Part 25

I stared into the stars from my home, knowing that my destiny lay infinitely further away than I had ever conceived. The rest of the Nine at my back, Shiss'kill at my side, I was feeling invincible in that moment. Little did I know that the cogs of the galaxy had slowly started to grind to the moment of my greatest peril. I couldn't have known, but I do now. My neck came so close to the axe those decades ago that it is painful to recall, but vital.

*****

“Sir, we are getting some strange reports from our orbital observers.”

Captain Halstrom sighed, shifting the brim of his cap up from over his bloodshot eyes. It had been a rough night and rougher morning. It was his third year on his extended five year posting to the Latigia system observation post, and it was nothing but tedium. This fringe system contained nothing of interest, just empty planets and one feral world no one could be bothered with. The ecclesiarchy had apparently brought the Imperial Faith to the place decades before, but since then, no one had turned an eye to this useless system.

The Administratum just shuffled flunkies in and out of it.

“What is it?” Halstrom asked without any real interest. It was never anything important, just instrument malfunctions, sometimes fluctuations in the warp. He hoped it wasn’t that. They were required to monitor the warp travel routes for stability, even though no one ever used these ones.

“Surge in warp energy over Latigia IV’s eastern continent.” Gerhardt replied. They’d been shipped out together, along with the other six members of the crew, and would be here together for the duration of the assignment. That, along with the fact that the two female members of the crew were less than amicable toward their captain’s advances, ensured that Halstrom spent most evenings drinking himself into a stupor.

“And? Record it, like all the others.” he muttered. As always, it would be a pain in the ass to sign off on everything and make sure there were no mistakes, since him signing off on a mistake was as bad as making it himself, or so he’d been told.

“Sir, it spiked into the red. This wasn’t a typical energy fluctuation, it was an exit surge.”

“Something dropped out of the warp on the surface?” Halstrom asked incredulously, leaning forward with genuine interest. “Impossible. No ship can transition inside the atmosphere, and there’s no other ship in system at all, much less in teleportation range.”

“Look sir, I’m just reading the instrument. This is what it says.” Gerhardt handed him a printout, Halstrom snatching it with irritation. As much as he hated the tedium of this backwater, he was far more terrified of the alternative than he was bored of the routine.

“By the Emperor.” Halstrom breathed, glancing over the readings. It was a warp surge on par with a battleship transitioning back to realspace, but it was centered on the surface. Only one thing he knew of explained it, but Halstrom was high ranking enough to be aware of just how much he wasn’t told. Still, he doubted any of those unknown potential explanations could be worse than the one he suspected. “Keep a close eye on this. I need to have a word with our astropath.”

“Yes sir.”

Halstrom strode through the strangely damp, empty halls of metal on the listening station Veritatus CVIK. His pulse was racing so he forced his footsteps to be slow. A few seconds would not make a difference here if what he suspected was correct, and every move had to be carefully thought out.

There was a reason Halstrom was assigned to this backwater at his rank. He’d commanded a recon station before, a far more prominent one, and had observed a most unfortunate event that those higher up would rather he hadn’t. So instead of executing him they relegated him to this nowhere location, hoping that their secrets would stay secret. That he would see how terribly dismal his fate could be if he didn’t pretend to forget.

So he would pretend, but Halstrom remembered. He would never forget how the skies boiled, how screams polluted every channel and corrupted vox transmissions. Astropaths for three systems in every direction had waking nightmares, many going insane. A world had died in blood and fire as abominations poured from the warp into realspace. None had caught the early signs, for none had known to look for them. Anomalies in the warp were common, and the Inquisition discouraged citizens from being familiar with the various dangers they might represent.

But Halstrom knew. And he’d caught it. The only question was, should he report it?

If he called it in, a Vermillion level transmission, and it was false, it would surely mean his life if not those of his crew as well. But if he was correct, the fate of this world could hang in the balance. Millions of souls, not just to be lost to death, but to be dragged into damnation. How could he risk waiting?

No one wanted another Caranos III.

So by the time he had reached the private chambers of the Astropath, Halstrom had made up his mind. “Prepare to transmit.” he ordered, Beatrice’s sightless eyes gazing unnervingly back at him. “Vermillion level transmission.” She recoiled in shock, but took the news stoically, despite them both knowing what this meant. A transmission of such classification would burn out the psyker who sent it, and whoever received it as well. Halstrom did not have to fake his solemn expression. You didn’t spend two years on a station with someone without coming to care a little.

“I’m sorry.”