Chapter 53: The Storm Is Brewing |
“Your Excellency!”
“I need you to send a summons to all expeditionary fleets. Top priority.”
Expeditionary Fleet, Lightchaser Sacred Flame Battlecruiser.
In the grand, opera-like Astropathic Hall, Orlando solemnly handed his request to the Astropathic Master.
“With all due respect, my lord, if we send this message, the expeditionary fleet will lose its capacity for long-range astropathic communication,” said the Astropathic Master who led the entire choir.
“Is the information you possess dire enough to warrant such a cost to the fleet?”
He wasn’t afraid—he was simply laying out the gravity of the situation.
“Yes!”
Orlando replied solemnly.
For in the Black Templars, who devoutly worship the Emperor as a god, only those who have seen the Emperor and been tested by Him—Navigators and Astropaths—earn their reverence.
Thus, the Black Templars have always cherished the lives of these masters.
But now, the situation was too dire.
Orlando recalled the elders who had once led a hundred Sharks and effortlessly wiped out over five hundred Dark Eldar. A hundred aged veterans, their stone-hard faces marked with timeworn scars more terrifying than any modern Space Marine’s honors.
He knew it was impossible to persuade those elders to turn back or abandon their glory.
If anyone dared tell him to do so, Orlando would smash their skull in with his power hammer without hesitation.
Convince those living fossils to avoid battle?
They’d probably stuff you into a torpedo tube and fire you into a Chaos lair before you finished your sentence.
But this Chaos sacrificial ritual involving five trillion souls... wasn’t something they could handle alone.
They needed support.
Orlando clenched his fists.
Nothing was more important than protecting the lives of those ancient elders!
“These are the brothers to contact and the message to send.”
The Priest handed over a copper plate, which, besides the message to be sent to various Black Templar expeditionary fleets, also included the Crimson Fists and the Executioners Chapters.
They didn’t know the exact locations of the other Chapters, and sending messages blindly might attract their arch-nemesis, the Iron Warriors—potentially making things worse.
Crack—
The Priest crushed the copper plate with his grip, leaving behind a handprint.
Still not enough—truly not enough.
If the Black Templars hadn’t already withdrawn from the Final Wall Accord that once united all Sons of Dorn—and hadn’t fallen out with most of them, including the Imperial Fists—he would’ve sent the message to every single successor Chapter.
This would be a grand crusade, one undertaken with elders who had once met the Gene-Father himself.
As a Son of Dorn, no one could refuse such an honor.
“I understand. The Astropathic Choir will remain to assist you with short-range communication, my lord.”
The Astropathic Master accepted the copper plate, memorized the encoded message on it, and turned to walk toward the center of the hall.
His psyker robes fluttered though there was no wind, and the Emperor’s statue’s pupils suddenly emitted golden light.
As his fingers brushed over the engraved runes, cerebrospinal fluid mixed with sacred oil seeped from his neural interface ports.
The Imperium required his sacrifice.
That was answer enough.
“People of the Imperium, the time has come to dedicate ourselves to the Emperor!”
The Astropathic Master stood firm at the hall’s center and declared loudly.
“Calibrate the sacred hymn. Activate the Thirteenth Gospel. Transition to the Martyr’s Final Chapter.”
Dang—Dang—
Heavy tones echoed. Every member of the choir unhesitatingly strapped on the devices that channeled their psyker powers.
They were humans touched by the Emperor’s gaze—their very existence was a sacrifice to Him.
At the center of the hall, the Astropathic Master connected with the Emperor’s radiance. The purple warp energy around him turned gold in an instant.
Boom!
The golden flames engulfed his body. The other astropaths, directly exposed to the Emperor’s light through him, ignited at the same time.
Sending clear intel to every expeditionary fleet and Astartes Chapter across the galaxy was something no ordinary psyker could do.
Because information would be corrupted, and words twisted.
Only the Emperor’s might could ensure truth.
The Emperor’s might was infinite.
But it came at a price.
Want a response from a god in the Warp?
You can.
Offer your life—offer your soul.
That’s the baseline rule of that world.
Bronze bells rang with a bloody undertone as choir members pierced their occipital bones with neural spikes.
The moment their souls were exposed to the Warp, their eyes snapped open, pupils reflecting Terra’s cold sun.
In that realm unseen by mortal eyes, they all saw a cold, lifeless sun.
A terrible pressure surrounded them.
The Astropathic Master, whose soul was fully exposed to the Warp’s tide, could even see the malevolent shadows circling around him.
He selected the regions of space where each fleet and Chapter were located and projected the message.
Each character etched into the message burned another astropath to ash beneath the Emperor’s light.
That was the cost.
For mortals to wield divine power, they had to burn themselves.
Ignoring his melting flesh, the Astropathic Master’s face twisted in pain. But he remained focused on the miracles of the High Heavens.
When the final word was carved, his expression became calm and serene.
Not a word was missed.
When he finally stilled, only a withered skeleton and desiccated skin remained.
“My task is complete, my lord.”
With the last of his strength, he reported to Orlando, knelt before the Emperor’s statue in the hall, and raised his hand as it turned to ash.
“Oh Emperor, how radiant Your light is—”
“High Marshal, message from the Eighth Expeditionary Fleet.”
Eternal Crusade, Queen of Glory Battleship.
The ship’s captain respectfully presented the astropathic message to the Black Templars’ Supreme High Marshal.
Supreme High Marshal Ledodes frowned slightly as he accepted the encrypted message that only fleet marshals and priests could decode.
Expeditionary fleets rarely sought aid from their brothers.
A thousand years of accumulated prestige and debts of honor meant they could rally a crusading force wherever they went.
So asking for help from fellow fleets was seen as disgraceful—unless the situation was truly dire.
But the outcome of a war should be determined the moment they set out.
Ledodes had to consider whether Orlando was still fit to lead an expeditionary fleet.
His gaze drifted along the abstract lines, brain quickly deciphering their meaning.
The message detailed the possible enemy forces the fleet might face, and at the end of the report, a ciphered phrase remained:
“The Imperial Fists are here.”
The golden text shimmered, alongside the radiant insignia of the Imperial Fists.
Supreme High Marshal Ledodes’s hand trembled slightly.
Because this was a cipher from ten thousand years ago, back when the Black Templars had not yet split off from the Imperial Fists—a code only known to those who had once served together.
What could cause a Chapter long separated from its parent to use such an ancient cipher?
For other secretive Chapters, this might have just been another little in-group mystery. But for the Sons of Dorn—
There was only one answer.
Dorn, or true Sons of Dorn, were there!
Ledodes forced the agitation in his gene-seed down into his bones. Only once the fleet completed docking procedures at the starport did he speak in a low voice:
“Captain, how much longer until we reach the xenos’ nest?”
“High Marshal, still two years of travel.”
“Then how long would it take us to reach Planet Pield?”
The captain lowered his head, plotting the route swiftly in his mind.
Pield was located in the Ultramar system, on the edge of the galaxy. Very far—extremely far from them.
From past experience, he wasn’t even sure if the Eternal Crusade could make it there in a short time.
“Three months, my lord!”
Before the captain could reply, a clear, ethereal voice rang out.
Everyone turned to look.
A regal lady stood there. Even from a distance, they could see clearly non-human traits about her.
Everyone on the bridge looked away—everyone except the captain and the Astartes, who remained composed, calmly meeting the gaze of the lady who had stepped out from the sanctum.
She was an Imperial Navigator, a peerless noble.
This decaying Imperium had stood for millennia in the galaxy thanks to the Navigators’ ability to gaze upon the Astronomican.
“Only three months, my lord.”
On her forehead, the third eye—symbol of the Navigator’s sacred duty—flared with radiant golden fire.
That light was blinding, piercing through the translucent skin of her forehead.
On the bridge, nearly everyone stood up.
Liquid golden light dripped from the Navigator lady’s third eye—an abnormal phenomenon that triggered an alert from the cogitator machine on the bridge.
But she ignored the carbonizing of her facial muscles and, with cracked fingers, traced a warp route across the star map.
“The Emperor’s light has already opened a path for us.”
It was the cold sun, burning eternally within the Warp.
Raging flames tore open long, narrow rifts in the turbulent Warp tides, linking the locations of several fleets and stretching toward that same distant region beyond the stars.
It was the fire of hope—the radiant beacon watched over by the Emperor.
Almost at the same moment, across all Navigators’ visions, the golden sun cast down its will.
“Find them! Help them! Liberate them!”
Bathed in the golden torrent of sunlight, among the stars where the many expeditionary fleets sailed, countless faithful warriors and believers fell to their knees in reverent salute.
“By the Emperor’s will.”
In the surging tides of the Warp, the ravenous gods awaited their feast.
But just as those souls began to enter the Warp, a golden, frigid sun pulled an unseen force over them—enveloping them—and calmly carried these shining souls away.
The gods, who had come to harvest, came up empty-handed—and were puzzled.
Where had the strength come from for the accursed to still resist?
But they quickly pushed aside their doubts.
In the endless games of eternity, losing a round meant little.
Their muddied gazes turned instead toward another place where souls gathered.
There, countless offerings still waited to be savored.
They had to act quickly.
Before that hungry shadow arrived.