Struggle - 40k Story

In Orbit Over World designated 2923-47, 0.016.211.M31

This was far from the first time in my years of training that I found myself staring into the eye of my enemy. Whether it was down a bolter’s sight or in my face screaming for my death, I had long known the gaze of those that wished me dead. In all those intense battles, never before had I seen a gaze as malicious as the one before me. This baleful orb contained only madness and a hungry rage that thirsted to end my existence and shred my very soul. We Astartes were bred not to feel fear, the emotion written out of our very genes by a mind as far beyond mine as mine is the lowly rat. Still, meeting that unnatural gaze made something in my gut twist. I knew that it hated me simply for existing and would delight in tearing me to pieces, both in the physical realm as well as in the warp.

It was hard to see the daemon. Reality forced upon it a shape and a form, but it was so alien to them that attempts to focus on it saw your eyes sliding away. It was like trying to judge the shape of a cloud from the shadow it left as it passed over a hillside. Something larger, more twisted, forced into limiting dimensions as different angles of its reality all changed to reveal themselves.

Its eye staring back at me was in the center of twisted, writhing flesh, a grotesquery pulled into our world from the warp and given form but not shape. Pale flesh heaved and twisted. Patches of fur sprouted in all the colors of the rainbow, only to fall off, vanishing before it hit the ground. If I fell to this foul horror, my torment would not end with my death; I knew what awaited my spirit in the twisted chaos of the Warp within its grasp. Daemons like this one before me would torture and tear at me until I was devoured by a terror even greater than they. Every instinct in my body pushed me to draw the bolt pistol mag sealed to my thigh and destroy it.

As I watched, the eye split and ran like a smashed egg yolk. A long tongue emerged, slapping wetly against shifting flesh as the orb turned into a mouth. Teeth from different species ringed the hole into nothingness. The depths of its maw seemed infinite, opening to a hungry empty darkness. It made a deep, wet growling sound as it sensed my emotions rippling through the immaterium. A thin pseudopod of flesh extended towards me, thickening and growing until a fully formed human foot, complete with red painted nails, touched the bare metal floor and pulled the abomination towards me. It slammed into a wall of force rising from the glowing ritual circle placed around it. A hand fell to my shoulder pad.

“You’re ready for this. It’s just one more test in a life full of them.” The toneless voice of my mentor Ynasis drew me back from contemplating the horror he had called forth. My instructor in the arts arcane had been a nigh constant presence at my side for years since I had completed my ascension to an Astartes existence, but this challenge was one I must face alone if I was to grow beyond his tutelage. I stood straighter as I felt his reassurance and confidence in me through our mental connection. The unnaturalness of the daemon still registered as a physical response, but I marshaled my emotions. The daemon hissed and heaved against the barrier again. “With this, you prove your worth to wield the power you were given, prove that you deserved the training I gave you. Any Astartes can pull a trigger or swing a chainsword. This is where you take your first steps on the path your potential grants you.”

The true nature of the warp and its neverborn denizens had only recently been revealed to us by agents of the Warmaster, and like any new information we discovered, the Alpha Legion rolled it into our tactical and strategic outlooks. We explored the new shores of the warp slowly, and examined the data we found with care. I was not the first of the Librarian to undergo this test. Other students had been lost to the summoned daemons in the past, and each time we had wrapped another layer of protection around the ritual. Not for the student, of course, since falling to this beast meant they were not ready to battle in this new universe of unrevealed mystery, but for the others on the ship. The first daemon to breach the testing chamber took the heads of over a dozen battle brothers down with its black, smoking blade before we could send it screaming back into the warp.

We were fortunate beyond other legions for we in the Alpha Legion had only outwardly followed the edicts of the Council Of Nikea and never truly dissolved our Librarium organizations. Throwing a weapon from your arsenal only left it for your enemies to pick up and use against you. Our psykers had shifted within the Legions. Our training moved more to focus on hidden support abilities as the gifted disguised themselves as line troopers and officers. We still maintained our internal rank structure and traditions, but none of the observers of the larger Imperium would notice. My own training had been encompassed in this clandestine effort, and I found I had more talent for this subtle art than for the psychic blasts and rending power of the mind applied to combat.

This is not to say that news of the true nature of the warp and the beings that dwelled within had not changed our behavior. Shocked to the core by the information, the Legion Librarium threw themselves into research and study. Each one from the freshest recruit still undergoing genetic changes to the ancient masters who had battled at the side of the Primarch when there was only one each found themselves humbled by their true ignorance. We had communicated back and forth with the other legions, sharing what we learned with the Word Bearers who disiminated it to the other Legions. We found the reverence and worship of the sons of Lorgar towards these beasts distasteful. We approached it from a more analytical viewpoint.

It was difficult to maintain that detached, logical mind at the sight of the daemon in front of me, however. Its very existence was an affront to the whole of the material realm. The horror spread out across the psionic field containing it. Colors flashed across its expanse of flesh as more mouths opened across its surface, each one dropping a foul, oily ichor that vanished back to the warp after a few moments. Eyes from dozens of species glared at me, wanting nothing more than to devour my flesh and rend my soul. The targeting arrays built into my armour were confused by the changing form. Target locks and battle data kept flipping on and off as the meat shifted. I turned to Ynasis and nodded.

I had, along with the brothers who ascended and trained alongside me, been operating as a member of a scout squad for most of the past decade. We had been deployed where stealth and guile had been needed. Our training, though was more unique. Each member of us had been schooled in the arts of insertion, sabotage, and assassination as a head hunter kill team. Our battlefield training was a point of pride for us, but always we had deployed under direction of others. We had been selected for the potential I represented, and each of us trained to a specialization that could see us perform with flexibility in combat. My training, however, had been more intense than the others. My psychic powers had been bound and contained when we deployed simply as scouts, and our potential as a unit had been held back as a result. Now I would contribute fully to the efforts we made, and no longer feel as much a burden as I had when I was operating just as a bolter bearer.

My master had turned his mind to the study of these warp beasts like no other and a river of ink had flown from his pen. He bound them into service, to question and learn from them. Each lied as easily as my hearts beat, but his will binding them allowed him to sense their intent. They still told conflicting tales, for truth is an ephemeral thing in the warp, but sifting through their words revealed small nuggets of information we could use. He wished to push further in his research, but the Librarium ordered caution. This angered him, as he believed that mastery of the Warp would win humanity the stars, but he was dutiful and progressed slowly when he wished to run ahead. I felt this tension in him, even disguised behind his mental shields. I wished to pass this test and join as a partner instead of a student. All my training had lead me to this confrontation.

His emotionless faceplate stared down at me and nodded back. He dropped his hand from my pauldron and turned away. His command of warp presences was not going to be there to save me if I failed. I stood or fell off my own skill alone. The door irised opened and I could see a battle brother standing across the hall from the entrance, a bolter armed and ready to fire should the horror breach its containment. He didn’t move at all, but my helmet vox clicked on and I heard my long time friend Cartis speaking to me.

“Don’t let me clean up your mess this time, Hap.” I chuckled back at him and flashed a rude hand gesture behind Ynasis back. “You know you’ll be standing in my line of fire.”

“The only case where you will have to fire is when I am already dead, so it is not a worry.” The horror behind me released the high pitched giggle of a child with a treat. “This is not the worst thing we have faced.”

It is though. Ynasis didn’t speak through the vox, but directly into our minds. The horror perked up at the psychic disturbance, the giggle changing to an animalistic howl. You have faced perils of your body and done well, but this is a corruption of your soul and mind that you must master if you will wield the power of the warp. Cartis nodded, but I do not know if he could truly understand the threat behind me. I think no one without the gift can.

Yes master, I sent back. I steeled my mind and built a fortress of my will. Ynasis stepped through the door and closed it behind him, leaving me alone with the abomination. I faced the creature and readied myself. Its flesh rippled as its howling rose in volume. The noises were almost harmonic, trying to trigger an atavistic fear that I no longer had. A warning light began flashing in the corners of the room. I knew this was reflected throughout the ship we were on, readying the crew for the potential breach.

One of the layers of security we put in place was that this test would take place isolated from the main ships of the fleet. The Stormbird we were on was not only being crewed by battle ready Astartes, we were under the guns of the Sulimun. The Strike Cruiser was the backbone of the 2,923rd Expedition Fleet, and stood ready to destroy not just the monster but the whole Stormbird should I fail. The intra-ship vox crackled to life as Ynasis warned all souls aboard both craft that Librarian testing would begin and a daemon was going to be released. Everyone aboard knew that the safety features we put in place would only be tested if I failed.

“All crew to battle stations, prepare to repel boarders. Beginning initiate testing in 5, 4, 3, 2…” As the countdown ended, the warp circle collapsed. No longer restrained by the arcane science, the horror surged across the distance to me as if it had no bones to constrain its movement. My heightened reflexes allowed me to step back and catch the first claw as it formed and tried to take my head, but the flesh melted from my hand as a newly formed stinger scratched across my chest plate leaving a thick smear of some toxin behind. I shoved at the center mass, throwing it back a few feet. Battle training took over and I drew my pistol, but the weapon was unloaded. Ynasis spoke in my mind again, emotionless even as I struggled for my life.

That is not the weapon you need now. Bend your will and fight back. The horror lashed tentacles against me, trying to plunge through gaps in my armour. Finding none, the creature wrapped around my arm and pulled itself to me. It crashed over me like a wave, teeth and hooks forming to break my armour. My helmet’s display went black as the daemon covered my head. I felt teeth grinding on the flexible gorget at my neck. The giggle returned muffled by the flesh around me. Reviewing my training I almost forcefully grabbed my will and reached out in the aetherial realm.

It is hard to describe the appearance of the warp and how minds manifest there to those who cannot see it. Metaphor falls short of what our sixth sense reveals to us. Even when conversing with another practitioner, we find it difficult. Our own minds filter what we see into something we can understand and handle. When I say a human’s mind is like a flame, it is a weak analogy that I hope others can understand. The mind flickers and changes constantly, in motion at all levels. But, with training, you can learn to determine things about the flames. The central part moves in one direction. The colors shift and move but you can see the bands. And like a flame, a skilled tender can get it to bend to our will, make the flame work for us. This metaphor is poor, but it works.

The horror’s mind, on the other hand, bubbled like a boiling pot in zero gravity. There was nothing we could call a thought there. The creature was a twisted mass of emotions and instincts guided by a low cunning that desired only the suffering of the mortals and the taste of their souls. I gathered my will into a blow of pure psionic force and launched it at the creature. Its astral self twisted and flowed like the flesh it cloaked itself in when pushed into the material realm, avoiding my psionic blow. The backlash of pain speared through my head. Its efforts to crack my armour redoubled.

Again and again I cast forth my will, trying to break the beast. Each miss sent another spike of pain through my mind. The warp bound mind of the daemon kept twisting and changing even as its material flesh flickered and mutated. Its body flowed over me, seeking gaps. A servo in my leg popped and I fell to one knee, the motion breaking my concentration and closing my connection to the warp.

Warning runes were flashing on my helmet’s display showing my armour’s integrity was failing. I could hear the whine of overtaxed ceramite at the edge of splitting and cracking. As I gathered myself, my helmet went dark as some integral connection broke. I was trapped in here with only me own heavy breathing. I knew that if I didn’t defeat it soon, it would force a gap. Its liquid flesh would flow through and begin to rip me to pieces inside my own armour. I drew a deep breath and once again pushed my mind out. The daemon’s mind shone in the warp with glee, the joy a predator feels when its prey is injured and limping. I began to form another blast of pure will when I paused and began to rethink.

Every blow I made had been evaded however I struck; the daemon’s mind was too alien for me to target easily. I had to get it to hold still so I could destroy it. The predator instincts in its mind could be fooled allowing me to draw it in too close to escape. I let myself fall to both knees, as if I was defeated and exhausted. I let a slight crack form in my mental shield, tempting the horror’s mind in close. It struck quickly, almost too fast for my plan to work. My genehanced mind and extensive psycher training was ready for its movement though, and I gripped the beast in a fist of mental effort before it could retreat. It struggled in my grip but I held it fast through pure will. My body fell further as I opened my mind and turned from my physical self to my astral form.

What passed for the mind of the horror was cold in my grip, a cold so deep it burned me. I felt it bubbling against my projected flesh, but I held on even as it tried to change. My other fist rose and struck a blow against it. It rippled back, but could not evade it as it had before. I dealt it another blow, then more as fast as my will could move in the sea of souls. The flickering of the daemon’s mind slowed and dimmed, but I could feel its malice. Its glee turned to fear as chips of light flew from its form to dissolve back into the warp flowing around us.I could see other beings of the sea of souls watching us struggle. They waited for one of us to weaken enough to spring and devour us.

The horror’s mind formed spikes in my astral hands and almost slipped my grip, but it was weakened. I wrapped it in chains of eldritch force. It tugged against my very mind, but I knew I had it now. I formed a blade of my will and slashed deep, carving chunks from its spiritual form. Each piece drifted on the currents around us before being snapped up by beings too small to make out. Distantly I could feel the physical presence of the horror writhing on me, trying to push in before I cut away its presence in the warp.

Smaller and smaller I carved the thing’s mind. The mental chains I bound it with forced an order on it that I could strike. The tone of the mind changed again, from fear to pleading. I felt more than heard it promising me rewards, trying to show me terrible truths it thought would distract me, open me up to it. I resisted even this, striking it once more. The creature reared in its bounds, phantom tendrils lashing out against my astral body.

I felt pain like nothing I have before, but I was confident in my victory. Ynasis had taught me well, preparing me to face challenges of the warp. This test of my skills was the last one before he could confidently allow me to practice on my own. I snipped each tendril before it could draw back to the daemon’s mind. Soon the fight left it. I released my bonds one by one until the mind drifted free into the warp. Dozens of small predators snapped up chunks, fighting each other for faint tendrils of power. I knew it was not fully dead, for the beings of the warp cannot die. But I had diminished it, weakened it, and banished it.

I felt other eyes on me, larger warp presences watching me. I let the confidence of my victory move through me and grant me strength. My astral presence blazed forth with an internal fire, bringing light to that dark realm, showing I was ready for any challenge. I felt the large presences fade back into the general background of the warp. They knew that one day know matter what I did, when my life ended, my soulstuff would go to feed them and their kindred. Their infinite patience saw them retreat from a fight they did not have to win. I lowered my consciousness back into my body.

My helmet was still dark. I stood up, pulling the loose sack of flesh off my shoulders. It was covered in suckers and mouths, but without the animating will of the daemon pushing into it from the warp, it soon turned to powder and vanished. I removed my helm and breathed deep. I strode to the door, the leg of my armour grinding out with each movement. Slapping the activation rune, the door irised open to show the barrel of a bolter pointed directly at my forehead. I could see down the barrel to the mass reactive round.

“Are you you?” Cartis asked me, his barrel unwavering. I saw his finger on the trigger and knew I was seconds from death. My own battle instincts almost took over but I managed to repress them enough to only nod.

“He is,” Ynasis said aloud. He had removed his helmet and stood there staring down at me. A taciturn man, his face gave away nothing of the pride I could feel his mind projecting as he reached out to me holding a small package. I took it out of his hands and unwrapped it. A thick book, its binding was simple and its cover was a blank brown. Bronze ringed the edges, protecting it. Chains bound to its body would wrap my armour, making it part of my wargear for the remainder of my life. I opened it, quickly flipping through each blank page. Cartis snapped his bolter down and saluted with his fist to his chest as Ynasis released the book. Our brotherhood was not given over to the more martial rituals of the other legions, but this one was important.

“Welcome to the Librarium of the Alpha Legion, Journeyman Sergeant Hapax Legomenon”. Cartis gave a shout of pride and joy and wrapped me in embrace. He was taller and I had to dodge quickly to prevent my forehead from rebounding from his armour. A smile crept across my face before vanishing quickly. Though I felt the pride of my victory and ascension, I knew that the true hard work and difficult study was before me now.

Most Legions marked promotions and advancements with new and better weapons. Our Legion marked my ascension that day with an empty book. The symbolism of that could not escape me. I was given not just power and authority with this, but a duty to fill the book with knowledge that would guide my brothers in the years and wars to come. I laid my hand on the grimoire I was gifted and swore a silent oath that I would match this burden.

The Ritual - 40k Story

Sakana 3, agri world of the Imperium of Man, 0.101.482.M41 - From The Journal of Hapax Legomenon, Alpha Legion

Sakana 3 wasn’t an important world. Brought peacefully back into the fold of humanity during the Great Crusade, it had stayed far from the horrors of war for longer than anyone could remember. The third planet in orbit of a nondescript sun was decorated with few islands scattered across emerald seas. Its lay at the end of known warp tunnels, on the way from nowhere to nowhere. The forces of the Imperium had crowded its seas with fisheries and its scant surface islands with worker housing, but its inhabitants considered Sakana a paradise. The heavy hives and thick pollution of other Imperial worlds was absent, with steady sea breezes and sandy beaches the norm for its inhabitants. For centuries these bountiful oceans had helped feed the armies of the Imperium at the other ends of its single navigable Warp lane. My brothers in the Scattered Legions had ignored it, seeing no great glory or prize here. It had been spared from the eternal war that made up the galaxy because no one fighting on any side had truly cared about it. This had changed, as me and my team turned into a battlefront for the first time.

The Grand Commander of the sector had decreed that Sakana would raise its first regiments of Astra Militarum. Fifty thousand new troops to march to war in the endless life of combat and bloodshed that is the galaxy in the year Forty Thousand and some. This was always a cause for celebration; a world taking its first steps into the apparatus of the Imperium’s war machine with the community united in veneration of the God-Emperor and planet wide celebrations lasting for weeks. The beaches and avenues were crowded from sun up to sun down, workers and nobles alike celebrating in the streets below floating barges bearing new regimental flags and blasting martial music. The fisheries’ quotas were turned into delicacies served on every corner as the crowd celebrated the greatness of their world.

The Ministorum had decreed that these regiments would reinforce some war halfway across the segmentum, allowing those veteran troops to pull out and be sent to hold some obscure planet that was potentially able to attack supply lines that our forces would rely on during the assault on Cadia itself. This meant that the Warmaster would have to divert resources there to protect his logistical support through constantly shifting and changing battle plans that required more effort than sending my team and I here to halt the deployment of these new troops, by any means necessary.

If this seems a mission too great for just four Astartes and a double handful of mortal specialists, do not worry. This breed of warfare is exactly what the Alpha Legion was trained for, and our specialties would allow us far more options than a brute force assault on the hundreds of thousands of new troopers and support personnel. The fact that this also afforded us the opportunity to support the true task we were working on was not far from our minds as we carefully laid our plans. These were rapidly coming to a head, and the next several days would be crucial for both the galactic war efforts and our warband’s own, personal mission.

It became too late to halt any of our clandestine plans when an alert rune started flashing on my helmet’s display, causing me to glance at the vidscreen I had propped against the bare rockrete wall. The security camera covering the long hall outside showed a commissariat squad of one of the new regiments emerging from the elevator one hundred meters away. Five of them moved down the narrow hallway single file giving each door a cursory inspection as they walked past. The small team would almost certainly have orders for this specific door, but their recent training told them an enemy could lie behind every shadow even in the safest of enclaves. Laspistols remained holstered, but the shock truncheons they carried were energized and ready to go. The chronometer in my helmet told me my visitors were earlier than expected, but still within the time frame planned for. They were too late to stop what I had begun here in this habblock bedroom. I smiled in the red light of my helm, a momentary flash of mirth, then turned back to the work before me. This hab was tightly packed with rooms in narrow corridors. The planet’s one true city was thick with people, most working in the local space port, and homes were at a premium. It would take them almost two minutes to reach us at the pace they were going, enough time to finish.

I kept glancing at the monitor even as my hands continued the work almost without my attention. The squad’s movement down the hallway showed a lack of experience in tactical situations. They moved through potential lines of fire from unsecured cover without noticing the threat, and the trooper monitoring their rear kept jerking back to check behind them as he remembered it was his responsibility to keep his eyes back there. The fete the planetary governor had announced to celebrate the raising of the new regiments were just winding down, and these newly raised soldiers have not been tested in combat yet. The mass personnel carriers were beginning to launch that very day to carry troopers just like these to some far flung battlefield, throwing more and more bodies into the gaps the Imperium fought to preserve everyday. Unless our plan worked, of course. It would almost be a blessing for these poorly trained, backwater bumpkins if it did.

My marking of the last few arcane symbols onto the bare floor stopped just as the pounding on the outer door began. The glyphs and circles were complete enough for my purpose. The dark energy of the warp lay thick about the room. Angles that twisted the eye and curves that seemed to bend in the wrong direction marked every surface, turning the bedroom into one massive ritual chamber. I put the chalk away and turned to the rear of the room, eyeing the people tied to chairs against the wall one by one. The Astra Militarum uniforms they had put on at the start of their three day leave four days ago were rumpled and filthy. The medal marking their graduation from training was the only decoration on their chest. The Imperial aquila on their shoulders looked so lonesome and fragile compared to the arcane symbols painted on their flesh, the horrific shapes unmarred by the sweat dripping down their faces. The commissar squad knocked again, accompanied this time by a muffled shout.

“Private Gervin and any associates! You are wanted for the crime of being absent from maneuvers without leave! In the name of the God-Emperor and the officers appointed above you, open this door and surrender yourself for discipline!” The hacked security feed showed them bunched outside the door, unconcerned in their commonplace duty. None currently carried lethal weapons, they did not watch their rear for ambush or attack. New recruits celebrating after their graduation from training missing their muster was not anything surprising. They felt no suspicion that there was something larger going on. A few lashes and back to the line for all the absent troopers. I shook my head, almost chuckling at what would unfold when they finally forced their way in. The front door was nothing more than a perfunctory barricade, and this room had only the bed leaned up against its door to clear floor space for my work. None of it would not keep out the discipline squad long. I had planned my timing out well to meet my goals.

It had taken me a full day to cover the walls, floors, and ceiling with the barbed, eye twisting lines and symbols to form a cage for the power I was raising. I felt the weight of the Warp pressing against my mind as I gave one last look at this creation, checking every last intersection for the mathematical accuracy required. The only place unmarked by my work was the area around my prisoners. The lines of force drawn on the floor directed energy from their seats over to where I would be standing when the ritual was completed. Acrid smoke from incense and candles filled the air, circulating around the disabled fire alarm in the center of the room. The whispering of the daemons on the other side of reality was at a fever pitch. Only my centuries of training and experience kept me from succumbing to their calls. My prisoners were not so lucky. Not being gifted with the power to perceive the warp, they could still feel something pushing into the world, clawing at their very souls. Their ignorance of the science behind my work did nothing to calm their nerves. I moved over to them. The twisted vox grille of my helm offered no comfort as my glowing red lenses met the eyes of the woman who was first of my prisoner line.

“Are you ready Private Gervin, currently wanted for being absent from maneuvers without leave? The power is built; we cannot go back now.” She looked up at me, wide eyes peering over her gag colored by her lack of sleep. The black and gold panoply of my armour was reflected in them. I saw the terror causing visage of my helm, its crown of many horns adding to my gene enhanced height. I rose up completely. Her shorn head would not reach the top of my shoulder pad. I could easily have removed her head with a single blow, and she knew it. Snapping her bonds with my hands, I lifted her to her feet and drew a wickedly curved knife from the small of my back. I leaned in close and cut her gag away. She coughed, spitting it out and looked back up at me. I held the knife in close, the runes carved into its length shining light into her eyes. I asked her again, “Are you ready?” She looked at me, terrified but certain. The warp was felt as a pressure in the room, pushing to burst forth in our world, ready to respond to my will.

“I am ready, my lord. It’s too late to stop.” Her voice was strong and deep, resonating in the small room. My eyes moved down the line of still bound prisoners, each exhausted gaze meeting the eye lenses of my helm in turn. Eye contact with Astartes in his armour is difficult, but I tried to meet all their gazes. They all snapped out a curt nod, one after another. The creatures of the warp exalted in their emotions, their defiance and hope pulsing through the Immaterium. Their psionic howling reached a fever pitch. “We know our duty and must complete it.”

“Are you sure? Are you all sure?” I pressed her. I placed my heavy gauntlet on her shoulder, but I do not think there was comfort to be found in the weight of my cold ceramite touch. The wicked barbs on the back of my gauntlet caught the light of the candles and reflected back the colors of an oil spill. “We can withdraw now, and none of you will have to suffer what is to come.” She shook her head once sharply and turned her back to me. I placed the edge of my blade high on her shoulder, at the base of her neck.

“We are sure, lord. We all have our duties to bear in the grand struggle.” Gervin drew a deep breath, her back straightening and shoulders squaring as she came to attention as much as her tired frame could. “For the Emperor.” I am glad my helm hid my face from them as the pure strength and resilience of the human spirit moved both my hearts. I closed my eyes as the energy Gervin projected into the Warp charged the room with potent power. So many of my brothers think of humans as little more than animals, tools at best, but I swore I would never forget that theirs was the spirit that battled in a universe that hated them and wanted them dead, and they still persevered. We were forged to protect them, to take up the weight of wars so they could grow and progress. There was a bedrock of strength in each one that we must acknowledge and respect if we were to achieve victory.

“For the Emperor, “ I repeated back to her. I began to cut the runes of power into her skin. Gervin started screaming before the first symbol was complete. I wish I could have spared her the pain, but it was part of the ritual. The daemons on the other side of reality were drawn to strong emotions, pain and fear chief among them. For the plan to work, I needed the power her agony bought me. I hated it, but we needed her to suffer.

My attention could no longer stray from my work to the vidscreen showing the hallway, but I heard the squad outside scrambling as her cries rose in volume. Soon the hollow booms of their attempt to breach the door managed to reach us here in the back room. I had moved on to the next symbol as they managed to break down the hallway door, moving quickly to secure the entrance. If they were following standard protocol they were radioing for Arbites assistance. With only a door and small barricade between us, it was only a matter of moments before they would enter and reach us in here.

I could imagine the military police flooding into the room, securing the corners, checking the other doors in the small apartment to find only the one to the bedroom blocked. The outside room displayed only the aftermath of a party. The celebration of young adults who had spent the last few months in the harsh training of the Astra Militarum may leave mayhem behind, but it was trivial compared to what the power we had raised here. I completed the next symbol etched into Gervin’s back as they bounced against the door to this room. She screamed again and I felt the convulsing of the warp spirits rejoicing in her pain.

“Hold to the plan,” I whispered as low as I could. The distortion of my helmet speakers made my words into a harsh buzz. There was little comfort to be found in the deep rumble of an Astartes voice, but I hoped it would provide some small strength in the trials to come. I began the next symbol, the appearance of a chain forge of runes beginning to take shape around Gervin’s neck. The blood that flowed from the first one already steamed in the air, the latent energy of the warp bleeding through the wounds. I allowed my psionic presence to slip from my material form for just a moment. Viewing my work in the realm of the warp I saw how the whole room shone like a beacon. Terrors stalked outside the bounds of my wards, repulsed and attracted in turn by my work. What I was building here was a delicate balancing act, pitting my will and knowledge against the power of the warp.

The whining of las weapons firing sounded and the hinges on the door evaporated. I turned back to the entryway as they pulled the door away. They shoved the thin bed acting as a lone barricade back and stepped up to enter forcefully, but the sight of me froze them. I rose to my full height and turned to face them, spreading my arms and letting them see the totality of my presence. Gervin fell to her knees as I released her, gasping and retching. The fetishes and trophies covering this black and gold armour spoke of triumphs and treacheries, told of centuries of victories against their Imperium. The hooks, barbs, and horns of my war gear seemed prepared to rend and tear the flesh of anyone who got close. A freshly bleeding victim in the same uniform they wore was falling to the floor at my feet as I raised a glistening knife that looked like cruelty made manifest. Seeing a fully armoured Astartes is to see war personified, and the legends of our heresies stunned them for a crucial moment.

“It is too late, you are doomed!” I blasted over my helmet’s speakers and drew my bolt pistol. Two cracks pounded in the room as the rounds burst forth. My first shot took the center trooper directly in the chest, blowing him to a pulp and throwing him back into the troopers behind him. Blood and torn flesh splashed everywhere as the mass reactive round snapped stunned troopers aware again. My second shot found the frame of the bed in front of them and blew it completely clear of the door. The remaining troopers dived into the cover of the walls, away from the empty door frame. One responded quicker than the others and a stun grenade bounced into the room. My autosenses dulled the blast to levels I could easily stand, but sadly my bound prisoners were not so protected and collapsed, unconscious in their bonds.

The trooper’s entry following the grenade was straight out of a textbook. The first stepped through with his weapon already firing while the second and third through the doorway spun to quickly check any other entryways and secure the corners. They would then provide enfilading fire to their first compatriot who, had things worked out, pinned me beneath a barrage of small arms fire. The last one would enter low to fill the doorway and prevent me from escaping that way. No matter how well it was drilled into them, a perfectly executed tactical entry was not a match for what we had in place.

The first trooper only managed to squeeze off two hurried, unaimed shots as he breached the room before his advance brought him across one of my diagrams. He shuddered to a sudden stop as all the warp energy that had been building grounded itself in his soul like a lightning bolt. The metaphysical pressure in the room changed in an instant as he became a nexus for the forces I had been building for over a day. With a shriek that could only be heard with a sixth sense, all the daemons waiting on the other side poured into him. He collapsed to the ground as his eyes burned. Thin wisps of smoke emerged from all over his skin as the rapid expansion of warp energy began to cook him from the inside out. His body failed as his spirit was pulled into the realm of torment to become the plaything of the entities I had attracted.

The conditioned emotionless detachment of combat settled over me, but I still had a moment to feel a flash of pity for him. His death would serve my purpose, though I hated that I needed it. He had volunteered to fight his enemies on the battlefield and fall a hero to a mortal death. I consigned his soul to unimaginable torment in the pursuit of my goals. He was far from the first that I had sacrificed, and would almost certainly be far from the last, but this waste was always what I hated the most of my mission.

I moved to engage the others as soon as I saw he was no longer a threat. One had already turned to fire upon me but stopped when she saw her compatriot smoking on the floor. The other was tangled in some bedding that had scattered and fallen, laying out fully. His laspistol had spun from his hand and slid across the slick floor until it came to rest against the unconscious body of Gervin. The final trooper was kneeling down, peering around the doorframe to fire upon me now that his compatriots were no longer blocking his line of fire. Past him I could hear activity in the hallway as neighbors came out to investigate the fire fight.

The only exit remaining was the door against the back wall, opening onto a small balcony. I had chosen this room for the ritual to afford me this escape. It was the height of luxury in a habblock to have a way to access the outdoors this easily, even if we were several hundred feet up. Without looking I fired at the open door. The blast of a mass reactive bolt round echoed through the room again, and the trooper in the doorframe leapt out of the line of fire. I turned and sprinted towards the balcony. The sight of an armoured Astartes at full speed locks up the mind of most mortal humans as they are not able to comprehend something that large moving that quickly, and I knew that few troopers on this backwater world could quickly overcome that transhuman dread. As I emerged out into the sunlight, a laspistol shot pinged off my pauldrons, then another. The thick armour was designed to turn stronger weapons than these paltry things could muster so I wasn’t concerned. Another followed, blasting past my head.

Across from me was another habblock, a mirror of this one. The gap between the buildings was filled with bunting and banners. Streamers in regimental colours hung on every balcony, showing which regiment they or their kin had joined. Below, I could still hear merriment as the news of my attack had not yet spread. I knew that I could easily make it down and across, allowing me to flee through that building. I placed one foot on the balcony railing, gripping one of the bunting lines above me. This one, instead of the common fishing twine traditionally used for the others, was thick braided steel, and mounted to the wall with bolts as large as my armoured thumb. As I leaned forward, a lasround smashed into the railing beside me, blowing it to dust and throwing me off balance just as I began to leap into the gap.

I stumbled and fell forward. I dangled by one hand with nothing between me and the ground several hundred feet below except bunting and my heavy armour.

When Faith Requests

The tithe came for us at the worst time. The red robed priests of the faith with their symbols of death on their robes. They reminded us of the glory of worship and service as they told us they would take our children. Behind them were their giants, with their guns. Their fists. They were silent, but they did more to remind us of the cost of worship. 

Johan was six months old, at the top of eligibility for the tithe. I held him in shaking arms as the priest came for him, murmuring words I couldn’t understand. 

The thick smoke of the censers made Johan cry. His bright red hair was the only part of him sticking out of the bundle when they came for me. I thought I could hide him, hide how well healthy he was. But he cried too loud, too forcefully.

So many of the children were sick. Twisted by the radiation and pollution of the factories we were forced to work in, for the glory of worship. Our service made so many of us die so young, made so many of us twisted.

I was told I was blessed to have a healthy son. One with strong hands, strong lungs. He cried as the priest took him from me, but I didn’t. There were no tears left for me. The ash of the furnaces had dried them up years ago. Silent sobs shook my body, but I kept my eyes downcast as the priest moved on. 

The giant that followed him was silent too. I stared at his feet as he passed. The red plates of armor with black trim. His presence was a threat, a reminder of what we had to worship. The whine of his servos in his armor were not enough to eclipse the cries of my son as they both left my tiny hovel.

He had such strong lungs.

I was not the only one to have to give a child to the tithe. Three on my work crew had to turn them over, but they were grateful. There was one less mouth to feed, a little more left in the rations they gave us. They didn’t have someone like my Johan at home. 

The acolytes tried to comfort me in the days following. They reminded me of the glory of worship, the glory of service. I was told of the rituals that Johan would undergo, to make his form more fit for that worship. That service only he could do.

The careful surgeries, done without anesthesia as pain was part of the service. I knew this myself, having worked on the assembly lines since I was old enough to see over the top of it. I had lost fingers to the snapping jaws of the rollers, an ear to the cutters. Pain was service. Pain was worship.

They told me of the augmentations that he would be given. That they would help him serve, help him worship. That by his worship, others would be saved. That the truth would pour forth from him and confront the enemies of the faith. 

I told the acolytes that I was comforted.

My reward for this service, for the service of my son, was a promotion up the line. I was moved away from the forges and their acrid smoke. I would work on more refined products, further from the raw cutting and smashing that had stolen my flesh. Away from the machine that I had serviced as an act of worship.

That worship that had stolen more of my flesh than I knew I had.

I was told to be grateful. Johan’s service would be one of pride in the faith, and his light would reflect on me when I finally died. Snatched up by a machine, or panting as my lungs filled with blood. The only two outcomes those of us who worshiped knew.

That worship bought us a place after this life, a brighter, better world. The acolytes would descend from their temples of death and pain and tell us that. They would assure us that we were fighting for the truth, for the faith, as surely as any soldier. That we would be rewarded in the end.

The temples would open their doors like jaws once a month and take us inside. We would march before the altars of bone metal, forged in the very factories we toiled in. Did my flesh go into their construction? Had my blood spilled across their surfaces?

The icons and trophies of the faith filled the rooms, and we were brough to our knees by the glory of what we worshiped. Music of war, of bloodshed, of the glory of pain filled the rooms as the choir of cherubs entered, and we knew that we were safe in the truth. We were protected by the silent giants, with their silent guns.

Censers were born aloft by their flight. The smoke moved among us, scented heavily with the incense and oils of that sacred place. So different than the smoke of the forges that tainted us even in this holy place, and even the music could not hide the bloody, hacking coughs.

Prayer scrolls trailed from their bodies, more symbols of death I couldn’t understand. These were repeated on the banners around us. Everywhere the same icons, hammered into the altars by the machines I now ran.

I raised my eyes from the altar, gazing at the cherubs. The wings stitched to their backs hid the propulsion packs that kept them aloft. Their eyes were a mirror of our own pain, even if they couldn’t understand it. 

The rituals were explained to me so clearly. How they would cut away the parts of him that made him grow, made him more than just a toddler. How the priest would pray as they cut into my Johan, anointing him for his new purpose. They would only take the purest white wings for my son.

I found him among the choir. His mouth was stretched wide, so the speakers could fit. His bright red hair was waving in the force from his repulsors. I could see the red flesh where the wings were stitched on. They were beautiful.

My son was singing. His lungs had been so strong, but not strong enough. Not for the benedictions he needed to sing now. Not for what he needed to do to protect us.

That strength wasn’t enough for the God-Emperor’s priests.