Kapitel 91: Chapter Twenty-Eight: Death in Calixis (Part II)
After fifteen minutes of Fenj's attention the Magos was starting to falter. Perfect, this Martian cyborg was not as removed from their emotions as many of their cult. Fenj bet within five minutes the Magos would be completely cowed and would not even object to his objection to the proposal. Setting up a void mine would bog down ships and resources that needed to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Fenj did consider allowing the proposal simply to distract parts of the fleet. Deciding against it out of a sense of caution, and his own instincts. It would not be long now before something happened. A faint itch of anticipation gnawed at the back of the Chapter Masters mind, and he was not the only of his Legion feeling it. The instincts of a seasoned warrior are a valuable tool, especially ones gifted with traces of precognition.
The frantic whispers and increasing nervousness of Nesteroi and his fellow Solomonari confirmed it. They were hiding something, not something too strange among the occult circles of the Librarius. Yet whatever secrets they were privy to had them tense. They had shared the revelation about the Warp Currents, so another mystery was gnawing at the soothsayers minds. Fenj considered himself a patient man, a trait that his Legion favored and rejected in equal measure. That patience was running thin. He might need to corner Nesteroi and pull the secrets out of him. He doubted even the most erratic Solomonari would ignore a direct order free of any interpretation. Fenj would have the truth even if it required an ugly confrontation with a Brother he considered a friend.
A need for such a confrontation became nill a few seconds later. Fenj's Vox exploded with a dozen hails. The Chapter Master held up a large armored hand to the Magos, signaling them to pause. Fenj's worst suspicions were confirmed as he checked the Vox calls sources. They came from the Librarius, Astropathic Choir, Navigators, and every other warp-soaked Imperial institution. Before Tiberiu Fenj could tune in to a single hail, he felt something strike him in the very soul.
Waves of fractured visions and virtually incomprehensible thoughts hit Fenj. A seizure-inducing psychic misfiring that stunned the Astartes for a solid six seconds. By the time he regained focus, Fenj realized he was on his hands and knees. The Magos and a mortal attendant calling his name with a mixture of fright and shock. Pulling himself up, Fenj shook off a wave of Nausea that should have been impossible for him. Every communication device in his office was exploding with hails, status reports and emergency claxons. Centering himself Fenj listened for a moment and understood. His episode had not been random, the majority of Night Lords had suffered similar seizure-like episodes. Lasting a few seconds but debilitating. This was the blessing and curse of the VIII Legion. Geneseed was not meant to carry such a potent legacy of its Primarch. Even diluted and controlled, the terrible power of foresight could be catastrophic.
The normal precognitive insights of the Night Lords were never anything so grand. An instinct to dodge a surprise attack, unnatural familiarity with alien environments and similar hints of atemporal awareness. Rarely these abilities amounted to something more in the Solomonari and could be pulled forth in any Night Lords on the eve of disaster. In a seizure of warning like the one that gripped the fleet. This was the first time Fenj had experienced the terrible vision of the Solomonari, what he saw would haunt him for centuries. If he lived that long. The enemy was at the gates and there would be time for self-examination and shock if they survived.
A deep snarling growl escaped Fenj's throat and both mortals stepped back. Organic and mechanical eyes wide in terror. Ignoring them the Master pulled his helmet off its mag-clamp and put it on. Tapping into the fleet-wide command frequency and barking orders. "Night Lords! Our time has come, move to your assigned positions and prepare for combat. Cousins, Auxilia, and Mechanicum stay with the hidden fleet. You will shield them while we drive in the knife."
On a private channel he messaged the Dawn Angels' own commanding officers and the Expedition Captain. "Stay hidden until the enemy shows their hand. The Night Lords will keep them distracted and unable to commit to a proper hunt. However be prepared to leave the system and move towards the secondary or tertiary positions if need be."
Within minutes Fenj was back on the Vindications bridge and shouting for a status report. Auspex and Auger readings were in the clear so far but the Navigators were reporting extreme Warp disturbances. Immaterial madness that must settle before a reasonably safe Warp Jump could be initiated. The bow waves of an oncoming horror. A curse from the fetid Underhive Fenj had been born in, crossed his lips. Turning to the Bridge Crew the Astartes Master gave his command "They are coming from the occidental Mandeville point. Move us to position Gamma. Activate the inverted voids. We run dark today."
The crew obeyed and the rest of the Night Lord fleet fell in around the Vindication. They took their positions and waited. The Night Lords scattered themselves in hunter-squads across a squashed disk of gas and rock that might become a Gas Giant and its moons one day. Using the mess of a young star system to hide. The Vindication accompanied by a quartet of Cruisers and six escorts tucked itself behind a pair of Proto-Planets. A mismatched duo of celestial stones grinding into each other in a slow-motion impact. Here they would wait and watch.
It did not take long, Augers picked up the tell tale signs of Warp translation. Fenj had expected some great slit in space/time. Instead a smattering of smaller Warp Rifts opened. Staring at the tactical display, Fenj's eyes widened in shock. These were Imperial translation signatures. Soon close to a hundred ships bearing the telltale signs of Imperial design entered the Dyatlov-Rho system. Most in the light cruiser or escort weight class. With a single Battleship at the new fleet's heart. The newcomers' formation was shoddy, but quickly correcting. Bad jump or escaping a battle?
Soon a wideband Imperial hail erupted across the Void. A standard distress signal meant to attract friendly attention when there was little threat of enemy interception. The hail included a manifest of ships and basic information. Identifying the new fleet as Dawn Angel and Auxilia ships separated from the Crusader Fleet. This battlegroup had been forced to engage in an emergency Warp Jump. Fleeing the Rangda and eventually coming to Dyatlov-Rho looking for help.
Once the Warp Rifts fully shut the straggler fleet started to move towards the system center. Broadcasting its distress signal and scanning the system. Something about this raised Fenj's hackles. It felt false, like a lure twitching in logical intervals in hopes of snagging prey. They could send Cipher-codes along more secure channels to get confirmation of this Fleets identity. That carried its own risks of exposure. No, the best option was to wait. Let this flotsam and jetsam expose itself. If they were Imperial ships and didn't detect Expedition Fleet 89. Then they would repair and resupply before moving back towards Imperial space. If this was a trap, well the bait would keep dangling until the trapper got a bite or gave up. Either way, it was better not to risk exposing themselves.
Still more information would be useful, it was time to turn to more esoteric tools. Gesturing to a darkened corner of the Bridge, Fanj summoned Nestoroi. The Solomonari looked ragged, pale skin turned sallow, his hair greasy and stringy. With a wild-look in the soothsayers eyes. A look Fenj had seen before. The eyes of a man who stared into the abyss and felt its pull. A common sight among the elder Solomonari. Twitching slightly Nestoroi approached his Brother and gave a sad little smile.
"I take it you and many of our Brothers have a newfound empathy for my order Master Fenj?" asked Nestoroi. Showing a hint of humor Fenj had not seen in his friend in decades.
A tightening of muscles that could be called both smile and grimace crossed Fenj's ruined face. "Indeed old friend, now onto business. What do you sense from our new arrivals?"
Fenj had expected Nestoroi to focus his powers out into the void. Anticipating the tell-tale chill of psychic techniques, maybe even a few etheric sparks to light up his friends Librarian Hood. Instead he got a near instantaneous reply.
"Fear, I sense so much fear. It radiates off those ships like a stinking cloud. The type of fear that breeds madness and turns men into animals."
Silence fell across the Bridge as the Librarian's words settled. Another pained smile crossed the Psykers face and he took a deep steadying breath. Then Fenj felt a lance of familiar thought strike his mind. He let it pass his barriers and accepted the telepathic connection from Nostoroi.
+ "I'm sorry Tiberiu. You trusted me to guide you for decades. A trust I have betrayed over the last few months. I will not ask for your forgiveness or mercy, just that you understand when things become clear." +
Momentary shock filled Fenj as he looked into his Battle-Brother's eyes. Hints of resignation and exhaustion danced behind the Soothsayers wild sight. No questions could be asked, no answers pulled forth. As a great welling of psychic pressure pushed on the minds of every human, mortal or augmented in Expedition Fleet 89. The mysterious Imperial Fleet had not been the source of the Warp disturbances the fleets Psykers had picked up. They never could have been. They were the school of fish fleeing before the coming Leviathan. Fenj and his officers had turned their attention to the threat of the Fleet and the Worm had slithered in.
Fenj had never seen a Rangda Worm-Ship. Only read dry battle-reports. He'd imagined a great cut in the Void that let the Worm's head enter realspace like a suture through flesh. In retrospect he realized that was far too clean for the Rangda Kindred. At the heart of the Mandeville point the Imperial fleet had arrived. Space/Time bulged. The fabric of existence was pushed against by some invisible force. Fenj watched as the light of distant stars bent around the insistent force attempting to penetrate the Materium. Shifting and wriggling, the defect in reality was pulled taught. Light and gas smeared among the intruding form, before the certainty of the Materium gave way.
It made no sound of course, but every soul-bearing being in Dyatlov-Rho heard it. A sickening squelching rip. Accompanied by a chorus of pained screams from throats that defied the petty laws of physics and biology. Existence tore open like a burst cyst as a monumental shape pushed its way into realspace. Clouds of etheric ichor spewed out into the void, a thousand laughing Daemonic faces visible on the spiritual discharge. Writhing shapes clung onto the Worms head as it pushed its way forward. Melting off the Rangda horror as the dread certainty of the Materium asserted itself.
Unobscured by the wriggling byproducts of the Warp, the Worm came into view. Fenj had faced many horrors in his years of service. His dreams still carried flickers of the Slaugth's malice. Fenj had been part of fleets ordered to reduce worlds to ash, he personally had liberated the Meat-Pits of the Sonorous Hierarchy. Taking time to ensure the creators of those horrors were the last offering to their sick artistry. Those events somehow paled in comparison to the thing before him. It was a Worm, no better way to describe it. With the diameter of a planet. The Worm did not ooze the lunatic-malice of Chaos or show signs of creative evil. Hypno-indoctrinated data flicked through Fenj's mind. Of the myriad of parasitic vermiforms that tormented life across the galaxy. Creatures that burrowed under skin, into muscle and brain. Laying eggs and eating their host from the inside out. Perfectly adapted by evolution to function in a horrible way. What stuck through the still bleeding puncture in Space/Time was the God of those pestilent worms.
A colossal god that wriggeled through the flesh of reality. The product of science and sorcery that no human mind would ever dream of. This was an Alien horror in all sense of the word. Something outside human context or comprehension. Even the evils of Chaos were more familiar than this. Twisted reflections warped into a profane existence by ancient sins. Fenj found himself at a loss for description or context. The single word kept repeating inside his mind.
"Alien"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein