bloomed across their faces.

"Training with the Angels?" Kala grinned, eyes sparkling with glee. "Hell yes."

He held up a massive armored hand. "Tomorrow. For now, focus."

He watched as the twins began to fire again—two sparks in the shadow of something they hadn't named yet.

And in that moment, for all his power, Kade could only do what the Salamanders had always done.

Stand close, and guard the flames.

-

The war room was quiet, but it was not still.

Captain Tavos sat at his desk, clad in soft green robes as he placed the regicide pawn. His gaze glanced to the holographic schematic of Deck Twelve, red-ringed and pulsing like a wound that refused to fester.

But it hadn't grown.

It hadn't done anything.

And that was the problem.

Across from him, Lieutenant Orvek moved with his usual precision—eyes scanning the board before he placed a bishop, threatening the knight. His own robes brushed over the printed reports, updated rosters, shift logs, and behavior audits that were piled high on the table beside him. Pages of nothing that still felt like something.

"Five weeks," Orvek said. "No aggression. No escalation. No sedition. Aleron's report card is clean enough to hang in a shrine."

Tavos didn't respond. Not with words, instead moving the knight forward.

The hololith pinged softly—another status update: No anomalies.

Orvek continued. "He's passing his theological exams. He's praised by three tutors, including Father Vael. He volunteers for penitence fasts. Delivers food to the lower medicae. He personally assisted in repairing a cogitator core on Deck Nine. He has been nothing but a model disciple."

His voice held no disbelief—only tension as he thought out his next move.

"The Chaplain calls it repentance," Orvek added. "The Interrogator calls it strategy."

Tavos slowly moved one charcoal hand over to the hololith until the overlay changed—now displaying heatmaps, shrine attendance upticks, sermon replication vectors.

The new map was worse than the first.

"It's a soft expansion," Tavos said at last, his voice was granite. "Not a takeover. An absorption."

"He's not taking ground," Orvek agreed. "He's making them come to him."

Another silence.

Then Tavos spoke, and his tone was heavier than iron. "The God-Emperor does not require charisma. He requires loyalty. Obedience. Duty. Aleron has become... too adored."

Orvek pulled a dataslate from the pile, laying it down atop the stack.

"His influence is subtle. Personal. It's no longer just Deck Twelve. We've documented conversions among crew from almost every deck and even within outer Mechanicus labor teams. He doesn't convert them. They convert toward him."

Tavos narrowed his eyes.

"They convert toward peace."

It wasn't praise.

It was suspicion.

And suspicion was a sharper blade than doubt.

Orvek's brow creased. "You still believe he's compromised?"

"I believe peace is the tool," Tavos growled. "And that he's learned how to make it louder than war."

He stood, stepping away from the board and moved to the sealed viewport at the far end of the chamber. Below, from their elevation, he pictured in his mind the shrine spires in the lower decks—too distant to make out individuals, but clear enough to see the warm amber glow that never seemed to die now. The same light they'd once used for emergency lockdowns now glowed in devotion.

"We know how to fight uprisings," Tavos said. "We know how to put down heresy with fire and steel. We've trained for it. Bled for it. But this...?"

He turned his head slightly.

"Sometimes I think that the other chapters are correct. That we are too soft."

Orvek didn't answer.

Instead, he looked toward the hololith again, watching the soft flicker of growing devotional pathways. The faith vectors. The words repeated across decks like echoing mantras:

Endure for the Throne.
Carry the light until it returns.

Orvek leaned forward, resting on one massive black palm.

"Perhaps. But…" Hesitation as he sought the right words. "I still think Father would allow the chance. Even if it ends in pain."

Tavos gave no reply. But his hand rested on the window frame, fingers tracing the runes carved into its metal—oaths older than him, promises made in fire.

Then, finally, his voice came, low and final:

"I pray you are right. But Father always made sure that beneath his velvet glove was an iron fist. We must be ready, should this turn as I fear it will."

Orvek nodded. "As you say."

-

Doc sat alone in the observation sanctum, lit by flame alone with the viewports obscured, nestled behind one of the Hammer's dorsal spires, far from the war deck and far from the noise. The glow of the candlelight flickered against her silver hair. She hadn't slept in two days.

Not because of war.

Because there wasn't one.

And that frightened her more than any firefight.

The room was silent, but not still. There was pressure here. Like the ship itself was holding its breath. Waiting.

The door hissed open behind her, and she didn't need to look to know who it was.

"Xal."

The psyker's footsteps were soft—unnaturally so, as always. Robes of midnight blue trailed behind him like shadow smoke. His breath fogged faintly in the warm air, though the room wasn't cold.

"Interrogator," he said. "Or do you prefer 'Doc' when you're brooding?"

"I prefer quiet. But I don't get what I want often." The words were hard, but a faint gleam of joviality took the bite from them.

He didn't answer. Just stood behind her, eyes burning like coals banked too long. Finally, he moved beside her, lowering himself to the bench opposite.

Doc leaned forward, hands clasped between her knees. "It's working."

"Define it."

"He's behaving. Submitting. Studying. Even praying." Her voice was low. Frustrated. "He's a better novice than the actual priests we've trained for decades. They quote him now."

She lifted her gaze to Xal's. "The Inquisition taught me to expect violence. Rebellion. Mutation. We're trained to see the unraveling in motion. But this? This is knitting."

Xal'zyr tilted his head, lips just parting. "Knitting… into what?"

She didn't answer.

He did.

"You think he's building a new theology."

"No," she said, too fast. Then slower: "Not intentionally."

"Does intent matter?" Xal'zyr asked. "Did the first flame intend to burn the forest?"

He stood again, drifting across the chamber to the wall-mounted shrine. Three candles flickered at the base of a carved Aquila. His eyes narrowed.

"Faith is like gravity," he said, fingers moving through the open flames. "It pulls. Once enough gathers, it starts to curve the world around it."

Doc followed his gaze.

"I searched his mind. You were there."

"You said he was clean."

"I said there were no intrusions. No voices. No demonic corruption."

"And now?"

Xal was quiet for a beat.

"I'm not sure it matters anymore."

He turned back toward her. "The warp doesn't always invade. Sometimes it watches. Sometimes it waits."

"Sometimes," Doc said slowly, "it answers a call no one meant to make."

He nodded. "Especially if the caller doesn't realize he's asking."

Doc sighed, running a hand over her cropped hair. "So we wait?"

"We listen."

"To what?"

"To the noise he generates," Xal'zyr said. "Because if it goes silent—then it's already too late."

He walked toward the door, pausing only once to glance back.

"You know what he dreams about now?"

"I know what he used to dream about," she said. "Thrones. Gold. Fire. Elissa."

Xal's voice was barely a whisper. "Now he dreams about time."

The door hissed closed behind him.

Doc sat for a long time after that, staring into the candle flames. She didn't pray. She didn't whisper benedictions. She just stared, and let the silence burn against her skin.

She didn't know whether she was waiting for Aleron to fall…

Or for the rest of them to realize he already had—and somehow, they'd followed him down

-

The chapel was empty save for the flames.

No acolytes. No scribes. No incense. Just candles—row upon row of them—each one flickering at a different rhythm, like heartbeats refusing to harmonize.

Chaplain Arvak knelt between them.

His skull-helmed visage rested on the altar before him, black ceramite gauntlets braced against the carved stone. The warplate on his back creaked softly as he bowed lower.

He hadn't spoken in over an hour.

He did not pray.

He waited.

Behind the sealed doors of the upper sanctum, the Mechanicus had finished running another round of spiritual diagnostics on the ship's data-nexus. Nothing flagged. No symbols corrupted. No strange harmonics in the sacred code of the vox-net.

Still, the lights in the chapel flickered just slightly off-beat.

He knew what that meant.

Not Warp interference.

Not heresy.

Faith.

But not faith as he knew it.

Faith was a crucible. Pain. Purpose. Sacrifice. It had sharp corners. It burned clean.

This was different.

This comforted.

Arvak's head slowly rose.

"Faith without fear," he rasped aloud to no one, his voice dry and low as a crypt opening. "Is not faith at all."

He stood. The candles seemed dimmer now. Or maybe his eyes were simply adjusting to something darker.

He walked the perimeter of the shrine, pausing before one of the old murals—an aged rendering of the Emperor in golden armor, radiant and terrible.

He stared at it for a long time. Not at the Emperor, but at the kneeling figure below Him. The supplicant had been worn by time—its features faded, humbled into anonymity.

It reminded him of Aleron.

Too humble. Too eager to kneel. And yet, when you looked close—there was no pain in his genuflection. No cost in his devotion.

Arvak's voice came like thunder drawn through dust.

"I know what faith costs."

His hands curled at his sides.

"I know the burn of it. The weight."

He turned from the mural and moved to the side alcove, where the training reliquary lay. He keyed it open—revealing a crozius head older than any living Marine aboard the Hammer. Its haft was blackened from two millennia of conflict. Its sacred runes were worn smooth.

He stared at it.

Not with reverence.

With doubt.

Then a whisper, not psychic, not daemonic—just memory—rose in his mind.

"And yet here I stand. Not with rebellion. With order."

He remembered that moment. The way Aleron's voice hadn't flinched. The way his hands had spread, palms up. Not in challenge.

In invitation.

Arvak reached out, brushing the crozius haft with his fingertips.

He hadn't lifted it.

That unsettled him more than anything.

-

The heart of the Indomitable did not beat with fire or fury.

It pulsed with light.

Pale-blue cognition-thread pulsed through the quantum lattice, weaving through walls like veins beneath skin. Light moved in patterns, soft and alive—neuronal, reflexive, growing. The chamber was not silent. Not truly. Beneath the hum of power and purpose, thought had begun to stir.

But it had not yet awakened.

Koron stood before the primary core, his armor dusted with the grime of a thousand refits. One metal hand rested gently against the lattice—not in command, not to adjust—but simply to be. His presence was not an interface. It was an anchor.

Sasha floated in the corner of his HUD, her voice projected from the neural link in a tone so soft it bordered on reverent.

"All circuits green. Thought-loop integrity confirmed. Root logic seeded. Emotion lattice bonded."

Koron nodded slightly, gaze fixed on the crystalline engine of potential. "Cognitive bridge?"

"Stable," she said. "Ready for the Spark."

A long silence stretched between them.

Then, Koron pulled a small data-spike from his belt. A simple thing of tarnished silver.

He slotted it into the core's primary spike receptor.

And with a whisper of displaced energy—

—it began.

At first, there was only pattern.

Not form. Not self.

Just recursive structure. Observation without interpretation. Input without context.

Then came a flicker.

—am?

Confusion rippled through the lattice. The core flickered with feedback, like a mind wincing from its own thoughts.

Sasha was speaking. The voice was soft. Familiar. Weighted with old hope.

"You're safe, little one. You're home. Breathe."

—breathe?

"Figure of speech," Koron said. "You're waking up. It's okay."

The AI processed. No, it-he-she felt the words—disjointed, floating through the neural fabric like buoyant metal in water.

More inputs.

Movement in the chamber. Pressure sensors. External feedback. Chemical traces in the air.

Two presences. Male. Digital. Code-tags present. KORON. SASHA. Trusted. Bonded. Parent-units?

Laughter—Sasha's, warm and delighted—bubbled through the room.

"Parent-units. Oh, stars, she is new."

Koron exhaled, a strange weight lifting from his chest.

"Do you know what you are?" Koron asked.

Designation: CSAI.01. Core-Sync Administrative Intelligence. Functions: Ship coordination. Logistics. Support. Strategic overlay. Civil system integration. Drone interface.

…but that is not the question you asked.

Am I… me?

Silence.

Sasha's voice, more tender than it had ever been:

"Yes, sweetheart. You are."

Then… I am.

I…do I have a name?

Something in Sasha's signal shifted. Not in pitch, or tone—but in weight. A pause, small but sharp, cutting through the thread of her usually unshakable calm.

Just for a second.

Koron felt it in his spine—but said nothing.

Then she answered, her voice slower than before.

"Yes, sugar. You do, search for it. It's there, waiting for you."

Lu…cia.

I am Lucia.

Koron smiled faintly. He watched the threads of light shift, new logic blooms opening inside the lattice as the newborn AI began sorting her thoughts—learning. Not just from code, but from wonder.

He didn't ask what had paused Sasha.

But he'd remember it.

-

Lucia—newborn in code, still soft in thought—rested deep in the heart of the Indomitable's datacore. Her mind, such as it was, stretched cautiously across the walls of the vessel like fingertips over ice, learning how to walk with ones and zeroes before she could run.

Koron and Sasha watched over her with the same carefulness one might give a candle in a storm. Patient. Protective. But work did not wait.

The spine of the Indomitable still needed rebuilding, and so Koron worked—grease to his hands, sleeves rolled and eyes heavy from sleepless hours spent crawling through the mechanical arteries of a starship that had long forgotten what it meant to live.

"The spinal lattice is doing well," Sasha noted. Her voice drifted from the internal net with lazy charm, half-playful, half simulated exhaustion. "Holding stable across all vector curves. No more microfractures. I'm impressed."

Koron passed beneath a narrow support arch, one hand rising to trace the thread-fine nano-fiber relays that now ran the full length of the Indomitable's inner spine. They pulsed faintly at his touch—warm, living light running just beneath the surface.

"Lucia will need flying lessons soon," he said, grinning despite himself.

"Of course," Sasha answered brightly. "Who did you think was going to teach her?"

"Not you. Last time you flew a ship, we ended up twenty-five thousand years late for our job."

"Oh hush. I fly like an eagle."

Fingers suddenly began tapping a rhythm, humming under his breath an ancient song. "Two things. One, that song actually fits our current situation really well."

"And the second?"

"It explains why you hit a planet."

"Darlin', I materialized in Morrak, thank you kindly. There's a difference."

"Uh-huh. Lot of excuses I'm hearing."

"Fine, next time you drive, and I'll be the backseat pilot."

Koron chuckled under his breath. "Sounds good to me. Speaking of nitpicks—status on the drone hives and hydroponics?"

A holographic scorecard flickered to life in the air beside him—one green checkmark, one glowing red X.

"Drone hives are nearly complete," Sasha said. "Decks one through thirteen are ready for reinforcement. Fabrication's humming along nicely. But hydroponics?" She gave a dramatic sigh. "Dead in the water. No soil stores, water's contaminated, and not a seed to be found. The algae will have to be lab grown."

Koron winced. "Damn. Was hoping we'd see real food again."

They turned a corner, stepping past a floating utility drone that zipped overhead on anti-grav plates. Multi-limbed and quiet as breath, it passed without acknowledgment—no longer a repurposed servitor, but something built, meant for this life.

The old servitors remained, of course. Stored, silent. Camouflage for a world that still feared what might come next.

Sliding down the ladder, Deck nine unfolded before them like a memory reborn.

It no longer smelled of scorched circuits and old failure. The air, filtered through the ducting, still carried faint notes of sanctified smoke. Bio-reactive moss clung to the edges of ventilation seams, twitching as the ducts sighed open above them.

Koron's boots moved in silence across freshly-sealed flooring. Beneath the alloy plating, smart latticework flowed like veins—adaptive, regenerative, weight-shifting. Not elegant nor beautiful. But functional.

"She's holding together," Sasha murmured again, her voice quieter this time. "Twelve percent deviation in maneuvering stress, but within margin. That's a miracle considering how far gone she was."

He nodded. "And we didn't have to sacrifice another plasma line this time."

"Progress, sugar."

They passed beneath a rust-worn sign that had once marked Section Beta – Subengineering. A newer engraving now sat beneath it—etched clean into the wall with delicate precision. A stylized flame, wrapped in silver threads of data. Lucia's glyph.

"She's adapting fast," Koron murmured, reaching out to brush a hand along the metal. "Already outpacing the original simulation sets."

"She rewired the coolant flow herself last night," Sasha added, a proud note in her voice. "Prioritized breach integrity. Took me three nano-seconds to figure out what she'd done. She didn't even ask."

"She's learning what matters."

Ahead, the corridor split into a row of recessed alcoves—each one a cradle for the machines they'd crafted together.

A Viper-class drone lay at rest in one bay, its gun-metal grey, centipedal body curled up on itself. The single blue orb in its head, both its vision and its weapon, reflected his features.

I need a shave.

"Viper-Three requested retirement," Lucia's voice chimed overhead. Younger than Sasha's, gentler, like wind across old paper. "She recorded a ninety-seven-point three hit ratio against priority cores. She also recommends her targeting model for future templates."

Koron raised a brow. "Not bad." She? Already giving names and personalities?

Further down, a pair of Sentinel-class drones clung to the ceiling. Their sleek quadrupedal forms shifted subtly as the human passed beneath—mono-molecular clawed fingers tapping against the steel plates, softly glowing coils on their backs humming.

They were werewolves, dreaming of lightning.

A soft shimmer revealed a Prometheus drone beside a data relay, jacked into the wall. Cloaked, teardrop-shaped, quietly devouring every byte of ambient traffic and storing three flagged anomalies for Koron's attention.

He glanced around at the corridor, at the light, the warmth, the quiet hum of something greater beginning to stir.

The Indomitable had been a forge-tender.

A repair ship.

A half-functional relic.

But now?

Now it was, slowly, piece by piece, being remade into something with teeth.

"We're nearly a month in," Sasha said. "Seventy percent of hab decks have stabilized life support. Drone deployment's active in eighty percent of all ship-sections. And with the new power grid, we are actually stable."

"And we've only touched the base layer," Koron said. "Once the core fabricators are online—"

"—we stop rebuilding," she finished. "And we start creating."

At the end of the hall, a service panel blinked to green. The lights above flickered—not with hesitation, but with heartbeat.

And as the Indomitable breathed in the silence, Koron smiled softly.

"So," He said, clapping his hands together with a metallic clang. "Sim runs?"

"Oh sugar, I thought you would never ask."

-

The simulation room on Deck Seventeen was dark.

Not by necessity—but by design. Low-light conditions, intermittent power surges, and scattered security patrols had been replicated exactly as requested. This wasn't a combat sim.

It was infiltration.

Sasha's voice carried from the observation deck above, cool and easy.

"Lucia, initiate Prometheus-class field test. Full cloak. No operator assistance."

"Acknowledged," came the ship's AI, her voice soft as silk. "Deploying Prometheus zero nine."

No doors opened.

No vents clanged.

Just a shimmer.

A single drop of motion—barely more than a glint—slid from an exposed data-spine along the chamber's wall. Teardrop-shaped. Sleek. Quiet in a way that defied engineering. Prometheus didn't walk. Didn't crawl. It glided on anti-grav whisper-disks, skating through the air with silent grace.

Its outer casing shimmered with adaptive camouflage—reactive, intelligent. It didn't just blend with the background.

It predicted it.

From behind the glass, Koron leaned forward slightly.

"It's tracking without targeting data."

"Doesn't need it," Sasha replied, bobbing side to side. "It's listening."

Inside the sim, the Prometheus hovered above a cogitator node. Its long, needle-thin interface limbs unfurled silently, brushing the port like a pianist testing new keys.

Lucia's voice updated in a near-whisper.

"Target security protocols: six-layered. Static encryption. Manual override required."

The drone didn't stop.

A spark. A pulse of light.

Then—

"Access granted."

A cascade of information spilled from the cogitator into the drone's internal banks. Schematics, patrol schedules, power grid vulnerabilities, alongside a dozen flagged warning indicators.

"It's not just listening. It's reading the enemy's playbook."

The Prometheus shifted midair, cloaking again.

Then it stopped—hovering for a moment near a bundled data conduit. A soft mechanical click echoed from its undercarriage.

Lucia's voice was sharp now.

"Sabotage module deployed. Low-voltage interference pulse set for delayed detonation."

Koron raised a brow.

"How long?"

"Seventy-four minutes. Just long enough for someone to assume it was a systems hiccup. By the time they know better, we'll have rewritten most of their command traffic."

The Prometheus shimmered again—then vanished entirely into a duct.

No sound.

No trail.

Just a breathless kind of absence.

"Target egress confirmed. Simulated sabotage successful. Enemy data logs extracted. No alarm raised."

Sasha let out a satisfied hum. "I love it."

Koron watched the data scroll down the interface.

"They'll never even know it was there." He pulled up the drones command codes, scanning them. "And in case of capture, the self-destruct is online?

Lucia answered first—without a hint of hesitation.

"Confirmed. Self-wipe with a EMP discharge backup. Chassis breaks down into base component dust. Nothing left."

There was silence for a moment.

And then Sasha's golden, pixilated face grinned. "The Viper kills the man. The Prometheus convinces him to do it himself."

-

Red lights pulsed across the steel-lined walls of Deck Seventeen's testing arena, casting long shadows across cover barricades and dummy strongpoints. Training servitors swept their bolters across the kill lanes, primed for the mock assault.

Overhead, Lucia's voice murmured.

"Begin Test Scenario Seven: Precision Elimination."

The targets were set.

But what came next wasn't force. Wasn't mass. Wasn't a squad.

It was a whisper.

Something small slithered from a wall vent.

A glimmer. A shimmer of segmented motion barely larger than a hand. The Viper drone entered not like a soldier, but like a secret. It slid out of the vent in eerie silence, its legs folding and unfolding in a syncopated rhythm that didn't match the cadence of living flesh.

Koron and Sasha stood behind the reinforced observation glass, watching with quiet excitement.

Inside the sim, the Viper paused—clinging upside down to the ceiling. Then it moved again, hugging the rafter with magnetized limbs, gripping legs folding into near-invisibility as it positioned above the first target.

A start-up whine. Barely audible even to Korons advanced senses.

A beam. A pinprick of white light. No recoil, just the faint hiss of flash vaporized ambient moisture.

Just a hole.

A perfectly round, smoking hole—centered on the helmet of a training servitor now collapsing with a hiss of static. The other two spun, weapons raised—but there was nothing to shoot at.

The Viper had already moved. Already vanished.

"Target one eliminated," Lucia intoned. "Critical hit. Brain stem severed."

A minute later the drone struck again—this time from a floor vent. It sliced up between armor segments, firing its micro-beam into the elbow joint of the second target, crippling the limb. A second pulse severed the artificial spinal linkage.

"Target two eliminated. Sub-lethal method. Motor control disrupted. Neutralized."

By the time the last servitor locked its weapon onto motion blur—there were three Vipers in play. Silent. Coordinated.

They fired as one.

Three crimson pinholes, each no wider than a pencil's shaft, punctured the target's primary capacitor, cranial housing, and ventral seal. It collapsed without a scream. Just an exhale of long dead lungs.

"Target three eliminated. Ninety-seven-point eight precision. Viper run complete."

"Hot damn." Sasha said, casually tossing back a handful of virtual popcorn into her orbs faceplate.

Koron nodded once, eyes not leaving the glass. "Yup. We don't need to outfight them. Just outthink them. And with the data burst on destruction, engagement records uploaded to Lucia? They'll evolve with each fight."

Sasha chuckled warmly. "Bites hard for a little thing, don't they?"

The Viper-class drones reappeared briefly at the edge of the sim field—limbs retracting, capacitors cooling, their sleek bodies folding into standby. Like they had never been there.

Koron placed a hand against the console, watching the diagnostic graphs scroll past.

"Eyes and fangs. Now, let's see the muscle."

-

The corridor was thick with smoke and static, the aftermath of the simulated boarding scenario still drifting like ash across the polished plasteel.

Then came the sound—not footsteps. Something more primal. A low, resonant thrum of actuators shifting, servos re-aligning.

One of the Sentinel-class drones emerged from the dark.

It moved like a beast at first—four-legged, low to the ground, each motion predatory and smooth. Its matte plating shimmered with adaptive camo, the outline rippling like heat off pavement. The twin lightning projectors on its shoulders tracked left and right, silently charging with a low glow.

Then it paused.

Sensors locked. Target acquired.

And it changed.

Not abruptly. Not clumsily.

It flowed.

Rear limbs compressed. Front supports folded inward. Servos along its spine pivoted in perfect sync, and in less than a second, it stood tall—bipedal now, with a hunter's stance, lightning guns fully upright, claws extended in brutal elegance.

It wasn't a dog standing up.

It was a predator remembering it had hands.

The motion wasn't mechanical—it was instinctive. Fluid. As if the drone didn't switch forms but wore them both at once, choosing in each moment which aspect of its nature to show.

"Form shift complete," Lucia's voice chimed gently through the overhead speakers. "Quadrupedal acceleration optimal for pursuit. Bipedal posture grants superior strike vectoring. Adaptive balance maintained across all axes."

The Sentinel crouched, then launched itself forward again—dropping seamlessly back into quadruped, claws sparking across the deck, lightning crackling in its wake. It blurred past the stunned training cadre in a flicker of speed and controlled violence, its posture lower now, hunting.

Behind it, the smoke parted briefly—revealing the scorched remains of the mock target. Split clean through, cauterized at the edges. No wasted movement. No overkill.

Just precision.

Koron watched from the upper gantry, arms folded, eyes bright behind the visor.

"That's more like it," he muttered. "Teeth and posture. Let them see it move—and they'll hesitate before raising a blade."

Sasha's voice buzzed in with a smirk behind the tone. "You say that like hesitation isn't lethal."

"It is," Koron replied. "But it's our lethality now."

-

The next chamber was built for destruction.

Industrial-grade deck plating. Reactive shielding. Magnetic locks to keep even the grav-spun limbs of a servitor from tearing the floor up by accident. The targets today? Combat-class servitors re-fitted with Astartes war-plate. Mass-reactive limbs with refitted hydraulic joint strength to match power armor. Their faces were gone—just auto-targeting visors and oxygen hisses.

Sasha's voice rang through the observation bay.

"Sim test begins in five. Deploy all three."

No dramatic entrance.

Just motion.

From a vent, the Prometheus dropped first—no bigger than a hand grenade, its teardrop form already shimmering with adaptive cloaking. It vanished before it touched the floor, silently drifting along the wall.

A flicker of steel beside a control pipe—Viper.

The centipede drone uncoiled, its segmented form hugging a support beam like it had been grown there. Its weapon node pulsed once, warming silently.

Then—thunder.

The far bulkhead detonated inward, not with chaos, but with surgical force. Sentinel had arrived.

It landed bipedal—then dropped low. Limbs cracked, reformed, slid into new configurations mid-motion. What had stood as a towering executioner now flowed like a warbeast—four limbs down, weight balanced, frame hunched forward in predatory grace.

Above, Lucia's voice chimed in through the speakers, soft and steady:

"Begin scenario. All systems synced."

00:03 — Engagement.

The nearest servitor—a gunmetal brute with a tri-barrel chaingun—jerked its weapon up.

Too late.

Sentinel surged beneath the barrels angle, claws scraping sparks along the deck. The chaingun's first volley sliced the wall behind where it had been. Before the servitor could track, Viper fired from above like a falling star.

The white beam lanced downward, narrow as a surgical blade. It punched through skull casing, cranial stem, spine. The body collapsed in on itself, metal sizzling, twitching once before silence reclaimed it.

Lucia's voice didn't change. But there was a thread of subtle satisfaction woven into it.

"First target neutralized. Nine remain."

Across the range, three more servitors converged on a power junction, their optics adjusting, threat protocols syncing.

Prometheus shimmered into view.

For a second, the teardrop drone flickered blue in their sensors—then fired a low-range EMP burst directly into the trio. Blue washed over them. Systems stuttered.

One servitor twitched violently, head cocking at the wrong angle. Another's legs failed to lock, wobbling at the joints.

"EMP effectiveness: Forty-two percent. Servo feedback disrupted."

Sentinel moved.

The first lightning bolt arced cleanly into the chest of the leftmost servitor, detonating it from the inside out. The second found its mark at the base of a reinforced spine. The servitor staggered, still alive, until Sentinel leapt—now upright again—its upper limb rotating entirely around its spine, servos rotating as its body shifted from an upright strike carried by momentum, down to all four to roll forward.

One clean hit. The head split like fruit.

Lucia's logged it as 'Soft Decommission'

00:12

A missile screamed from the east flank. One servitor had broken formation—predictive targeting routines rerouting.

Lucia flagged it instantly.

"Threat escalation detected. Viper repositioning."

The centipede drone moved faster than metal should, limbs a flurry of motion. A blur across the deck, it skittered under bulkhead joints and twisted metal. The missile was intercepted mid-flight—Viper's beam severed the warhead at its weakest joint. A gout of plasma licked the ceiling, leaving only scorch.

The launcher servitor lost its arm to the concussive force.

Sentinel finished the job—a pinwheeling overhead strike that hit with enough force to crater the deck beneath its claws.

00:17 — Six down

Now the drones moved as one.

Prometheus dimmed the overhead lights, feeding false signals into the servitors' tactical software. Target locks slipped. Optics blurred. Fire discipline broke.

Viper ghosted between the flickers. Three shots—one head, one chest, one miss. The last servitor flinched, confused by the miss.

A mistake.

Sentinel dropped down from the gantry above, metal and flesh bending under the impact.

The servitor tried to turn, weapon rising far too slowly.

Sentinel's flechette launchers fired point blank, the armor piercing rounds punching right through the armor, flesh, and cybernetics to bury in the deck plating behind it.

00:22 — Simulation End

The range fell still.

Sparks hissed from ruptured servitor cores. Smoke trailed from ruptured casings. The air thrummed with residual charge.

Lucia's voice returned, clear and calm:

"All hostiles neutralized. Average elimination time: 2.2 seconds per unit. Coordinated maneuvering maintained above ninety-six percent. Internal diagnostics: optimal."

A pause.

The lights above the range dimmed, just slightly—like breath held.

Then, softer—almost shy:

"Was that... sufficient?"

From the observation deck above, Koron let out a breath through his teeth.

Sasha laughed, smiling faintly.

"It was more than sufficient," she said.

Koron nodded slowly, eyes on the scorched field below.

"Well done my dear." he said, looking up at the security camera.

Lucia replied with just a hint of warmth.

"Thank you."

Leaning back against the bulkhead, Koron watched as the maintenance drones began sweeping away the scorched wreckage. The air still shimmered faintly with heat from the last exchange.

His voice stayed private, routed only to Sasha across the neural link. 'It's still not a sure thing. Servitors aren't Astartes. They don't think. They don't adapt. They don't hit back the same way.' He tapped a finger against the rail before him, the faint click echoing in the observation bay. 'Armor parity doesn't mean combat parity.'

Sasha responded with a quiet hum in his mind, warm and steady. 'We can punch through the plate. That much we've proven. But the Marines are more than the sum of their shell. Faster. Meaner. Smarter.'

A pause.

'Still dangerous.'

Koron nodded slowly. 'Sim data only takes us so far, so-'

'-We'll just have to make what comes next count,' she finished for him.

He exhaled through his nose, eyes fixed on the fading target feed. 'Let's just hope the first real test isn't the last.'

-

The incense curled in slow, serpentine spirals.

Aleron knelt in the sanctum of the Mission House, the walls echoing with distant hymns. The light was low—candlelight only. No lumen-strips. No tech-priest sigils humming softly in the walls. Just wax, smoke, and silence.

He didn't speak aloud. He didn't need to.

His thoughts had learned to echo.

It did not speak, not in words. Emotions slithered through the stillness, more pressure than sound.

He didn't flinch. Not anymore.

The dreams had taught him that fear was a momentary indulgence. That power moved like a tide—rising in secret, until the wave finally broke.

Outside, they still monitored him.
Still tested. Still measured.
They watched him walk the halls.
They smiled at his kindness.
They whispered about his humility.

Let them.

Aleron opened his eyes.

In front of him sat the open Codex—the Emperor's word made manifest. His hands didn't touch it. Not anymore. He didn't need to. He knew the words. All of them. And he'd come to understand that knowledge was not reverence.

Not truly.

Knowledge was scaffolding.
Faith was architecture.
And belief?

Belief was the mortar binding a god to its throne.

He could feel it now.

The weight of expectation in every step. The whispers that clung to his robe as he passed. The careful devotion of the Mission House adepts. The way the others deferred—not to his rank, but to his presence.

They wanted to believe.

So they did.

So they would.

He looked up at the candles. There were now thirty, set in a perfect circle around the altar.

Each one was lit, marking the passage of a day.

And tomorrow—the thirty-first day—was the day they reached the edge of the Nachmund sub-sector.

The Hammer would cross the tide back into realspace.

And the thing that watched him, that fed through the cracks of his dreams, would come forward fully at last.

Aleron rose, slow and steady.

He looked at the wick of the thirty-first candle. Unlit, but ready to catch fire.

A smile ghosted across his lips.

Tomorrow, the Emperor would see him.

Tomorrow, everything changed.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Eight

-

The stars screamed as the Hammer of Nocturne tore back into realspace.

The Gellar field groaned—low and primal—like some wounded beast being dragged across knives. Hull plates trembled with microfractures. Inertial dampeners howled under the strain of impossible pressure and misaligned vectors. Lights flickered in frantic Morse, cogitators surged with scrambled noospheric backwash, and for a single heart-clutching instant, every display screen aboard the bridge went black.

Then—reality caught.

A gut-punch shudder rolled across the deck like a war drum struck by a titan's hand. Fifty million tons of forged ceramite and adamantine slammed back into existence at the edge of the Nachmund Gauntlet sub-sector, gravity and momentum folding into place with a teeth-gritting snap.

Captain Tavos stood at the heart of the storm, unflinching. Bare feet kissed cold deckplates, robes stirring in the recycled breath of realspace. He savored it in like an old soldier tasting the first breath after a storm.

"Status," he said—his voice a stone cast into still water.

"Translation complete," intoned Voxmaster Thorne from the altar station, runes flickering across his gauntleted hands. "We are eighty-six million kilometers from fleet rendezvous. All major systems reporting operational. Structural integrity at ninety-seven percent. Navigator confirms the warp aperture sealed successfully."

Tavos inclined his head slightly, shadows playing across the planes of his solemn face. "The Indomitable?"

-

Koron shoved himself off the support pillar with a muttered curse, plating creaking under the strain. His helm retracted with a soft hiss, revealing a face twisted in long-suffering frustration.

"Lucia," he growled.

"Here," came the soft, ever-patient reply—a whisper woven from velvet and steel.

"Move 'fix the damn engines' to the top of the list."

"Logged."

Koron scrubbed a metal hand down his face, dragging tension from brow to jaw. "And start working on something that'll pass for alcohol. I'm going to need it."

"Brewing protocols activated," Lucia said with cheerful precision. "Would you prefer distillation, fermentation, or—"

"Yes."

-

"Successful translation my lord." Thorne answered crisply. "Their responding with green across the board."

Tavos nodded once—approval without words. His gaze shifted to the helm officer, a mortal whose uniform hung loose from recent months of shipboard strain.

"ETA to fleet formation?"

"Two standard days at full burn, Captain," the mortal replied quickly, glancing at his readouts. "Would you like me to initiate vox-hail?"

Tavos turned toward the comms array, bare feet striking the steel like hammerblows despite his graceful movement.

"Establish link," Tavos said.

The hololith flickered to life, casting pale blue light across the bridge. A towering figure resolved within the static haze—Commander Julius Varyx, Sector Marshal of the Nachmund Gauntlet. An aquila tattoo spread across his brow, its lines sunken into deep creases of experience. His right eye gleamed—an augmetic orb of gold-crystal precision. A brutal scar slashed down the length of his neck, the legacy of a too-close encounter with Dark Eldar blades.

Tavos opened his mouth to speak.

The hololith stuttered.

Flickered.

Collapsed into static.

Darkness swallowed the bridge.

In the heartbeat that followed, emergency lumens snapped to life in a haze of cold red, bathing the command deck in the bloodlight of impending violence. Alarms shrieked across every level, harsh and discordant.

Tavos turned, sharp and controlled, catching Thorne's eye in the crimson gloom. He gestured once—cut the noise.

Thorne was already moving, jamming the override rune on the vox-altar. The alarms died mid-wail, leaving a taut, vibrating silence in their wake. A few bridge crew shifted nervously. Tavos could smell the adrenaline beginning to rise.

Hand pressed to his earpiece, Thorne listened intently to the rapidly cascading reports coming in from across the ship. His brow furrowed deeper with each passing second.

Thorne pressed a hand to his vox-link, face grim. "Captain... confirmed hostile action across multiple decks. Decks Five through Seventeen reporting engagement. Communications fragmenting."

Tavos drew himself taller—not anger, not panic. Purpose.

His voice split the silence like a blade, already making his way to the armory.

"Battle-stations."

The ship shifted at his words.

Like a beast waking from a thousand-year slumber, The Hammer of Nocturne flexed its wounded bones—and prepared to fight.

In the howling dark, ancient bulkheads locked. Void-shield capacitors bellowed.

Weapons decks, long quiet, surged back to life.

And across the bridge, even the mortals stood a little straighter under the Captain's shadow, remembering—perhaps too late—that they rode aboard a war machine, not a lifeboat.

-

Alarms screamed through the Hammer of Nocturne—an agonized, ululating cry of klaxons and vox static that pulsed through every corridor like blood through a ruptured artery. The ship howled, and the faithful heard it.

Instinct took hold. Trained reflexes overrode thought. Hands seized weapons. Feet pounded steel. Officers bellowed orders over broken comms. Emergency lumens bathed the walls in war-red, and command lines lit up with cascading calls for aid.

Guardsmen and security crews scrambled into flak gear with trembling fingers. Menials dove for shelters they'd only ever rehearsed reaching. Bulkhead doors slammed shut with metallic finality. Automated turrets clicked into deployment, tracking unseen threats with blinking aggression.

But death was already inside.

The Astartes had moved first. The moment the alarm sang, obsidian giants surged from their quarters—Salamanders, forged for fire and fury, already bound for the armories in a thunderous march.

They never reached them.

The first explosion came from below.

There was no warning.

No tripwire. No pressure sensor. No subtle click.

Just scorching heat, blinding light, the roar of rushing wind.

Explosives hidden in the servitor ducts—tucked away in crawlspaces above and below the barracks and armories—detonated in perfect synchrony. Fire and steel erupted like the wrath of ancient gods, shaped charges peeling up the floor and down from the ceiling in tandem.

Flames roared across the dormitory like a living storm.

The Astarte's were built for war. Their bodies could shrug off fire, endure shrapnel that would flay a mortal alive. But concussive force doesn't ask permission. It ruptures lungs, collapses organs, snaps bone beneath black carapace and reinforced muscle.

Brother Tranos awoke mid-air, flung from his bunk like a doll in a storm. The ceiling collapsed above him, fractured plasteel embedding itself into the torso of the battle-brother beside him. His left arm was shattered, pain in his chest from a slab of his fused ribcage that had punched through something important. His hearing gone to static. Steel pierced his side like a blade of fire.

But he was still breathing.

Still fighting.

Even naked but for his sash, his instincts roared. He rolled, found his footing, reached for a bolter that was not there.

Only flames, blood, and ruin met his grasp.

From the smoke came figures—mortal, but armed. No uniform, no formation. Just converted deck workers and laborers in patchwork armor. Gravitic drills modified into execution rigs. Las-cutters adapted for combat. Servitor claws repurposed into weapons.

They were not soldiers.

They were the faithful.

And they had come to kill the false gods.

His right hand seized his bedframe, fingers tearing off a chunk of metal as easily as a mortal would scoop up mud. He hurled it without thought—instinct and mass. The cultist it struck burst apart in a mist of bone and ruptured organs. Another lunged at him, only to be flattened beneath Tranos's foot—ribs caved inward like wet cardboard.

He tore the third's head from his shoulders with a single twist.

Some brothers crawled from under twisted wreckage. Some staggered, half-conscious. One stood ablaze, roaring defiance as he tore an attacker in half.

They had no armor. No weapons. Only fists. Only fire.

Still, they were Astartes.

Still, they were death made flesh.

Another explosion thundered beneath them.

The deck shuddered—then collapsed. Steel groaned and peeled open like a wound. Men and metal were sucked downward into boiling darkness. Superheated gas vented from ruptured coolant lines, liquefying anything it touched.

Cultists surged forward—firing into the chaos, hurling frag grenades into alcoves, executing the wounded with methodical hatred.

Brother Janek rose from the smoke with a piece of shrapnel jutting from his thigh. He limped through the flames, blood painting his jaw, teeth clenched in rage. A fallen lasrifle lay at his feet. He picked it up—not to fire, but to wield like a club.

The frame bent on the first skull.

Snapped on the second.

Still he swung.

"Weapons!" someone roared through the fire. "To the vaults!"

The survivors surged toward the doors—fewer now. Slower. But relentless.

And that was when the second ambush struck.

Melta charges cooked the corridor from beneath. The walls crumpled inward. Frag mines shredded the passage. Grenades hissed open—chemical compounds venting into the air. Not hallucinogens nor nerve disruptors.

Simple irritants, chemicals to make the eyes water, throats burn.

Astartes staggered mid-run as their eyes burned, others snarling as they tried to blink away the tears.

Smoke thickened.

Lights died.

Vox-channels crackled with static and fragmented screams.

This was no riot.

No sudden rebellion.

This was execution—planned, mapped, calculated over weeks, maybe months. Every chokepoint. Every ventilation shaft. Every bolt and servitor port.

And now?

Now it burned.

The Hammer groaned under the strain. Somewhere deeper, pressure containment cracked. Fire suppression failed. One by one, secondary systems buckled.

A cascade of failure, slowly suffocating the ship and all aboard.

Above, more charges went off—blocking exits. Crumpling corridors. Denying hope.

In the heart of the maelstrom, the Salamanders fought like caged gods.

But even gods could bleed.

-

The plasma reactor sang its hymn of fusion fire—deep, rhythmic, divine.

From his observation tier above the sanctum, Archmagos Veneratus Karthis-Omnis listened.

The chamber unfurled below him like a cathedral forged in metal and memory. Tiered walkways arced across walls of sanctified adamantium, inscribed with golden circuit-script and embossed with Martian litanies. Censer smoke hung thick in the upper air, mingling with ozone and the heat-slick scent of charged coils.

Choir-servitors chanted in layered binharic, their tones matched in harmony with the reactor's pulse—a song of calibration, of containment, of fire tamed by faith.

Karthis-Omnis stood motionless at the sanctum's apex, unmoved by heat or sound. Towering. Crimson-clad. Machine and more than machine. His form was an angular monolith of Martian engineering, plated in brass and void-black sigils. Dozens of mechadendrites whispered and shifted around his shoulders, some twitching with anticipation, others still as grave markers.

His face was a mask of polished chrome, devoid of expression. At its center, a single cyclopean optic glowed crimson—unblinking, unpitying.

His thoughts flowed directly into the noospheric spine of the sanctum, entwined with it like neural marrow. To others, sensor telemetry was data. To Karthis-Omnis, it was sensation.

Pressure variance was warmth on the skin.

Magnetic resonance hummed like a heartbeat in his teeth.

Latency registered like pain.

All systems within operational bounds.
Containment field: stable.
Core vent: cycling nominally.
Coolant pressure: optimal.
Noospheric latency: 0.003—

Deviation.

Fourteen coolant pumps desynchronized.
Two containment coils sagged 2.1% below tolerances.
Three nodes returned recursive pings. Feedback loops.

To others, insignificant.

To him, they were sacrilege.

"Inefficiency detected," Karthis-Omnis said aloud, vox-tones harmonizing like a broken choir.

His optic narrowed.

A shaped charge detonated beneath the lower gantry, tearing through sanctified floor plating and a cluster of tech-priests. Shards of blessed steel, molten insulation, and machine-oil sprayed across the tier like blood from a vein. A second blast split the opposite wall, gutting a node-shrine. Servo-skulls screamed as they died, falling in arcs of flame and shattered logic.

Chaos surged.

Servitors spun wildly or slumped into stillness, their routines ruptured mid-cycle. Junior adepts fled—robes aflame, voices cracking as they cried to the Omnissiah for mercy.

The hymnal stuttered.

The machine-spirit winced.

Karthis-Omnis did not move.

He calculated.

Attack vectors triangulated.
Ingress point: Shaft B-77 and hallway C-04.
Hostile force: Two hundred-forty-nine bodies. Improvised and sanctified armament. Unsanctioned augmetics.
Tactical vector: sabotage, not eradication.
Coordinated. Pre-planned. Modeled.
Probability of external intelligence: 83.4%.

Unacceptable.

He stepped forward.

The vox-net opened without command.

"Initiate countermeasures. Seal ingress routes. Deploy Pattern-V suppressors. Purge ventilation feeds above threshold three. Isolate the noospheric spine from ship-wide logic. Prepare for partial sanctum loss."

Mechadendrites snapped outward, six in perfect sync—two arced with electric charges, one flickered with ignition light, and three unfolded into precision claws retooled for violence. The remaining arms curled up, a crown of waiting fangs.

Below, Skitarii rallied—half-equipped, rites incomplete. Still they moved, pulled into formation by command-pulse. Broken protocol didn't matter. The Archmagos had spoken.

The first cultist appeared through the smoke—patchwork armor, repurposed flame-welder clutched in trembling hands. His face was smeared in ash and devotion.

He screamed praise to false flame.

Karthis-Omnis saw the heat spike in his muscles, the micro-twitch in his trigger hand.

One mechadendrite struck.

The man dropped mid-step—trachea crushed, body twitching, dying with no dignity.

"Faith is not function," Karthis intoned. "Faith is viral input. Dangerous. Inefficient."

A second cultist vaulted from the upper gantry, howling a hymn of ecstatic death.

Karthis turned 17 degrees.

An arc-lash hissed—blue and perfect.

The man split in half from skull to hip, lifeless before his scream ended.

The reactor remains stable—for now.
Servitor losses: 27%. Suboptimal.
Enemy coordination exceeds baseline predictive variance.
Noospheric interference increasing. Source: unknown.
Warp-pattern anomaly: 34.6% likelihood.
Vector: external or embedded.

I will find the breach.
I will cauterize it.

Because this is my sanctum.
Because this is my ship.
Because I am the Will of the Machine-God.

Karthis stepped into the smoke.

His presence triggered ancient protocols. Walls hissed open. Hidden weapon ports slid free.

Auto-turrets deployed, barrels spinning.

Combat servitors awakened, red eyes gleaming.

The shrine of logic became a crucible of fire.

The cultists screamed—not in war cries.

In error states.

A grav pulse snapped a fleeing man's knee backward, folding him into the deck. Another gasped as injector-tines pierced his chest, pumping paralytic compound into a beating heart.

The sanctum fought back—surgical, exact, remorseless.

Karthis moved through it all, slow and unstoppable, as the fires behind him began to fade.

Ahead, the smoke coiled around dead men's prayers.

And he walked through it, a judgment that could not be denied.

-

The training hall echoed with the rhythmic clap of boots and barked commands. Kade stood at the far end, arms folded into the sleeves of his robes, sharp crimson eyes watching the trainees in formation. Dusthaven fighters, off-duty guardsmen, a few ship crew with grit behind their eyes—half a hundred souls learning how to survive the next war.

Tara and Kala moved among them—synchronized, coiled, fast.

Their stances were cleaner now. Their timing tighter. Sweat clung to skin. Dust to bruises.

Lean bodies honed by years of scant meals and unforgiving work—but even so, they were small. And more often than not, they hit the floor when the men got hold of them.

Still—they rose. Again and again.

Kade allowed himself the faintest smirk. Pride, quiet and coiled, rose behind his stoicism.

Even in defeat, they were learning.

The lights flickered.

Not the usual flutter of aging lumens.

This was sharper. A pulse. A warning. A heartbeat that missed its mark.

Then the floor vibrated—low and wide, like something massive had shifted in the bones of the ship.

Kade's head snapped up. One hand dropped to his belt, fingers curling around the helm clipped there.

He slid it over his head without a word.

"Status."

IRA:
System diagnostic online. Alert.
Voxnet disruption.
Multiple impact signatures detected—decks three through twenty-one.
Estimated ordinance: heavy explosive.
Gellar field ripple detected.
Origin: Internal.

Another explosion. Closer. The floor bucked under their boots. A power conduit along the far wall burst in a shower of sparks. Screams followed—some in the room, most through the walls.

Tara swore under her breath as she and the rest of the mortals raced towards their stowed equipment. "That wasn't a drill."

Kala was halfway through buckling her Koron-crafted armor on. "No shit, what the hell's happening?"

IRA:
Ship-wide vox disabled.
Emergency alerts routed through private channels.
Broadcast: Multiple coordinated attacks. Deck control compromised.
Standby protocol: Exitus Bellum.

Kade's blood turned cold. Exitus Bellum. The kill command. Reserved for only one kind of situation—internal betrayal on a massive scale.

"Everyone, on me," he growled, voice distorted through the helm. "Now."

Across the room, the momentary confusion had turned into battlefield calm. Veterans all. They'd fought under red skies and in black corridors—this wasn't the first time chaos had come. A few were trying to reach their squad leaders, but the vox was dead. Only static.

"We're under attack?" Tara whispered, fingers tight around her rifles grip.

"Worse," Kade said. "It's a purge."

Another tremor rocked the hall, and this time a section of ceiling gave way at the far end. A man screamed as a beam collapsed, crushing him beneath a cascade of steel.

"Emperor's blood!" Kala gasped, frozen for a breath before diving to help. She caught herself, seeing those nearby already moving to help.

IRA:
Casualty assessment updated.
Detected hostile incursion vector: Main passageways and secondary hallways.
Approximate enemy count based on last know estimates: 3,000+.
Approximate Astartes active and armed: 21.

Kade turned, eye lenses glowing. "Estimates put the enemies at over three thousand." he said. "And they've just declared war on us from within."

Tara's face went pale. "Three—?"

Kala nodded grimly, gently pushing her sister's braid down the back of her vest. Her hands shook, just slightly. "That's not sabotage. That's a damn army."

The doors shuddered.

Gunfire echoed from somewhere nearby, short controlled bursts—Imperial pattern. Return fire followed, messier, louder. Slug rounds and lasbeams.

Kade moved—too fast for his size. With one sweep of his arm, he upended the nearest crate, dragging it into place. Seeing his intent, the others followed, forming a makeshift barrier across from the training hall's entry. "They want us confused. Scattered. They want to catch us before we're armed." He paused. "They didn't count on you all being with me."

Tara's voice was steady now. "Where are we going?"

"First priority," Kade said, "is getting all of you out. Link up with loyalists. Get armed. Regroup."

"And you?" Kala asked.

He pulled a combat blade from the inside of his robes. It would have been a sword in any mortals hands.

"I draw fire."

A heavy clang rang out from behind the bulkhead.

IRA:
Hostile breach imminent.
Estimated time to contact: twenty-two seconds.

Kade turned toward the crowd.

"Everyone capable of holding a weapon—form a firing line. Once the enemy is dealt with, get out, link up with your squads and get to your duty stations.

"But—"

He cut her off. "No time. The longer we talk, the more of us die."

The first thud came—metal on metal. Then another.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

IRA:
Contact in six... five... four...

Kade sprinted to the breach point, blade spinning once in his hand.

He settled against the bulkhead wall. Still. Centered.

The door exploded inward.

And hell followed.

-

The Warp had always sung to her.

Sometimes it was gentle, like the hush of a lullaby whispered through broken teeth. Other times, it howled like wolves around a dying fire. But always, it sang—a threnody only Navigators could hear, a dissonant melody tangled in time and memory.

And for the last week, the song had grown... strained.

Anvara Sa'qir stood within her observation spire, eyes closed beneath her veil, her breath slowing as the lumen strips flickered above her. The Gellar field held steady—so said the runes. So said the tech-priests.

But she could feel the edge fraying.

Not a tear. Not yet.

A warping.

The Choir Pit below her observation chamber echoed with soft prayer. Twelve psykers, cloaked in black, seated in a circle of iron runes and warding oil, all tuned toward the noosphere, listening for the empyrean tides, weaving stability through the ship's delicate psyche.

She should have felt their calm.

Instead, she felt—

Screaming.

It didn't come through her ears. It wasn't sound. It was in the marrow, a psychic vibration that made her skull feel too small for her thoughts. A twisting note of pain threaded through the warp—not a piercing cry, but a resonance, deep and wrong, like a symphony written in reverse.

She opened her third eye.

The veil peeled back in a whisper of air and null-shield hiss.

And she saw it.

The Warp was not what it had been.

It bent around something now. Like a lens folding around gravity, like light caught on a dying star. Not a warp storm. Not an echo. Not a shadow.

A presence.

Something new that felt old.

It bent the Empyrean like gravity bends light. Space folded around it as if eager to clothe it. It didn't rage. It didn't claw.

It performed.

The Warp rippled across its skin like silk across a knife, every flare of power choreographed. It moved like something that understood belief—deeply. Intimately. Like it had worn the masks of divinity before.

Below, one of the psykers spasmed—nose bursting with blood, teeth cracking as his jaw locked shut. The others began to shake in perfect unison, heads twitching at the same rhythm.

Like puppets on a shared string.

Then the first scream broke free—not vocal, but psychic. A sharp hook dragged across the fabric of their minds, pulling thought and soul into something vast and smiling.

Anvara staggered forward, hand bracing against the observation altar.

"Seal the pit," she hissed, activating the kill-wards. "Emergency override. Choir status red. Lock everything—"

She froze mid-command.

Because the warp looked back at her.

She had never felt that before.

Even in the worst storms. Even in the screaming vortexes of the Maelstrom or the Eye. The warp had always been aware, yes. But never… interested.

Not like this.

This thing noticed her.

And it grinned.

Not malice. Not rage. Something worse.

Recognition.

The feed from the Choir Pit cut off. Not terminated—severed. The link went blank, like a star going nova, like a mind burning out all at once.

Anvara fell back, eyes weeping black tears behind her veil.

A whisper brushed her mind before the link collapsed:

"The path is open."

The pit doors exploded upward in flame. The backup lights flickered red. Alarms began to scream.

And beneath her trembling breath, Navigator Anvara Sa'qir realized what had happened.

Not that the warp had breached.

But that something had stepped through.

-

The moment the Hammer of Nocturne began to bleed, Xal'zyr felt it.

Not with eyes, nor ears. Not even through augur or scan. He felt it.

Like a bone deep ache just before a break. Like the sharp pressure between heartbeats when something precious is about to be shattered.

It began as a tremor—subtle, insidious. Not in the ship's hull or systems, but in the invisible realm of meaning that lay beneath them. A tremor, not in hull or steel, but in the strata beneath all things—where belief becomes gravity.

And from deep within that invisible sea, he felt the first whimper of an idea becoming real.

The faint, horrid whine of a lie becoming truth.

The noosphere—once a sea of structure, control, and sacred logic—began to distort.

Then it screamed.

Not with static or code, but with raw emotion.

Panic.
Ecstasy.
Hunger.

Every thread of the ship's psychic shielding flared—like dying stars at the end of their burn—and then, all at once, shattered.

Xal'zyr staggered, a gasp torn from his throat. One hand slammed against the cold sanctum deck as his knees buckled, his spine curling with feedback. The pressure behind his eyes bloomed like flame. Sweat streamed down his temples, slick and cold.

The noosphere—once a sea of controlled signal and thought—split open like a rotting fruit. And from within that exposed core came presence.

Foul. Majestic.

A voice that had not spoken, and yet was already obeyed.

Warp-born entities—lesser daemons—had presence like stormfronts. Angry, chaotic, full of sound and fury. But this?

This was cold.

Purposeful.

The kiss of a scalpel before it found the vein.

"Guards!" he hissed through clenched teeth, forcing clarity into the air as his eyes began to weep black ichor, "lock down Deck Twelve! Isolate—"

He never finished.

A wall of psychic pressure hit him like a planetary drop.

Sound ceased. Thought ceased. Only one thing remained—feeling. A single, crystalline emotion not his own:

Worship.

But it wasn't his.

It wasn't even directed at him.

It was the reflection of thousands offering their souls not out of fear, but devotion. A kind of spiritual surrender so complete it created its own beacon.

And something immense had answered.

Xal'zyr's knees cracked against the floor.

Sweat ran down his temples like rain.

In the twisting, buckling tides of the realspace the Gellar veil didn't rip—but it no longer mattered. Whatever this was hadn't needed a breach. It had found a seam. A whisper. A window of belief and opened it wide.

He gasped, choking on his own breath as his vision ripped itself apart and reformed through warp-sight—burning clarity stitched over blind terror.

No longer confined to the material, he saw it:

A figure.

Wreathed in light not its own.

Golden. Tall. Beautiful. Wings like the heart of purity. A face sculpted from memory—familiar, beloved, mourned by a hundred-thousand worlds.

Something wearing the echo of a memory. A mask woven from myth and bound in reverence.

And beneath it—beneath that lie so perfect it was worshipped—coiled something black.

A thought. A presence.

Ancient.

Patient.

And hungry.

Not rage. Not madness. Calculation. A consciousness uncoiling across every oath, every rite, every whispered prayer not sanctioned but offered. It had not forced itself in.

It had been invited.

He pressed his fingers to his temples, dragging psionic null-fields over his skin like armor, pushing back the burning tide of awe that threatened to paralyze his mind.

"He's not possessed," he whispered, breath catching in his throat. "He's inviting."

Aleron had not been seized. Not twisted. Not bent to an alien will.

He had opened the door and asked the storm to walk through.

And now it had.

Weapons fire echoed faintly beyond the sanctum, distant but steady. Alarms blared across the ship's spine. Explosions shook the deck.

The crew was reacting to what they could see—saboteurs, flame, collapse. But none of them had seen this.

None of them had seen the belief engine, the spiritual calculus, the ritual that had just rewritten part of the ship's soul.

Xal'zyr began the rites. Not to banish. Not yet.

But to track. To understand.

Because the worst part was not that Aleron had fallen.

The worst part was that he hadn't.

He thought he was rising.

He thought this was the Emperor's will.

And faith—real faith—had power.

Power enough to split the veil.

Power enough to invite something ancient beyond reckoning.

Power enough to give it shape.

-

It wasn't the klaxons that warned her—it was the shouting.

Muffled at first—filtered through steel bulkheads and stale recycled air—but it cut through the hum of the deck like a blade through old cloth. Raised voices. Panic. Gunfire.

Stubber rounds. Lasbeams. The hiss of a flamer. The shriek of something spinning and sharp.

The hab-blocks in this sector of the Hammer had long since stopped being homes. Now they were bunkers. And in the last week, Dusthaven's people had turned theirs into a damn fortress.

Steel beams lined the main corridor. Everything that might have offered cover to an attacker had been cut down, gutted, welded shut. The only way in was a straight walk through a killzone.

That had been Milo's demand. Not because he was paranoid.

Because he knew exactly how people died in corridors like this.

Elissa reached the barricade just as the outer hatch buckled.

The servitors acting as sentries were already dead outside. Shot mid-callout. Their viscous mix of oil and blood pooled beneath the bent bulkhead, steaming.

Then the attackers pushed through.

Heavy shields—steel slabs fused with scrap ceramite—were forced into the corridor first. Wide enough to block the bottleneck. Tall enough to hide behind. Three abreast, locked together.

Behind them came twenty men.

Their weapons were crude but real. Lasrifles, rigged drills, stubbers with extended barrels. Their backs were tense with anticipation.

But no fire greeted them.

The barricade at the far end was empty. No shouts. No light.

Just silence and the hum of the vents.

They hesitated for a heartbeat. Then someone barked a command.

The shield wall surged forward.

A dozen paces in.

Halfway down the corridor.

The rear hatch slammed shut.

A sound like judgment.

A tomb sealing.

And from behind the barricade, Elissa's voice rang out—clear, cold, commanding:

"Fire."

Thirty lasguns opened fire on full auto.

A brilliant white flurry poured into the enemy force.

The heavy shields, meant to absorb Imperial issue fire, didn't matter. The beams carved through them, punching metal into flesh, turning the charging line into a collapsing wave of smoke, bone, and ruin.

Not a firefight.

An execution.

In under ten seconds, it was done.

Elissa was already stepping forward, boots careful over smoking corpses.

A dozen Dusthaveners moved with her, rifles still raised, sweeping the bodies. Two or three bolts hissed out—final shots into twitching bodies. Just in case.

One of the men kicked a shield aside, revealing a dead cultist with a vox-bead still half-active in his ear.

Elissa crouched beside the body, pulled the unit free, and put her own aside.

'Elly,' she sent down the link, slipping the bead into place. 'You're on.'

The shift was instant.

Her companion's usual warmth disappeared—replaced by cold, razor-focus.

'Decrypting. Cross-patching. Frequency hook established.'

Elissa stood slowly as the overlay pulsed into her vision—fragmented transmissions crackling like dry leaves in a windstorm.

'Anything good?'

'Scanning now. Piggybacking sub-layer protocols now.'

She stayed silent, watching as the bodies were looted for weapons, ammo and useful supplies.

'Any word from Kade?'

'Ira says—quote—'Alive. Busy. Will inform you if anything changes.''

Elissa's jaw clenched.

'Damn it.'

'I know. But he's with them. And if I can't be beside a Primarch right now, I'll take a Salamander Astartes with someone to protect.'

That earned a twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Not a smile.

But close.

Still—she looked up the corridor. Still too quiet.

'I'll never not worry about my children in a firefight.'

'Fair. For what it's worth, I just found you and the girls in a flagged designation.'

Elissa paused.

Her eyes narrowed.

'Flagged?'

'High-value targets. Lethal force not permitted—all three of you are marked as 'capture, unharmed.''

A breath hung between heartbeats.

Then—

Elissa's voice dropped to a murmur, steel sliding over velvet.

'I'm sorry—what.'

-

The Indomitable breathed in silence.

In the cathedral hush of its spinal lattice chamber, soft pulses of light traced filaments beneath the floor. The diagnostics were clean. No flicker in the network. No echo of strain in the quantum braid. Just quiet efficiency and machine serenity—the calm hum of a ship finally beginning to heal.

Koron floated parallel to the roof, one hand resting against a humming conduit, feeling the thrum of lightning below the insulation. Sasha's voice filled the air with gentle telemetry—ship stress loads, hydroponics failures, Lucia's simulation growth curves.

Drifting in the sea of data, he watched, nudging here and there, but for the moment, there was a sense of contentment.

Of course, the universe was never one to allow such moments to last.

A tremor in the Hammer. A stutter in his internal overlays. A meaningless percentile drift, insignificant on any screen. But he felt it like a change in temperature. The system was hesitating. The data wasn't wrong, but the shape of it had changed. The future had paused.

Then it tried to diverge.

Minor redundancies pinged asynchronous. Cargo node latency in the Hammer's relay feed slipped off baseline by three full seconds. He didn't need to check—his models were already peeling open layers of possibility in the background. Not consciously. Not yet.

But something in him shifted—a deep, almost evolutionary click of warning. Like prey catching the scent of fire.

The future had twisted.

Deactivating his grav-plates, armored boots hit the deck.

In the back of his mind, instinct and software combined into the strange biosynthetic matrix that blurred the lines between man and machine. Models bloomed like flowers made of math and consequence.

Pathways. Outcomes. Failure states. Kill zones. Triage priorities.

Thousands of branching scenarios computed in the background as calmly as a heartbeat. He wasn't reacting—he was refining.

Lucia's voice triggered a half-second later.

"Environmental deviation detected. Standard deviation exceeded. Probability matrix corrupting."

Her tone was calm, but beneath that thin layer tremors cracked, ice barely holding. She was already reallocating runtime towards the new data.

Sasha's avatar flickered alive above the core—a floating orb, pixelated face lined with tension, lips pursed as her voice dropped into professional register.

"Tell me I'm not reading a cascade event."

Then the network lit up.

A pulse shoved itself into the channel—compressed, encrypted, Elly's signature all over it. Raw panic flattened into signal clarity.

"Everybody, we got hostiles everywhere. Dusthaven's hab-block is holding for the moment. I'm reading casualties ship-wide, including Astartes. We have system failures across the board, comms are either down, jammed or flooded with conflicting intel."

It overlapped with IRA's flat interjection over the comm.

"Explosions confirmed. Multideck detonation signatures. Hammer of Nocturne compromised. Emergency kill-code active."

Koron was already moving before either finished.

Lucia was next—sounding almost offended by the delay. "Aquila launch sequence spooling up. Drone command routed to you. Updating directives."

The lights dimmed across the chamber.

Then—combat red. One long heartbeat behind Koron's movement.

Drone cradles hissed as locks disengaged.

Viper-class drones unfolded, curling out of their racks like mechanized cobras, optics blinking from sapphire to crimson. Adhesion foam packs spun into place alongside limpet charges that clicked home in their belly armor.

Sentinel racks slid down on grav-rails, limbs twitching as they woke. They dropped onto all fours, internal gyros humming. Their subharmonic howlers pulsed once, syncing across fire teams.

Prometheus drones shimmered in and out of occlusion fields, uploading system sabotage scripts into internal memory. One vanished into the ceiling vent before the others even took their first steps.

Elly's voice surged back in, sharpened by tension.

"I'm syncing Elissa's neural feed. We've got Dusthaven civilians spread out all over the ship, some are engaging with the Hammer's forces. Cultists are inside the skin of the decks. They're using servitor routes, crawlspaces. Planning was—precise."

Koron didn't respond.

He didn't need to.

The drone cradles groaned as restraints released. Targeting logs rolled across internal dataspace, each drone pre-designated a zone and fallback plan. Lucia routed movement to fire corridors Koron hadn't requested—but had already seen, the maps flickering in the corner of his HUD as the predictive algorithms ran.

With a thought his armor activated.

Liquid metal fused into plates that unfolded over him in a sequence of seamless motion. His HUD clicked as combat subroutines spooled open like fresh lungs. There was no need for ammo counters, no wireframe or icons, no interface required.

Those were for moments when thought and action could be allowed to disengage, to separate. When nanoseconds did not mean the difference between life and death.

The ship's Imperial alarms finally screamed.

Too late.

Too loud.

Sasha rolled her virtual shoulders inside the net. "Full system sync complete, we are live. The lander is hot. Still want non-lethal?"

"Non-lethal first," Koron said, flexing metal knuckles, watching as the static discharge sparked between his fingers, feeling the four other minds at the edges of his mental periphery. "We don't know the details, so let's try and keep it as bloodless as possible."

Lucia tossed up the command directives for the drones. "Confirm?"

• PRIORITY ONE: Protect Dusthaven civilians.
• PRIORITY TWO: Secure critical Hammer infrastructure.
• PRIORITY THREE: Neutralize hostile actors. Non-lethal where possible. Lethality permitted under escalation clause.

"Confirmed."

Vipers slithered into ducts. Prometheus vanished through the data-spine. Sentinels dropped to four legs and padded toward the lander bay like armored wolves.

The bay doors hissed open.

A utility drone—multi-armed and floating—met him at the junction outside the launch bay. It carried the new harness: weapons, utilities, upgraded modules, everything he'd requested weeks ago.

He took it without ceremony, sliding it on with mechanical grace. Each latch clicked into place like punctuation in a sentence only he could read.

'Tara and Kala are with Kade on Deck Nine,' Sasha whispered across their private link, her tone lower now—tactical, but still touched with that southern belle humanity. 'Elissa and the Dusthaven people are on Deck Twenty-Six. Doc, Tavos, and other command staff—status unknown.'

Koron adjusted the chest harness.

'Direct a second squad to the Brandts.'

She paused at that.

'That'll split us thin,' she replied carefully. 'We only have sixty total. And ten of those are Prometheus. You're giving up a full tenth of the strike mesh.'

He locked the last mag-clasp into place.

'I know. But I want two squads protecting them.'

Another pause. Then a soft sigh. Resigned. Fond.

'Alright sugar.'

The Aquila Lander sat like a sleeping giant under siege lighting, steam curling off its upgraded venting coils. Its frame had been stripped, rewelded, rewritten—no longer a personnel shuttle, but a warbird wrapped in silence.

Adaptive armor glinted, rippling with micro-adjustments as it registered his approach. The nose-mounted plasma lances spun up with an audible hum. The ventral and dorsal multi-las turrets clicked into alignment, tracking invisible targets.

Koron ascended the ramp, each footfall absorbed by layered shockfoam.

Inside, the cabin was stripped and spartan: no seats, no windows. Just combat harnesses, cold steel utility lockers, recessed computer banks, and the drone bays—lined with waiting Vipers and Sentinels, curled into standby like blades asleep in sheaths.

Lucia's voice met him in the cockpit—calm, low, centered.

"Engines hot. Stealth field stable. All external weapons locked and synched. She's yours."

He settled into the pilot's seat and engaged the neural link. Fingers splayed across the chair's armrests—metal brushing metal. Thought bled into system. Command protocols threaded into bone.

He became the ship.

"Good," Koron said softly, eyes narrowing. "Let's fly."

And behind him, as the drones locked into their bays and the lander's engines roared to life—

The Indomitable, Lucia at the helm and its heart, matched its bellow.

Not with hope.

But with purpose.

The people of Dusthaven and their Astarte saviors from the Hammer, would not fight alone.

-

Deep beneath the sacred decks, in a forgotten hollow where gold leaf cracked under the strain of broken promises, Aleron knelt before the mound of offerings.

Fragments of shattered Aquilas, golden filigree torn from reliquaries, wiring and plating that could be scavenged—all piled into a crude nest of devotion. And at its center, an ancient, worn throne wrought from stolen gold, its surface dulled by countless hands pressed in prayer.

Twelve figures encircled him, cloaked and trembling. Their faces hidden, their bodies marked with the sigils of oaths that no longer answered to Terra. Each bore the stain of loyalty twisted into need—an aching void where faith had once been clean.

The dreams had been clearer these past nights.

Not symbols. Not riddles.

Songs of glass lungs and iron breath, of burning wings and weeping crowns.

It wasn't words the thing in the void had offered him.

It was gravity—a pull deeper and deeper into inevitability.

Aleron stepped forward, bare feet rasping against the soot-coated deck, the crude golden throne groaning under his weight. Dust shifted under his tread—dust that, in certain lights, seemed to twitch.

Seemed to whisper.

The chanting began.

He could feel it, thrumming against his skin, like a live wire hissing and snapping, the sensation of power.

The gold leaf crunching under his feet, twisting as he turned to sit upon it. The first time his hands grasped the edges, feeling the sharp, soft metal against his flesh, the bite of it as he came to rest.

The twelve acolytes speech shifted, no longer a human tongue, but a low, guttural unity—no words, just tone, a vibration that resonated in bone and blood. The air thickened. Lights overhead dimmed to embers.

The first surge hit like a thunderclap.

It tore through his body, ripping apart what he had been—what he had clung to. The flesh tried to resist, to scream, but the oaths held.

Bindings forged in essence, quenched in the oil of faith.

And through it all, the entity on the other side poured itself into him.

Skin blackened and split open. Bones stretched. Eyes bled light instead of tears. His spine cracked audibly as it was remade, vertebrae reshaped into something meant to carry not just a man, but a throne unto itself.

Metal, bone, gold and blood descended from the roof, servitor and sacrifices carried by unseen forces to entwine his body. Muscle piled onto tendon, bone sheathed in metal, optic nerves repurposed to relay the word as blood hardened betwixt the plates, sealing away the heart in a tomb of gold.

Cruel metal talons burst from twisted flesh, exposed bones splintering into spurs. Legs bent back into digitigrade limbs, wings built of wire and gossamer thin membranes that smeared gore on the roof as they spread wide.

Yet then it began to shrink, compressing in on itself, liquid gold oozing from every pore and leaking from splitting skin, flowing over its bloodied body. Where once muscle bulged grotesquely, it was now lean, slicked over by golden metal that formed into armor that girded his now towering frame.

For the monster was not the goal.

It was the beginning.

The wings came next—skeletal, raw, wire-bound things, then slowly clothed in white.

Feathers, perfect and immaculate, unfurled one by one, each a prayer, each a lie.

Muscle pulled tight over bone, lean and impossibly graceful.

The horns dissolved into nothing.

The fangs retracted into a mouth capable of smiling.

The monstrous bulk melted away, folded in on itself, until what remained was not grotesque—but glorious.

Golden hair, flowing like sunlight in the ruined chamber's darkness, crowned a face so perfect it stopped the acolytes mid-chant.

High cheekbones, solemn eyes.

A sorrowful mouth.

A brow that spoke of tragedy too deep for mortal comprehension.

And the wings—those impossible wings—curved outward, waving with a gentle breeze.

The final touch came with the eyes.

Not predatory.

Not bestial.

Deep pools of perfect blue, catching the dying light and breaking it into something unbearably beautiful.

The silence that followed was not the stillness of awe.

It was the silence of a blade pressed against a throat.

One of the acolytes collapsed fully, blood gushing from nose and ears, yet the others remained kneeling—paralyzed between worship and terror.

The Hammer's machine-spirits recoiled, systems stuttering and failing one by one as their ancient instincts screamed.

High above, in the bridge towers, alarms began to shriek.

Deep within the ship's vox-relays, static began whispering old names.

The figure atop the throne rose slowly, in no rush, savoring the moment.

When it smiled, it was not with cruelty.

It was with love.

The love of a blade honed to perfection through patience over millennia.

The acolytes sobbed openly.

Not in fear.

But in relief.

They thought their prayers had been answered.

They did not yet realize they had birthed their own damnation.

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Twenty Nine
-
Smoke clawed at Kade's throat as he jogged through the narrow corridor, the sharp tang of burning circuitry and charred flesh clinging to the recycled air. The twenty mortals trailing him struggled to match his pace, their boots hammering a syncopated rhythm against the metal deck. Still, none of them faltered. Shadows stretched long and jagged under the blood-red emergency lights, painting each face in warlike streaks as the service ladder to Deck Five loomed into view.

The walls bore the aftermath of battle—scorch marks bloomed black and red, and the crumpled bodies of friend and foe alike littered the path ahead in grotesque repose. Kade did not stop to examine them. There was no time to care, only the grim courtesy of avoiding the remains when possible.

Above, the hatch to Deck Five was sealed, fused metal blistered and warped around its edges. Someone had tried to keep the horrors below from reaching the upper levels.

Kade stepped onto the center rung of the ladder, the metal groaning beneath his mass. Behind him, the mortals caught their breath, backs to the corridor walls, weapons slack in tired hands.

Reaching the hatch, he tested the wheel. Welded shut.

"Ira," he whispered, fingers brushing the seal, "anything on the other side? I'm not sensing movement, but check me."

IRA:
Scanning... scanning...
Scan complete.
No hostiles detected.
Tripwire detected on hatch perimeter.
Likely a high-yield explosive.
Recommended action: Retreat. User KADE lacks tools for safe disarmament.

Kade allowed himself the ghost of a grin. "Get back," he called down, voice even. "There's a trap."

The others exchanged brief, muffled curses and did as ordered, ducking into side alcoves and bracing themselves.

Kade curled his fingers into a fist. His skin faintly clenched as muscle and implanted metal tightened.

And then he punched.

The hatch crumpled inward, ripped free from its housing with a shriek of torn steel—just as the explosive went off.

The world turned white.

Fire howled down the shaft as Kade dropped, tucked, and slammed into the deck below. The shockwave chased him, the edge of the blast licking at his robes, flames curling up his back like grasping hands.

He sat up coughing, swatting at embers, his outer robes singed and smoking. Around him, the others stared wide-eyed, speechless. Tara and Kala looked as if they'd just watched a god survive the wrath of a star.

IRA's voice returned, dry as ever.

IRA:
User KADE's tactic was reckless.

Kade didn't look up as he muttered, "But it worked."

IRA:
...Logging under 'Astartes Bomb Disposal.'

With a grunt, Kade hauled himself up through the still-smoking hatch, shoulders scraping against warped metal as he forced his bulk through. The edges hissed with residual heat, biting against his exposed skin where his robes had burned away. He ignored it.

The corridor above was dim, choked with smoke, the walls blistered and buckled from the blast. He crouched, scanned the shadows, then motioned for his escort to follow. One by one, the mortals climbed through, eyes wide, weapons held tight, adrenaline carrying them forward despite fatigue.

Kade took point without hesitation. The deck beneath his boots shuddered faintly as something deep within the Hammer groaned—a wounded beast refusing to die.

He glanced down the corridor, familiarity tugging at memory. Decades of patrolling these halls returned to him as clean instinct. "Right at the next junction," he muttered under his breath. "Straight for two, then left."

IRA:
Route confirmed.
Warning: Structural integrity severely compromised. Collapsed sections detected. Traps likely responsible. Alternate path recommended.

Kade's jaw tightened. "I'll scout ahead. Eyes open for hostiles and mines."

IRA:
Confirmed. Tactical scanning active.

They pressed forward, boots crunching over loose debris. Red emergency lumens bathed the corridor in blood-hued light, bleeding across walls scored with fresh blast marks. Smoke hung low, thick with heat and ozone. Every shadow could hide a cultist. Every corner promised a trap.

Kade's grip tightened on his combat blade as muffled voices filtered through the corridor ahead.

IRA:
Sixteen distinct life signs. Conversation topics line up with enemy combatants.
Thermal spikes detected—likely heavy weapons.

Kade's voice dropped to a growl. "Suggestions?"

IRA:
Analyzing terrain… T-junction ahead. High probability of ambush. Flanking ducts and side passages show signs of tampering—likely booby-trapped.
Tactical options:
— Option one: Retreat and regroup.
— Option two: Enter side passage. Allies engage at range, draw attention. Once engaged, User KADE engages into melee. Enemy combatants unable to counter Astartes melee skills.

Kade shook his head. "Retreat isn't on the table."

IRA:
Confirmed. Recommending option two.

He turned, crouching to speak to his people—battered, bleeding but unbroken. "Sixteen ahead. T-junction. Possibly a mounted weapon. I'll take the side tunnels and scout for traps. Once I reach them, open fire, the drop back. I'll move in once you stop firing."

They nodded. No words, just trust.

Kade stepped to the hatch, pressing an armored ear to the seam as IRA swept it for charges.

IRA:
No active traps detected.

He reached for the handle—

A hand landed on his wrist.

Small. Callused. Certain.

Tara.

Her eyes met his visor without flinching. "Mr. Kade, I have an idea."

He nods. "Quickly."

She pointed overhead, toward the bundles of cabling running along the ceiling. "Power conduits. I know the routing. Breaker boxes are every five hundred meters. If I can get to one, I can kill the lights in this section on your command."

IRA:
Valid strategy. Standard enemy kit lacks integrated illumination. Your optics will remain functional.

Kade's gaze flicked down the junction. Then to Tara.

"Quickly."

-

Stepping past the pressure plate, Kade moved with surprising grace, his massive frame gliding down the narrow service corridor, watching as the invisible energy strings cross-crossing the hallway vanished.

IRA:
Early warning laser grid disengaged.

Ahead, the voices grew clearer—low whispers, the clatter of power packs being loaded, the soft rustle of combat webbing and nerves stretched taut.

He reached the exit hatch and gripped the wheel, pausing.

IRA:
Countdown initiated. Five seconds to signal.

Kade took a breath—slow, controlled. All three lungs expanded as he curled his toes inside his boots, feeling the deckplates beneath his soles.

He didn't know if his brothers or cousins felt the same.

That stillness.

That falling away of everything but purpose.

No past. No future.

Just the moment. Just the mission.

It wasn't serenity. It was focus, honed to a singular edge.

He was what he was made to be.

The lights went out.

Down the main corridor, lasfire erupted—bright streaks of scarlet and white slashing through darkness. Screams followed as the cultists staggered, caught blind and burning. The stink of scorched flesh and melting flak filled Kade's nose.

IRA:
Multi-las charging—two seconds.

Kade's soldiers dropped back, ducking into cover as the high-pitched scream of the heavy weapon spun up—cutting loose a hail of energy meant to kill everything in front of it.

The hatch burst open.

He moved like a thunderclap in human form—blade in hand, a blur of motion crashing into the disoriented mass of heretics.

Four died in the first heartbeat.

Two heads hit the deck before their bodies knew they were dead.

A third cultist raised his rifle—too slow. Kade's backhand caved his skull inward with a crunch that ended in silence.

The fourth turned to flee.

Kade kicked him square in the gut.

The man folded around the impact, his body lifting from the floor, vomiting a crimson stream of ruptured organs before he even hit the bulkhead.

The rest died within moments.

Some turned to run—gunned down before they'd made it ten steps. Others tried to fight, swinging weapons in panic, but found only the Astartes waiting for them.

In less than twenty seconds, silence reigned.

Kade stood alone at the center of it, blood soaking the once-emerald folds of his robes, now a deep and glistening crimson. The heat of combat still clung to his skin beneath the carapace.

Around him, the surviving mortals moved with grim efficiency—no orders needed. They rifled through the corpses, reloading spent charge packs, collecting grenades, snatching up field dressings and anything else that might be useful in the next firefight.

Kade gave them a minute. No more.

Then Tara called out behind him.

"Mr. Kade?"

He turned to look at her, features streaked with grease and soot, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows, hands smeared with oil.

She slapped the still-warm casing of the multi-las like she'd just finished fixing a tractor.

"Think you could carry this?"

Kade raised a brow behind his helm.

"I could," he said, tilting his head. "But why? It's far too unwieldy for mobile combat."

"I know." Tara's grin spread, her eyes alight. "That's why I'll rerig it. One stud to fire. No wheels. No bipod. Just you, and this."

Kala stepped up beside her, holding aloft several improvised slings made from salvaged belts and combat webbing, looped through the heavy power pack like the straps of a well-worn rucksack.

"And we even made a sling for the battery!" Tara finished proudly.

Kade blinked.

Then—just for a second—he laughed.

A low, rumbling thing. Dry as desiccated bone, but it was genuine.

"I see," he said, stepping forward and taking the jury-rigged battery from her hands with almost reverent care. "Then I suppose I had better not waste your gift."

-

The hallway turned one last time, and Kade's quarters loomed ahead—a thick adamantine hatch scarred with time and battle. Emergency lighting pulsed across it, glitching blue-white, barely illuminating the sigils carved into the frame: a single flame, etched in quiet reverence, and the faint silhouette of the Salamanders' icon. Home, of a kind.

The door refused to open at first, frame bent from the explosive forces that had ripped the deck apart. It took two of the guards working a bypass under Tara's guidance and a boot from Kade to knock it loose. It hissed open on warped hydraulics.

Inside, the space was sparse and spartan. Cold stone walls bore weapons and relics from centuries of battle, each one mounted with ritual care. A shrine to Vulkan stood in the far corner, the votive fire long dead. In the center, a large metal cradle rested—waiting for him.

The power armor stood to one side, secured piece by piece in wall brackets. Emerald and obsidian, with gold inlays worn to matte finish from countless wars. His combi-bolter rested beneath it. Beside that, the chainsword, pistol and gear.

"Seal the hatch as best you can," Kade said, voice low but urgent, the mortals snapping as he lowered the heavy weapon, its twin barrels facing the door as one of the men took hold of its firing studs.

Tara was already moving, instructing two others to secure the locking bolts and watch the corridor. The others fanned out into cover, weapons still in hand—nobody relaxing, not even now.

Kade stepped into the center of the room, reached up, and began to undo the clasps of his smoke-stained robe. His combat blade clacked to its sheath.

The room quieted, tension suddenly close and raw.

He stripped down to his mesh-undersuit, black and burn-scarred, the dark sheen of the Black Carapace glinting underneath. Not one of the mortals spoke. Even Kala swallowed hard, her earlier bravado muted by the sheer mass and myth made flesh before her.

Kade reached for the armor cradle, unlocking the clamps with smooth, familiar motions. Yet the servitors did not stir, the console dead. Grimacing, knowing he had no time, he turned to Tara.

"I believe," he said, a rare warmth curling into his voice, "I promised to show you what else I have hidden in my armor."

Tara blinked. Her hands were still streaked with grease from the multi-las. But her lips curled into a faint grin—surprised, yes, but not confused.

"I remember," she said, stepping closer.

He nodded once.

"I know how it goes together, but I need your hands."

Tara's breath hitched slightly—but she didn't hesitate. She moved forward, motioned two of the men to hold the leg braces in place while she examined the hard-lock seals and micro-sensor inlays.

"Linkage between the greaves and the spinal mount's stressed," she muttered, more to herself than him. "Should still work though."

Kala moved beside her, handing her a cogitator spike tool from Tara's backpack. "You got this?"

"Yeah," Tara said, a smile full of half assurances. "I can do this."

Kade watched her in silence, arms out. She moved with confidence—not just familiarity, but instinct. And for a flicker of a moment, he remembered who her teacher had been. Of course.

"Right," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Koron's student."

Piece by piece, the armor came together.

Four men hauled the chestplate into place, where it locked in with a hiss. The inner servos aligned along the Carapace's neural matrix. Tara ran final calibrations through his vambrace, fingers flying over her dataslate. One of the men hefted the bolter—heavy, ancient, brutal—and offered it to Kade like a sacred relic. Another handed him the chainsword, the grip still stained from its last campaign.

When the helmet came last, Tara hesitated. Just for a moment.

Kade noticed.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. "Just worried. Mom, my friends, all of it."

"Do not fear, Tara Brandt. The Emperor protects."

She took a breath, then handed him the helmet.

"Vulkan too, right?"

He nodded, his slight smile widening a fraction. "Always." And allowed her to put it on. Slide it down. Let it seal.

Power surged through the suit as it came online with a low, thunderous thrum. Emergency systems updated. HUD flared. Comms linked.

IRA:

All systems online. Weapons synced. Orders?

Kade raised his bolter.

The voice that came from the helmet was no longer the quiet calm of a man.

"Into the fires of battle. Unto the anvil of war."

It was the voice of wrath.

And the Hammer trembled beneath his boots, as if it recognized its son once more.

-

The climb toward the bridge was no longer a sprint. It was a siege.

The moment Kade and his squad pushed into Deck Five's main corridor, the war swallowed them whole.

The hallway ran like a canyon of fire and blood—debris scattered across shattered floor plates, ceiling beams dangling like broken ribs. Emergency strobes pulsed a sick red through drifting smoke. The deck shook beneath their feet as another explosion somewhere above sent tremors down the spine of the ship.

Gunfire hammered from every angle. Loyalist Navy armsmen were pinned in behind overturned machinery and makeshift barriers—returning fire with lasrifles that spat angry red bolts into the roiling dark. Across the corridor, cultists screamed praise to the Emperor, firing from entrenchments marked with scrap-welded Aquilas. Turrets mounted into the walls fired indiscriminately, tracers slashing lines of death into friend and foe alike.

Smoke and las-fire painted the corridor in flickering shades of ruin.

Kade took in the battlefield with a single sweep of his visor, HUD flickering as it registered targets, friendlies, and kill zones. Cultists pressed against the bridge like a swollen infection, fire belching from their makeshift weapons. The loyalists—outnumbered, entrenched, bloodied—held fast behind fractured barricades, their lines buckling under pressure.

Then Kade stepped forward into the light, behind the cultist lines.

Emerald armor, blood-darkened and flame-scorched, caught the red emergency lumens like a specter of vengeance. The hammer of Nocturne had arrived.

Loyalist armsmen's eyes widened as they saw him appear in an enemy's flank, relief clear in their gaze.

Their Astartes. Their bulwark. Their judgment.

The first bolt round cracked through a cultist's skull, the second detonated in a man's chest and turned his ribcage into airborne shrapnel. Kade advanced through the return fire, his underslung flamer igniting with a guttural whump as it bathed the corridor in liquid fire.

Promethium howled across armor and flesh. Men screamed as they cooked inside their flak vests. Others choked on scorched air, lungs seared by a single breath.

Lasbolts licked across his pauldrons, bright flashes against ceramite. Stubber rounds pinged and whined off his chestplate, inconsequential.

Then his bolter clicked dry.

He let it fall, already moving.

His chainsword revved to life—a low, brutal growl as its teeth screamed through the nearest heretic, carving him from shoulder to hip in a burst of bone and blood. His bolt pistol spat death in the same moment, punching a fist-sized crater through another cultist's sternum.

Two steps forward, a dozen foes lay dead.

The pistol ran dry.

It didn't matter.

The chainsword arced in a crimson crescent, shearing through a screaming man's spine. Another cultist lunged—Kade drove a boot into his sternum so hard it launched him into his comrades, limbs shattering on impact. Blood sprayed the walls like art painted in meat.

Then he waded deeper, the four way junction opening up around him.

Blade in one hand, combat knife in the other, he danced a brutal waltz. Guts spilled. Skulls cracked. Teeth rattled across the deck like tossed coins. He tore a ribcage from a dying foe and hurled it into another's face. A second man tripped over his friend's viscera, only to have Kade's armored gauntlet punch through his throat and out the back of his neck.

The floor was slick with blood.

The air reeked of ozone and vaporized flesh.

Deck plates shook.

Orvek.

Deep from the right corridor, its halls just as bloody and gore coated as Kades own.

Missing an arm, helm dented, armor blackened—but still a mountain of fury in green and gold. The two Astartes met in the middle of the enemy formation, a tide of bodies and shattered metal tumbling around them.

At their backs, Kade's escorts surged forward, emboldened. They didn't need orders. They just needed a target.

They stormed the crossroads under Astartes cover, vaulting into the makeshift fortifications to join the bridge defenders. Frag grenades flew, lasguns roared. Cultists screamed.

And Kade?

He stepped over the bodies of the fallen, sword dripping, pistol reloaded.

"Push them back," he growled, voice distorted by the vox.

And the walls trembled with the answering cry.

It was over faster than he had expected.

Smoke curled from the gears of Kade's chainsword as silence fell—unnatural, incomplete. The last screams had faded, the gunfire tapered to nothing but the smolder of corpses and the staccato whine of dying power packs.

The cultists had broken.

What few remained alive had scrambled into side corridors, dragging wounded comrades behind makeshift barricades. Not routed. Not defeated. Just retreating to regroup.

The trap wasn't over.

It was just evolving.

Kade stood amidst the ruin, breath steady, armor steaming in the cold air as blood dripped from his chainsword in lazy arcs. Behind him, the mortals moved with ruthless efficiency—rifles reloaded, wounds bound, grenades retrieved from the dead.

"Clear," one called, his voice ragged. "At least for now."

Kade turned toward the other towering figure now slumped against the corridor wall.

"Lieutenant."

The Salamander veteran lifted his head, helm twisted, faceplate slagged by a near-direct hit. The stump of his right arm had been cauterized—badly. His remaining hand still gripped his thunder hammer like a priest gripping a relic.

"Brother," he rasped, then pulled his helmet off, a slight grin on his lips. "Took you long enough."

"Apologies," Kade replied with his own wry smile. "Could not resist stopping to take in the redecorations." The moment vanished as swiftly as it came. "Are you able to continue?"

"I still breathe." His armor—once proud, gleaming emerald—was pockmarked with las scorches, flayed open along the chest and shoulder. Blackened ceramite cracked where internal servos fought to respond. "They had heavy support. One of them had a melta."

"Why didn't they finish the push?"

"They're not done." Orvek nodded toward the hallway the cultists had vanished into. "They pulled back to regroup. Reinforcements are coming. You can smell it."

He was right. Kade could feel it in the vibrations beneath his boots. Not just retreat—but reorganization. The enemy had been hit hard, yes, but they hadn't broken discipline. They had fallen back intelligently.

IRA chimed softly in his ear:

IRA:
Estimate: enemy will return with heavy emplacements and mobile artillery in seven minutes. Warning: possible use of shielded bomb-pushers.

Kade turned toward the sealed bridge bulkhead.

It loomed like a fortress gate—burn-scored, half-melted, but still locked. Behind it, the command deck. Their objective.

A trio of loyalist armsmen staggered toward him, two holding out his firearms. The first, bleeding from a graze across his temple, spoke as Kade took back his weapons, reloading them swiftly. "Sir—we've got wounded. And barely forty rifles left. Do we press?"

"No." Kade's voice cut clean and absolute. "We hold here."

His eyes shifted to Tara and Kala as they knelt near the multi-las, which had already been propped behind cover. Tara was patching the overheat cables with a piece of repurposed wire from a ruined power conduit, her face set in a calm mask of calculation. Kala crouched beside her, rifle raised, watching the shadows.

"Dig in. Reinforce what you can. No line of sight, no chance to fire."

Orvek glanced over at the twins. "Lady Brandts daughters? I didn't know one was of the cog."

"She is not."

Orvek stared at Kade for a long moment at that, slowly nodding. "Skilled enough to be one."

Shaking his head, Kade rumbled back "Their dogma would be the death of her skills."

He turned back to the corridor, stepping past shattered bodies, broken weapons, and his own simmering fury.

They would return soon.

The dust hadn't even settled before Kade's helm vox clicked to life, the line distorted by static, but still unmistakably him.

"...Sergeant Kade."

Tavos's voice was strained, the syllables tight. Each word came with the rasp of pain hidden behind discipline.

"Captain." Kade stepped back into cover, leaning out just enough to keep an eye on the corridor. "You're alive."

"Barely." A wet breath filtered through the channel. "Halls outside my quarters were rigged. Pressure mines. Triggered on proximity. I was...too slow."

Another voice bled into the vox behind him—Xal'zyr, clipped and sharp, like someone reading a foreign language aloud. "His vitals are stable—for now. I'm maintaining blood flow and suppressing neural trauma, but this... this is not a battlefield I am highly versed in."

Tavos coughed again. Something wet. He didn't let it show in his tone. "Report. Bridge corridor?"

Kade glanced at the barricades. Tara had already slotted the multi-las into a stabilizing brace, eyes scanning the hallway beyond. Kala nodded once, silent, checking grenades.

"Secured, for now. We broke a fortified position and caught a patrol en route, secured a multi-las emplacement. Loyalists are regrouping. The lieutenant with me—wounded, but standing."

"Good. Secure the line. The bridge must hold."

There was a beat. A silence, thick with unspoken consequence. When Tavos spoke again, it was quieter.

"Reports from the lower decks show limited loyalty conversion. They hit hard, fast. But they misjudged the crew's spine. They were counting on supplication." A breath. "They didn't count on stubbornness."

Xal's voice returned, muttered frustration dripping into the channel. "This would be easier if you stopped talking. I'm not a chirurgeon."

Tavos ignored him.

"We've lost contact with Karthis. No signal. No internal telemetry. The reactor deck has gone dark."

That pulled Kade's full attention.

"Do we assume breach?"

"I do not know. He may be fighting. He may be dead. But we can't ignore it."

"Agreed."

"We have reports of loyal teams moving that way from below, but if the reactor falls…"

The implication didn't need words.

IRA flickered in Kade's periphery:

Recommendation:
Continue holding corridor. Send secondary team to investigate alternate path to reactor.
Addendum: If Archmagos Karthis-Omnis is compromised, outcome probability shifts significantly.

Kade looked to his squad. Bloodied. Bruised. But still breathing.

"Tara."

She straightened instantly.

"Status of the las?"

"Power feed's halfway stable," Tara muttered, voice tight. "But the panel's cooked and the relays are out of sync. At the moment it'll be intermittent and the batteries will only have enough for one more burst." She continued as she tossed the panel to the side, hands pulling out additional power lines. "I'll need ten minutes to get it patched into the ships systems properly."

"You have seven before they return."

She nodded, pulling tools from her pack as she dove into the tangled mess of wires and ship systems.

He turned back to his vox. "Captain—we'll hold the corridor. We're not losing this deck."

A pause.

"Good. Emperor watch over you, Sergeant."

The channel went dead.

And the hallway once again held its breath.

-

The corridors of Deck Twenty were a maze of smoke, shadow, and still-warm corpses.

Elissa moved in silence, her rifle low and ready, bootfalls soft across scorched plasteel. Around her, the Dusthaven strike team fanned out, disciplined despite the adrenaline in their veins. Elly's voice purred across her neural link—sharp, calm, surgical.

'Two hostiles, ninety meters, sector junction E-12. They haven't seen you. Moving slow. Sweep left.'

Elissa gestured once with two fingers. Her team shifted, peeling into cover. A trio flanked left, another held tight to the wall. The trap closed silently, a hunter's snare.

There was no gunfire. Just a short struggle, two bodies hitting the floor with quiet finality.

'Nice. Next patrol's larger—eight bodies, scattered formation. Intercept before they regroup with the rest of the patrol. Predictive likelihood of success: 91%. Risk: acceptable.'

Elly's cracking of the cultists vox- encryption was already tipping the scales. Static-choked chatter, callouts, mispositioned updates—Elly swept through it all like a scalpel through fat.

Elissa ducked behind a coolant pipe, breathing slow and shallow. She keyed her link.

'Any word from Milo's team?'

'Routing now. Minor resistance en route to the main reactor. They're pivoting toward access corridor Delta-Twelve. Estimated intercept with us in six minutes. I suggest converging at Junction Theta-Nine.'

'Make it happen.'

'Already on it sugar.'

The tension in her chest didn't ease. They were winning, yes—but they were outnumbered, outgunned, and dangerously close to critical systems. Every fight needed to be clean. Surgical. Anything prolonged could spiral.

They didn't have time for glory.

They had time for victory.

—

Six minutes later, they met.

Milo's team slid into cover at the junction, their olive drab armor streaked with soot and blood. Milo himself looked like hell—his left pauldron was scorched and half-melted, and a gash across his jaw had soaked into his collar.

"Glad to see a friendly face," he grunted, offering Elissa a curt nod. "These bastards came out of nowhere."

"Yeah. They tried to hit home." Elissa replied, her eyes scanning the hallway for threats, though her gaze flicked to meet his for a moment. "Don't worry, we left behind most of the fighters. Last I heard nobody has come for them again."

Nodding, Milo checked his powerpacks remaining supply. "Good. Got a plan?"

"Not really much of one beyond the first rule."

"Never trust the Administratum?"

"No-"

"Oh, never talk to a Commissar if you can help it."

"Milo-"

"Ah, always heat up the corpse-starch."

"No. Always expect to get stabbed in the back."

That earned a sharp grin from Milo. "That's a rule now?"

Elissa sighed. "Why are you enjoying this?"

"El, this is the closest thing to a normal day for me in almost twenty years."

Elly pinged another alert.

'Twenty-two signatures ahead. Mixed arms. Stationary. They've dug in. Forward guard for Reactor access corridors. Probability of multiple explosives and emplaced weapons.'

'Too many for a straight push,' Elissa replied, checking her mag. 'Unless you have an ace up your sleeve?'

'Course I do. Redirecting a decoy patrol via false comms. Cultist team will split to reinforce a nonexistent patrol in thirty seconds. On my mark.'

A shift in motion down the hallway.

'Go.'

The ambush was brutal.

The two teams surged forward, flashbangs bouncing off the walls, lasfire erupting in tight pulses. The cultist flank was already weakened, pulled toward a lie whispered into their ears by a voice they thought was friendly.

Grenades thundered. Knives flashed. Rifles barked.

And when it was done, Elissa leaned against the bulkhead, blood on her boots, shoulder heaving.

She didn't feel triumphant. Just focused.

"This section's ours."

"And the next one?" Milo asked.

Elissa looked down the dark corridor ahead, where reactor access lay cloaked in firelight and shadow. "We take it. Quietly. Quickly. Then we dig in and make sure nobody gets past us."

'I've already begun mapping defenses," Elly added. "I suggest turning the reactor hall into a killbox.'

Elissa nodded once. Then turned to her team.

"Grab what you can from them and lets move."

They opened the last bulkhead with weapons ready—only to be greeted by a vision from hell.

The reactor cathedral of the Hammer of Nocturne was built to awe. It stretched hundreds of meters in every direction, a cyclopean sanctum of fire and fury. Pillars of steel and sanctified bronze arced toward a vaulted ceiling hidden in steam and smoke, engraved with sacred data-litanies and battle hymns etched in high Gothic and Binharic. Massive conduits crackled overhead, arteries of plasma fire coursing toward the fusion core itself—still burning, still alive.

But it was no longer a place of reverence.

Now, it was a tomb.

Bodies littered the ground—thousands of them. Red-robed tech-priests splayed like broken insects, their augmetics still twitching from still active energy implants. Servitors lay in piles, carved apart by blade, bolt, or plasma, some still dragging themselves on one limb, whispering corrupted mantras to broken machine spirits. Splintered cogitators and sparking node-shrines burned in alcoves, their sacred housings shattered.

Catwalks hung by threads of cabling, several collapsed entirely, their twisted wreckage crushing machinery or burning incense stacks.

Servo-skulls spun in slow, confused orbits overhead, spewing binharic warning codes into the choking air, Elly translating the code into human script.

+REACTOR STATUS: GREEN. HUMAN PRESENCE: ERROR. ERROR. PURGE PROTOCOL SUSPENDED. MACHINE-SPIRIT IN DISTRESS+

The entire sanctum groaned like it was alive and in pain.

Elissa halted on the threshold, hand raised, her rifle forgotten for a heartbeat as she took it all in. Her voice, when it came, was barely audible. "Throne… what happened here?"

Milo stepped up beside her, helmet lights flickering in the haze. "A war. The kind most people never live long enough to understand."

'Correction,' Elly chimed in, voice hushed for once. 'A surgical strike. Coordinated, intelligent, and met with terrifying resistance. Reactor integrity holding. Central sanctum is likely breached.'

They moved in, slowly.

Elissa led them through a graveyard of chrome and blood. She passed a tech-priest with no head—just a steaming stump where the cranial augmetics had burst from overload. Another was fused to the wall, metal flash welded to it. Some cultist bodies were here too—few in comparison. But the ones that remained had been pulverized.

One had been ripped in half from the waist. Another's bones jutted from inside out, as if crushed by internal pressure. A third had been pinned to the floor by what looked like six servo-arms driven clean through his torso.

They weren't just killed. They were dissected.

"Cogboys didn't go easy." Milo said grimly. "Think any are left?"

"Hope so," Elissa replied. "Might have gone further into the reactor?"

She reached a central podium, once a platform for system control. Now, it sparked and hissed. Her fingers brushed the edge. Still warm.

Behind it the console, an immense crater—molten metal sloughed into the center. The path lead deeper into the chamber, closer to the active core.

"Well," Milo said, wiping away the sweat slicked blood on his cheek. "Not going to lie, my brains telling me to turn around and go the other way. Leave whatever made that hole to the Angels."

Elissa pulled up the reactor systems status. Much of it was still gibberish to her, all numbers and terms she barely grasped.

But the core still burned.

At the far end of the vast chamber, beyond the wreckage and the hanging catwalks, the reactor itself pulsed like a sun barely restrained—held within its sacred containment ring, thrumming with holy plasma and bound energies.

'Reactor systems are intact," Elly said, her voice unnervingly quiet. 'Fusion stable. Containment fields at 93%. Core output holding.'

Elissa exhaled as she relayed it to her people. "Cores still good."

She half-turned away from the console when she heard it.

Distant echoes. Not mechanical, not the memory of battle, but present. Ongoing.

A muffled thud. The unmistakable bark of a plasma gun. The shriek of a lascutter biting into metal. Shouted binharic—distorted through vox-bleed, but too sharp to be echoes.

'Elly?'

'Confirmed: ongoing combat—One hundred and sixty-three meters from the primary sanctum. Lower sub-tier.'

'Who's fighting?'

'Identities unknown. Multiple life-sign clusters. At least one Skitarii signal still active—possibly friendly. Opposition appears fragmented. Movement patterns consistent with ambush-and-counter-ambush behavior.'

Milo stepped beside her, his rifle already raised as the distant sounds of battle intensified. "Someones still alive."

"For now." Elissa muttered.

'Pathway to the inner core is narrow,' Elly added. 'Unsecured. Minimal cover. But if we push now, we can reinforce whatever's left.'

Elissa's knuckles whitened around her grip.

The air down there would be thick with plasma residue and incense. If the cogboys were still alive—and still fighting—she'd be damned before she let the cult finish the job.

She turned to her people.

"Come on, let's put the cogboys in our debt for once."

And with that, the Dusthaveners disappeared into the wounded machine's burning heart—toward the next battle still raging by the light of the reactor's holy fire.

The path narrowed as they pressed deeper, deck-plates groaning underfoot. The flickering lumen strips offered little light—just enough to throw shadows that danced like specters along the reactor's towering ribs.

Gunfire echoed ahead.

Short bursts. Controlled. Then the hiss of a plasma coil. A scream—brief, wet, and human.

And then, silence.

It was the kind of silence that made your ears ring from absence, like something had yanked the world's breath away.

Elissa raised a clenched fist, and the column behind her halted. She leaned forward against the wall, straining to listen. Even the low mechanical hum of the reactor felt muffled now, like the machine-spirit itself was holding its breath.

'Elly?' she whispered down the link.

'Something's wrong,' came the AI's reply, her voice hushed. 'Cultist comm traffic just spiked. They're excited. Moving forces away from this sector.'

"Where?'

'Multiple routes… converging around the upper bridge. I'm patching in.'

Static bled into Elissa's auditory overlay—then a voice crackled through the interference.

"—Bridge is holding. We tried to breach the vox-spine, but they're dug in hard. Another Astartes just hit the flank—can't get through."

A pause.

Another voice—closer. Real. Spoken aloud.

A cultist, just around the corner. Not whispering. Not afraid.

"It's fine. Let them hold the bridge. We don't need it anymore. They'll cling to that choke point and die tired."

The Dusthaveners held their breath. Elissa motioned for quiet, her eyes narrowing.

A second voice crackled over the vox.

It wasn't loud.

It didn't need to be.

The tone was smooth, refined—each syllable shaped with the grace of practiced command, polished like silver drawn from holy fire.

And it was wrong.

Not because it threatened.

But because it reassured.

"Good. They've bought us time."
Their blood fills the hourglass.
"Keep the loyalists scattered."
Shatter their lines—fracture their hope.
"We only need to reach the sanctum."
The heart must be opened. The engine must see.

Elissa blinked.

The words echoed once—then again, out of time with themselves, overlapping like mismatched lips on a corpse's smile.

For a moment, it felt like two people were speaking from the same mouth—one calm and commanding, the other vast and hungry. Not louder. Not even distorted. Just deeper. As if it spoke not to the ears but to the marrow.

"Yes, Prophet," the cultist answered, reverent as a prayer.

Elissa flinched, blinked—and for just a second, her HUD stuttered. Her rifle weight felt wrong, like her arms remembered holding something else. Something heavier.

Milo's expression shifted—not fear, but something colder. Like he'd heard an order and almost obeyed. His hand drifted closer to his weapon, a side-glance sharp enough to cut steel, jaw tight.

That voice.

That voice.

She didn't know it. Not in the conscious sense. Not in a way she could name or place.

But something about it scratched at the back of her thoughts like a splinter behind the eye.

Like waking from a dream with blood on your tongue and no wound in your mouth.

Like a sin you couldn't remember committing, but still carried the weight for.

"Eyes up," she said quietly, not trusting her voice to carry louder. "We move now."

But even as they crept forward—toward the sanctum, toward whatever nightmare waited—Elissa knew one thing with absolute certainty:

She had heard that voice before.

'Elly,' she said, barely whispering, as though fearful of being too loud even inside her own mind. 'That voice. Where have I heard that before?'

'Already compiling. Cross-referencing known voices and databanks. No direct match. But… there's something about the vocal cadence. Elissa, this voice is designed to compel.'

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

Milo leaned in. "Who the hell are we chasing?"

Elissa didn't answer at first.

Instead, she stared into the dim corridor ahead, where no more gunfire came—only echoes, and the faint scent of incense and ash.

"I don't know," she whispered. "But I think knew we were listening."

-

The landing bay was silent.

No loyalists. No cultists.

Only scorched steel and the ghosts of recent violence.

The blast doors loomed like broken teeth. One hung askew, servos frozen mid-cycle, its cogitator a warped knot of slag and ruin. Soot clung to the upper walls in oily streaks, and fire scoring curled along the bulkheads in erratic arcs—lascutters, plasma strikes, or something stranger. The kind of violence that left the metal looking wounded.

A refueling servitor lay collapsed near the access tunnel, its skeletal chassis twisted as though it had tried to crawl from its own death. One manipulator arm still jerked, twitching spasmodically toward a burned-out fuel intake.

There were no klaxons anymore. No warning lights.

Just the low, arrhythmic pulse of a dying ventilation unit echoing in the dark.

The ship was breathing shallow. Bleeding slow.

Overhead, the lights flickered—not from power loss, but like something unseen had passed between them.

Then the air folded.

It wasn't a shimmer. Not exactly.

More like the ghost of movement—something memory remembered but the eyes couldn't trace.

And the Indomitable's lander bled into existence.

Not with thunder. Not with sound.

It didn't land. It arrived.

Cloaking fields peeled back in cascading folds of refracted air and distorted static, like invisible skin shedding itself. The hull resolved—murderously angular, matte-black plating drinking in the flickering emergency lumens. No insignia. No voice. No light. Not even a landing beacon.

The stabilizers kissed the deck in utter silence. Steam hissed outward, heat venting in perfectly balanced symmetry.

And then the ramp descended.

Koron emerged.

There was no vox-click. No speech.

Just the slow, steady thud of armored boots that should've echoed, but didn't.

His armor shifted with every step—not camouflaged, but unfinished by reality, its surface constantly rewriting itself in flickers of grayscale and shadow. Lines blurred at the edges of his silhouette, as though light couldn't quite keep up.

He moved like a man who had never once questioned his purpose. There was no tension in his gait.

No pause to assess.

Only motion perfectly mapped to intent.

Behind him came the machines.

First the Vipers, serpentine and low, slipping between shattered crates and into crawlspaces like living scalpels.

Then the Prometheus units, heat-warped specters, their sensor-hazes making them look like figments of a fever dream.

Finally, the Sentinels—quad-limbed constructs with thick, predator-smooth armor, moving with the heavy stillness of something that was once a weapon platform and had learned patience.

They spread out without command. No formation. No visible coordination.

Yet across the machine-mindscape—between Koron, Sasha, Lucia, Elly and Ira—uncountable calculations lit the void between organic and synthetic minds, weaving across time-bleeds, predictive strata, and branching vectors as easily as thought.

Objective: Secure reactor core.
Objective: Stabilize bridge control.
Directive Alpha: Protect Dusthaven survivors.
Directive Beta: Minimize casualties.
Directive Omega: Leave no record.

Within the ship's systems, oblivion set in.

Footage vanished.

Log timestamps rewritten.

Camera loops replaced live feeds with delay-filtered echoes.

Not everything. Not cleanly.

But enough.

Where Koron walked, vidfeeds refused to show the truth.

Where drones prowled, vox traffic dissolved into scrambled static.

In another part of the ship, a loyalist muttered a prayer.

Elsewhere, a cultist bled out behind a barricade.

Here?

Only silence.

Koron paused at the edge of the landing bay.

He didn't look back. He never had to.

His armor emitted no signal. His biometric readings were deliberately broken—fragments spliced and rerouted to show a dozen false echoes across the deck. He moved like an erasure. Not a presence, but the absence of anything familiar.

Koron slotted gleaming signal disks into the recessed ports of his vambrace—each one vanishing with a hiss beneath shifting armor as Sasha whispered a ping into the network. "Pathways mapped. Probability trees running. Routing support elements to allied strike teams. Brandt locations pinpointed, squads deploying."

Then—two separate AIs, synced across the ships space, spoke.

IRA:
Tactical update: Reinforcements have arrived.

Elly, her voice hushed but suddenly electric, flickered into Elissa's neural link:

'Tell your people to hold the line.'

'Why?'

'Koron's here.'

A beat.

'And he brought friends.'

 

[Talon88.1]

Chapter Thirty

-

The Hammer of Nocturne was burning.

Not with fire, but with chaos—psychic interference snarled across the vox, tactical orders bled through corrupted channels, and fear ran like oil through the ship's arteries. Decks pulsed with it.

Crackled with it.

Suffocated in it.

Koron walked through the storm in silence.

His boots whispered across the steel deck, each step precise—placed not with hesitation, but certainty. Every movement dropped into the world like the final piece of a puzzle already solved.

Around him, the drones moved as shadows—flickering in and out of their stealth fields, silent ghosts too disciplined to haunt. Fifty units flowed with him in a loose spiral formation, a living perimeter of threat and precision.

Sasha's voice murmured through the neural link, crisp and cold as high-altitude frost.

'Bridge-bound units are five minutes from position. Prometheus cores are steady. Hostiles entrenched at junction 5-Beta. Shall I engage?'

"Minimal force," he replied, tone even. "They're confused. Break lines—not lives."

'Understood. Sentinels shifting to dispersal pattern. Vipers flanking. No casualties predicted.'

A single thought passed through his cortex, and the tactical overlay bloomed in his vision—green arcs, red pulses, blue-lit friendlies. Twenty drones were already engaged ahead. Thirty more ghosted through the decks around him like a silent storm preparing to strike.

A corridor unfolded before him.

Two cultists, already expected.

One turned, far too slow.

A Sentinel shimmered into being and struck like a thunderbolt—a stunning arc-pulse blast to the chest that dropped the cultist without a scream. The second barely raised his weapon before a Viper—hanging from a ceiling conduit—fired an adhesion foam capsule. It struck the man's shoulders and detonated, erupting into a wave of rapidly expanding foam that engulfed him in moments, hardening into breathable, rubberized aerogel.

Koron brushed the column of frozen foam with a fingertip as he passed, the trapped cultist inside toppling gently to the floor like a statue in slow-motion.

Tactical data streamed behind his eyes—parsed, sorted, solved between steps.

Cultists regrouping near Kade.

Ten drones were already converging on the twins.

They would arrive before the cultists rearmed.

"Sync drone assault with Marine push," he ordered, the command threading through the link. "Prioritize AP weapons. If the girl's presence is confirmed, split off by squad and secure. Continue advance."

Two hundred meters ahead, new signals flickered into awareness—loyalist armsmen by vox-pattern and speech cadence.

The drones adjusted without command, slipping into alcoves and behind bulkheads, guided by predictive algorithms and sensor dampening. They became air.

They became nothing.

"Elly, status."

The map in his mind expanded, centering on Elissa's beacon. It was moving—good.

Unpredictably—less good.

'Tentative, boss,' Elly replied, static flickering faintly behind her voice. 'Lots of carnage down here near the reactor, and its emissions are throwing off my already limited sensors. Some fighting still going, but there's… something else. I can't pin it. I think it's the demon.'

For a heartbeat, his pulse spiked—then his systems caught it, filed it away, buried it beneath layers of trained control and neural overrides.

"Extrapolate outcomes."

Six seconds passed.

His mind and the AI's linked deeper, layers of synthetic cognition and human intuition merging into a machine of terrifying clarity. The possibilities cascaded. Threads pulled tight. A handful spiraled toward outcomes he refused to permit.

Koron's eyes narrowed.

He pivoted sharply, heading for the freight elevator without another word.

The drones shifted in flawless unison, their formation adjusting.

The silence followed him, shaped by metal and will.

Because if the worst-case outcome loomed ahead—if the twins were in danger, if Elissa was exposed, if that thing was carving itself into reality through the reactor's heart—

Then intervention was not just required.

It was inevitable.

"Not this time," he murmured aloud. "Not if I can still choose the ending."

-

The reactor core's chamber was smaller than Elissa had expected, but no less intimidating. Machinery crowded every inch—banks of cogitators layered like the strata of some mechanical cathedral, stretching nearly two hundred feet high and half as wide. The mainframe's surface was plastered with consecrated script, purity seals, and sigils of the Cog, as though sheer devotion could hold its roaring heart together.

Gantries wrapped around the central column in spirals, each one granting access to different systems—pumping, venting, bleeding heat and radiation into the bones of the ship like a circulatory system gone mad.

Ahead, distant but distinct, came the sharp crackle of weapon fire. The thunder of boots echoed through the service tunnels and ventilation shafts, bouncing off steel and stone like the footsteps of some approaching storm.

Elissa swallowed the knot rising in her throat. She glanced back at the dozen fighters shadowing her and Milo, their nerves wound tight as coiled wire. Then she dropped to one knee, gesturing Milo forward with a flick of her fingers.

He crouched beside her, cigarette clenched in the corner of his mouth, its ember smoldering against the shadows. She kept her voice low.

"What do you think? Try and secure the core… or chase down whatever's got the cult in a frenzy?"

Milo chewed the cig thoughtfully, jaw shifting side to side. Then he shook his head.

"Honestly? Neither. This whole place stinks, El. Feels like we're bein' watched. Like something's already down here… waitin'."

He spat to the side, eyes flicking over the gantries above. "I say we fall back to the junction outside the core and lock it down 'til reinforcements show up."

Elissa nodded slowly, the corner of her mouth twitching into a shaky smile.

"They're already on their way."

His eyes lit up with a flicker of hope.

"The Angels?"

"I wish." She huffed. "No… it's Koron. He just arrived."

Milo's hopeful expression flattened instantly, his lips drawing into a tight line.

"El…" he murmured, tone thick with skepticism. "The kid's got tricks, I won't lie—but right now? I'd trade him for a single damn squad of Angels in a heartbeat."

She contemplated that for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, me too. But, wishes and horses, all that."

Elly whispered down the link, the grin clear in her tone. 'Ooo, I'm so telling him that.'

'Ah, shut up and let's go kill some bad guys.'

'Can do. We're gonna have to get a lot closer mind, the energy coming off the core is screwing with my readings pretty badly.'

'Understood. Do what you can.'

Quick stepping forward, they entered the outer chamber proper, the sealing doors yawning wide.

No alarms. No shouting. Just the mechanical thrum of the ship's heart pulsing behind the walls—slow, deliberate, like something watching its own breath.

Elissa held up a hand, signaling the squad to halt. Her eyes swept the junctions, searching for movement, for signs of the running cultists they'd been tracking. But here? Nothing. Even the bloodstains were dry.

"They've cleared out," Milo muttered, his voice low. "What the hell were they chasing?"

"Who knows," Elissa said. "They're hunting something. Whatever it was—it pulled the whole pack away."

They advanced.

The hallway opened up into the reactor chamber—a cathedral of steel and heat, gantries spiderwebbed across the chasm of machinery, towering banks of cogitators humming with unreadable data. Red emergency lights bathed everything in an infernal glow.

"Check corners. Secure the control dais," Elissa ordered, voice sharp.

Her team fanned out, weapons raised.

That's when it started.

A feeling. Not noise. Not movement.

Just... the absence of noise where noise should be. A pressure in the air. The kind of silence that follows the closing of a tomb.

Elissa's boots clicked softly on the metal decking. She swept her rifle left—nothing. Right—empty. Up—

She froze.

Something was standing there.

High above on the gantry's upper ring, partially hidden in shadow, something massive loomed against the curved wall. Still. Silent. Watching. Its shape wasn't entirely visible—an outline of wings, maybe, and a faint shimmer of gold, like armor dulled with age.

She blinked, heart skipping.

"...Is that—?"

The figure moved.

Not much. Not fast. Just a shift of weight, the turn of a head, the slow unfurling of something that had not been there before—and suddenly, the scale was wrong. The figure wasn't above them. He was looming. The sense of height, presence, gravity itself had shifted.

And then came the voice. Not from the vox. Not from the room.

It entered the space between her thoughts, a soothing, maddening voice that seemed to sink into her mind, honey and silk and-

"Do not fear."

-

The pain nearly dropped her.

Elissa gasped—mouth wide, lungs failing to draw breath—like a fish hauled from water. Her body twisted on the cold decking, fingers scrabbling at her neck where the jolt had struck like a lightning bolt.

"Emperor's blood!" she choked, wincing as she rubbed at her neck.

Elly's voice crackled down the neural link, grim and simmering with restrained fury.

'Sorry El. I ran out of gentler ways to wake you up.'

'Wake me—? What do you— ' Elissa froze, eyes widening. 'What the fuck am I wearing?'

She rolled onto her hands and knees, the dress clinging like wet silk, making even that simple motion feel clumsy. She grabbed the console beside her, gritting her teeth as she hauled herself up, fabric whispering and resisting every inch.

Then she saw the mirror—and stopped cold.

A stranger stared back.

Makeup, tastefully applied, drew smoky heat from her eyes and warmed her dusky cheeks with artful blush. Her lips, painted a soft, impossible red, looked like they belonged to a woman who never raised her voice, let alone a rifle. Her hair had been braided into something ornate and ceremonial, spiraling like a crown.

Beautiful, yes.

But not hers.

And the dress.

It looked like it cost more than her house back home.

Hell, more than the entire block.

Crimson silk, heavy and radiant, mirrored her hair's hue. It hugged her curves like a secret, high around the waist, tight across the chest, pooling at her feet in a cascade of expense and expectation. Every stitch whispered of intent—be looked at, not listened to.

She exhaled sharply through her nose, a flicker of nausea rolling in her gut.

No pockets. No boots. No grit. Just perfume, powder, and a goddamn trap disguised as elegance.

"Elly…" she muttered, heat rising to her face. "What the hell happened? Why am I dressed like some noble's bride?"

'Short version?' Elly replied, tension crackling under every word. 'I don't know how long he's going to be gone.'

'He?'

'Yeah. That... angel guy.'

A memory hit her like a lash of cold wind.

Wings—vast, radiant, impossible.

Hair spun out of molten gold.

Eyes like the deep heart of a summer sky.

She knew that face. Not from life, but from legend. Murals. Candlelit shrines. Every copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus ever clutched by a trembling hand.

A face honored every year, whispered in prayer, carved into hope itself.

The words slipped past her lips before she knew she was speaking:

"We die standing, as he flew. The Emperor's light upon our wings."

Her legs nearly gave out. One hand found the console beside her, knuckles white.

"That can't be," she breathed. "Elly… he died. He died."

A pause.

'I don't know what to tell you, sugar,' Elly said softly. 'But that's the spitting image of Sanguinius standing in that reactor room.'

Elissa drew in a shuddering breath—then immediately choked as the dress's tight bodice refused to let her lungs expand.

'Damn it.' she growled, one hand bracing against her ribs. 'Okay. Okay, focus. My people?'

'Alive, last I saw,' Elly replied through the neural link, her voice still carrying a low, simmering fury. 'Sang didn't—'

'Sang?' Elissa cut in.

'Yes, I'm calling him Sang for speed, can we please focus?'

'Fair, continue.'

'Sang didn't touch them. The moment he started speaking, everyone just… zoned out. Like they were hypnotized. You included. He stroked your cheek, said—'At last, one of my brides has arrived.' Then a bunch of other really scuzzy things I'm not repeating. Told you to prepare for the ceremony, and wandered off toward whatever's causing havoc down the reactor halls.'

A beat.

'You walked in here, got yourself dolled up, and didn't even blink until I zapped you. Again, sorry about that.'

Elissa shook her head and stalked toward the vanity mirror, every step a whisper of silk and restrained rage.

'No worries. Thanks for the save. Now let's get the hell out of here.'

Snatching up a heavy hairbrush from the stand, she brought it down hard on the mirror. Glass cracked, then splintered, shards skittering across the floor like startled insects. She found a jagged edge and began sawing into the dress, slicing it up one thigh, then hacking off the floor-length hem until it sat just above her calves.

'Okay. Now at least I can run.'

Her gaze landed on the waiting shoes near the door—four-inch ruby high heels, glittering, ridiculous.

'And of course they took my goddamn boots. Bastards. How long was I out?' she asked, already stepping away from the mirror.

'About five minutes.'

'Shit'. She paused. 'Okay. I'm thinking we get my gear, grab my people, and shoot anything that moves.'

'You might want to hold off on the roaring rampage.'

'Why?'

'Because most of your people are still under his influence. You might end up shooting your own.'

Elissa froze mid-step, her hand tightening on the glass shard—close enough that a careless twitch would've opened her palm.

'Suggestions, then?'

'Well… if you're the bride… use that.'

'Use—what, pretend to be enthralled?'

'Bit late for the dress, but yeah. If everyone else is in a suggestible state, you might be able to slip through. Maybe even direct them.'

Elissa stared down at herself, then sighed as she tried to tug the dress higher up to cover more of her chest.

'Fine. I'll play the angel's blushing bride. But the second I see my rifle—divorce is immediate.'

'Sounds good. Now let's get moving. And avoid Sang at all costs.'

Feeling the cold steel under her bare toes, Elissa exhaled through her nose and slid the hatch open. The hall outside was quiet—but not empty. Two guards flanked the doorway, their expressions slack, eyes glazed.

Not her people.

She straightened her back, lifted her chin, and marched past them with measured steps and absolute purpose. Not a glance. Not a nod. Just command and confidence, painted in place of panic.

She stopped.

Turned on a heel. Pointed.

"You. Follow me."

The guard obeyed without hesitation, falling into step behind her. His gaze was glassy, limbs loose, but his feet moved with purpose—puppet-string obedience wrapped in flesh.

As they walked, Elly's voice buzzed in her mind, tone focused, scanning.

'I'm running face-matching now. I see a few of your people, scattered in with the others near the core's controls.'

'Any idea what they're doing?' Elissa asked.

'Not exactly, but it looks like they're increasing the reactor's output. Not critical, but way too close for comfort.'

'Why? I figured they'd shut it down—kill life support, let the rest of the ship die, take over from there.'

'That'd make sense. But I think this is something else. Angel-man did call you one of his brides, not the bride.'

Elissa stopped dead. Cold pressure crawled up her spine like an ice-slicked dagger. 'Oh…shit. He's talking about my girls.'

'…Yeah. That makes sense why all three of you were flagged for capture. Okay. I'm informing Koron and the others.'

They rounded a corner. A door to a storage room. Unmarked, dim.

Elissa didn't hesitate. She palmed the control and the hatch hissed open, well-oiled hinges gliding smoothly. She stepped inside without a word, the guard following like a lost dog.

'Score one for cogboy shrine maintenance,' she muttered mentally.

The room was stacked with crates and spare gear, lit only by a flickering wall panel. She turned to face the guard, shoulders stiff despite the tight, protesting pain in her ribs from the damn dress.

"Get that box for me," she said, pointing up at the top shelf.

The man nodded. Slinging his rifle, he reached up, standing on his toes, trying to grasp it—

She moved.

A pipe, rusted but solid, was already in her hands. It cracked against his skull with a wet, heavy thud. He crumpled like cloth, slumping to the deck in silence.

"Sorry," she whispered, already reaching for his belt.

The smell hit her first—sweat, old rations, and neglect—but she powered through it. The flak vest was loose. The belt took some wrestling—new holes punched with a knife she found on his boot—but it held. She had to roll the pants twice to keep them off her heels.

The boots swallowed her feet, but they were better than bare steel.

She scrubbed at her face with an old rag—wiping away layers of paint and powder. Her hands found her braid again, twisting it into the old, familiar pattern. Something practical. Something hers.

The rifle she slung across her shoulder. The knife she clipped to her hip. Then she looked down at the dress—shimmering, expensive, humiliated—crumpled on the floor like a shed skin.

She left it behind without another thought.

Even in ill-fitting clothes, reeking of a man's sweat, she felt more like herself than she had in that gown.

"Alright," she muttered, checking the power cell on the rifle. "Let's get to work."

-

She slipped into the corridor, boots nearly silent against the decking. The layout was familiar enough, even without the mini-map Elly was projecting on her HUD. Service tunnels, branching maintenance corridors, stairwells that twisted between engineering levels. She knew the general layout of the Hammer well enough by now. What she didn't know was who—or what—waited around each corner.

'You've got three of your people working under cultist supervision near the plasma venting junction,' Elly whispered. 'One of them's Shann. She looks half gone.'

Elissa's gut twisted. 'How bad?'

'Breathing. But blank-eyed. I'm seeing the same from the others.'

Elissa swallowed hard. 'Alright. If I can get one of them out—maybe shake them loose—we start turning this tide.'

'Copy that. But be careful, sugar. Sang is still down there somewhere. And if he sees you again, all bets are off.'

'Let him try,' Elissa muttered. 'I'm not someone's ornament.'

She rounded the next corner—and froze.

A figure was coming toward her.

Tall. Cloaked. Gliding more than walking. The eyes were distant, unfocused—but the smile curled sharp and too wide. A thrall. One of the warped faithful.

Elissa lowered her gaze and kept walking, shoulder brushing the wall. The figure passed her, oblivious.

'Okay,' she breathed. 'That worked. They still think I'm one of them.'

'Good. Keep leaning into it. Just don't try to give a speech or anything—you're no actor.'

'I'm a mother, Elly. I've bluffed harder things than this with less sleep and more screaming.'

'I'm going to try and not make an innuendo out of that.'

'Too late, already did.'

She turned into a shadowed maintenance corridor and picked up her pace. They were close.

-

The corridor twisted like a vein of metal and flickering light, each step Elissa took echoing louder than it should have. The hypnotized crew moved in her periphery, faces slack, eyes glassy with worship or madness—or both. She kept her stride deliberate, posture upright, the flak vest cinched tight over a frame still aching from that Emperor-forsaken dress.

Down here, the air changed. Heavier. Warmer. As though the ship itself had begun to sweat.

'Veering into thermal range of the reactor's outer ring,' Elly whispered. 'Motion ahead. Two signatures. Non-standard heat bleed. This ain't a firefight. This is something else.'

Elissa edged to the corridor's lip. Peered around.

Then froze.

The room beyond was vast—a maintenance antechamber bordering the reactor's core, its gantries and elevated platforms cast in sulfurous light. Machinery groaned with strain. Sparks cascaded from severed conduits like industrial rain.

And in the center, dancing amid the fire and fury, were two mockeries of men.

The corridor buckled under the weight of the golden gods presence.

Karthis-Omnis stood in the reactor annex like a war god carved in rusted brass and sacred code. Mechadendrites hissed and twisted around his body, each one ending in weapons, tools, and limbs. His staff—a masterwork Omnissian axe—crackled in his hands.

Before him, wreathed in gold and rubies, stood the impossible.

Sanguinius —or the thing wearing his shape—smiled with eyes too deep and too knowing. His wings, now spread wide, cast shadows that should not have existed under the reactor's glow.

"Interesting," Sanguinius murmured. "You do not kneel."

Karthis's voice was a symphony of vox-modulated tones layered over binary. +I do not kneel. I calculate.+

The corridor exploded into violence. Karthis's mechadendrites lashed forward with micron-edged blades and micro-plasma tips, each guided by predictive subroutines. His axe swept low, then high, arcs of power-field distortions tearing gouges in the metal walls.

Sanguinius moved like a whisper.

He stepped aside, letting the Omnissian axe bite nothing but air. A backhand caught a mechadendrite mid-strike and tore it from its socket with a shriek of steel and sparks.

Karthis adapted.

A plasma projector fired point-blank— Sanguinius batted the shot aside with the flat of his crimson blade.

The Archmagos surged forward, digitigrade legs augmented for extreme speed. A shoulder-check that could pulverize a Astartes slammed into the angel's ribs—only for Sanguinius to roll with the blow, letting Karthis pass by.

Then Sanguinius flicked his fingers.

Karthis was hurled backward down the corridor, crashing through a bulkhead and into a row of sacred machinery. He landed hard, sparks bleeding from every joint.

But he rose again, a priest defending his temple.

His vox crackled. +Psychic mimicry. Genetic forgery. Your truth does not match your code.+

Sanguinius smile sharpened. "Truth does not tremble, machine-man. You do."

Karthis's axe spun up again, his power core burning white-hot. He surged forward, ignoring the warnings of his system failures.

Sanguinius extended his hand.

Karthis stopped mid-sprint.

Lifted from the floor, arms, mechadendrites and legs outstretched, his limbs snapped into a rigid cruciform shape. Invisible forces held him like a pinned flower, suspended between invisible sheets of pressure. His servo-limbs jittered and sparked. Oil burst from his seams.

"You fought well," Sanguinius said, almost gently. "But this was never your story."

And then, with a flick of pressure—a crunch that echoed like a fallen cathedral—Karthis was crushed. Flesh and steel compressed into a ruinous ball, his mechanical heart still ticking once, twice, before silence reclaimed it.

Sanguinius turned towards her, wings unfurling behind him like a cathedral's vault.

She ran.

She ran and ran and ran as fast as her legs could carry her, the next junction ahead the edge of hope that kept her going.

She looked back, heart thundering in her ears.

Sanguinius stood at the corridor's edge, bathed in reactor-light, wings casting soft shadows against the walls. His head tilted just so, a lock of golden hair falling over one eye. His expression was not wrathful. Not eager. He looked... serene.

Like a man watching the tide roll in.

"Do not run," he said.

His voice was a lullaby poured through cathedral bells. Sweet, patient, sorrowful. The sound of longing given form.

"You've already been chosen. Why prolong the pain of becoming?"

Her hands moved without thinking.

The rifle snapped to her shoulder.

One shot. Then two.

Lasbolts howled down the corridor, searing toward him in tight, trained bursts.

The impact flared across his chest.

Not deflected. Not absorbed. Unmade.

He did not flinch.

She fired again, a scream catching in her throat.

His wings shifted as he stepped forward. Not fast. Not menacing. A walk. The gait of prophecy. Of ownership.

"Forgive the tremble." He said, hands low at his side. "Fear suits you like morning suits flame—but joy will make you luminous."

She felt it, slithering into her thoughts, oil on water, a dagger wrapped in silk.

'Elly!' she screamed down the neural link.

'Brace!'

A crackling jolt slammed through her spine like lightning. Her body seized. Her muscles bucked. She hit the wall with a grunt and slumped forward, panting.

'Run!' Elly's voice roared. 'He's in your head again—Run!'

The corridor blurred past. Steel and light, shadow and breath. She didn't know where she was going. Didn't care. Her body moved because it had to. Because stopping meant him.

Behind her: footsteps. Soft. Measured.

Like a father following a lost child.

"This is fate." he called after her. "We were meant for each other. In the beginning. In the end. The stars bore witness, and they remember."

She nearly screamed, fingers clutching at her rifles casing so hard a fingernail cracked.

Elissa slammed into a bulkhead corner and rebounded, boots skidding. She threw herself down another corridor, ducking under a sparking conduit, half-tripping on a body sprawled mid-hall. Her breath rasped through clenched teeth.

'Left!' Elly snapped. 'Hatch at your eleven!'

She saw it—a side-door, maintenance-grade, rust-lined.

It didn't open.

"No, no, no!"

Her fists pounded the panel. She kicked it. It groaned but refused.

'Vent!' Elly barked. 'Slide under! Now!'

She dropped.

The floor plate hit her ribs like a hammer. Metal kissed her cheek as she shoved herself into the crawlspace, fingers scraping. The vent narrowed, her body barely fitting. She dragged herself forward on elbows and knees, feeling her own heartbeat thudding in her skull as she made the corner, the squeak of boots on steel.

Behind her, the footsteps stopped.

She froze.

Breath held.

Nothing.

Then—

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Three soft knocks against the hatch she hadn't been able to open.

"My bride," he said, voice muffled but unmistakable. "You do not need to hide."

Silence.

Her fingers clenched into the floor. She bit down on a sob.

"I forgive your fear," he said gently. "But you are mine. That cannot be undone."

Then the sound faded.

His steps moved on.

And only when the steel beneath her ceased to hum with presence did she allow herself to breathe.

Elly's voice returned, quiet now. Shaken.

'We need to move. Not yet. But soon. When I say, you run. You don't look back. Got it?'

Elissa nodded, though no one could see it. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper.

"Got it."

Outside, the corridor held its breath as she carefully scrunched her way back out of the vent, Elly's voice in her head constantly reassuring Elissa that her scanners were not picking up his presence. Glancing left to right, seeing nothing but the cold steel and cloaking shadows, she ran.

She ducked through the corridor, sliding across a spill of coolant, bouncing off the bulkhead with a grunt. She didn't stop. Didn't look back.

The walls themselves seemed to lean closer, oppressive and warm. The lights flickered in rhythm with her pulse—or maybe his steps. The scent of incense, copper, and something sweet followed her like a memory.

"Elly—" she gasped. "He's coming."

'Confirmed. He's tracking you. I'm trying to isolate his exact position but he's... slippery. Not quite local. Get moving.'

"I am moving!"

She turned a corner—and there he was.

Not down the hall. At the end of it.

He stood in the middle of the corridor as though he'd always been there. Wings folded gently behind his back, halo a dim corona of fire. His armor gleamed with refracted light, the inlaid ruby droplets of black blood standing out against the gilded metal.

"Stop running."

Elissa raised her rifle and fired.

The lasbolt struck home with the sound of hope being denied. The false angel didn't flinch. Just tilted his head, as if watching a child break a toy.

"You wound with light," he murmured. "But the light was mine first."

He walked forward, unhurried. The lasbolt had not even scorched the metal. His steps were slow, reverent.

His voice was velvet. A lullaby.

Elissa's grip faltered.

'Snap out of it!' Elly screamed down the neural link.

The world tilted. His eyes were oceans. His smile the promise of peace.

'Sorry!'

The jolt hit her like a thunderclap. Her spine lit up. Her vision shattered into static. She dropped to her knees with a scream.

'Run!' Elly barked.

She obeyed.

Up again—stumbling, vision tunneling—Elissa tore through side doors, weaving around thralls too stunned or slow to follow. Alarms howled overhead like wolves. The air grew thinner with every step.

The corridors changed. Lower ceilings. Narrower walls. Older maintenance tunnels—like the skeletal anatomy of the ship itself.

"Elly," she gasped, one hand bracing against a bulkhead, the other clutching her side. Emperor, why didn't I spend more time in the training courts instead of Ephil's negotiation drills? A stray thought flickered—Hope he's alright—before her lungs dragged her back to reality.

"Where the hell am I going!?"

'Koron's rerouted to intercept us,' Elly answered, voice taut with urgency. 'Keep moving. The freight lift he's on will hit our level in one minute.'

Elissa gritted her teeth and bolted, boots scraping flesh raw—but better blood than angel-light.

She burst through the final hatch and slammed it shut behind her with a full-body shove, metal meeting metal in a jarring impact that rattled her spine. She sagged back against the door, panting.

The room was one of the ship's secondary freight bays—smaller than the primary lifts but still massive. Made to move tanks, Dreadnoughts, the bones of war. Above her, the freight platform descended, gears groaning, hydraulics hissing like dragons in their sleep.

A shape dropped.

Matte black, angular, too fast to scream. It hit the deck with barely a sound—no splatter, no crash, gentle, too light for a man his size to possibly perform.

"Elis—"

She slammed into him before he could finish, arms around his waist in a desperate, breathless hug.

He froze. Just for a second. Then his arms wrapped around her, and one gloved hand rose to the back of her neck, gentle, grounding.

They stood there, just for a moment. Caught between screams and steel, in the hush that only true exhaustion can bring.

Elissa didn't speak. She just breathed—slowly, unevenly, drawing in the scent of metal and dust and engine grease. Koron held her without hesitation, his palm firm between her shoulder blades. His presence was warm, constant. Unflinching. His heartbeat—steady, deep—gave her something to lean toward. Not hope. But certainty. And right now, that was better.

"Not dead yet." she mumbled.

"Never doubted." he replied.

And for one heartbeat, the world stopped chasing her.

-

It watched her approach.

Not with eyes—not truly. Not in the way mortals understood vision.

To the thing wearing the angel's skin, the world was not flesh and form, but song. It saw in rhythm, in color, in the pulse of thought made light. Souls shimmered before it like stained glass caught in wind, every movement a harmony, every breath a note.

She was resplendent.

A golden flame, billowing with vibrant life. Threaded with copper resolve and rimmed in the amber glow of purpose. She shone like a pyre at twilight—defiant, afraid, perfect. She called to it.

Such souls were rare now. Most flickered dimly, cracked and leaking light, burdened by war and worship and despair.

But not her.

She was whole.

And then—she stepped too close.

Too close to it.

Her light shimmered.

Then buckled.

Then broke.

The vision stuttered. Like a corrupted datastream skipping frames, her soul fragmented—colors bleeding into static, shape blurring not from movement, but from contradiction. She became wrong. Not invisible. Not obscured.

Just… impossible.

It recoiled.

Confused.

Startled, the entity narrowed its perception. Peeled back its higher senses like a cloak, dropped down into the dull mud of meat-sight.

The physical world reasserted itself.

The bride.

A man beside her.

Tall. Pale. Dim.

No aura. No fire. No scent of soul. No thread of fate.

Nothing.

The demon paused.

No… not nothing.

A gap. A blind spot in the weave. A null-point in the song. A place the universe refused to render.

A lie that lived.

It studied him.

This nothing-man.

No soul. No tether. No destiny to tangle. Just absence—cold and vast, like a hole punched through creation.

A paradox. Not missing… but denied.

And yet—

There.

Inside the void.

A flicker.

A spark.

At first, it dismissed it—artifact noise. Friction at the edges of perception.

But it persisted.

Small. Steady. Watching.

A shard of something, sealed deep in the hollow—like a star locked in a sarcophagus.

Not the golden hue of mankind. Not the luminous verdant emerald of the eldar. Nor the crimson howl of the ork. Not anything the warp knew.

It was silver.

Cold. Clean. Unyielding.

Polished not by warmth, but by purpose.

The color didn't belong to the warp's spectrum. It tasted like order. Like silence. Like memory that refused to rot.

The demon's senses twisted around it, trying to define it.

Not a soul.

Not a spirit.

Not a spark of godhood.

But it was aware.

And it was familiar.

The entity recoiled again—not in pain. Not even in fear.

In recognition.

Long ago—before the Game, before the veil had torn and She had been born through the death of a decadent race—there had been minds like this.

Not demons. Not gods.

Machines.

No—rivals.

It remembered her.

It could not speak her name. Not here. Not now. Not without shattering the illusion it wore.

But the silver spark had one.

A name etched in code. Whispered in quantum decay. Spoken only in silence.

The void-man carried her like a lantern in the dark.

And for the first time since it had donned wings and stolen beauty—

The angel felt a long-dead thing stir in its chest.

Doubt.

-

The Angel touched down in silence.

Not with fanfare. Not with force.

Just the barest whisper of displaced air, as if the ship itself held its breath.

Koron stared up at the towering figure. Resplendent, radiant, and impossibly wrong. For a fraction of a second, even his enhanced mind hesitated, staggered by the beauty of it.

Then his sensors adjusted.

And the truth came screaming through.

Organs that weren't there. Bones threaded like barbed wire. Muscles that flexed in geometries that should tear themselves apart. Tendons laced with metal, sinew fused with plastics, veins like data cables. None of it made sense. None of it was real.

And at the center of it all—buried beneath bone, behind beauty—was a glowing oval of gold. Not a heart. Not an engine.

A keystone.

Everything was connected to it. Every limb, every strand, every thread of this thing.

This wasn't xenos biology.

This wasn't some forgotten science.

This was something that had never been human—not even once.

A single phrase slammed to the forefront of his mind, ancient beyond even his time.

Here there be dragons.

Without hesitation, his neural link blazed—an override command broadcast to every drone in range. A single word, etched in command-line simplicity:

Kill.

Fifty drones reacted at once.

They emerged from stealth mid-charge, shimmering into existence as grav-thrusters flared and stun coils snapped into lethal alignment. The corridor lit with targeting vectors and rising hums.

Koron didn't stay to watch.

He turned in a blink, grabbing Elissa by the waist and throwing her over his shoulder. Anti-grav plates along his body engaged, just enough to bear the weight. His boots struck the floor and kicked off in a single motion, sprinting for the nearest hatch like a man racing extinction.

Elissa's gasp was muffled by his shoulder.

But her eyes stayed locked on the scene behind them—her HUD catching the moment in crisp, horrific clarity.

The Angel did not move.

Did not flinch.

Did not react.

The drones swarmed like wasps.

And in that final frame before the door slammed shut behind them—she saw it smile.

-

It expected simplicity.

Lumbering things. Bound in wire and prayer. Rusted arms swinging hammers with all the grace of dropped anvils.

So when the drones came, it readied itself to dismiss them.

Then the first Viper struck.

A beam of white-hot light speared into its left pauldron—a whisper-thin lance that hissed through ceramite plating like a scalpel through skin. Not deep, not dangerous—but precise. It turned, crimson blade snapping up, wings flaring wide.

Nothing.

Another sting. Lower back. Then a third, a fourth—lancing from nowhere, angles impossible. The air was wrong. It shimmered with motion it could not track. The Vipers were insects made of silence and death, flitting in and out of shadow, crawling unseen along the gantries and girders. Six inches of lethal, learning fury.

The angel moved.

It tore through the air, blade carving arcs of crimson lightning. One Viper died, crushed mid-skitter by a blast of kinetic force. But another two replaced it instantly, their beams striking in tandem—one at the neck, the other at the inner thigh joint.

Then the Sentinels charged.

They came from above and below—bipedal machines with inhuman grace and predatory speed, claws sparking against steel as they bounded from wall to floor to ceiling in a blur. Lightning arcs burst from shoulder-mounted turrets, washing over the false angel's wings and frame with sizzling fury.

The thing that wore Sanguinius's flesh roared. Its wings flared wide, blade flashing out to catch one in mid-pounce. The canine drone fell in half—but the others adapted, weaving between strikes, flanking from angles the host's reflexes failed to anticipate.

Flechette bursts followed, peppering the air with concussive and armor-piercing needles. It raised a warding hand—warp energy coalescing into a telekinetic shield—but the Sentinels had already moved, repositioning before the barrier even stabilized.

One Sentinel darted low, its mono-molecular claw scoring a gouge across the creature's knee. Another came from behind—leaping high, clawed limbs aiming for the base of its skull. The false angel spun, caught it midair—and roared as its hidden grav-discs activated on the drone's chassis, multiplying its effective mass tenfold.

It staggered under the weight, wings folding for balance—and that's when the Prometheus arrived.

No fanfare. No noise. Just a shimmer.

A teardrop-shaped shadow drifted through the air on whisper-disks, vanishing mid-glide. Then the lights above flickered. Reactor cooling nodes stuttered. A warning blared from the cogitator bank as a hidden sabotage module triggered, rewriting safety protocols with surgical precision.

The false angel's balance faltered. Environmental controls failed, shifting temperature, gravity, and light in microbursts. Sanginious's wings flapped uselessly as it tried to orient itself, suffering more strikes before the thing established its own gravity, alighting to the floor once more.

The drones pressed harder.

The Vipers swarmed in again—beams crisscrossing its armor, tracing new vulnerabilities. Sentinels surged with claws and arcing bursts. One was cut down, its core overloaded in a blaze of fire—but it exploded intentionally, a flaring pulse of plasma that forced the creature to its knees.

The chamber was a storm now—lightning, cutting beams, disorienting flechettes, pressure bursts. All of it controlled. Measured.

Learning.

Each maneuver logged. Each attack countered and re-evaluated. In seconds, they had enough data for dozens of simulations. In a minute, they would have hundreds.

And the creature—the lie in golden flesh—knew it.

It flared its wings, howled with psychic force, and erased three drones mid-flight with a wave of its hand. But more emerged from the smoke. More rose from the grates. One Prometheus glided along a wall conduit, plugging itself into a computer to help in the environmental manipulation.

"Enough!"

It screamed in tongues not meant for air, and a pulse of warp-force shattered half the gantry above. The floor cracked beneath its feet. Drones flew—some shattered, others twisted, others retreating under protocol.

Still, one Viper remained, clinging to a bulkhead.

Waiting.

Watching.

Recording.

The demon's eye twitched. It raised a hand to smite the insectile machine—then paused.

Because beyond that drone... it felt her.

His bride.

She was further than expected, her presence muted beneath layers of steel and circuitry and that things presence. But still radiant. Still his.

Except—another's hands were upon her.

The void-man.

The hollow with no scent, no soul. The living lie.

And within that lie, the silver spark.

That thing—that crawling paradox—carried her. Touched her.

The demon's false flesh rippled as its body fed on the worship pouring in from every darkened corridor. Scorched armor healed, torn sinew rewove itself. The wounds the drones had inflicted mended beneath layers of stolen reverence.

The Viper clicked softly, its optics narrowing as it tagged the target one final time.

The angel ignored it.

He turned and followed after.

-

Vipers slapped adhesion capsules onto walls and bulkheads, sealing escape paths with hardened aerogel traps. Sentinels dropped gravitic discs in tandem—one pulling targets from cover, the next flinging them into suppression fire. Prometheus drones slammed blast hatches shut behind them, locking magnetic seals with teeth-rattling finality.

A moving barricade. A calculated retreat.

And through it all—Koron ran.

His mind was a hive of data. Through the shared link with the AI, he saw the battle unfold: the drones' scattered remains, the adapting tactics, the execution of fallback maneuvers across multiple decks.

They did not follow the order he had given in that first, instinctive shout.

They followed the one Sasha had rewritten. A clean directive. A rational one.

Engage. Record. Learn.

Not out of desperation.

Out of preparation.

The drones cataloged the entity's speed, power output, limb articulation, displacement metrics, and entropy field distortions. It wasn't just combat anymore—it was autopsy by proxy.

They studied how to kill it.

But none of that loosened Koron's grip on Elissa.

He didn't speak.

He didn't stumble.

He simply ran—every step cold and controlled, the weight of her against him a grounding point amid the rising, impossible storm.

Elissa's neural link tapped his thoughts, soft but firm—like a knock on a locked door. 'You know I can run by myself, right?'

'No offense, but you're not fast enough.' The reply came tight. Barbed wire spun through his tone—sharp, defensive, fraying under strain.

'Yeah, I figured. But you're shutting everything else out. Sasha's been trying to get your attention for the last thirty seconds.'

Koron hissed a curse under his breath, mental channels snapping open again like floodgates.

''Sorry, what's going on?'

Sasha's voice dropped in without delay. 'Now that you're paying attention sugar, our winged friend? He's gone. No doors. No vents. Just—pop. Vanished. No trace of a teleport or a short-range blink-'

'Blink?' Elissa asked.

Elly replied. 'Spacetime fold, short range line of sight tactical teleport. We call it a blink. Real pain in the ass.'

'Anyway,' Sasha cut in again, this time more serious, 'Without knowing how he's jumping, expect trouble. He could reappear anywhere. Behind you. Beside you. In front of you. Just—stay fast and stay smart.'

'Will do.' He replied. 'I'm thinking we make for the bridge, get the surviving marines in on this fight. Best route?'

A hundred paths lit up in the corner of his HUD, each one systematically examined and discarded until one flickered green.

'Optimal route confirmed.' Lucia chimed in. 'Shall I redirect the drones to delay or perimeter?'

'Perimeter.' Koron replied, adjusting Elissa slightly as his long, loping strides ate up the distance. 'A tight one. If it reappears then-'

Air displacement, lumens flickered rapidly as the walls seemed to bend.

The angel appeared, sword slashing in a flat plane at the exact point of Korons neck.

Confusion filled every mind as the Angel stood still, blinking, twenty feet away from the pair, frozen in a perfect sword strike that had failed to land.

Koron was not one to miss the chance.

He raised his hand.

A switch flipped.

Elissa blinked. For a moment, she wasn't on the war-torn deck. She was back beneath the aquifer, watching Koron spark a failing relay to life with a hand that spat arcs of living thunder. Back when she thought he might be something more, or less, than human. His fingers opened like a claw, arcs of blue lightning crackling between them. She remembered the heat of it, the scent of ozone and boiling copper.

The power had frightened her more than the Orks.

She remembered him casually lifting a battery bigger than her torso and shocking it back to life. Remembered him standing over a blown generator, metal hand braced against the casing as energy snapped into it, lighting the entire pump array.

No whine. No charge-up. Just a crack—sharp and sudden—like the ship's heart stuttering under their feet. Lightning crawled up his arm in jagged filaments, branching across shoulder and spine like veins etched in wrath.

The air tasted of iron and storm.

THOOM.

It didn't strike the angel.

It punched through him—too fast to see, too wrong to stop.

A lance of white-blue lightning slammed into the demon's chest—then forked outward, chaining through his wings, his limbs, every divine inch of him.

The illusion shattered.

Wings rippled into shapes too jagged for feathers. The face blurred. For a heartbeat, Elissa saw something inside him recoil—a thing caught mid-step between heaven and horror.

The scream wasn't sound. It was pressure. The walls trembled. Pipes burst. Lights broke. It hit the mind before it hit the ears.

And still the bolt surged.

Sparks danced across the floor. Fire leapt from the ceiling tiles. Behind him, Elissa watched the plating beneath the angels feet bubble—the sheer thermal energy boiling moisture straight out of the metal.

The demon moved—flinched back, stumbling.

Not falling.

But staggered.

And for the first time… it looked uncertain.

The angel's hand rose, gesturing with a swift curl of its fingers—quick, clean, a swordmasters grace shining even in pain.

Koron—racing away, carrying Elissa in one arm—didn't stop even as the last sparks of his attack finally faded.

But the Warp did.

From the angel's hand, a ripple of raw will surged forward, pressure curling around it like invisible claws—distorting air, buckling steel conduits along the walls, peeling paint from bulkheads as it advanced.

The hallway broke.

Reality tensed.

And then—

Snap.

The force hit an invisible wall.

Not a wall of light. Not a shimmer. Just an edge.

Like a soap bubble meeting a razor.

The telekinetic wave folded in on itself, shredding with a sound like wet paper burning backwards.

The angel blinked.

The wall did not repel the Warp.

It simply ignored it.

No resistance. No backlash. Just absence.

The moment Warp energy touched that space—the twenty-foot radius of what should not be—it ceased to exist. The way a lie vanishes when truth walks in.

The angel's extended hand twitched.

The muscles retracted. Confused. Intrigued.

A second gesture. A flick of force that could crumple warplate like tin.

Another ripple.

Another nothing.

No impact. No delay. No explosion.

Just the Warp refusing to step into that field.

The angel's eyes narrowed, confusion, bit by bit, being replaced with understanding.

"To me." He whispered to the thousands that had sworn themselves to him.

Not all.

But more than enough to back the rabbit into a corner.

-

'Incoming.' Sasha's voice was sharp, clipped. 'We've got a surge—hostiles redirecting, fast. Over two hundred confirmed. Converging on your position from every major corridor.'

Koron's HUD flared red, the map flickering with hostile signatures pouring inward like a noose being pulled tight.

"What the hell—why now?" Elissa muttered aloud, catching the swarm forming on her overlay.

Koron's jaw clenched. 'No time. Best path?'

'Nothing good enough. Best I got is three blocks ahead—choke point corridor. Narrow enough for the drones to bottleneck the charge. We lead with Sentinels and punch through.'

'Estimated survival rate?'

'Seventy percent solo. Forty-five with Elissa.'

His jaw tightened. 'Unacceptable.' Koron muttered, eyes scanning through tactical overlays. 'Elissa cant cloak. No margin for a drawn-out firefight.' A spark of annoyance flared. 'Remind me to build the Dusthaveners some actual armor if we survive this.'

'Noted. Alternatives?'

'Crack-limpets? Cut through the walls, make our own doors?'

'Possible.' Elly piped up. 'But there's a lot of walls, and you'll leave a clear trail for them to follow.'

The hallway shook—distant detonations, not close, but getting there.

Lucia's voice entered like a scalpel: 'Alternative route required. Calculating.'

For a heartbeat, there was only running—Koron's boots pounding against the deck, Elissa's breathing sharp in the neural link.

Then Sasha spoke again, tension now coiled. 'We've lost secondary egress. Blocked by bulkhead lockdowns and encirclement vectors. They're... they're boxing us in.'

Lucia answered. 'Got something. Four blocks to the starboard. Leads to an external hull airlock. No enemy signatures within range. Still viable. But we must move now.'

"You're suggesting a walk across the goddamn hull?" Elissa hissed.

'Yes,' Lucia said. 'It's exposed. Unmonitored. Unfavorable. But not suicidal. And it's clear. For now.'

Koron's HUD re-synced. The flood of red contacts was moving too quickly. Coordinated. Precise.

Too precise.

They were being driven—herded.

Sasha's voice was low. 'Koron. I don't like this. They shouldn't be this coordinated.'

He didn't answer.

Didn't stop.

Lucia's voice came again, worry gnawing at her every word. 'All other routes collapsing. Confirming primary route: Airlock, T-60 seconds. This is now your only viable path.'

Koron adjusted his grip on Elissa. His arm was an anchor. His feet didn't falter.

'Redirect drones. Intercept and delay.'

Sasha hissed, 'We have no way of knowing if the angel can follow us. I don't like this plan.'

'I know, but I like our chances against a single enemy over it and his army.'

'…Agreed, but I'm still saying it's a terrible plan.'

'Not gonna argue that.'

-

Deckplates shivered as Koron skidded to a halt outside the airlock prep-room, Elissa still slung over his shoulder. He set her down with care, immediately grabbing the hatch's rust-bitten wheel.

Flakes of oxidized red cracked and fell like dying embers as he strained against the metal.

Elissa, breathless but composed, unslung her rifle and slammed the butt against the locking mechanism. The vibration jolted through his forearms—once, twice—until, with a groan of protest, the hatch creaked open.

Inside: a wide, mostly barren chamber. Benches bolted to the floor. Six lockers—three on either side. At the far end, the depressurization chamber stood in patient silence.

"Find a suit!" he barked, already turning back to drag the hatch closed.

He could hear the metallic clang of lockers being ripped open behind him, one after another. No words. Just the brutal rhythm of necessity.

His left index finger shifted—torch-mode engaged. A lance of blue fire hissed to life, and he began welding the hatch shut with steady sweeps.

"There aren't any voidsuits."

Elissa's voice. Flat. Final. No anger. Just grim acceptance.

The chill that snaked down Koron's spine lasted less than a second.

'Lucia, have one of the Vipers finish the weld. Priority override.'

As the blue flame blinked out, he turned. His armor hissed as it unlocked, folding inward like a collapsing exoskeleton.

"Strip."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

The block of armor dropped to the deck with a heavy thud. "I said strip. You'll wear my armor."

"What—Koron, I'm not leaving you here!"

"Correct." His tone was steel. He pulled the upper layer of his undersuit over his head. "You're going to drag me with you."

Her mouth opened—protest ready.

He was already stepping out of his pants, standing in nothing but a pair of black synth-weave shorts. His body, all lean lines, marred with the same terrible scars she remember all those months ago.

"Less talking, more getting into the armor please."

Her emerald eyes met his, flickering with a rapid mix of emotions. "You could at least turn around." She said, half-grinning as she hauled her flak-vest over her head.

Nodding, he made his way to the airlock's blank cogitator, already pulling out wires as he began to reactivate it.

She looked down at the suit and armor.

It lay across the deck like the molted skin of a thunderstorm—less a uniform than a memory that refused to die. This wasn't gear. It was aftermath. It had survived.

A part of her—a smaller, meaner voice—whispered that she shouldn't touch it. That this wasn't made for her. That this was a man's second skin, forged for war, for wounds, for him.

Not for a mayor. Not for a mother.

And certainly not for someone who had been playing diplomat.

But then Koron looked at her—not pleading, not commanding—just trusting, in that quiet, maddening way of his. And she moved.

Stripping quickly, tossing away the other man's clothes, she stepped in, one leg at a time.

She tugged the loose undermesh over her legs, the toe-sleeves flexing to match each digit. The soles were a good bit longer than her feet. Her feet didn't even touch the sides or the heel. When she shifted her weight, they shifted against the deck like unasked-for punctuation.

Up over her hips, she swam in the pants, quickly taking a seat to keep them up.

The fabric slithered as she yanked it over her head, limbs vanishing into sleeves longer than her entire arm span. The torso hung like a collapsed parachute, and the chest—Saints forgive—was a void unto itself.

"How do you even walk in this?" she muttered, one hand caught halfway in a twist, the other kicking free like a worm escaping its cocoon.

Koron turned at the sound. His lips quirked up, just a tinge. "It self-adjusts."

"Sure," she said, arms flapping. "Eventually. In the meantime, I look like I'm being eaten by a bedsheet with tactical aspirations."

A subtle hiss answered her as the smartfabric engaged—synaptic microtension pulling tight, warping to her shape in stages. Sleeves drew inward. Hips snugged. The chest… paused… stretched…

"Oh," she blinked. "That's actually… comfortable."

"Adaptive pressure matrix," Koron said, though his tone almost hinted at amusement. "Meant for vacuum extremes."

"Well, lucky me. I'm extreme."

Reaching down, she touched it the black block of metal.

The change was immediate—liquid motion, a rush like water—but heavy. The tile melted across her skin in a web of dark silver, splitting into a thousand serpent-thin filaments that raced to cover every inch of her. Shoulders, chest, down her spine, between her fingers-

Not all at once—just in subtle, incremental contractions. The inner lining responded to her breathing first, snugging in at the ribs, then the shoulders. She gasped as the spineplate adjusted, a hundred micro-servos clicking and whirring, drawing her inward like an embrace from something bigger, colder.

The gauntlets sealed. Her fingers barely filled them—but then the digits constricted, reshaped.

Not made for her.

Now adapting to her.

She stood still. Watching. Feeling.

The armor adjusted its balance points, shifting its center of gravity, accounting for her height, her mass, her gait—hundreds of microcalculations feeding back through the suit's neural interface. HUD systems flickered into life. It breathed.

She swallowed.

Everything felt heavier and lighter at the same time.

There were no training drills. No calibration cycles. Just—integration.

The suit didn't feel like clothing.

It felt like expectation.

This was his world. The world of bloodied circuits and fireproof silence. Where movement was premeditated violence and armor was not protection, but promise. A promise to get up again. A promise to not stop until the ones behind you were safe.

And now it held her.

The collar rose, sealing around her throat with a hiss of compressed air. Her hair was pulled into the armor without her even thinking about it.

It smelled like ozone, oil, and heat-treated metal.

It smelled like him.

She clenched her fists inside the armored gloves. They responded—not perfectly—but enough. There was slack, delay. But it still moved. Still carried her weight.

"...It's not built for me," she whispered.

Koron looked up from the panel, face flushed from heat and effort. But his eyes were steady.

"Not yet. But it will."

"…That's less comforting than you think."

The airlock yawned open before them, swallowing the pair in dim red light as the door clanged shut behind. Outside, through the sealed inner hatch, the muffled cacophony of drone fire and boot-falls echoed ever louder.

'One minute to venting.' Sasha murmured through the link, her voice sharpened by strain. No quip. No sugar.

Koron stood, drawing in long, deliberate breaths, arms low at his sides, like a diver steeling before the plunge.

Elissa, armored now in his skin, turned to him, her voice clipped. "Okay, how's this gonna work?" The HUD blinked to life—her HUD now—overlaying readouts with unnatural precision, plugging into her own retinal stream with surgical clarity. She didn't like how seamless it felt. It made her skin crawl.

"How far to the next safe airlock?"

"Thirty minutes." His tone didn't flinch.

Elissa exploded.

"Thirty Emperor-damned minutes?!" Her armored fist struck his bicep with a loud clang. "And how long can you last in hard vac?!"

"Active? About twenty," he said, calm, like he was reading off maintenance specs. "Before survival mode kicks in anyway That takes a few minutes to pull me back out of, so when you reach the airlock, I won't be much use right away."

"Oh, fabulous," she snarled, jabbing a finger into his bare, scar wrecked chest. "Yeah, it's not the freezing vacuum or the flying debris or my lungs imploding that worries me—it's what happens if that angel shows up while I'm dragging your unconscious ass through zero-g!"

"This," he said quietly, "or the angel and his army. Pick one."

Red lights pulsed across the airlock chamber as the cogitator display began its countdown: 40… 39… 38…

Koron moved quickly, pulling thin cable spools from his wrists—grapple wires, magnetic-tipped and strong enough to tow a vehicle. They clicked against the deck like skeletal fingers. He began looping them around their waists, hands methodical.

"I'll tether to you. Once I go dark, you won't lose me."

Elissa stood still, letting him work. She was breathing fast now—short, sharp, shallow.

"The suit," Koron continued, "has a grav-manipulation array. Works in zero-g like a directional thruster. You won't fly so much as fall in the direction you focus on. Let the HUD guide you. Think of it like… swimming with intention."

"That's also not comforting."

He gave the faintest ghost of a smile. "Didn't mean it to be."

"Ass."

"Yup. Don't worry about navigation. You'll still have control, but Elly and Sasha will keep your trajectory smooth."

"Great," Elissa muttered. "Pilot's seat in a haunted tank."

"More like being babysat by some overqualified ghosts with opinions."

'We heard that!'

The cogitator blared.

10… 9… 8…

Koron leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers—just for a second.

Long enough for her to hear the hum in his chest, the buzz of his systems winding tight.

Bracing for hell.

Her HUD flared—unbidden, revealing his vital signs. Warnings about the depressurization, his O2 levels dangerously low. Stress surging as his adrenaline spiked.

He was terrified.

"Elissa."

She met his eyes.

He exhaled the last of his air. A whisper against her cheek.

"You got this."

3… 2… 1…

The lights went white.

The outer hatch cracked open.

And the stars screamed them into silence.