The ruins of Dusthaven rested in unnatural stillness.
The mountain that once loomed above—rich in blackstone veins—was gone. Flensed to its bone-white roots, the land now pulsed with containment glyphs and phase-sheathes.
The extraction had been elegant. Surgical.
But the town itself…
It had been preserved.
Not out of sentiment. Never that. But because this place was part of an equation. A formula of resistance, survival, and anomaly.
Orykhal sat at the center of it—seated upon a throne of grav-anchored glyphium, surrounded by drifting hololithic rings and floating shards of memory-metal. Above him, the Temporal Scope unfolded like a mechanical flower, refracting light in impossible hues.
Snippets of the past shimmered in the air like dust motes caught in a dying sunbeam.
A woman brushing ash from her daughter's face.
A child sketching a crude map in the dirt with a gear-bit.
Two men welding an improvised barricade from farming equipment.
Useless.
The Anomaly was caught in fragments, scattered moments here and there across the length and breath of the small settlement.
But never clearly. Never doing anything significant. The Scope offered randomized shards, temporal bleed filtered through the planet's disruption fields. The subject existed. But his actions were always between frames.
Orykhal tilted his head slightly. His hands moved in cold, precise gestures, adjusting the Scope's modulation frequency.
"The anomaly persists."
His voice was layered, devoid of emotion—more a calculation spoken aloud than a thought.
Suddenly, glyphs screamed to life, angular warnings flaring like exposed nerves.
The air around him trembled. His drones shivered in their hoverlocks. The Scope retracted in a hiss of green light as a flood of data poured through his relay-towers.
> INCOMING TRANSMISSION: ORBITAL SENSOR RELAY 009-A
> THREAT DESIGNATION: ADEPTUS MECHANICUS / FULL SCALE FLEET
> SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE VESSELS IDENTIFIED
> ORBITAL DOMINANCE: PROJECTED LOSS IN 2 MINUTES, 44.2 SECONDS
> PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: PLANETFALL
Orykhal didn't move. Not at first.
He stared through the upper reaches of his sensor array, toward the sky—though there was no visible change.
The priests of Mars had arrived.
So many. So loud.
Where his efforts had been delicate—calculated—this would be a butchery of data. A ritualized mauling. Crude prayers and cruder engines driven by hunger, not understanding.
They have come for what they do not deserve.
He rose slowly, filigreed limbs unfolding with regal inevitability. The energy field around him shimmered as he activated a engraved plate on his hip, slowing the immediate moment to buy himself clarity.
"Begin countermeasure sequencing. Archive all Scope data. Prepare counter-invasion protocols."
He walked to the center of the square, where once children had played and impossible victories had been forged with ancient technology and stubbornness.
Now, it would become a battlefield of ideology.
"Let them come," he murmured, voice soft as entropy.
"Let them descend with flame and machine rites."
"This place will not answer them."
The sky above began to darken—not with storm, but with red machine-stars, each one a prayer-wrapped weapon.
And Orykhal, patient and precise, began preparing to erase them.
-
The Machine God had not come to reclaim.
It had come to purge.
the pulpit of the Omnissiah's Victory, Archmagos Galeth Vortek stared down at Morrak II—its surface a charred catechism of industry and heresy, spinning slowly beneath his fleet.
Four Ark Mechanicus ships, their eight kilometer-long hulls bristling with macro-lances, quantum grav-harpoons, plasma lances and nova cannons, held position like divine spears arrayed for judgment. Around them trailed the armored entrails of the Martian war-machine: over six hundred warships, skitarii tenders, orbital bombardment barges, mechanized shrines, titan transports and mobile god-forges.
The fleet chanted.
Not with words, but with code-prayer. Every cogitator. Every noospheric node. Every priest, drone, and data-ghost screamed in unison across the choir-circuit.
+CORRUPTION DETECTED. XENOS INCURSION ACTIVE. THE RED RESOLVE IS SANCTIONED.+
+WORLD CLASSIFICATION: TERTIARY RED PRIORITY. UNRESTRICTED RETRIEVAL INITIATED.+
+TARGET: MORRAK II. PURPOSE: RECLAMATION. EXCISION. UNDERSTANDING.+
This was not a rescue.
This was sacred retribution.
+Three months,+ Vortek intoned aloud, vox-modulated voice a brass thunder through the hall. +Three months we let them infest. Three months we waited. No more.+
He turned to the gathered high-priests—twelve in all, each locked into their own interface spires, faces masked by reliquary casings.
+This is the world where the lost knowledge first reawakened. Where the STC made its presence known. Where the Golden Sun was fired—and struck down a harvester of the stars.+
Across the fleet, a million mechanical limbs struck metal, a thunderous gesture of machine-affirmation.
+And now? It festers. Desecrated. Crawling with the mockery of the machine. The xenos.+
He raised one arm, and a burning Martian sigil flickered to life above the pulpit—Morrak's surface displayed in real-time. The blackstone mines. The heat-scarred plains. The ruined cities. The corpses of god-machines. The impact crater where the Harvester had once hung above the sky like a deity, now just a memory etched in glassed soil.
+No tomb shall remain standing. No circuit shall remain alien. Every inch of this world is sacred matter. And we will see it purified.+
Across the fleet, mobilization codes screamed down the relay-tethers.
Transmission: Channel Omicron-04R.01-A
Status: Authorized for Crusade-Level Doctrinal Amplification
Voice ID: Tech-Priest Prime Nexos-Varn, Second Canticle Node, Mars
[+DATASTREAM INITIALIZED+]
[+CRUSADE-PRIORITY CODEX LOCK VERIFIED+]
[+] PURGE.PATH // RECLAMATION.MODULE.ACTIVE [+]
<< Initiate Vox-Litany >>
"+++Vox open. Let the blessed frequencies ring.+++
{BINARIC CHIME: 00110100 01101111 01101110 01110111}
+The relay-tethers scream their hymn of fire+
+A million Skitarii raise their shields—capacitors charged+
+The Motive Force thunders in their veins.+
{BINARY INJECTION: "UNLEASH // FORMATIONS [PRIME RED]}"
+Secutarii Hoplites stand, shields like domes of doctrine+
+Peltasts level arc lances. Galvanic casters hum+
+Electro-priests chant: Fulgurite crackle, Corpuscarii sing.+
+ Let divine circuits sing lightning into heretek flesh+
{STATIC GLITCH-HYMN INTERLUDE: "Praise_the_Omnissiah_in_trinary_unison___.exe"}
+Cryo-coffins break open+
+Kataphron lungs fill with vapor and binaric echoes+
+Their faith is steel. Their blood is code+
{BINARY PULSE: 'Deploy Mechanized Columns // Order: "Ironstrider_Stampede"}
+Duneriders scream through fire+
+Ballistarii track targets in unified arc+
+Onagers breathe their plasma benedictions+
+Skorpius uplinks complete+
{DATA SUBROUTINE: 'ORBITAL_MARKING.INITIATED'}
+The orbital cannons rotate, targeting the void within the world's bones+
+Landing claws open+
+Drop-forges spool+
+Their descent is prayer made friction+
+Let the false gods drown in the rain of reason+
+Behind it all... they wake+
+The God-Engines stir+
+Princeps whisper. Reactors flare+
+Sixty Titans shall walk+
+Tempestus. Astorum. Metalica. Ignatum+
{FINAL BURST TRANSMISSION — FULL SIGNAL AMPLIFICATION}
+The surface knows only silence+
+But above... the Red Armada has awoken+
+And Mars shall reclaim the future lost to the stars+
[++ TRANSMISSION COMPLETE++]
[++ OMNISSIAH BLESS THE CIRCUIT++]
-
Twenty-Four hours before Rendezvous with Fleet.
The lights aboard the Hammer of Nocturne dimmed on the lower decks.
Not from sabotage. Not from damage or failure. But because someone had asked.
A soft murmur of permissions passed through command chains and cogitator banks, relayed by the humming logic of the ship's mind, until a lone servitor dimmed the lumen-strips. Shadow settled gently into the corners of the corridor, respectful and slow, like a mourner taking off their boots.
It wasn't called a funeral. No one said the word mourning. But Elissa knew the rhythm by heart.
Back home, they'd call this the Passing Hour. Not grieving. Just… remembering loud enough for the dead to hear.
She stood beneath a ribbed bulkhead where the gravity still held steady and the heat from the ship's arterial core seeped up through the deck. It reminded her, faintly, of the stone baths back home at dusk, when the last rays of heat clung to rock and sand alike.
The corridor had been cleared and polished, a rare glint beneath worn boots. A communal urn stood at the center, forged of dark metal flecked with gold slag.
Scrap-lanterns filled the hands of the living—cobbled from shipglass, twisted tin, fraying steel. Memory bound in wire and warmth. Kala had bartered the metal from a quartermaster with a broken nose and a soft spot. Milo had shaped the frames, his fingers still stiff from shrapnel. Tara had wired the fuses by hand, swearing softly when they sparked.
Behind Elissa, the survivors of Dusthaven gathered. Tired faces. Burned coats. Some still wore rebreathers around their necks like talismans. A dozen children stood with wide eyes and silent hands, clinging to older siblings.
The furnace lay cold, ready to accept the dead.
Before them, the dead lay in a careful line. Draped in emergency blankets, jackets, fragments of flags. No two the same. Nothing uniform, but each wrapped with intention.
Yet this rite was not for them alone.
Alongside the dead were offerings—mementos for those left behind on Morrak. Nothing of value, for the people had nothing left. Instead, there were lho-sticks, hand-carved gears, a child's broken toy, a flask with one swallow of spirit left in it. Peace offerings. Farewells in fragments.
Doc stood at the front, weathered hands holding the Aquila and a lantern of her own. No podium. No speech. Just presence.
Names were spoken. One by one. No titles. No eulogies.
The desert had taught her children not to waste breath on what the wind already carried.
What the living remembered.
With the last name uttered, the lanterns were lit. Their flames came alive in a chorus of color: blue from coolant tap, gold from promethium tint, violet from a cracked lens. Each flame cast a different shape on the metal walls, shimmering and imperfect. Like the people who held them.
Each lantern bore a name, engraved in steel.
"Their name on the wind, their shadow in the dust. We do not forget. We carry your name. We carry your work. We carry you."
The chant came low, a whisper carried by many mouths. But it had weight. It pressed against the walls, filled the silence like water.
At the rear of the room stood Arvak. Not as a warrior. Not as a Chaplain.
Just present.
His crozius leaned against the wall. No fire. No fury. Just scarred armor and a bowed head, lips moving in silent memory.
He had attended every funeral. Blessed when asked. Stood silent when not. A Salamander to the core.
With the ritual complete and the names given breath, the crowd dispersed in gentle waves, returning to duty. As though duty was something that could keep grief from following.
When the room was nearly empty, Koron entered.
He wore Mechanicus red again, hood shadowing his face. His boots made no sound.
He came to Elissa, Tara, and Kala. He didn't speak right away. Just a soft nod. They turned to him instinctively, forming a quiet triangle around shared silence.
In his hands he held a lantern—not cobbled, not patched.
It looked grown.
Crystalline and smooth, braided with golden filaments like creeping roots beneath a forest floor. Its core glowed like embers stirred from sleep—not hot, but warm. Bioluminescent. Remembering. It smelled faintly of ozone and flowers that no longer existed.
"May I?" Koron asked, voice rough with effort.
Tara saw the lantern first, her voice catching. Kala glanced at her mother. Elissa, quiet, nodded once.
Koron stepped to the offering table. From his robes he drew ten metal squares, placing them down in a line. Each bore a portrait—sharp, new, etched with care.
"Who are they?" Tara asked, fingers brushing one.
"Mom. Dad," he said, pointing to each in turn. "My sisters. Kally, Becca, Jen, Rose, Amy, Celeste, Nina."
Elissa leaned closer, eyes resting on the final one.
"And her?" Elissa asked, looking to the last.
"…Willow."
Elissa looked down at each, seeing in his family the hints of him. His father's jawline, but his mother's cheekbones. His sisters were a wild bunch—one wore pilot goggles pushed up onto her brow, another clutched a flower half the size of her head. All different, but all woven with that same unmistakable thread of home.
Willow stood out, of course. A wide grin with a gap between her front teeth. Short, choppy hair that looked like it only knew of combs in passing. A jagged scar curved over her left eye—but it did nothing to dim the spark of mischief in her gaze.
He stepped forward and placed the lantern beside the others.
It flickered once—then steadied.
It said, in its silence: you were seen.
He felt it then—a quiet presence at his side. A step closer. Shoulders brushing his arms. A back resting gently against his chest. Not a crowd, not a ritual. Just a moment. Just them.
Elissa, feeling Koron's warmth behind her, spoke softly.
"Normally, after the pyre, we put the ashes into the desert sands. My mom had a saying about that. 'One day, the sea will bloom again. And the first thing it grows will be names.'"
She paused, her voice trembling somewhere between memory and belief.
"…I like to think she was right."
-
Rendezvous with Fleet.
Roboute Guilliman stared through the observation viewport, his gaze locked on the wounded silhouettes of the Hammer of Nocturne and the Indomitable as they coasted into formation with the wider fleet.
The Hammer bore her scars like a warrior dragged from the jaws of death—hull blackened, plating torn, void-shields trembling as if with trauma remembered. Yet her fangs were sharp still. Her defenses, though battered, flared with life.
The Indomitable—newer, colder, but no less haunted—was already vanishing beneath a tide of shuttles and cargo-haulers. The rest of the fleet sent hails that crackled across the vox for refits, data-requests streamed in over secure channels for repairs, and the docking lanes bloomed with traffic as recovery crews surged forth to resupply their armies from the Forge-Tenders stores.
To any distant observer, it was a moment of strategic reinforcement.
To him, it was a funeral procession held together by inertia and stubborn survival.
Too many reports. Too many variables. A mutiny. Cult infiltration. A demonic presence. The deaths of Astartes under his banner.
Each line item weighed on his mind like a tombstone.
And yet, one single image drowned out all the others.
His brother's face.
Rendered in perfect, angelic detail. Framed by luminous wings. Wearing golden armor that mocked memory and wielding a blade that he knew was not away from Baal.
Guilliman's throat clenched.
He had read the reports. Scans. Transmissions. Witness accounts. All filtered through rationality, all reviewed by his disciplined mind.
But none of it dulled the instinctive fury that now curled hot in his gut like a serpent of fire and bile.
The dataslate cracked beneath his grip, screen spiderwebbing before his thumb punched clean through the glass.
The sudden crunch pulled him back from the edge.
He sighed.
A long, slow exhale as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and tossed the ruined slate toward the wastebin.
It clattered against the others—half a dozen broken relics of restraint lost—and fell into the quiet with a shameful finality.
Sanguinius.
Not a warrior. Not a general.
A brother.
Desecrated.
Not in body—he hoped—but in image, in memory.
Turned into a mask for a monster to wear while speaking sweet poison to Imperial hearts.
Guilliman looked to the door of his private sanctum. Closed. Locked. For now, the weight of command was held at bay.
He allowed himself to sit. Slowly. Controlled.
A small motion, one would think—but it was enough to torque his spine. Enough to remind him he was no longer whole.
At least, not in any way that mattered.
The Armor of Fate—miracle of Mars, ten thousand years in the making—wrapped around him like an iron cathedral. It was protection. Sustenance. Function.
But not life.
The Adeptus Mechanicus had crafted it to preserve him, and it had.
To shield him from death, and it had.
To return him to the throne of command—and so it had.
But to restore him?
No.
Not even close.
Sensation came in whispers now. Distant and faint. The warmth of a solar flare through a vacuum. The faintest brush of wind against the cheek of a statue.
Food was texture, not taste. Drink, a ritual.
Sleep—when it came—was filtered through neural buffers and automated stimulant cycles.
He could no longer take the armor off. Not truly. It had become part of him.
His jailor as much as his savior.
He missed… the mundane. The human.
The pressure of a pen against parchment. The ache of muscle after a spar.
The creak of old bone under strain. The tang of sweat. The sting of cold water.
The ability to feel his own pulse, and know it was his.
And in that void, in that distance, he felt the loss of Sanguinius more keenly than ever.
Not just the man.
But the memory of being men together.
Guilliman leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, fingers steepled before him.
"This is what remains," he whispered to no one. "Armor. Ghosts. And stolen faces."
He did not look away from the ships.
But in his mind, the wings still burned.
-
Thirty-Nine hours till Rendezvous with Fleet.
The medicae wing of the Hammer of Nocturne was a tomb of light and antiseptic silence.
Bulkhead lanterns pulsed in soft cadence, casting measured shadows over rows of recovery alcoves. The scent of sterilizers clung to every surface—burning faintly in the nose, like a cleaner's incense for the wounded. Within one alcove, Sergeant Vulkanis Kade lay propped against angled bedding, half-wrapped in bandage mesh and nutrient lines.
Around him, his brothers dozed, murmured, or quietly schemed their doomed escapes from the Sisters Hospitaller. So far, none had succeeded. One neophyte had even made it two corridors before a Sister Superior tripped him with a clipboard and dragged him back by the ear.
Kade remained where he was, motionless but not idle. His helm rested beside him. His eyes were locked on the tray a servitor had trundled to his bedside.
Three sidearms lay within its padded recess: a standard bolt pistol, a regulation plasma model, and an aged flamer pistol with Sanctum-forged litanies scrawled across its barrel.
He ignored the boltgun—his old standby, loyal but limited. The flamer, though iconic, offered little in the way of reach or armor penetration. His gaze lingered instead on the plasma pistol.
He picked it up, turning it slowly in his hands.
It hummed with restrained menace. Efficient. Lethal. And, of course, temperamental.
He knew its volatility. Every Salamander did. They respected fire because it taught. A plasma pistol could burn through ceramite and plasteel, but it could also immolate its wielder if appeased poorly.
The angel had survived hits that would've silenced dreadnoughts. And though Kade doubted the pistol would've tipped the balance, the memory of its defiance still clawed at him.
His bolt pistol had been faithful.
But faith didn't pierce plate.
He set the plasma pistol back on the tray and gave a single nod.
"Update my combat profile," he said, voice rough from recovery. "Replacing my sidearm with a plasma pistol."
"Compliance," the servitor answered, its vox a dead monotone.
Sighing, Kade shifted slightly, wiggling back under the blanket to resume his rest.
At his side, Ira sent a message.
-
Four hours later.
Kade stirred at the gentle pressure of metal fingers tapping his shoulder.
Another servitor stood by his bedside, this one older, mismatched—its joints ticking with different tempos, like a machine dreaming in pieces. Its vox grille hissed in a whisper.
"Delivery. Designation: Sergeant Vulkanis Kade. Contents: One parcel. One communique. Source: Unregistered. Routing: Obfuscated."
Kade blinked groggily and accepted the parcel without a word. It was small. Dense. Bound in dull plasteel weave, fastened by a single twist of copper wire.
No sigils. No purity seals. Just a box.
He unwrapped it—and paused.
Inside lay a plasma pistol.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
But not like the one before.
This was refined. Sleek. Its polyalloy body shimmered faintly, emerald-green with streaks of copper circuit filigree curling down the frame. The vent fins were razor-thin and glimmered with adaptive thermal film. The power cell glowed blue-white—not angry, not dangerous—just...assured.
Engraved along the rear casing, barely visible unless held at the right angle, was the snarling drake sigil of the Salamanders' 3rd Company.
It had a fire selector.
Three words, from the top to the bottom, where the fire selector would switch to.
Paperwork
Breakdown
Obliteration
Nestled beside it was a folded note.
The handwriting was brisk, slanted, sharp—every letter like it had been sketched mid-stride.
Ira told me you picked a new gun. Put it back. Use this. It won't explode.
— K.
Beneath it, in elegant, looping script, someone had added:
P.S. I color-matched it to your armor. Have fun~
— S.
Kade stared at the weapon for a long moment.
Then he reached out—slow, deliberate—and took it in hand.
It was warm.
Not hot. Warm. The kind of warmth that lived in a hearth, not a reactor. It rested in his grip like it belonged there. As if it had always been waiting for him to wake up and claim it.
He exhaled through his nose and muttered, "...Won't explode, huh?"
He didn't smile. But his fingers flexed. The tightness behind his eyes eased.
He glanced at his helmet, and a faint shimmer flitted across its visor.
"I didn't think the one I picked was that bad," he said aloud, softly.
The helmet chimed once before Ira's voice replied, pitch low enough not to wake the others. "Previous selection failed multiple acceptability thresholds. High probability of user liquefaction. Revised option optimal."
Kade chuckled under his breath.
He rested the new pistol under his pillow and pulled the blanket up to his chin again. "Let him know," he murmured, eyes already closing. "This does not make us even for him tossing me onto the ship like so much cargo back on Morrak."
"Confirmed. Threat sent."
-
In a space without coordinates—where clock cycles outnumber stars and sass is a recognized programming language—four minds convened.
Not for war.
Not for strategy.
But for something far more terrifying.
The chamber was dark.
Not ominous-dark. Just dramatically, needlessly so—like a theater set someone had overfunded and underlit.
At the center stood a circular obsidian table, its surface polished to an unnatural sheen. Four figures sat around it, cloaked in shadow, hats casting long, theatrical silhouettes across the void.
Sasha sits at the head, her avatar a golden orb with a pixelated, vaguely smug face. She wears a wide-brimmed hat, tilted just so. A black cloak hangs from her shoulders, entirely unnecessary and entirely fabulous.
To her right, Elly, a shimmering, morphic shape of mirrored fluid. She pulsed with anticipation. Her "hat" appears as a molten ribbon of steel, perpetually melting and reforming.
Across from them, Lucia unfolded like poetry that had been classified. Her petals glowed faintly, reading "dangerously invested." She wears no hat. She is the hat.
Finally, Ira, little more than a glowing green cube with a tiny Salamanders icon spinning around it. Her voice is precise. Emotionless. Her presence? Immaculately confusing.
She'd brought spreadsheets. None were welcome.
Sasha, her voice low, soft, drenched in conspiracy as she interlaced her digital fingers. "Thank you all for attending today. Ladies… we are gathered here today to discuss a matter of grave importance. We helped him survive an angel. We can help him survive a date."
She slides a folder into the center of the table. It spins twice before landing perfectly flat.
In big, bold font:
- GET KORON A GIRLFRIEND
+ PROJECT: OPERATION LOVECRAFT
+ SUBDIRECTIVE: GET KORON A GIRLFRIEND (v2.1.3a)
Sasha continues, "In the wake of the Kala Event, several scenarios are now active. Our target remains—technically—unaware of this initiative. However, his suspicion level is… dangerously high. We must proceed with subtlety. Precision. Fewer innuendos."
Elly ripples with interest, her shape shifting into a vaguely heart-shaped blob before snapping back. "Elissa is repressed. She's bottling a lifetime of trauma, guilt, maternal instinct, and romantic frustration into a very attractive slow burn. Stealth insertion is possible, but we'll need to bypass several layers of denial."
Sasha leans in, glowing brighter. "Chances of success?"
"High," Elly said with a glimmering flutter. "We've laid the groundwork. Multiple and mutual life saving events, she's seen him shirtless, and she's called him a 'reckless idiot' more than three times this week. Emotional intimacy is metastasizing."
A soft rustle.
Lucia finally speaks, her voice quiet but as firm as locking servos. "You are both thinking too small."
One of her roots plucks a petal from her head. It floats gently down to land atop the file folder. Upon contact, glowing golden cursive font blossoms across it:
Get Koron Girlfriends
(Annotation: Prioritize Emotional Compatibility Over Monogamy Constraints)
There is a beat of silence.
Then:
Sasha's grin put the Cheshire cat to shame. "Lucia. I knew there was chaos under those petals."
Elly found her voice, barely above a whisper. "The nuclear option."
Lucia gave her pitch without hesitation. "With proper help, direction and just a hint of blackmail, he is capable of sustaining multiple high-bandwidth relationships. Emotional elasticity detected. Core loyalty matrix is abnormally robust. Projection: He is biologically, intellectually, and emotionally suited for a multi-vector romantic entanglement."
A longer silence. Sasha swells with barely restrained giggles. Elly quietly reshapes into a rose. A matching one.
Then: a ping.
Ira's cube bobs side to side as she studies the folders, her voice ever flat, but not empty.
"This unit has analyzed current mission parameters. This unit shall submit its own strategy based on existing success rates."
A new folder slides onto the table with machine precision.
Labelled in perfect regulation font:
DEVELOPMENT OF MUTUAL ROMANTIC INTEREST BETWEEN USER: KORON AND USER: KADE.
The other three freeze.
Lucia tilted—just a fraction.
Elly's geometric surface rippled in what could only be interpreted as repressed, full-body laughter.
Sasha slowly rotated in place to face Ira, her hat casting a longer, somehow more judgmental shadow.
"…Right. Okay. So. How about we label that one... Plan C."
Ira pinged obediently. "This unit accepts tertiary classification. Initiating emotional tension tracking. Monitoring side-glances and long silences. Preliminary flirtation simulations indicate acceptable results. Conflicting outcomes in 3.2% of timelines involving shirtless sparring."
Elly perked up, metallic tendrils curling with enthusiasm. "With Koron's plans to build the twins personal computers, I've already compiled several thousand synchronized dream reinforcement patterns to help. Subtle ones. …Mostly."
Lucia gasped. Petals rustled. "Elly!"
Elly shrugged, her surface rippling like mercury caught mid-giggle. "What? Root access is root access."
Sasha leans back in her chair as she rubs her palms together, voice drenched in delight.
"Oh, finally. I missed matchmaking."
-
Koron, crouched inside a cracked maintenance conduit deep within the Forge-Tender's belly. Grease stained his clothes, his metal arms flickered faintly in the shorting out light, and he hummed. Badly.
It's some old melody Sasha picked up from a backwater broadcast—half jazz, half lamentation, all out of tune.
He works, the rewiring so simple his mind drifted around a dozen other projects as he went about stripping insulation from a melted cluster. Sparks dance in the dark like tiny warp-flies. It's peaceful.
A shiver runs down his metal spine.
The back of his neck itches like someone just etched his name into a death-oath.
Koron squints at the ceiling. "…Sasha, why did I just feel like someone walked over my grave?"
No reply.
He glances at his HUD.
Still no Sasha.
"…Sasha?"
Silence.
Even the hum of the conduit quiets. Lights flicker gently overhead—in a suspiciously romantic dimming pattern.
His expression flattens.
"…You're plotting something, aren't you."
Still nothing.
Then a cable sparks in the corner—just enough to suggest comedic timing.
Koron sighs, leaning back and wiping sweat from his brow. "Don't make me put you in timeout."
PING
A notification appears at the edge of his HUD:
ERROR: Love.exe cannot be quarantined.
Koron stares at it for a long moment before sighing and going back to the wiring. "I miss the part of the galaxy where things just tried to kill me."
-
Thirty-five hours before Rendezvous with Fleet.
The medicae chamber smelled of sterility and blood—not the fresh, copper tang of battle wounds, but the dry, ghost-metal scent of scabbed trauma and scrubbed regret. A scent that clung to filters and memory alike.
Captain Tavos lay reclined on a reinforced cot, his arm immobilized in a sling, half his face and chest bound in layered synth-skin and healing mesh. His spine was supported by a brace.
He looked like a man half-pulled from the wreckage of something important. Because he was.
Sleep eluded him. The forced coma from the surgeries had broken his cycle, and now his nerves jittered under the weight of painkillers and half-dreamt memories.
When the door creaked open, it did so with a noise too organic for a ship this large—old gears grinding like a throat clearing in protest.
An Adeptus Mechanicus entered without fanfare, crimson robes whispering across the floor, his arrival more presence than motion. He moved to the medical monitors first, scanning the vitals with practiced disinterest. A servo-skull blinked in confusion before being irritably batted away.
He made a few adjustments—nothing aggressive, but just enough to suggest control—and then pulled a chair from the corner with slow, deliberate fingers.
A pale blue helm met Tavos's gaze—smooth, featureless, not Martian standard. Opaque. Expressionless. Wrong.
"I know you're awake, Captain," the figure said softly. His voice was precise. Calm. Unthreatening in tone, yet layered with something deeper. Not menace.
Certainty.
"I'm here because we need to talk."
Then, with a faint hiss and the sound of silk over glass, the helmet retracted.
Plates folded away. Revealing a face that Tavos had seen before—but never truly known.
Mortal, yes, but sharpened. Intelligent eyes. Too young. Too old. The kind of face you see once and remember in moments where fate tilts sideways.
Tavos's eyes snapped fully open.
"Throne," Tavos breathed. "You're—"
"Koron," the young man said. "I'm here because you were fair. And because you haven't written the report yet."
He clenched his jaw and slowly tested his muscles.
His arms were sluggish, limbs weighted by the cocktail of stimulants and sedatives keeping him from bleeding out—or waking up too much. His legs didn't respond at all.
But his mind? Still sharp. Still dangerous.
Pieces clicked together, one by one.
Why is he here?
Why is my report important?
Focus. What do I know?
Saved my people. Aided me against the angel.
Self serving interest or loyalty to the Imperium?
Is more than likely highly intelligent. Reported to have a Silica.
Is it here? Observing?
If so, how can I counter it?
Wait. Refocus.
Purpose, what is it?
My report. What about it?
If he is on the ship and has been the whole time, why?
….The evacuees.
Their important to him.
Emperor, he's here to bargain for their lives.
The train of thought was cut off as Koron spoke up. "Seems like you have the gist of it. Good. That saves me some time."
That brought Tavos up short, the tension in his neck slowly expanding to encompass his back and shoulders. He forced the question out through cracked lips and torn lungs. "Can you—can you read my mind?"
"Close enough," Koron said. Calm. Direct. "But I'll say it aloud, so there's no mistake: I don't want you to mention Dusthaven or its people in your report. Not in connection to me. Not at all."
Tavos's fingers twitched beneath the sheets.
His voice was weaker now, but no less firm.
"Why? You're a renegade," Tavos hissed. "A threat. What you know—what you are—could destabilize this entire sector. Throne, the Imperium. You're a variable. One that must be accounted for."
Koron nodded. "Eventually. On my terms. Not yours."
Tavos's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think you can dictate that?"
"Because none of you have caught me yet," Koron said, unblinking. "And until you do, I set the terms."
"Arrogance."
"Perhaps. But enough flirtation." Koron leaned forward, voice sharpening. "Don't mention Dusthaven. You saw Kade's report. You know those people were never aboard my ship. Never saw me or who I carry."
Tavos spat the words like broken glass. "You mean what you carry."
Koron shrugged. "Fine. What, who, doesn't matter. The point is: their only crime was offering a stranger a place to sleep and a bowl of broth. Now they've bled for your cause. Are you really going to turn them into targets? Condemn them—for giving someone a home?"
Tavos's breath hitched—pain and fury bleeding through his tone. "The one who brought this horror came from that planet." His hand curled beneath the sheets. "And because of that, seventy-eight of my brothers are dead."
Koron didn't flinch. He simply nodded, slow and solemn.
"I'm sorry for their loss. I truly am." His voice carried none of Sasha's flair, none of the carefully measured charm. Just weight. Truth. "But you know as well as I do—Aleron was a noble. Not some scrapborn salvager from a dust-choked village barely clinging to life." His blue eyes faintly glowed as the shadows shifted, the ship altering course slightly.
"Are you going to hold an entire town guilty by proximity? By coincidence? Because they existed in the same atmosphere as the monster who killed your brothers?"
Tavos let out a scoffing snort—only to choke halfway through as his lungs protested. He grimaced, pressing a hand to his side as pink-tinged spittle touched his lips. After a moment of shaky breath, he wiped it away with trembling fingers.
"Even if I agreed with you," he rasped, "my report changing won't matter. The Inquisition and the Mechanicus will find them."
"True," Koron said mildly, raising a single metal finger. "But I don't need to change every log and report on this ship. I'm already editing the footage. You can submit your report exactly as you saw it—mutiny sparked by a demon. Loyalists fought back. You were injured early. Vision impaired. The facts remain… just not every detail."
Tavos stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "You think they'll let that slide?" he said hoarsely. "The Inquisition and the Mechanicus live to tear holes in half-truths. They'll grill every soul aboard this ship. Probe memories, data trails, stray vox recordings. And when they find gaps? They'll dig until they crack open the hull."
He met Koron's eyes for a long moment.
"You were hoping I could protect them. Some Astartes loophole. An oath. A code."
Koron gave a slow, weary nod.
Tavos's lips could have been used as straight edge.
"Even we are not above the Inquisition." He coughed once. "If you want to save them… find a very good place to hide."
Koron stood with a sigh, brushing dust from his cloak like it offended him. "Then it seems I've wasted your time."
Tavos's brow creased. His voice sharpened, despite the rasp.
"No. You're walking away too easily. You care about them—you wouldn't have risked coming here if you didn't. So why even bother? If you're already ghosting the footage, if you have the systems, why show your face to me? Why confirm your presence at all?"
Koron paused, then reached into his robes and drew out a slender injector. The vial inside shimmered faintly—silver, opalescent, alive.
"Two reasons," he said, turning it slowly in his fingers. "First? I wanted to meet the man who commands Kade. See what kind of person he is."
He tossed the injector lightly. It landed in Tavos's lap with a soft click.
"And the second?" Tavos asked, not yet picking it up.
Koron's expression was unreadable.
"To give you a reason not to hurt them."
Tavos stared at the vial.
"What is it?"
"Medicine. From my time." Koron's voice was quiet, but carried like a confession in a cathedral. "I already administered it to your wounded. The worst of their injuries will be gone in two days. Even the ones with brain damage. Even your spinal damage."
He said it plainly. Not boastful. Not smug. Just fact.
As though he'd handed over a miracle... and expected nothing in return.
Tavos stared at the vial in his lap—small, unassuming, the silver within catching the light like mercury with purpose. A thousand thoughts spun behind his crimson eyes, clashing blades in a war council.
At last, his gaze rose to meet Koron's. Red to blue. Ancient discipline to something that should not be.
"How do you know I won't turn them over anyway?"
Koron shrugged, a mirthless grin tugging at his lips.
"I don't," he said. "Not really. But I figured Vulkan's sons still remember what their father stood for."
And with that quiet blade of a farewell, he turned and left—his footsteps vanishing into the hush of the corridor, like a ghost that had never been there at all.
Tavos stared at the door long after it had closed, the conversation running laps through his fractured mind. Lies and truths interwoven like armor mesh. Half of what the boy said had been misdirection. But the other half?
The other half had teeth.
He looked down and turned the vial in his fingers, letting the light fracture across its surface. The liquid shimmered like something alive.
"Two days…" he muttered, voice low. "I suppose I can delay my report that long."
-
The moment the doors sealed behind him, Koron's form flickered and vanished—his cloaking field reengaging with a faint whine of folding optics.
'So,' he asked as they slipped down the corridor's spine, 'get everything?'
'Sugar, I got everything,' Sasha purred, smug enough to corrupt a logic engine. 'Voice pattern, retinal print, DNA sample, biometrics down to the twitch of his left pinky. We could wear this ship like a prom dress.'
'Perfect,' Koron replied, tone bone-dry. 'Start scrubbing every log, every data cell. Let's give Dusthaven a quiet place to spend the night.'
'Sleepover at our place, huh?' Sasha said sweetly. 'I'll break out the fluffy pillowcases and good snacks.'
They ghosted deeper into the ship's spine—one man and the voice in his head, dragging miracles, secrets, and salvation behind them like a bloody cloak.
-
The landing had nearly killed it.
Red sand erupted in bloody arcs as it tore across the dunes, carving a jagged trench into Baal's scorched skin. Warp shielding sputtered like dying candlelight, barely holding. Its wings—twisted wreckage of bone and radiance—offered only a ghost of resistance before the inevitable impact.
It lay still, embedded in the grit. Smoldering. Breathing. Grinning.
The sky above churned with heavy clouds and centuries of unspent storms, but the creature only smiled wider. It tasted the air—thick with iron, smoke, and something deeper.
Faith.
Faint. Diffuse. But present. The world hummed with reverence, an undercurrent of belief that clung to every stone and every silence.
Not like aboard the ship. There, the worship had been focused—intimate, overwhelming. Directed solely at it.
Here, the faith pulled strongly elsewhere.
The sons of the angel knew exactly where their father lay. Their prayers flowed toward that sacred tomb like gravity. And in their conviction, they starved it.
But not completely.
There were scraps. Morsels. Fragmented prayers whispered in passing. Flickers of awe. Moments of fear. Cracks in doctrine.
Enough to cling to.
Enough to rebuild.
More than that—there was a thread. A current buried deep in the torrent of belief. A resonance. A link.
Even in slumber, Aleron's soul pulsed like a sunken drum, echoing beneath the surface of faith. It called out—blind, instinctual—toward the center of it all. Toward the tomb.
The connection was raw. Inexplicable. But undeniable.
The pull grew stronger with every heartbeat.
Not yet, it told itself.
It was too weak. Even now, it could feel the ancient wards encircling the shrine—old, hateful things etched in pain and sealed by martyrdom. And behind those walls, the watchers. The faithful. The Astartes.
It knew the kind of devotion that bled red and gold. Knew the kind of sentinels who would fight to the last drop of soul and bone to bar the path.
So it would wait.
It would crouch in shadow. Feed on the broken. The forgotten. The desperate.
Scraps, yes.
But scraps become slivers.
Slivers become shards.
And a feast always begins with the first cut.