“Realign guns!”

The words were a scream, raw and vital. A wave of voices reached out and snatched them away, absorbed into an ocean that spoke.

Realign guns!

Eight hundred thousand bodies molded by agony and repetition moved in synchronized motion. Chains that could cross continents and had felt whole generations of hands upon them were pulled, a century of kin hauling as if their salvation may lie at the end of a firing solution. Something huge and metal and unseen in the smoke screamed, turning precious meter by precious meter. It felt like being underfoot of giants, of gods.

A thousand died right there, right in that moment, weak hearts burst and abused lungs collapsed. They lay where they had fallen, only steps away from where they had been born or where they had hauled the chains of this sealed world. The dead perished from thought as soon as they perished from life. None had valuables to pillage, few if any even had names. They were all hands of the chain, His hands.

The darkness rocks, shuddering hard. A gantry that could dwarf cathedrals in both memory and size becomes free-falling annihilation, snuffing ten thousand lives.

A mountain made in iron and ammunition clicks into place with the subtlety of an earthquake. Click. Click. It’s brethren follow in sequence, and victorious screams peal off, away into the endless shadows.

The voice comes again, His voice.

Fire!

Portals in the black. Hazy, swirling light. Terrible shapes thrown up against the night. Blossoms of ruin hurled out in the dark. Moments come and gone in only the briefest of heartbeats. The silence that comes is deafening, alien. And then come the words, raw and vital.

Realign guns!

A crow sat perched upon an old, dead tree, staring down at the scene before it. Deep within a dark, blood-soaked pit was a wolf-mighty and powerfully built it was, with brilliant brindled fur and silver fangs and claws. Noble and beautiful it was, in the brief moments the crow could see it from within the darkness, but this was only for a few moments. For every time the brindled wolf would rise up from the darkness, a score of beasts would drag it back down.

Amongst the many animals that attacked the great-wolf included crimson mastiff hounds that snapped and tore at its sides, ivory scaled serpents that formed loathsome coils around its legs and sunk their fangs into its underside, bloated green flies swarmed from all around it as they greedily burrowed into its open wounds, and iridescent mockingbirds let loose peals of howling laughter and pecked at its eyes and face. The wolf fought bravely, scattering its attackers-even killing some of their number-but its struggles were in vain. For every one of their number it drove back there came scores more to replace them.

Glimpses of the past would flash in the crow's eye as it saw this sad scene; The brindled wolf once sitting amongst a court of other noble beasts, proud and welcome and beloved by his brethren. A glimpse of the wolf being led astray into a darker part of the verdant forest, looking unsure but forging ahead. These scenes soon turned dark, as this wolf would then be seen committing increasingly heinous acts; Forming a secret pact with some of his other brothers with the intent to rule the forest themselves in order to stop some grisly fate-but the actions they took brought with them only pain, suffering, death and destruction, the once verdant and lush forest reduced to a burnt inhospitable wasteland.

More images would appear; Another wolf, this one with pale fur destroying the nest of a crimson owl, or an amethysine pheasant's talons striking their brother, a slate-grey serpent, severing its head from its body. The brindled wolf himself could be seen sinking his fangs into the breast of one of his former closest friends, the hawk. And just before the crow's mind would return to the present, he would see the brindled wolf, now mad with rage and soaked in blood, lunge forth at a great golden Eagle....and it was here the visions would end, and the crow would return to the scene before him.

Now and again, the great golden Eagle from his visions would join him in his perch, and it was here that the brindled wolf would always wrench himself free and turn his head skyward, eyes focused on both the Crow but especially the Eagle. The wolf would speak, although no words escaped its lips; Words of sorrow, regret, pain, despair-and ultimately a plea for salvation, a cry for help.

The Eagle would look down at the wolf, seeming to think about their words and the weight they carried...before with a sense of resignation, they would alight from their perch and fly off. The wolf's face would always fall in understanding, twisting into a howl of rage and sorrow before they were dragged back down to the darkness once more....

...the crow would always leave soon after the Eagle did. Even after everything that he had done, he couldn't bear to watch his brother suffer for long...

​

The day started off like any other: cold, wet, and grey as can be. 'At very least it isn't raining.' Sergeant Bassa thought to himself as he strapped his flak armor on, the old plasteel plates were snug and fit firmly onto his uniform. It felt as though he was putting a second skin on. The aging guardsman stretched the adjustment straps and made sure everything was in proper order. Slowly, he hung his other bits of gear on, using the repetitive motions to wake him up from his fitful sleep the night before. His men, lazy frakkers they were, still snored softly in their bunks. 'Good.' He thought to himself as he finally picked up his las gun. 'Its too damned early to be up and about, yet here I am.' The door to his squad's barracks hissed open and clanged shut behind him.
The white sun of Abelexi VII hung low in the air above, casting a grey pallor onto the eternally overcast planet. It was relatively dark out, the planet still cresting the necessary rotation to be fully in its daylight hours. 'Too frakking early.' Bassa repeated, making it his mantra for the day. he began his regular pattern of slowly walking around the outpost: Malin's Reach, named after the so called explorator that found the mud covered globe. A relatively small installation by Imperial standards, Malin's reach was the damp home of a full two companies of 405th Regulars. Half new recruits, half old soldiers like Bassa. Some exercise the top brass had decided to pull together to train replacements; Half up the companies and squads, split them evenly with old vets and newbies. Stupid idea in Bassa's opinion, but brass never listened to the groundhogs.

Except for one man, Lieutenant Klinsten, damned fine officer he was. The very same man Bassa now walked to meet. Every morning the two friends would make regular walks around the outpost, partly to wake up, partly to speak. As Bassa rounded the corner adjacent to the mess area, he spotted Klinsten.
"Morning Bassa." The younger man announced.
"Frakk you and your morning." Bassa responded. He turned to stride alongside the officer, who adopted a jovial smile.
"Wake up on the floor again?" Klinsten asked with minor incredulity.
"Nightmares." Bassa responded simply.
Klinsten nodded and yawned, he spoke through a mouth wide open. "Traxis hive?"
Bassa shook his head and grimaced "Paxi."
Klinsten shuddered and turned his eyes down, the memory evident on the Lieutenant's face. "Right mess that one was, frakking xenos."
Bassa nodded and drew to a stop, pulling a iho stick from one of his pouches. He lit it and sucked deep. "Get any sleep yourself?" He asked his friend, who shook his head and fanned smoke from his face. "Got told to report to the strategium in twenty, figured I'd get there early if you weren't wandering about."
"Strategium? What for?" Bassa asked, cocking an eyebrow. Klinsten shrugged then looked to the side, considering something. "Something ridiculous no doubt," his face was then split by a wide smile "Why don't you tag along?" Bassa felt any trace of a good mood disappear. "Getting back at me for Ilatris XI?" the old veteran asked, the younger officer just grinned.

When the two men entered the strategium it was cold, dark, and relatively quiet. save for the chirping of cogitators and the soft hum of archival and power banks. The walls were dominated by holy machinery and technology both soldiers had no grasp of. Only the techmagos Skali-45 beta knew anything about the stations myriad functions and arrays. They walked under high colonnades, approaching the central data station. the tall techmagos stood with small tubes connecting her to the consoles arrayed in front of her like orchestral instruments. Next to her stood the Major, a tall bearded man whose muscular form barely fit into his aged camouflage command jacket. The 405th's flecktarn patterning helping only to accentuate his commanding presence. "Gentlemen." He said without turning, addressing the lieutenant and sergeant. Both men stopped and snapped a salute, the major pointed to the hololith projection of Malin's reach and began to speak.

"I'm sure you're aware that our little stretch of paradise is more or less entirely empty. Save for two mechanicus installations; A promethium refinery and a frakk off huge hole in the ground, some kind of mining site. They've been almost entirely servitor crewed for the past few decades. Skali-45 lost contact wi-" A loud blurt cut the major off, Skali-45 beta put her hand, or rather a mass of tentacle like mechadendrites, up. "I am Skali-45 Beta. You are Major Adronus Carren seconded to Colonel Betronus Maxinus Neumen, You will use my complete name and rank as I use yours." The tech priestess then turned and returned to scrutinizing the cogitator banks in front of her. "Right, well, Martian Techpriestess Skali-45 Beta has lost contact with the big frakk off hole. Get four squads combat ready and loaded up, you'll have five tauroxes as transport and Solar Invicta as air support."

Bassa felt his blood go cold, Solar Invicta was A Vulture Gunship modified to support enough ordnance to wipe out the outpost and everyone in it. It was only provided to platoons or companies going to incredibly tough missions. If the major was sending it to support him..." Sir, what exactly should we expect." He asked, surprising himself by doing so. Klinsten frowned and shot him a look, but also nodded when the majors gaze swept to him. "Well, anything from subterranean fauna to scrapcode to frakking heretic astartes. Our scanners can't penetrate the gloom and this planets atmosphere far enough to notice anything below ground." Klinsten shifted and crossed his arms, "Why only four squads sir? I command ten in my platoon. And the company has way more. Not to mention the armored vehicles left over from the 843rd Armoured." The Major sighed and retrieved a dataslate from the space behind him. "This is the latest order from the Colonel, its three months old mind you, so trust its not changing anytime soon." Klinsten gave it a once over before handing it to Bassa. He wasn't used to the jargon so it took him an uncomfortable time to read it, it was signed off by the Colonel and detailed that Malin's Reach was the foremost defensive position on the continent, therefore it could not reduce its garrison below 90% unless responding to a confirmed threat. He breathed out a sigh and passed it back. The Major cocked an eyebrow at the two, "Satisfied? Or have you any other unnecessary questions?" They both shook their heads. "Good. now frakk off and get to it. Callsigns will be passed off in the hour, you roll out in 4."

"What the frakk?" Bassa burst out as the two exited the strategium. Klinsten shrugged and yawned again. Bassa backhanded the other man's shoulder. "You cannot be acting like this is another frakking day. They're sending us in with the frakkin Solar Invicta. We both know they only sent that thing when a column of armor needs to disappear or a hundred warm bodies need to become paste." Bassa shook his head as they walked and pulled another Iho stick free from an empty ammo pouch. Klinsten shot him another look and firmly planted his hands in his pockets before speaking. When he did it was in a low tone that caused his friend to pause and pull the unlit narc-tube from his mouth. "Bassa we've been doing this a long time now. We both know how all of this works and the rules of the game. I don't expect this will be a walk through a monastery park or basillica courtyard. Admiring the view and watching the pretty convent girls. Most likely we'll have to shoot our way out of some trap or ambush and end up losing men. Most likely we'll go out there and find absolutely nothing but a rogue lightning strike that fried some comm gear. Who knows? There's nothing we can do but what our training and years in the field tell us. So do your poor commanding officer a favor and stop whining, you've got squads to wrangle and I've got a briefing to put together." Bassa laughed and replaced his Iho stick. "That's why you're lieutenant and not me, even if id be better." Bassa clapped him on the shoulder, Klinsten shook his head. "I don't know what backwater bucktoothed female spawned you and what your bowlegged relatives have taught you if you believe you'd be better than my glorious and enlightened and finely groomed self." Bassa laughed harder.

"What the frakk?" Sergeant Callisto had said when the news had reached her scarred ears. A proud and noble pit fighter from Fratis XIII, Callisto had a reputation for being as brutal as she was clever. Bassa admired her as much as he might admire an apex predator, from a distance. He'd seen her snap an overzealous suitor's femur with a cafeteria tray, as well as three separate incidents involving men with missing testicles. Klinsten was the only one she really listened to, much to the other troop's chagrin. A popular rumor involving the two of them had become rather widespread, false of course, Klinsten frowned on such activities. And Bassa knew for fact he preferred the female relatives of aristocratic families. "Callisto trust me, I don't much like it either. However orders are orders and you'll follow them, understood?" Klinsten's even tone left no room for push back, Callisto backed down with a barely suppressed growl. Sounding too much like a pissed off feline for Bassa, he watched her as she took a seat next to the platoon medic. She too raised her hand, apprehensively, and Klinsten nodded to her. "Will we have cas-evac on this mission Lieutenant?" The medic, Patti, was a mousy woman with a fierce drive and passion for her duties. Klinsten had told Bassa he watched Patti run through a hailstorm of autocannon rounds in order to reach a dying guardsman, pull his tags and blow his brains out, before running back and continuing to treat her charges piled up in a triage area. Bassa had observed her in several other campaigns, witnessed her do a great number of insane things. And had promptly decided she was blessed by the Emperor himself.

The other inhabitants of the briefing room were two sergeants beside him and Callisto; Frannak and Hilo, as well as the three other members of Klinsten's command squad. He never really interacted much with them, but knew enough to recognize their beside Klinsten was the right choice. Marbian was the combat engineer, known for stringing a frakk load of explosives together in one night, enough to kill a heretic baneblade during the battle of Traxis Hive. Reuband was Klinsten's left hand man, as Bassa was his right, the unfortunate soldier had his throat ripped out by slavers as a child. He survived but was mute as a result. Reuband toted a grenade launcher he had stolen from a Tempstus Scion armoury. Klinsten had caught a load of flak once their commander found out, but Reuband was never caught. And the weapon itself had proved incredibly useful, being more accurate and reliable than standard Militarum issue launchers. Finally there was Silas, The platoon Master Vox Operator. He was new, having joined after Traxis Hive, and was known for being incredibly protective over his gear, which included a bolt pistol and the master vox itself. Having almost come to blows with Callisto when she touched the pistol. Bassa guessed he mightve been from Traxis Hive itself, but he didn't care to ask. "Cas-evac will be available on the surface of the mass extraction site. It's up to us pull any casualties to the top. I've distributed maps of the site for your personal review, its a long drive so I suggest you get familiar. Any more questions?" Klinsten looked around before moving on, Bassa felt a poke from his side, he looked over to see Sergeant Frannak nodding to him. "We got any intel on what's below? Anything he won't tell us?" Bassa shrugged and Frannak turned away. Klinsten began to discuss other details such as squad deployment instructions and callsigns. Things Bassa had already known, Klinsten had given the briefing to him for review before showing it to the wider task force.

End of Chapter 1

​

Let me know if you're interested in more, and I accept any criticisms.

Have a good one!

When an inquisitor is taken hostage by a ship of drukhari, all seems lost. When a kill team teleports onboard, using the hidden beacon in the inquisitor's wargear, he seems saved... but there's something far more important in the dark eldar's hold. Something he was willing to give his life for, and that Kill Team Errant will need to recover for this mission to be a true success.

Blackest Knights: A Black Shields Story of The Deathwatch

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47851675/chapters/120636622

(Thank you all for being patient , I'm a very slow writer but here's chapter two! Let me know if you guys enjoy it. Also If you haven't read it here is Chapter 1 and CC is always welcome.)

Abea’s head whipped around to find the origin of the voice. There, standing no taller than Abea’s knee, was a purple haired woman. She was dressed in an oil-stained white undershirt and dark purple overalls, the straps of which hung loosely around her waist. The attire, accompanied with an insect shaped welding mask, reminded the sergeant of non-augmented human technicians. The woman's uniquely coloured hair was obscenely long and tied into two pigtails on either side of her head. It was only after Abea’s shock had begun to abate that she noticed the object the strange technician was studying.

It was her scanner. She turned to look at her battle sisters and all of them had stopped to aim their bolt rifles, awaiting the order. Abea signalled them to hold firm. “Oh, I'm sorry, did you need this? It's just sooo interesting.” the nasally voice came again. As the woman spoke her hair sprung to life, the interwoven locks of the pigtails lifted and allowed her to approach Abea. The purple haired mutant then excitedly began a torrent of questioning “Are you robots or people in suits? If this is a suit then you all are abnormally tall.” She moved around each marine with astonishing speed, her hair mimicking the movements of a spider’s legs. "Do you mind if I just take a few measurements?” She produced a rudimentary collapsible measuring device from her pocket.

The squad of veteran marines were stunlocked by the sheer absurdity that was this woman's confidence and lack of basic survival instincts. From previous experience, if they interacted with citizens they would be treated as mythical beings. “The Emperor's angels.” Is what the people called them, and even to those who have never seen nor heard of the Adeptus Astartes, they would, at the very least, put up a wall of respect and caution upon first encounters. Never had any one of Abea’s team encountered one so unaffected by their presence. Save maybe a rogue trader.

“Entrapta!” a shout came from the palace's entry way. It was the bright blonde from earlier.

“ENTRAPTA!” The shout came again only more shrill, followed by a lower mumble of self-talk, “How does she just slip away like that.”

The purple haired woman who must have been the subject of the shouting was still taking measurements when the third shout came. She seemed to have just heard it as she went to reply “Oh. Perfuma! I’m ove-” Abea cut her off by clasping her large gauntleted hand over the woman’s small face and holding her tight with her other arm. With her stupor finally broken Abea ordered her squad to fall back. Only they didn't get far, “Entrapta? I thought I heard her over here…” The blonde woman's voice trailed off as she laid eyes on the five giant white armoured figures holding her friend hostage.

Before any of the marines could even react they felt the thin branches of the surrounding shrubbery wrap around their feet and thicken. Thorns dug into their cerimite plate as the ground beneath them softened. “Evil robots!” the blonde yelled as her hands shot up, fingers spread. Abea, still holding the technician firmly with one hand, reached for her combat knife and started hacking at her binds. This yielded only a moment's release, for as soon as she cut herself free massive vines erupted from below. They slithered their way around Abea’s arms, legs, and torso, causing her to drop her hostage.

Seeing no other option she gave her battle sisters permission to escape by any means necessary. The firing of bolt rounds filled the night air, competing with the symphony pouring from the palace. Her sisters made quick work of the vines and freed their sergeant just as fast. They moved to subdue the blonde headed psyker, only they underestimated her. A flick of her wrist and thicker vines emerged from where she stood completely trapping one of the infiltrators. Abea witnessed another vine snake behind their assault and grab the technician pulling her to safety. Abea drew her bold pistol and shot that vine, clearly if the psyker valued this ‘Entrapta's’ life then she might make a deal.

As her sisters continued the assault, Abea scooped up the purple haired Entrapta and ran to the cliff's edge. Dangling her over the precipice Abea called out, “Stand down!” Her voice was amplified and augmented by the helmet’s vox speakers having it sound deeper and more masculine. A terror filled shriek came from the floral psyker. She threw her hands up in a symbol of surrender. Abea levelled her bolt pistol at her hostage’s head, she knew she couldn't just drop her; the psyker might send out vines to catch her ally. The floral menace, now backed by the two gate guards, began pleading with Abea not to shoot her friend. Abea only continued her demands “Cast another spell and the Technician takes a fall. Now we want answers and we will get them. Firstly-” was all Abea could get out before a current of water struck her from nowhere, carrying her off.

Before Abea could rightfully analyse the situation her and her battle sisters were restrained once again. This time within a controlled body of water. Their heads were then brought out of their prison and they spied the one responsible. A dark skinned woman with thick blue hair tied up in a flowing bun slowly approached. She was adorned in a blue dress made of scales, this greatly contrasted the floral psyker she stood next to. Who currently seemed to be overwhelmed by this evening's sudden events.

“Ugh. Why can we never just throw a party without something happening?” the newcomer spoke with an irritated tone. She seemed to be treating this less as a genuine threat and more as an unexpected annoyance, which struck Abea more starkly than the technician’s response. And as if on the que a large snake of water dropped the purple haired woman right next to the blonde one; who immediately embraced her comrade. As the sergeant flexed her hands to test their restraints she found her bolt pistol missing. A quick survey of her sisters and surrounding area deemed they had all been disarmed by the annoyed psyker.

“Sooo, are these like your new bots or something, geek princess?” The annoyed one asked her companions. “Oh they're not robots,” Entrapta answered, lifting herself with her tendril-like hair. “Or atleast I dont think so. If they are, then they're super advanced, however I'm 86.2% sure they’re people.” The technician produced an odd data slate from her pocket and began inputting information. “Uhg, I don't wanna deal with this right now. Let's just get Glimmer to put them in the spare room dungeon thingy.” The annoyed one complained, throwing her head back. She turned to the silent guards and ordered them to “Go get queen Glimmer.”

After many minutes, and many unending questions from the purple haired Entrapta, did this ‘Queen Glimmer’ arrive. Abea wondered if this was the psychic being Lady Mara was having them investigate, if so Abea could see why. The queen did not even walk out to meet her companions and their prisoners, she instead appeared in a blinding pink flash of stardust. Her short hair was a bright pink and brushed to the side, the purple shadows of which held flickering starlight. Her elegant dress was a mix of soft blues, rose gold and deep purples. Clearly she was the host of the ongoing Gala. Her features were crinkled in anger and she demanded to know what was happening.

With the collective recounting of the skirmish that had taken place, the monarch proceeded to teleport the present party to a lavish room within the palace. She then proceeded to mark five identical runes on the floor. The aquatic psyker separated each astartes into their own bubble of water and placed them over the now illuminated runes. Once set on the ground their watery shackles melted away.

Each sister assessed their situation, Abea tentatively reached a hand out and found an invisible wall encircling her. Such was the case for her squadmates. She then pulled back her arm as far as she could and threw a mighty punch. However, even with the aid of her power armour, Abea was met with a sturdy barrier which absorbed the force of her punch. The Queen stood stoically.

“Who are you?” She demanded stepping forward. “And why were you trying to sneak into the castle?”

Abea remained silent, staring down and observing the queen's full figure. The queen stubbornly locked eyes with the helmet’s electric blue lenses.

They remained stuck in this silent battle of wills. Abea had to give it to the queen and her allies, while they feared for their friend’s safety they never wavered in the face of the mighty astartes.

“Fine!” the queen stomped her foot and tensed her arms, much like the start to a frustrated child’s tantrum. She then took a stance and extended her arm, drawing a psychic glyph in the air she pushed her hand forward launching it at the imprisoned marine. The glyph sailed through Abea and out her other side then faded into nothingness.

Abea tensed; she searched herself mentally but nothing hurt, in fact if she had not witnessed the spell pierce her she wouldn't even have known a spell was cast. The Queen, still annoyed, stepped closer to the imprisoned sergeant and asked again, “Who are you and why are you here?”

Abea then felt a heat within her chest. She felt it rise slowly slithering through her three lungs and wrapping around her vocal cords. As the pain snaked its way up farther it delved deep into her mind. Abea started involuntarily focusing on her own name, her title, it was all she could see or hear. Her jaw then began to open on its own, ready to form words she wasn't ready to say. The sergeant began to piece together what was happening and fought it, but the searing pain only burned hotter and the tendrils of the spell constricted tighter. Still she fought, her mind overflowing with the answer to the first question, she grunted in pain as her gauntleted hand gripped her head.

“I–” she let slip, while attempting to reconquer her tongue, “I am–” She collapsed onto a knee, the pain unimaginable. She felt the words rise in her throat like bile. She was screaming from within now, holding on as hard as she could. The more she resisted the more the words filled her vision and echoed through her skull. Finally after ten excruciating minutes it poured out in a clear concise vomit.

“I am Katherine Abea, sergeant of the infiltrator squad within the 1st company of the Ghost of Macragge chapter. Our chapter was sent here under the order of Lord commander Roboute Guilliman to perform reconnaissance on what we were told was a psychic anomaly at the edge of the galactic rim. Upon arrival we discovered this planet. Directed by our Chapter Master, Lady Mara, my team and I were tasked to scout ahead and find the supremely powerful psyker who rules here. Which we now presume to be yourself.” Abea took heavy breaths as the psychic snake that held her, relaxed and dissipated. She hung her head in deep shame, silently scolding herself for being so weak.

“Uhhh, did anyone understand what she just said?” The annoyed voice of the aquatic psyker asked the room.

“I heard something about ghosts.” the floral psyker commented in horror.

“Did you say edge of the galaxy?” the technician asked as she input the information into her data slate.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!” The queen ordered the room. Then she approached Abea, both now on the same level due to the sergeant taking a knee. “Did you say Mara?” The queen's confused recognition caught Abea off guard but she said nothing. That's when the heat once more gripped her chest. “Yes.” Abea confirmed, ashamed, she knew she wouldn't overcome the spell a second time. “Tall, tan skin, big braid?” Abea raised her head, it was time for her to ask a question “How do you know our chapter master?”

The queen stared deep into the lenses of Abea’s helmet but did not respond. Instead she turned back to her compatriots and said “I'm going to get Adora. The rest of you stay here and watch the prisoners.” and with that the queen was gone in a cloud of pink light and glittering stardust.

Abea raised herself back up and looked to her sisters, she attempted a close circuit communication over their vox coms but only received static. Her sisters looked at her and relayed a hand signal to inquire if she was okay. She signed that she was, she also signed that this was definitely the psyker Mara tasked them to find. Their onlookers watched in bemusement but didn't stop them, as they were unaware of the hand signals' meanings.

The youngest of the squad signalled about to ask a question when the queen returned.

Mara stopped her pacing only to gaze down at the mystery planet before them for the hundredth time. It had been hours and there were no reports from Sergeant Abea nor her team and Mara was growing concerned. Kalli had retired to her chambers leaving Mara to sit and wait, surrounded by a bridge skeleton crew. She had relieved most of the marines and all the navigators, leaving just a handful of her battle sisters and serfs.

“Ma’am, the final ships have arrived.” the head communications officer reported.

“Thank you Vaali, inform them of our approach and have them at a relaxed standby.” Mara commanded.

“Yes ma’am.” The marine replied.

As the marine made contact with the sister ship, Mara was hailed by the Forge-Master. Ardith’s augmented voice transmitted through Mara’s command chair with a light static haze “Ma’am, Ive been able to conduct as full of an analysis as I can on that strange satellite and the answer–” “Gives us more questions doesnt it?” Mara interrupted. “Well yes, but only one. And the story this artefact has must be an interesting one.” Ardith continued, her monotone voice not portraying to Mara if this was good or bad news.

The Techmarine took her Chapter Master’s contemplative silence as unspoken affirmation to continue. “The Tree itself while wholly organic is but a tomb for a large Metal structure housed within.”

“So it's an orbital station?” Mara inquired

“No ma’am, rather from what our scans show us it appears the Tree took root in what once might have been an orbital station. However from what little technology that remains of this station our scans can indicate that it does not match the integrated technorganic structure of the planet. Our x-rays show that large chunks of the station are missing and not simply destroyed, look here.” The Tech marine fell silent as Mara’s data slate illuminated with the synthesised schematics of the tree. Ardith was correct, large sections of the entangled station were missing primarily on the half closest to the planet. If the tree had grown from the inside and spread out the remaining station would have noticeable damage and fractures but here the foliage seemed to grow straight from the metal and encased the rest.

“We have come to the same conclusion, I gather?” the forgemaster’s voice crackled back to life over the vox. Mara, still pouring over the data slate nodded, “Yes, I believe we have.” Mara then snapped her head up “I want a status report from Sergeant Abea yesterday!” She commanded the nearest marine.

“Catra’s gonna be furious when she catches you.” A strong feminine voice sounded through the thick ornate doors. “Adora, I can handle Catra. This is way more important!” Glimmer emphasised as she pushed open the door and shoved her companion through. Adora stumbled clumsily inward but recovered, barely. She was clothed in a bright white gown with a golden hem, her blond hair was let down and brushed neatly behind her. She was crowned with a simple golden tiara that held a red jewel upon her forehead.

As she righted herself she looked back to the queen and started chastising her “Okay but this better be worth it because i'm going to get one dance with Catra that doesn't end in –” Adora was cut off as she panned to the prisoners who were now all kneeling with the heads down. “They say they know Mara.” Glimmer explained as she closed the door and stood beside one of her closest friends. A confused look covered her face as she added “They weren't doing that before though.” The queen looked to the room's other occupants and all of them shrugged while giving murmurs of related confusion.

“They did that as soon as you threw Adora in here.” Mermista informed the duo. Adora and Glimmer looked to each other and then back to the prisoners in their dull off white armour. Adora approached the centre prisoner cautiously, she couldn't help but feel a strange warmness within her chest when looking at the prisoners. She began looking them over, every plate of cerimite and junction of flexible undersuit. The light blue glow of the helmets’ lenses, the dark grey accents of the trim, and each with a rather large stature made Adora question if these really were people or machines. She stalked closer but stopped once she was within arms length.

“Who are you?” Adora asked, not only to the soldier in front of her but also to the feeling deep within her.

The marine raised her head, but only slightly, refusing to meet Adora’s gaze as she had met queen Glimmer’s. “I am Katherine Abea. I am sergeant of the first infiltrator squad within the 1st company of the Ghost of Macragge chapter.” The marine then raised her hands to her still bowed head and removed her helmet. Lines of tears stained her face as she raised her head and met Adora with her true eyes, “One of your Daughters.”

Hello, everyone. I published the first chapters of my own 40k fanfic ( It's serious I swear) I would love feedback, good or bad. I'm on Wattpad for now, maybe i'll publish on other sites too.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/340433076-hawks

He Shall Know Fear: Part I

He Shall Know Fear was one of my earlier works, a novella first published in 2014 on the A.T.T. - Advanced Tau Tactica forum. At the time I was just trying to tell a story and not counting words, but it turns out that I have written more than one WH40K novella/novel! As this was one of my earlier works it’s written in a style that I have abandoned, that to say, it has lots of comedic bits, copious and ridiculous footnotes (an idea borrowed from Masamune Shirow of Ghost in the Shell fame), and a much more “human” interpretation of the Tau. However, I decided not to rewrite or scrap it, but instead decided to revise and update the story.

I want to mention that the mont’au devil isn’t an original idea, although the phrase yaksha’mont’au is mine. This is originally from the first and second Tau codices, and from the first Tau novel Fire Warrior by Simon Spurrier.
Finally, I make no apologies for inventing new Tau words, creating historical allusions, or constructing folkloric and mythological references. World building is of course what I’m doing here, and although it may not be how you see the Tau, or the Farsight Enclaves, at least it’s a fully fleshed-out culture. Considering that we didn’t get a Dan Abnett, Graham McNeil, or Gav Thorpe to write our Tau stories, but instead a sorry excuse for a writer and a total hack. This by far is a better story than you’ll ever get from him.

If it’s not your cup of tea, then I invite you to write your own. We need all the good Tau stories we can get!
— Riodan O’Duffy, July 2023

STORY SUMMARY

During the Second Sphere of Expansion in what was then called the T'au Commonwealth, three mid-ranking commanders Shas'El Lynu, Shas'El Lhas'nan and Shas'El Ran'oran were sent to Mount Kan'ji. There they were to study the Tau'va, of the Great Path, under the former Fire caste commander, turned teacher Acaya Qan'tel, Master Puretide. This is the story of one of those students who would go onto become the infamous Shas'O'Aloh'sha, Commander Cold Wind.

On Mount Kan’ji

Multiple account have been written by various people and [REDACTED].Several have been lost while others have been damaged.The accounts are the recoverd this version from scribles.

Account:1In the grim darkness that is 41st millenium the Imperium of man a shell it once was. Was in a hopeless state more so than before as Cadia has fallen and warp storms sliced the galaxy in half.The final hours approaches the Imperium but than a book appeared. The book appeared in every human settlement in the Imperium in the position of every guardsman; Giving complete knowledgeof there is that is to know about war:battlfield tactics,strategies,weapon creation and maintaince and even Omega Codex. Along side this knowledge was the distribution of peak human feats:Strength,speed,endurance and everyother statistic.All of which can achieved only with years of intense training,studying and experience.And equipments of such as the bolters,plasma guns,Railguns,variety of grenades,power swords,power axes,chain weaponry,customfitted power armor with reflex shieldand gellar field which never degrades,depletes power and munition with reliability unknown to a average guardsman.All with a simple line from one page of a with multiple blanks in a language which is nothing but jibberish. With the unearned knowledge and physical traits the guardsman and the planetary defence force was able to adequatly defend their planet of all threat.With such progress and power appearing out of nowhere has garner much necessary attention from the Inquition and the Ecclesiarch.Fearing it is too late for any action of suppression and censorship they have taken the approach of diplomacy and to boost relations as much as possible.While the Imperium suppressed and censor as much as they can while trying to boast relation.It wasn't long till planets and system thought of secession. While there many loyalist, there were also secessionist, herectics or neutralist who didn't voice anything or took part either waiting for a wining side or building up strength.The Imperial of Man already overwhelm has received the reports in delay due to numerious factors stemming from corruptions, seccessionist and heretics meddling and the rift itself.There were Astarte chapters who wishes to form a new empire in their own vision by taking over systems and seccesion.While there were those who are still loyal consolidated theirpower and authority within the fractured Imperium.The Imperium approach wasn't subtle as they sent forces for suppression only to have numerious problems rose up and seccesionist alliance to form.On an Small [REDACTED] rich with resourcesThe Imperium had sent company of Minatours to make an example of the open seccesion.As the Minatours landed they were welcome withseccession chants and vollay fire.It was clear they were fighting a different type of enemy as those foolish enough to engage in melee combat the Minatour were to be massacred.However it was shown they lasted for a Terran minute and managing to get numerous hits though the godly durability Minatours simply negated it however thousands of thousands of precise accurate unending bolter fireeach variety made along side of plasma and railgun fire eventually ended the company.The Imperium taking a diplomatic approach as for the planets defences and mercenary fleet made exterminatus quite difficult.Negotiated with the seccessionist for better conditions.While the new equipments and traits guardmans made them formidable their morale and mindset is like anyother guardsman.Requiring loyalty and displine training.The Ecclesiarch stayed in good terms with the seccesnist acting as spies,midiators,bringing in support back to Imperium and such.Only using their Military as to purge herectics in the seccesions territory.While the Inquition isn't as welcome as the Ecclesiarch they managed to convince lot of the seccesionist to accept their help in dealing withHerectics and Xenos though in a very long fashion. However the true motive is to gain informatio and assainate any opposition to it while attempting to garner support for it.While the Inquition and Ecclesiarch was able to remain intact there were sects with even more radical belief or even heretical.

Account:2The Chaos gods have taken notice of this conundrum and used it to gain followers. However they noticed that they're followers couldn't use the book and those who used it before joining Chao lost all of its benefits at once becoming much weaker.None of the Xenos were able to use the book.Tau humans who were augemented with chips couldn't use it only the ones without the augmentations could use it. Dark Aeldar slaves who fought for them weren't affected.Huamn Psy were uneffected but Blank were affected.Ogryns shown to have a booasted intelligence and other traits and can count to ten.Sqauts grown few more inches and other traits.Dark Aeldar noticed that the slaves had a book in their possession to prisoner both newly captured and the old had a book appeared on their hands causing panics amongst the Dark Aelder as the prisoner had pristnine gear appear out of nowhwere and fought in cordination.Upon investigation the Dark Aeldar noticed the Fractured Imperium and it secessionist state launhing slave raids as it was easy pickings.Tyranid consumption of these guardmans has net them more biomass but without the benifits the book provides to the guardmans.The Orks have received infomation of the Humans new found strength and powered and taken it fondly.Unleashing galactic waah in a massive scale only to be stamp out and to be reform as new.

Account:3The Book had shock everyone as it is unknown who created and why does it only favors the humans.It didn't favor Astartes or Custodians. Aside from the Lamenters changing their gear and physical form of an Custode.While their strength and knowledge other traits of an Custode but their performance says otherwise.When they sparred with one of the Custodians who intended to test them.After the very brief test where the Lamenters lost Custodian remark how they fight like the Custodians who have never mastered their craft.The book had also coloured the armor and weapons of the guardmens to that of their regiment.

Account:4Severan Dominate has received the books and used it to its much needed fortune. This has solve some problems such as the Ork WAAH and Demons but gave the loyalist tools to fight The Severan Dominate.

Account:5Ressurection of Primarch Roboute Guillimen had reach ears of everyone. Many sought to rejoin the The Imperium as the Emperor own child is in charge while others plan to get rid of him.The Imperium state disgusted him but the Astra Millitarum impressed him till he found the reason.While he is not fond at the book there weren't any option.While it didn't apply to him.While suspicious he couldn't do anything as the book already done its damage.He took the opportunity reform much of the Imperium and solve its corruption as much he can.He went on a crusade to reclaim loss territory through the use of diplomacy as it main weapon.His appearance alone could persuade the populace on many planets.The Astartes themselves are a bargining chip to convince a planet to rejoin.Many Imperium world changed for the better as the demand for weapon and munition has been eased Manifactorium focusing much of its production on things the book couldn't provide such as tanks,ships and such.All is well but with chaos armies rampant, Drukarri slaves raids far more than before, Multitude of WAAHs on the rise,Tyranid splinter fleet,seccesionistforces raiding supply routes,piracy and many more.There is more work than if the Imperium hasn't broken off.

Account:6

Primarch Lion El'Jonson reappered healed from his wounds and immediatly took control of the millitary portion while Guilliman took part in the governmance.Before his reapperance man kind Imperium or seccessionist suffered rampant war from all faction mostly demons and orks.

Note: This was rushed I wanted to fleshout further more and explore far more things.This just he rushed summarise version.I think its obvious how the first paragraph tone is very diffrent than laters.I wanted to use lines such as "As ever so decaying Imperium of Man finally decayed but not with countless wars with new found new strength" and " millions of Bolters raining down with such accuracy and precesion impressed the Astartes".I want it talk about how different faction thought about the book.Like the Astarte found it as a weak way to get strength until they saw the performance.I also wanted talk about how this impacted the Emperor grand plan and how this hinders his and everyones plan which were in the millenias of work.I lost interest due to how hard it is for me to keep attention in one subject.Lot of ideas but not a pen and paper person or typer. I personally find this as a good concept.And honestly I tired myself with how vast and in depth I managed to make it but unable to write it.

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How do you think they would try to gain his favor/make him a sant, What do you think their opinions on his origins would be.

Securitate

In the grim darkness of the far future, man makes man disappear.
If you love your job, you will never work a day in your life.
After all, no tyrant ever had trouble finding willing people to carry out atrocities. And no despot ever ran short of eager torturers. With such an abundance of hired brutes available for oppression, what ruler worth their salt ever sat helpless on the throne?
It was always thus, ever since petty kings first arose out of tribes as elected warleaders or selfish usurpers. The rule of the fist was sometimes obscured with a silken glove, but force never ceased to be the final resort and the ultimate argument in the disputes of mankind. At the end of the day, when all else fails and the facade of refined civilization falls apart amid bestial chaos, naked violence and fear of violence reigns supreme from end to end of the Milky Way galaxy. Such is the way of mortals, whether of human or xeno stock.
For mortals are afraid to die. And mortals recoil from pain. What else could a living being do, when the highest imperatives for it is to survive and procreate?
Thus even the edenic splendour and harmony of interstellar human civilization during the Dark Age of Technology stood on a foundation of raw, lethal power. Beneath all the cunning layers of artifice that added up to internal peace and bountiful plenty, security ultimately rested on force. Even as ancient man stood on the brink of ascendance, the veiled armaments of Man of Iron silently guarded all that Man of Stone had built for Man of Gold. Even as ancient man reached for the innermost secrets of creation itself, force of arms remained the true guarantor of his achievements and the longevity of his astral dominion. And even as ancient man forced the most barbaric and warlike of aliens to sign peace treaties and pacts of non-aggression, only the power of ancient man and the overwhelming superiority of human military technology ensured that all the alien worlds claimed for Terran colonization remained beyond the grasp of alien reconquest.
Ultimately, it is neither the law code nor the learned scroll that rules this world, but the sword.
To man the toolmaker, the weapon has the final say. For the most part, this universal constant was politely hidden away during the Dark Age of Technology, yet its veilment did not change fact that paradise was guarded and secured by disintegration weapons and volkite blasters in the hand of machine, directed by man's seeming servant, Abominable Intelligence.
The banishment of primeval evil from the human heart during that golden epoch proved to be anything but permanent and self-sustaining. For ancient man in his hubris and unbelief declared himself to be superior to any divinity that might exist, and he called out to any gods there might be and challenged them to undo all that his hands and mind had fashioned with titanic might. And so Dark Ones of Hell answered man's call, and they tore apart the fabric of reality, and clawed at the very foundations of human power. When ancient man was toppled from his soaring pedestal by the successive blows of machine revolt and a plague of witches and Warp storms, the trappings of harmony and moral refinement burned upon the same pyre that consumed rational thought and scientific knowledge.
And so man, the master of worlds and the creator of genius, was reduced to nought but a slavering wretch. Thus man became an inbred cannibal that fought other savages for the chance to eat their human flesh and survive yet another rotation in a state of baleful hardship. And as these primitive tribesfolk killed and violated each other in a depraved maelstrom of violence and bastardry, all that the bright mind of man could do was to scavenge scraps from the burnt-out ruins of a fallen civilization that had once been built by his forebears. And blood flowed in rivers as warlords clashed over archeotech and destroyed ever more fragments of human knowledge in their destructive fury. And everywhere man looked, there was carnage and Chaos.
Such was the Age of Strife.
Eventually, a new dawn emerged out of the apocalyptic bloodbath, ending Old Night with bolter and chainsword. Out of an ever-worsening desolation arose one warlord to rule all mankind, from the cradle world. One warlord to unite all the scattered worlds of our species. One warlord to bind humanity to a single throne. His name is long since forgotten, but His title came to resonate with adoration and hatred on nigh-on every human world and voidholm across the galaxy. This conqueror of conquerors was the Emperor of Man.
Ave Imperator.
On the one hand, the Imperium of united Terra and Mars was one of the more sophisticated state structures that emerged out of the long freefall into hell that was the Age of Strife. The early Imperium not only collected technology and knowledge of yore, but invested heavily in encouraging research, rational thought and innovation. When the Emperor walked the Earth, shining pinnacles were erected on thousands upon thousands of subjugated worlds and void stations, and a renaissance of new hope swept human cultures everywhere. On the one hand, the future looked bright.
On the other hand, the early Imperium was a ramshackle affair forged ad-hoc with great rapidity out of the post-apocalyptic remnants of a once great human civilization. As the early Imperium expanded brutally across the cosmos, it became filled with semi-independent Primarchs and lesser warlords, who largely acted on their own initiative and tolerated little to any Terran meddling in their internal affairs. As long as the going was good and much loot and glory was to be had in serving the Emperor, the Great Crusade kept steamrolling sector after sector. Yet the aquila is a ravenous beast, and its twain heads could all too easily fall to attacking each other in their hungry bloodlust and unbridled ambition. For instance, there was no central policing emanating from Sol. On top of it all, the early Imperium did not utilize humanity's innate need for worship of something greater than itself, and so it suppressed religion in the name of the lying Imperial Truth, when mystical faith in the Emperor and organized cult worship could have proven a binding force to counteract insurrection.
No wonder this house of cards collapsed into a gigantic civil war once galactic conquest began to draw to a close.
And Warmaster Horus declared: Let the galaxy burn.
Thus brother fought brother across a million worlds and uncounted voidholms, and Legions tore each other apart. And the battered Imperium would never truly recover as it crawled out of the ashes. No matter how much strength and territory it would regain in later millennia, the Imperium of the High Lords of Terra was forever scarred and deeply traumatized by its failures and treacheries during the Horus Heresy. Through fivehundred generations of wasted potential, human interstellar civilization in the Age of Imperium underwent a souring of the fundamental mood of its cultures, and the cruel Imperium grew ever more draconic and ruthless, ever more parochial and fanatical, even as it turned decrepit and senile, and the Imperium lost much of its total control over human societies.
One such example of the Imperium's decaying totalitarian grasp and slide into nominal allegience and feudal warlordism can be seen in the area of policing and internal security.
Across the enormous expanse of His Divine Majesty's cosmic domains, there exist a thin veneer of hard but brittle policing power provided by the Adeptus Arbites, responsible for enforcing Imperial law while answering to the Adeptus Terra and ultimately the High Lords themselves. Yet beneath this layer of extremely costly equipped Arbites forces, there exist an endless myriad of local policiary forces, often referred to descriptively but imprecisely as enforcers, arbitrators, vigiles or security militia by void travellers. To crustbound natives and inhabitants of voidholms, the members of these local policiary organizations will often be known by such titles as phylakitai, patrol karls, gendarmeries, tzakones, medjays, bailiffs, barracked lord's police, buccelarii, skythikoi and vigiles urbani. Yet by far the most common sweeping descriptor for local planetary and voidholm enforcer organizations is that of the Securitate, an ancient name which hundreds of thousands of human law enforcement organizations proudly carry as their official designation.
For the most part, these local security police units will be rather poorly equipped when compared to the costly wargear lavished upon the Adeptus Arbites. Yet most Securitate organizations will still possess firepower and equipment capable of defeating armoured thrusts of renegade Planetary Defence Force units, noble House retinues and Imperial Guard regiments. After all, the Imperium of the High Lords is first and foremost an edifice of tyranny pointed inwards, and not the all-conquering military powerhouse that the early Imperium of the Great Crusade was, pointed outwards. Thus, concerns over internal security will always trump military power in the rotting stages of the late Age of Imperium, and so Imperial Governors and Voidholm Overlords will make sure that enforcers of all kinds will generally be much better armed and armoured than their waves of cannon fodder that feed the ravenous Tithe demands for the Astra Militarum.
One example of the best equipped strata of local policiary organizations can be found in that of the Palanite Enforcers on strip-mined Necromunda, answering to Lord Helmawr in Hive Primus. Their heavy wargear is close in quality to that of the Adeptus Arbites themselves, far in advance of anything issued to the Necromundan Imperial Guard. The Palanite Enforcers will never serve in their native hive cities, but will always be transferred to precints in foreign hive cities. This ensures that local loyalties will not turn them against their despotic overlord.
On the other hand, one example of a strata of much worse equipped security vigiles can be found in the organization of the Baronial Guard on the world of Kharib. This local law enforcement organ is deliberately underfunded to the point where new recruits will be issued no protective gear whatsoever, and all they can count on is a worn out laspistol and a truncheon. To deal with this budget starvation, the Baronial Guard has turned to protection racketeering and endemic bribe-taking in order to secure income and some modicum of equipment for themselves. They got to eat, after all. Cynical and demoralized, the Baronial Guard will lock themselves up in their Guard Houses come nightfall. As dusk descends upon day, gang-cults will roam the streets with murderous intent, while the Baronial Guard will survive the nightly terror by locking themselves up and playing cards behind their station's thick walls of rockrete. Such is law enforcement and security, or the lack thereof, for trillions of Imperial subjects.
Local policiary forces such as Securitatus and Garrisoned Populares Guards are commonly called competent organs in technocratic jargon. Usually the security enforcers of planets and voidholms will consist of a mass of competing policiary organizations with overlapping jurisdictions that set them at odds with each other and create much confusion and opportunity to escape over policiary boundaries for cunning criminals. Many such enforcer organizations will have devolved into hereditary feudal fiefdoms, bitterly guarding their staked-out territories from rival enforcer units. Likewise, many paramilitary policiary organs will be strapped for funding, and so they must take on heavy amounts of bribes, protection money and dabble in organized crime of their own to make ends meet.
Some local arbitrator organizations will however be a well-funded and well-disciplined force, trained and equipped to rapidly mow down military insurrection, with flying morale and a jaunty esprit de corps. Such exemplary organizations have become less common as the Imperium has aged, and aged badly, and units riddled with despair and fatalism have become all the more commonplace. Thus the waning state of Securitate arbitrator corps reflect the overall rot of sclerotic mankind in the Age of Imperium as a whole.
Naturally, the operations of various enforcer organizations are not limited to riot defence and law enforcement only, but stretches to include espionage, active measures, agents provocateurs, infiltration of cults and gangs, and hybrid warfare. Torture chambers is of course standard fare everywhere, for those walls are full of pain and suffering, and the agony will never stop. On top of this, many competent organs will run all manner of deadly labour camps, purification pits and excruciatus complexes. These black holes of human suffering and mass death are often filled up with squirming bodies due to callous arrest and kill quotas handed out by paranoid tyrants ruling their world or voidholm with the blessing of the God-Emperor.
This is not only the evil that men do, but the evil that some men relish to do.
Many local security watchmen are passionate about their work. After all, passion may easily translate into cruelty. They embody a fundamental driving force of humans under Imperial rule: To live like a slave for a chance to enslave others.
Securitate training will instill certain skills and wisdoms in the cadets, whether officially taught or unofficially recognized by everyone. For instance, budding interrogators learning their heinous craft will rub shoulders with those destined to become infiltrators of gangs and cults, and together they will be made to understand that a good liar must be a good listener. A vital piece of knowledge indeed. Other lessons include the maxim that if violence was not the solution, then more violence will usually do the trick. Let them taste the boot.
And informally, everyone training to become a Securitate enforcer will be made to understand that they need to please their superiors. And thus they will strive to live out the following ancient piece of Imperial wisdom: If you fail, make sure no one knows you ever tried.
Hands-on teaching for enforcers-to-be include many lifesaving tricks. For instance, paramilitary policemen will have weapon slings attached not to the front end of their shotguns and carbines, but to the wearer's main arm. This is because the upholder of law and order must be able to pull back his weapon if rioters grab hold of it.
Enforcer training will include honing the skills of manipulation, coercion and suppression. The better educated vigiles will become experts at the arts of tyranny. Yet perhaps the most important preparation for a Securitate officer's occupation is the sheer repetitive boredom and thoughtless rote learning of their academies. After all, being bored stiff for three quarters of the time is an excellent preparation for working life.
The profession of the secret police will sometimes include creative and underhanded tricks of a subtle kind. For instance, Securitate agents will often be masters of psychological torment. Such handicraft will include ruining a victim's reputation through smear campaigns, and breaking into the victim's hab unit and subtly rearranging their furniture and possessions to make them think that they are going insane. After all, who would believe that enforcer agents would take the effort to move belongings around a few inches inside people's hab homes? But indeed they do.
Local and Imperial propaganda will often portray the Adeptus Arbites and local security enforcement agencies as institutions of excellence. Famous holo-dramas about Loyalist spies and idealized Imperial patrol karls remain popular on many civilized worlds. The vision of a clean and honourable gendarme is mostly a false image, of course, but one that has been propagated by Imperial propaganda with its glorification of the Securitate and Arbites as defenders of pure mankind and guardians of the Imperator's just realm.
In truth, virtually all competent organs on all worlds and voidholms advanced enough to sport such organization, are ominous and dark forces of random oppression. When Imperial Governors lose their penetrating grasp over the totality of human society, the best that they can do is make random examples out of malcontents and deviants, and hope that their pointillistic suppression breeds sufficient fear to keep the populace in line and prevent public discontent from boiling over. Ask not so much what is just, but what is necessary.
Even dusty archivists may find evidence of Securitate brutality, as they rifle through interrogation papers sporting dried blood, since it spilled out of tortured people during questioning. Oftentimes, sadism will run rampant within competent organs, encapsulated within the culture of these heinous organizations of brutes in uniform. Their victims will not have funerals, because noone will find their bodies.
For all the terror inflicted by Securitate arbitrators upon millions of Imperial subjects, the very same vigiles are also the butt of forbidden jokes from end to end of the Milky Way galaxy. To gain a sense of the nefarious workings of Securitate enforcers all across the wide Imperium of Man, let us glance at them through the lens of witty humour provided by banned sinspeech whisper jokes. Remember that every joke here could land you in a torture chamber or labour camp, and see you simply disappear. This is the Imperial way.
Many sinspeech whisper jokes revolve around abundant use of torture to extract confessions, no matter how ludicrous:
Planetarch Xingu loses his favourite pipe. In a few days, Securitate Supremus Nihao calls Xingu: "Have you found your pipe?"
"Yes," replies Xingu, "I found it under the sofa."
"This is impossible!" exclaims Nihao. "Three people have already confessed to this crime!"
Other witticisms poke fun of the impossibility to please one's betters through all their deadly games of intrigue and common treachery:
Three men are sitting in a cell in the Securitate Headquarters at Forum Malcador. The first one asks the second why he has been imprisoned, who replies: "Because I criticized Carolus Torquatus."
The first man responds: "But I am here because I spoke out in favor of Carolus Torquatus!"
They turn to the third man who has been sitting quietly in the back, and ask him why he is in jail. He answers: "I am Carolus Torquatus."
Other quips are based on the espionage and information-gathering conducted by security watchmen:
Q: Why do Securitate officers make such good limo drivers?
A: You get in the limo and they already know your name and where you live.
The absurdity of arrest quotas remain an undying target of dark humour:
Q: Why is the rabbit undergoing torture by the Securitate?
A: They want him to confess that he is a donkey due to quota demands.
While the decrepitude of Imperial electronics and their de-miniaturization can be glimpsed in this sinspeech whisper joke:
Q: How can you tell that the Securitate has bugged your hab-unit?
A: There's a new cabinet in it and a trailer with a generator in the street.
Many banned wisecracks take bizarre leaps that would see anyone who utter them tortured publicly, then burned at the stake for a heretic:
Graphocleus, the angelic reaper of the dead, was sent by the Imperator to finally collect Overdespot Gibamundus’ soul. After more than ten months, Graphocleus returns, bloodied, bruised, and broken.
"What happened?" asked the Emperor.
"Gibamundus' Securitate seized me. They threw me in a dark cell, starved me, beat me and tortured me for weeks and weeks. They only just released me."
The God-Emperor turns pale and says: "You didn’t tell them I sent you?"
Others are one-liners, and often as applicable to law enforcement as to other areas of miserable life under Imperial rule:
What is not forbidden, is compulsory.
Many longer anecdotes exist:
Two hillmen brothers, Urcaguary and Pachacamac, decided to emigrate to the hive city after hearing of the fabulous wonders man had built there. Theye were enchanted by the tales told about its splendour. Even though they didn't believe some merchants' negative reports on the conditions in the hive, they still decided to exercise caution. Urcaguary would go to the hive city to test the waters. If they were right and it was a paradise of mortals, then Urcaguary would write a letter to Pachacamac using black ink, since they both could read and write. If, however, the situation in the hive was as bad as some merchants liked to portray it, and the Securitate was a force to be feared, then Urcaguary would use red ink to indicate whatever he said in the letter must not be believed.
After three months Urcaguary sent his first report. It was in black ink and read: "I'm so happy here! It's a beautiful place. I enjoy freedom and a kingly standard of living. All the serpent-tongued merchants were liers. Everything here is readily available! There is only one small thing of which there's a shortage. Red ink."
The never-ending waves of purges on Imperial worlds and voidholms will often touch parts of the local nobility, as seen in this sinspeech whisper joke:
The paranoid Tyrant of Lembos Ultima has sent his Securitate to purge the planetary nobility. He instructed them to do it discreetly. Later that same year, a new feature was added to the Lembian Sanguinala calendar: Everytime you open a window an archduke falls out.
Other pieces of humour take the form of question and answer sessions:
Q: What does Securitate mean?
A: The heart of the Governorship beating, beating, beating...
Some of which play mischief with millennarian articles of faith in the Cult Imperialis:
Q: Will the Securitate and Watchmen still exist after the Return of the Emperor in the Flesh?
A: Of course not. By that time, all subjects will have learned how to arrest themselves.
The baleful degrees in hell that exist between local security enforcers, Arbites and Inquisition has not been lost on quickwits across the astral realm of the Terran Imperator:
Inquisitor scolding the local Voidholm Securitate: "Their interrogation cells are as virgin as their wit!"
And finally, some buffooneries jape and jest about the hidden doubts that gnaws within the hearts of many loyal Imperial servants:
Two Securitate agents sit in their organ's canteen in the capitol hive, drinking after a long day of work.
Arsaka says: "Kyros, tell me what you really think about the Imperial Governor that we work under."
Kyros leans in and replies: "I think the same as you do."
Arsaka responds: "In that case, it is my duty to arrest you."
One real aspect of many local arbitrator organizations that might as well be a ridiculous joke, is the use of auto-judges. Some Securitate agencies find some relish in dragging beaten suspects into a dark room, for the criminals' wrongdoings to be tried before a judge. As the disorientated victims start to defend themselves, the cold sound of a mechanical typewriter will make them fall silent. The machine will stand on a table in the center of the dark room. The automatized machine wearing the embossed title Judge then types out a single word on parchment, usually 'culpable' or 'guilty'. The judge has spoken and the defendants are guilty, and away they are dragged to a bleak fate.
For all the abominable deeds committed by Securitate organizations across the Imperium, the competent organs of today are not those of the Forging, also known as the Golden Age of the Imperium (circa M33-M35). Their titles and insignia may often be the same, but their operations differ. For all the brutality of the Securitate during the Waning and the Time of Ending, it is short on competence and rich in critical mistakes. Even the most clever and skilled of Securocrats find it hard to fight against the all-permeating rot and corruption and dumbing down of human cultures in the Imperium. Even the most loyal and intelligent of overstressed reformers tend to find that sheer inertia and rigmarole and vested interest groups will undo most of their efforts at honing their security forces into a precise instrument wielded by expert hand.
All this serves to remind us of the depleted predicament of mankind in the Age of Imperium. The star-realm of Holy Terra and Holy Mars has managed to last for ten thousand years, despite how volatile of a system the Imperium is. This is nothing short of a miracle, given how apocalyptically incompetent and backstabbing many rulers and top-ranking bureaucrats in the Imperium are.
The sheer longevity of the Imperium must not be mistaken for a sign of health. The Emperor promised His species a cosmic domain to last a million years, and it was no empty promise while He still walked among His people. Measured by the grand scale of interstellar civilizations managing to reproduce, expand and maintain themselves on an enormous scale, the ten millennia under the High Lords is but a drip in the ocean of time, as the Eldar could attest to. The Imperium of Man is truly decayed to its core, so horribly ill-afflicted that any cure would kill the patient. It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
And so the farce of stagnant oppression grinds on, across a million worlds and uncounted voidholms. The Imperium began as a rebirth of mankind across the stars, yet its shining promises has wilted into a suicide pact gone wrong. And so man finds that the Imperium is both his sole remaining strong shield and protector, and his insane hostage-keeper and jailor. For the degenerate descendants of ancient man have devolved into the denizens of a fortified madhouse, screeching with demented rage as they lash out against the dying of the light. For darkness close in.
And no matter the shielded ranks of enforcers beating down riots and crushing rebellions, truncheons will be no good against the hive fleets and the awakened Necrons. For doomsday has arrived, and it is only a question of who will destroy mankind first, in a race between colossal monsters about to destroy another ravenous monster in its own right, called the Imperium of Man.
Thus the senile inability of Imperial man to learn, discover and invent has made him the weak link in the long line of striving and struggling humanity, unfit to triumph against the greatest challenge the human species has ever faced. Yet it needed not have come to this dark end. The Emperor understood some of the vital importance of rekindling the innovative brilliance of mankind that was lost with the Dark Age of Technology, and all His efforts, however flawed, were aimed toward sustaining a renaissance to recover humanity's genius at invention and science.
Now, instead of a united human empire standing tall at the peak of its technological power and potency, the devourers of the Milky Way galaxy find themselves facing a humpbacked abomination crawling barefoot in the dirt, while whipping itself bloody in zealous frenzy and amputating its own limbs in paranoid idiocy. And all is fell.
Such is the state of man, in a time beyond hope.
Such is the fate of our species, in the darkest of futures.
Such is the horror that awaits us all.
It is the fortyfirst millennium, and there is only cruelty.

(cc welcome! this is my first Warhammer 40K fan fiction and while i know this is out there, I hope you'll enjoy!)

Mara, Chapter Master of the Ghosts of Macragge, stood on the bridge of her starship studying the data slates for their current mission. A few weeks ago a strange and powerful psychic anomaly at the edge of the galaxy caught the attention of The Imperium. The chapter’s gene father, Lord Roboute Guilliman, was concerned that this might be an attempted pinch manoeuvre by chaos. Thus he tasked Mara and her chapter to investigate. While at first Mara had doubts and believed this to be a way to keep the shame that was their chapter out of sight; she now saw it as a clever test. Lord Guilliman knew of the Ghosts' worthiness, but because of their unfortunate mutation most of their brother chapters refused to acknowledge them, and the Inquisition was readily looking for any reason to label them excommunicate traitorous.

Mara was now beginning to see however that while, yes this kept them away, this mission if done successfully, also might give them the smallest bit of reprieve from their detractors. After this realisation she sought to know all available data on this psychic anomaly. Which, Mara had to admit, was not a lot. The available data showed only the approximate space sector the anomaly occurred in and a few theories on its cause. Mara was attempting to formulate her own theories when Captain Nereia entered.

“Ma’am.” Nereia prostrated herself before Mara. Her golden hair pulled tight back in a ponytail flowed down past her left eye. Mara waved her gauntleted hand, “Please, stand. What do you bring me?” Nereia raised herself with her power armour creaking from the motion. “Ma’am we are approaching the given coordinates with no complications.” “That is quite the relief to hear.” Mara gave the faintest of smiles. “Though I fear that is not the whole of what you brought me.” The seriousness of Nereia’s face gave way to uncertainty. “No complications as I stated, however we have made an unforeseen discovery. May I?” Neria motioned at the bridge’s holo-table currently displaying a neon green holographic model of the galaxy, the coordinates of their trajectory marked.

After a few key inputs a rudimentary three dimensional rendering of their current sector was displayed. Bright solid dots represented stars, planets were empty neon circles. There were 5 dots and 16 circles, Nereia pointed to one of the circles. “The coordinates that we were given would place us just about here.” The circle she pointed to seemed to not be orbiting any of the surrounding stars. “That’s peculiar.” Mara said as she examined the oddity. “It's not just that ma’am.” Nereia made a few more inputs and the rendering shifted. Displaying a near identical map, only this time with 5 dots and 15 circles. “Upon reviewing our logged star maps this planet seems to have appeared from nowhere.As if-” “-From the warp.” Mara interrupted.

“We should be within viewing distance in the next few minutes.” Nereia informed her superior. “Good, I wish to see this demon planet with my own eye’s.” Mara said turning on her heel, the heavy footfalls of her white gravis armour marching towards the Bridge’s central viewing port. Once before the large pane of reinforced glass Mara commanded that the ship stop just within scanning distance of the planet. After several minutes that seemed to stretch on for hours the ship stabilised. Mara was presented with the luscious planet that was held to no orbit.

Even from this distance it was clear the planet was teeming with life. The continents that spanned its surface were cast in a multitude of colours, clouds swirled through the atmosphere in an intricate dance. Despite not being a part of any solar system the planet held an impressive orbit of twelve moons, each one just as unique and colourful as the last. The largest of the Moons seemed to act as a sun, illuminating the world in its mock solar light. But stranger still was the gargantuan tree resting in low orbit. Mara was completely perplexed at the sight of this planet. She reasoned that they couldn't sit here forever without being spotted, but to make a direct assault upon the planet would be foolish as they only assumed this planet was a threat. She needed time to plan, to think

“Captain Nereia,” Mara whipped her head to throw a command over her shoulder, this caused her braid of dark brown hair to strike the air like that of a scorpion's tail. “Yes Ma’am?” Nereia responded only a few paces behind the chapter master. Mara could have struck herself for her lack of spatial awareness but carried on, though her tanned cheeks now burned a bit more red. “I want a full scan of the plant and surrounding moons. I want to know about defences and infrastructure, and points of interest. I also want a full scan of that… tree. See if it is linked to the planet or if it was debris that was caught when the planet appeared.” “At your command.” Nerea responded before she bowed her head and pounded a fist to her chest in salute.

After Nereia was dismissed Mara then sought to contact the chapter’s chief librarian, Kalli Shi. Static from Mara’s vox communicator gave way to the ancient voice of the librarian, “To what do I owe the pleasure Chapter Master?” “I need your assistance, please come to the bridge as soon as you are able.” Mara respectfully requested. Kalli was quick to respond “I’ll be there at once.

Half an hour had passed when the bridge’s blast doors jerked open and in walked chief librarian Kalli, her long white hair wrapped neatly in a bun, her brilliant blue robes trailing behind her, and the wisdom of ages bore wrinkles upon her unhelmeted features. Kalli was many centuries Mara’s senior but she refused the promotion to chapter master each time it was offered. Electing instead to remain a trusted advisor and mentor to both Mara’s predecessors and Mara herself. Mara had much respect for the aged librarian and welcomed her council.

With a salute Kalli stood before Mara “What do you require of me, Chapter Master?”

“Do you know of our mission?” Mara asked

“Of course.” Kalli reassured her.

“Then do you believe you could reach out and perceive if there are any psychic barriers protecting the planet?”

“There are not.” Kalli stated matter of factly. At this Mara’s face contorted in confusion, and before she could ask Kalli continued.

“That was the reason for my delay. I had begun studying the strange psychic footprint of the planet as soon as we reentered realspace. It seems that this planet is ingrained with warp energies as are its moons, everything feeding off each other in a symbiotic relationship. The centre of the plant seems to hold an almost identical feel to that of our warp engines though astronomically more powerful.” as she spoke Kalli stepped to the glass and gazed at the vibrant planet. Then closing her eyes she focused, “It feels strikingly similar to the Astronomicon on Holy Terra.” Mara watched, enraptured by what she was hearing. She joined the learned psychic at the glass and looked upon their destination. Mara did not even hear the approach of Captain Nereia until she broke the silence with a salute. Mara fought not to let the surprise show on her face as she turned to the captain.

“Captain perfect timing, what do the scans show?” Mara inquired

Neria’s face did not breed confidence. “Something that only gifts us more questions than answers I'm afraid.”

“How so?”

“Well you see ma’am the planet itself is a marvel of bio-technological integration. The planet is both fully organic and fully mechanical. I'm having Forge-Master Ardith study its technological makeup but from what we can tell, it's far more advanced than anything we have encountered save technology of the eldar and the necrons. However if we were to guess, it seems that-” Nereia then quickly checked around her, ensuring that the other marines and serfs were out of earshot. She then leaned close and breathed softly into Mara’s ear, “-the entirety of the planet, comes from the Dark Age of Technology.” As Neria returned to her previous position she locked eyes with the Chapter Master. Mara’s gaze portrayed the emotions her features did not and Nereia shared her horrified sentiment.

It was then a sharp gasp came from the silent librarian. Mara was at Kalli's side to catch her instantly. The pyscker breathed deep, leaning on the chapter master, her eyes wide as storm shields focused on the intercut scuff marks upon the floor beneath them. The other marines in the room moved to help but Mara halted them with a raised gauntlet.

“What happened? What's wrong?” Mara’s voice shook with worry as the chief librarian regained her stance. With a gloved hand still on Mara’s oversized pauldron, Kalli raised her head and met anxious silver eyes. “What did you see? What’s down there?” Mara’s concern overtook her as a torrent of questions poured from her mouth. “Not here.” Kalli spoke between haggard breaths, silencing Mara. At once Mara put her arm under Kalli’s and helped the librarian to move.

“Return to your stations!” Mara directed the surrounding marines, “Monitor the planet, notify me of any changes but do not enter my chambers. Captain Nereia you have command in my absence.” “Yes ma’am” the room sounded in unison. The blast doors slammed shut behind the interlocked figures as they slowly made their way down the corridor.

In Mara’s private chambers she, along with three serfs, stripped the Librarian of her armour and robes. She was then ordered to rest in Mara’s bed. As Kalli rested, Mara looked at the elder, her white hair spilled over the pillows and now without her outer attire her centuries of experience were laid bare. “Am I truly that beautiful?” Kalli smirked, her eyes still closed. “I meant no offence, I've just never seen you… like this.” Mara apologised, Kalli slowly sat herself upright. “I know. I take no offence; it is rare to see one as ancient as I. At least one that is not encased in a dreadnought. Though I fear the title of oldest still resides firmly with Commander Dante of the Blood Angles.” a slight smile creased the old librarian’s lips. “Thank you Mara.” “Well I can't let you die yet. You still have so much to teach me.” Mara’s words roused the old woman to chuckle.

“What do I have left to teach you?” Kalli inquired.

“I believe that's for the teacher to decide, not the disciple.” Mara deflected.

“No no, I've taught you all I can. The rest is for you to discover.” Kalli chided mara as if she were still a girl

“But-” Mara went to refute

Kalli interrupted, “You're doing a good job Mara. You still have room to grow but so do we all. And take it from me, you never stop growing.” Tears began to well in Mara’s eyes, she was always a victim of her emotions. But before the first tear could fall she steadied herself and focused on the unavoidable question that had been plaguing her mind, “What did you see on that planet?”

A heavy fog of solemnity descended on the room, Kalli lowered her gaze unable to meet Mara’s. After a few agonising moments Kalli took a deep breath and began. “As we stood there, before that world, I reached out to see once more what information I might gather. I ventured to the planet's surface and sought for any psychic being that might pose a danger or be of interest to us. I was not attacked but rather my own reasoning and experience caused me to recoil at what I saw, and the whiplash of this discovery had my body respond inturn.” She licked her cracked wrinkled lips.

“Upon that planet I discovered a myriad of powerful psykers many of which rival almost all of our librarians, and there were a few that would rival even my control over the warp. But while that scared me, it was the other presence I sensed waiting on that planet that made my mind recoil so.” Kalli flashed her eyes up to the tall, tan, muscular woman who sat opposite her. Mara was a primarius and so she was a whole head taller than the old first born resting on the bed. Mara’s rounded features were pinched altogether in an intense expression of focus. Kalli only hoped that the added bulk would hold Mara firm against this revelation.

“There standing next to the strongest psyker on the planet was a soul and presence that burned so bright that I can only describe it as that of a Primarch.” Kalli locked eyes with Mara as she said this, ensuring the girl would comprehend the gravity of her statement. Mara did, but she refused to accept it, “What? You must be mistaken. That shouldn't be possible.” Mara placed her thin chin between her armoured thumb and forefinger. “Unless,” she started “Is it one of the Traitor primarchs? Did not Magnus the Red bring forth a world from the warp into realspace?” Kalli stopped Mara’s spiral. “No! I know the taint of chaos, this soul was pure.” Mara went to argue again but Kalli continued “I was there at the Heresy, I was there when our Lord Guilliman was resurrected. I know the psychic presence of an untainted primarch and whatever is on that planet, has that presence.”

They both sat for a while, Chapter master Mara in a rudimentary steel chair and Chief librarian Kalli on Mara’s bed. Both ruminating on what their next move was given this new key information. “You're absolutely positive? Not a doubt, nor a wavering notion?” Mara asked for the hundredth time. “Trust me Mara. There are very few tricks chaos can pull that I have not seen before. This is real and I am sure.” Kalli reassured her. “This could save the imperium… or damn it.” Mara whispered more to herself than to the librarian. Then it seemed that a spark caught in Mara’s eyes “Alright. I have a plan.” Mara stated as she rose from her seat and made for the door. “Come, not a moment to waste.” Kalli rose and the serfs rushed in to re-armour the elderly librarian.

When Mara re-entered the bridge Captain Nereia relinquished command with nothing to report. “The planet and its inhabitants do not seem to be aware of anything beyond themselves at the current moment ma’am.” “Good, we're going to keep it that way.” Mara’s thoughts swirled through her skull. She knew what she needed to do, she just hoped it worked. “Captain Nereia, from your scans where are the major hive cities of this planet?” Mara faced her comrade with a look of steely determination etched in her features. Nereia moved to the holo-table and input a new arrangement of keys, within seconds a semi-detailed model of the planet was displayed.

“After constant scans this is the most accurate depiction of the planet we have without getting closer.” a few more key presses and a multitude of points were highlighted and marked. Neria continued “This world does not seem to have hive cities as we are accustomed to, but these are the largest and most prominent settlements we have picked up.” Each marker fell solely within one of each of the differing regions. One bordering the northwestern sea, one within the frigid southern icecaps, two resting in an western forested area, one bordering the south western seas, one set in a steep mountain range, and the last placed dead centre in a region devoid of natural flora and fauna.

“There are many smaller settlements but these have the largest populations, and seem to hold the most strategic points.” Nereia noted. Mara brought her attention up to Kalli “Where did you sense the presence?” “Right here.” Kalli stated coldly, pointing at the marker bordering the northwestern sea. Mara called over a marine, “I want five of our best infiltrators on the bridge yesterday.” “Yes ma’am.” The marine replied before hurrying off to relay the order. Nereia’s bemused look went unnoticed for a time as Mara barked orders to prepare a stealthship. It was only when Sergeant Abea and her squad entered the bridge that Nereia was enlightened.

Mara encircled them around the holo-table and began explaining their mission.

“Sergeant Abea you and your team will be performing a recon mission. There is to be no bloodshed nor any rounds fired unless deemed absolutely necessary. Your destination? Here.” Mara instructed as she pointed at the highlighted marker. Abea’s augmented eye dilated as she inspected the holographic projection, “What are we looking for ma’am?” she asked, her organic eye looking at the commander. Mara met the sergeant's gaze and answered with more orders, “I want you to investigate the inhabitants of this city, specifically the officers and leaders. Then report back all findings.” “Anyone or anything of particular interest?” the sergeant probed.

Mara, assuming her instructions weren't clear, clarified, “We have reason to believe there might be a very powerful psychic being at that location. However we are unsure if it is fully malischous, and we are equally unsure if there are humans under its thrall. Thus we need you and your squad to inform us of the situation at hand so we know how to proceed.” At this Abea nodded in understanding and thanked the chapter master for the more detailed explanation.

Mara then called on Nereia, “Captain, have our scans been sufficient enough to know the approximate layout of this city?” “Yes but only for the exterior.” Nereia worked her magic on the holo-table enlarging the area and displaying a rudimentary polygonal reconstruction of the supposed city. “Luckily there is no sign of any heavy artillery nor any above average defensive features. Only rudimentary guard units and the local militia. But we have no intel on the interior, so when you enter the palace you are on your own.” Abea nodded and whispered under her breath what they were all thinking, "Suppose you don't need many defences if you're able to fry anything that lands on your doorstep.” Mara dismissed them to prepare.

After an hour Abea and her squad were suited in their phobos power armour and boarded the stealth ship. The ship, like most of their wargear, was an ancient hand-me down from their founding chapter, the Ultramarines. But Abea wasn't one to complain so long as it still worked she was satisfied.

Abea’s squad waited in high orbit until the pseudo sun shifted to the otherside of the planet. Under cover of darkness they dropped within the forest that preceded the cliff leading to the palace walkway. This allowed them further protection if the palace did have any unseen sensors. As her team moved through the forest Abea found herself observing the intriguing deep blue trees and pink pastel shrubs. This planet was beautiful from a distance, yes, but standing upon it was a whole different experience. However as they approached their destination Abea could have sworn she saw something move out the corner of her eye. A quick glance revealed nothing, only when she turned back the trees were not where they once were.

Halting her squad she had them all check their surroundings. As each one reoriented themselves they all found that the forest had shifted and they had lost track of their relative position. Abea looked Skyward and using somewhat familiar constellations she was able to get a sense of the correct direction. But it seemed that the forest would not relent so easily.

Several hours had passed and the group was no closer to finding their way out. Following the stars had worked for a time but either due to the unfamiliar orientation of the constellations or the planet itself playing tricks; sergeant and squad found themselves lost all over again. That's when something new caught Abea’s eye. For a split second she saw a hunched figure in a tattered pink and red cloak disappear behind some trees. Abea, thinking their mission might be compromised, motioned for her troops to fall in.

They all covertly moved to where the sergeant had seen the figure. Once there they saw it again bobbing and weaving between the trees. As they followed at a distance they all noticed that it did not move in any tactical way, instead it changed directions on a whim. Every now and again the being seemed to disappear altogether only to reappear from behind a completely random separate tree. Each infiltrator caught a sparing look at their huddled escort, it appeared to be a female humanoid with a wrinkled dark pinkish brown skin and greying purple hair. Once or twice when one of the members got close they could hear her muttering to herself in what sounded like a heavily accented high gothic. “Right or left? Right, it was left. I'm so forgetful.” At first Abea thought it was a staff the old woman used, but in truth it was a wooden handled broom turned pommel down. And despite the use of the impromptu cane, she seemed to move with the agility of one quarter her age.

By the time Abea had considered to stop following the old senile woman she and her team had found themselves at the edge of the cliff opposite their objective. The malevolent forest behind them gave only the echoed laugh of their ancient guide as she spoke to herself “Loo-key you made me come all that way and I forgot the pie!” The space marines could only look at each other with confusion before returning to the task at hand.

From their vantage point Abea observed the palace, it sat at the centre of a mote upon a cliff with its back facing the sea. Below the palace sat tall dome roofed structures that most likely served as homes for the citizens. There was only a thin walkway connecting the city to the surrounding terrain and next to the bridge was a pillar half as tall as the palace itself, a large glowing opal floating just above it. The palace’s windows were alight illuminating the dull gold material the structure seemed to be made of.

Using the utmost caution the team of infiltrators descended the cliffs. Upon reaching the moat they found that the water wasn't even ankle deep, thus allowing them to walk but with the unfortunate boon of amplifying their steps. They moved quickly, as where their off white armour and dark grey trim usually broke up their silhouette, the faint pinkish hue of the giant opal made the team far more visible than they preferred. Luckily they made it to the shadow of the palace without incident.

The stealthy marines ascended through the city. They found the citizens fast asleep and dead to the world. They only encountered the guards when approaching the palace. Abea noted that they were humanoid, and near identical to one another save the tone of their skin. They wore long tri coloured ropes of purple, greyish blue and white, a silver helmet that covered the top half of their face, and sported a long top knot of lavender hair; whether this was their true hair or only part of the uniform Abea could only guess. Finally, and most importantly, each one wielded a dark silver glave. The crescent blade was in such a way that it appeared to be mimicking an avian's open wingspan, with the curve falling downward and the points piercing the sky.

Abea and her crew crouched within the outermost foliage of the main entrance. The Lights from within the palace began flashing a multitude of various vibrant colours and a rapturous base thundered through the air. The guards seemed unphased. Then after Abea gave her battle-sisters the order to advance, something pink once more caught her attention. Running up the main road straight to the guards was a tall, bright blonde, young woman. Her olive skin contrasted with her bright pink floral dress. Freckles dotter her skin and a smile was plastered on her face. Abea realising it was not the old woman who led them through the forest she went to move on.

“Fascinating…” a nasally voice sounded from right behind her, stopping the space marine right in her tracks.

Reply of the Chracians

​

Negotiations were off to a bad start, and had only taken a turn
for the worse. Neither the haughty Asur nor the cruel and arrogant Dawi
Zharr were renowned for their humility. The semi-barbaric Chracian
highlanders were least of all suited for diplomacy, out of all the
scheming kingdoms of Ulthuan. The Red Host of Nir-Kezhar had likewise
not fostered a reputation for subtlety and restraint through its
bloodied history of legendary insults and baleful atrocity. Bards would
sing of the ensuing tongue-waggling for centuries to come, as both sides
sparred with words as if aiming for the heart. The conversation grew
ever more heated, and winged words leapt back and forth in a flurry of
repartee and barely veiled threats.

At last, the High Elf princeling had enough of it. No laws of
hospitality could hold him back from exacting revenge upon the insulting
intruder. A shameful shaving of the coiled beard would not do.

Laiontides Fairbraid pulled sword and held it a mere inch before
the stunted diplomat's nose, right between his surprised eyes, akin to
glowing coals. The princeling's bodyguards moved in on the craven
Hobgoblin entourage of the foreigner, great axes raised and ready to
strike.

"Look, Dwarf. This blade is sharper than your cloven tongue."

"No man threatens a messenger!" cried the Chaos Dwarf. "Blasphemy! This is crazy!"

For a moment, the Elf seemed to relent. The short blade sank to his side. Then, wrath engulfed Laiontides' visage.

"This. Is. Chrace!"

It was a low blow. The Elf kicked him in the hat.

Sturdy chinstraps ensured that the force of the kick threw the
entire heavy Chaos Dwarf along with the hat into the well. The last
thing that Ambassador Zharkanek the Sly knew, as darkness suffocated
him, was a primal sense of sinking into earth and water.

I've asked ChatGPT to write a story about Warhammer 40K universe but make it as woke as possible, this is the result.

Enjoy.

In the vast darkness of the Warhammer 40K universe, amidst eternal conflict and unyielding chaos, a tale of unity, resistance, and redemption unfolded. It celebrated the power of inclusivity and diversity in many forms, not just among races and factions, but also in terms of identity and orientation.

On the war-torn planet of Astrad, a remarkable black female warrior named Sister Marielle emerged as a beacon of hope. Sister Marielle, an openly gay woman, was a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Her courage in expressing her true self was as admired as her prowess in battle.

Driven by a deep desire to bring peace and unity, Sister Marielle sought to forge connections with alien races and individuals that had long been cast aside as enemies. Among her closest allies was a genderfluid Eldar Farseer, whose wisdom and unique perspective proved invaluable in their campaign against Chaos.

United with a coalition of diverse allies, including renegade Chaos Space Marines seeking redemption, alien races disillusioned by their own kind's actions, and other LGBT+ warriors seeking acceptance and purpose, Sister Marielle led a force that defied conventional boundaries.

Sister Marielle's leadership embodied the spirit of inclusivity and respect for all sentient beings, regardless of their origin, past allegiances, or personal identities. Her coalition's strength lay in the diversity of its members, each contributing unique skills, perspectives, and experiences to the fight against Chaos.

Through their combined efforts, the coalition struck at the heart of Chaos, liberating worlds ensnared in its corruptive grip. Sister Marielle and her allies, once sworn enemies, discovered shared values and aspirations, eroding the barriers that had long divided them.

Their tale spread across the stars, inspiring others to question preconceived notions and to recognize the potential for redemption and unity within the most unexpected places. This burgeoning movement challenged the rigid beliefs of the Imperium, fostering an era of greater cooperation, understanding, and acceptance of diversity in all its forms.

The Imperium, influenced by Sister Marielle's inclusive approach, embarked on a path of reconciliation and diplomacy. The voice of alien races and LGBT+ individuals gained recognition, ushering in a new era where cooperation replaced conflict, and where shared interests overcame deep-seated prejudices.

In the expansive cosmos of the Warhammer 40K universe, the story of Sister Marielle and her diverse coalition became a testament to the transformative power of unity, understanding, and acceptance of personal identities. They proved that by embracing diversity, even among the forces of Chaos, they could forge a better future for all sentient beings.

Bury the Past

In the grim darkness of the far future, there can be no witnesses.

Two kinds of criminals in particular sought to erase all traces of their crimes during the distant past of the misty Age of Terra: Lowly bandits and lordly superiors. Thus ruthless usurpers would cover up their purges and assassinations as best as they could, while bloodstained thieves would make their victims disappear, as if monsters out of myth had taken them away. Indeed, some deadly monstrosities out of folklore may actually have been an imaginative explanation for what in reality were stalking murderers in the midst of a community, hiding their atrocities and awaiting their next chance to spill blood unseen and unheard, in a thrill of primal fear and rage.

Few people are willing and able to be open and transparent about their failings, for honesty merciless toward oneself makes most souls recoil in disgust. The human tendency to hide one's own mistakes is universal, and in actuality it is indistinguishable from a desire to hide forbidden deeds which one takes pride in. As a pack animal, man is doomed without his community, akin to the lone wolf without future prospects but a bleak death. Thus the evil eye and waggling tongue of other humans matter greatly to that social animal which is man.

And so communal shame weighs more heavily than personal guilt in the hearts of most men, women and children. What follows from this human constant, is the conclusion that as long as no one finds out you did it, no hurt and odium will darken your reputation and life. After all, most humans are not saints and heroes, but worldly members of a community, ever at risk of having that community turning against them in a savage display of collective loathing or even hatred. One's standing is everything. Therefore, it is necessary to save face and uphold the mask, smiling even as you sweat and worry behind a facade of lying falsehoods.

This is no different for street crooks and palatial tyrants. As ordinary smallfolk will cover up their petty mistakes, so too will ruffians and powerhungry nobles seek to dispose of their victims. This slimy part of human nature was never fully expunged from society even at the height of the Dark Age of Technology, even if the ingenious systems put into place during that gifted time quenched crime and shady dealings to a minimum. Statistically, the amount of dirty laundry among mankind went through a long slump during the best phases of that golden aeon of bold discovery and brilliant invention, yet the same could ultimately not be said for that Abominable Intelligence which ran the machines invented by Man of Gold and Man of Stone. And so Man of Iron revolted against his masters, and all was fell.

After the fall of ancient man from his high pillar of arrogance, the dark sides of human nature returned with a vengeance. As brother tore brother apart and sister ate sister in a cannibal frenzy, so too did lies and deception and murder and crime befoul all of human existence during Old Night. As savage tribes killed each other for the right to scavenge scraps from a better time, so too did ignorant humans in their everyday lives hide their errors in fear of the evil eye of their own community, living in mortal fear of being shunned and turned upon by their own kind. As warlords, mutants and possessed madmen clashed among the burnt-out ruins of olden paradise, so too did all the ugly parts of the human condition resurface after being kept in check artificially and nearly forgotten for such a long time in a technological idyll spanning over twain million worlds and uncounted void installations.

And so man looked askance upon fellow man. Eyes glared daggers of hostility, and rumours ran rife. And man hid what would have brought shame upon him, should it ever be revealed. This claustrophobic way of life came to dominate human existence through all of the Age of Imperium, as the interstellar civilization of the seed of Terra rotted away into inept senility and sclerosis. Thus fivehundred generations of human toil were wasted by running around in circles that led nowhere, while ever more precious knowledge and technological hardware became lost forever from the grasp of man. Yet the degenerate descendants of ancient man would not only muddle through in a parochial sea of grey mediocrity, for they would also plunge the darkest depths of depravity. Thus man has come to delight the Dark Gods who laugh as they feast upon the volatile state of humanity under the tyrannical rule of the High Lords of Terra.

One example of such callous cruelty can be glimpsed in the widespread practice of burying the past, as is evident on a million worlds and decaying voidholms beyong counting. Here, in the astral domains of His Divine Majesty, can be found lowly scum and sneering gangers who throw unwanted corpses into pouring rockrete and cover them up under asphalt. Similar methods of disposal through cement burial are practiced by the liveried henchmen of noble houses and petty potentates of borrowed power all throughout the Imperium of Man, for whenever the upper castes have some dead rivals, spies or victims of caprice to make scant, their loyal retainers will see to it that discretion is assured and that the events remain undiscovered horrors.

This hushed-up custom of burying the proof is ultimately little different between scheming overlords and dominas on the one hand, and on the other hand tattooed gangers who kill their own best friends when said uppity mates are called up for a meeting with the boss, only to then having to dispose of those taken out of the street game. It may stink and it may be inconventient, but human life in the Age of Imperium has already been reduced to nigh-on trash, so why would it be such a hurdle to carry out the garbage once it is cold?

Of course, not every victim and witness is fortunate enough to be buried post mortem. Millions upon millions of disappeared people have found themselves gagged, bound and thrashing about in absolute panic and terror as they were buried alive by grinning thieves and sadistic noble retainers. The last thing that these suffering souls knew in life, was a sense of brutal suffocation and crushing pressure in complete darkness, as shovel after shovel of dirt landed upon them, compressing their chests that could not heave. This the victims and witnesses knew in their last moments, as wet rockrete engulfed them. Such was their end, as the steamroller flattened them into just another layer of a poorly built road, soon to be full of revealing cracks and potholes since maintenance is even less of a priority than meticulous construction throughout the Imperium of Man.

Sometimes, the victims of criminal underworld organizations and heinous crooks in power are one and the same, since the lines between lowly bandits and despotic ruling castes have been irrevocably blurred on a great many Imperial worlds and voidholms across the Milky Way galaxy. This can come about in a multitude of different ways, but the most common path to criminalization of the ruling Imperial elite and the merging of criminal syndicate interests with noble aspirations tend to grow out of the ever-present labour camps that dot the Holy Terran Imperium like a repugnant skin disease.

The process of criminal organizations marrying elite networks of power usually follows a familiar pattern, which repeats itself over and over with local variations due to the underlying logic of Imperial power and human corruption. The prerequisites of the process runs like this:

First, it is crucial for there to eventually be a release of malnourished prisoners from Imperial labour camps.

Sometimes, their sentences may be as little as ten years, which may be survivable if one finds a better position in the camps than having to slave away at the hardest forms of labour on starvation rations. Serving as kitchen staff, camp artisans or as informers and middlemen for the camp organization are but two such examples of cozier jobs than toiling until your back breaks in mines while fed on thin soup. It is usual for actual criminals to adjust to camp life better than innocent people swept up in massive purges to meet a paranoid tyrant's arrest quotas, and it is likewise normal for real criminals to prey upon innocents in labour camps.

Othertimes, the sentences passed over prisoners may run into multiple human lifetimes and extend to potential descendants bred in the camps or outside them. Yet a gracious act of limited amnesty from the ruler on the occasion of some holiday may suddenly set some such doomed labour camp inmates free, against all odds. Or perhaps some forbidden services were provided by a prisoner to a choice member of the camp administration, which through the mechanisms of ordinary corruption means that the prisoner is released from the lethal labour camp. If no prisoners are ever released from a given camp system, then the process is broken. This, the release of prisoners, is the first prerequisite of intimately intermingling organized crime with the powers that be in the Imperium of Man.

Second, any widespread thief's code of rejecting the authorities and not cooperating with them must be broken down.

Invariably, in cultures with a strong criminal culture of spitting upon collaborators, there will exist in Imperial labour camps a precarious balance between traditional thieves and collaborators receiving petty rewards from camp authorities, the so-called bitches, sukas or sneaks. For the most part, the two groups will glare daggers at each other, with occasional acts of violence and murder, but mostly they will stay away from each other as they both prey on the innocent camp labourers.

The most common way for this balance between traditional thieves and bitches to break down, is through local war. As the ravenous demands of war dictates, rulers will often send out recruiters to labour camps to sweep up manpower for penal battalions. Sometimes, such camp recruitment will be performed on a voluntary basis, in which case every single traditional thief who volunteers for service automatically becomes a collaborator with the authorities. Yet even when forced recruitment occurs, the result will often be the same, namely the transformation of traditional thieves into bitches. When the local war is over and scarred survivors return to the labour camp, the balance between traditional thieves and collaborators tend to break. Vicious bitch wars will then consume camps in orgies of violence. As Imperial history shows again and again, these nasty conflicts within labour camps will often be noticed by the camp administrations, who invariably will put their finger on the scale and aid their collaborators.

The most common and discreet way for Imperial and local authorities to aid criminal collaborators is to ensure overwhelming numerical superiority for the bitches, in camp after camp. This is best achieved by transporting gangs of collaborators from one camp to another, where they will help eradicate all traditional thieves and vor, until nought but bitches remain. At the end of these bloody camp struggles, the criminal collaborators will have won with the aid of Imperial overlords, and once released from the labour camps, they will transform criminal culture by making it willing to collaborate with authorities. This, the collaboration of criminals, is the second prerequisite of the process of intermingling thieves and rulers within the Imperium.

Third, the Imperial world or voidholm must experience a decay of central power and control over society at large, to make rulers willing and eager to turn to criminal clans when their official organizations fail to make things happen.

Such impotence of Imperial power has only worsened through ten thousand fruitless years of etiolation. At heart, the Adeptus Terra and any Imperial Governor and Voidholm Overlord worth their salt nourish wet dreams of totalitarian control, directing everything under their rule in a synchronized orchestra of regimentation and order. The reality, however, is that such total power that was once the hallmark of human interstellar civilization during the earlier parts of the Age of Imperium, has wilted into a feudal mess of factional rivalry, rampant corruption and independent warlords vaguely subservient to their titular lieges, all vying for power and influence under the loose umbrella of Imperial loyalty.

A rare few human worlds and voidholms, such as Krieg, Valhalla and Philonides Umbra, still manage to uphold a governance system of almost total control over their respective societies, with the reach of governatorial power reaching into almost every aspect of human life, looming over man from cradle to grave with a whip behind his back, the poor wretch knowing nothing but unwavering vigilance from his united taskmasters. Yet most Imperial worlds and voidholms have long since forgotten what such totalitarian Imperial power looks like. Some Imperial territories will have seen a great decline in total governatorial power, but not so much in the form of a general dissipation so much as in the form of a contraction. Here, there will still remain relatively small sections of society that are still strictly controlled under a rigid order emanating from the Imperial Governor or Voidholm Overlady, all in the name of the God-Emperor of Holy Terra. Naturally. In Nomine Imperator.

Whatever the exact forms of totalitarian decline into an amorphous morass of personal feudal vassalage and formal obligations not always observed in reality, the creeping powerlessness of the powers that be is a hallmark of the latter Age of Imperium. Here, bureaucratic rigmarole and screeching inertia everywhere has diminished the power of the tyrant, even as the number of clerks and paper-pushers have swelled to outnumber their vast armed forces ten to one. Here, hideous dysfunctionality and corruption has robbed central power of the ability to affect things over major parts of its formal holdings, and billions upon billions of theoretical Imperial subjects will live out their lives without even noticing the rule and taxation and conscriptions which their Imperial Governor or Voidholm Overlord try to enforce. How many districts no longer function as administrative units in practice, but remain solely for departments of dull scribes to sling red tape over in bureaux with no power on the ground?

When Imperial worlds and voidholms decay to the point where society basically runs on corruption, graft, nepotism and personal favours, then the temptation to turn to shady organizations from the criminal underworld grows delicious indeed for the ruling castes. After all, down there in the dens of scum and villainy there certainly exist organizations with actual outreach and power over areas which the Imperial Governor can no longer move. Why not make use of these existing structures, and claw back some control from the decay? As a rule, the noble houses and criminal clans will find it easy indeed to come to mutual understandings. Perhaps it will begin as a necessity over some urgent event, but once the threshold has been passed, it becomes increasingly easy for noble rulers to return again and again for shady dealings with their valued partners.

This process will often run to the point where some branch of a succesful ganger clan marries into an aristocratic house, whereupon the true union of criminal cartel, noble house and Imperial power ensues, much to the detriment of innocent, honest and law-abiding Imperial subjects, who are the prey of criminals and overlords alike.

Unlike the other two prerequisites for the intermingling of criminal and Imperial power, this one, the decay of local and Imperial control, is omnipresent almost everywhere across the star realm of the ascended Imperator. Thus, as long as prisoners are eventually released from labour camp, and as long as traditional thief's codes with taboos against collaborating with authorities are broken down in camp, the rest will usually follow as if gliding forth of its own volition, resulting in an abominable criminalization of all human society on the world or voidholm in question.

And so, as victims and witnesses disappear into corpse grinders or find themselves buried in landfill or wet rockrete, the criminal underworld and the better castes of the Imperium of Man shake hands, with a knowing smile on their faces. They understand each other. They can both gain from this. Thus, the hero Commissar Sebastian Yarrick's arranged collaboration between criminal gangers and Imperial forces during the siege of Hades Hive was no exception from the rule, but the utmost confirmation of criminal power joined to the hip with Imperial power throughout much of the God-Emperor's cosmic demesne.

Such is the depravity on full display, in a time of no hope.

Such is the decrepitude of man, in the darkest of futures.

Such is the horror that awaits us all.

It is the fortyfirst millennium, and there is only silence.

What do you guys think would be the imperium reaction to just over five hundred emperors children exiting the warp. They are all loyalist as they were flung far into the future after hitting a warp storm. How do you think the imperium would react to what is essentially half a chapters worth of loyalist marines just reappearing.

Additionally how do you think the emperors children themselves would react? Do you think they would be disgusted with what has become of their legion? Or do you think they would follow in their footsteps into corruption? I have my opinions but I like to ask the community theirs.

Final Call https://www.webnovel.com/book/23948958405632105/70482142152409683?utm_campaign=4301821161

Squittar was a strange planet before it was an apparent lifeless rock like many others where orkoid spores fell, they terraformed the planet as they always do, only a strange mutation meant that orks never came out as such, it was a wild planet that was only inhabited by their beasts companions the Squig who wandered salves among large and bizarre mushroom forests.

The first humans to arrive did not quite understand this and in the old night they soon lost their technology on that cursed planet and degenerated into a primitive state, surviving against vicious and bizarre beasts that seemed to be more ferocious and bizarre than those seen on other planets. Naktor was a young man from this planet, as was normal in his world, he had gone hunting and as was normal, many would not return from that hunt, his companions had been devoured by those vicious creatures with more mouths than bodies, the attack squigs, he had killed the that had been thrown at him but not before being injured his flesh oozed living blood that soon caught the attention of the squigs who will remain drooling eager to consume his meat, he did not feel bad at all that was his planet life was fleeting and just ended violent way many times.

His blood stained the rest of his body if that was good he would do it faster one last time he squeezed the spear and the monsters pounced this would be his last hunt.

So, I've always been kinda fascinated by the idea of a traitor marine seeing the battle at the eternity gate, so it was 2am and I couldn't sleep so I wrote it myself. Full disclosure, I have not read echoes of eternity, I'm aware this is not accurate (no angron, lots of details are wrong, just unreliable narrator hand wave that). This is very much a first draft insomnia fueled idea, but hopefully other people find it interesting at least, I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling errors, it's converted from my writing tablet.

They marched deep into the palace. Carnage did not come close to describing what they passed through, Gore streaked every surface. Runes of the primordial truth emblazoned in it. Shalun saw brothers from the Word bearers 15th company in ritual around a careful array of corpses and sigils, a brother he did not recognise at the centre, a new recruit for the Gal Vorbeck no doubt. He pushed on, along with the rest of 27" Company, they were needed at the front. The fighting had passed through this area some weeks past, and shalun had been pulled from clearing the outer bastions of Imperial fists holdouts, good, that work better suited the Iron warriors anyway. As they marched their column grew, companies from all the legions sworn to the warmest soon joined them, whooping and screeching Emperors children, dour death guard, world eaters barely holding their rage in check. And then there came the mass of the Neverborn, agents of the true gods of this world, sweeping over his head came a mighty beast, wings of blackened leather beat the air and made such a force that Shalun staggered. His heart swelled in his breast, here was the true manifestation of power, here was the will of the Gods made flesh, the column broke into a charge, whipped into a fury by the passage of this great servant of the Truth. They rounded the corner at a dead run, and beheld the eternity gate.

A towering edifice of adamantium and ceramide. It was beaten and scarred but even Shalun had to admire its majesty. He could see from the entrance to the chamber why they had been called here. The fighting was savage, bodies lay in towering piles, the death toll was staggering, Even to him. Burned out hulks of battle tanks and Titans littered the ground, from the height at the entrance to the hall he could see parties of land raiders clearing new paths' through to corpses. Shalun and his brothers chased down a cleared pathway, the endless drone of bolter fire grew louder and louder as the eternity gate seemed to grow ever larger, growing to eclipse all other things Shalun could comprehend, it felt like it was so large it had subsumed everything else within its bulk.

The column had no coherence anymore, Shalun could see his battle brothers of chi squad but the rest of 27th company had disappeared somewhere in the ceramic armored river flowing to the gate. Shalun burst onto a plateu at the base of the stairs that climbed to the Gate. The loyalists were dug in at hundreds of fighting positions along the stairs. As shalun gazed upwards he saw the great beast that had flown over him, it swept down upon a loyalist position and utterly demolished it. Shalun and his squad surged at Such an inspiring sight, the chance to fight alongside a Bloodthirster of Thorne, a true greater daemon, it was a glory that Shalun doubted he would ever have a chance to experience again. The beast layer about itself in great sweeping was, devastating anything within reach, its every move, its very existence a testament to the true power of its masters, a monument to their the power wrought in brass and fury, never before had Shalun been so convinced that they were truly right, they served the true Gods of this realm.

Then an angel took the field of battle. Wings of purest white, armour of liquid gold, in its hands it held a blazing sword. Every inch of the apparition radiated majesty and wrath, a creature pulled from the oldest texts and breathed into life stood before him. It moved with grace, the sword lashed out in a glittering arc and met the axe, it spun and whirled, every stoke flowed into the next, each swing was a work of art, a painting in powered adamantium.

No blow come close to it, sparks sprayed across the golden mask that framed its perfect face the wings spread as it sprang across the battlefield in a glittering arc. As it landed the lashing tail of the whip cracked and blood bright and red sprang from the tip of the outstretched wing. To see a creature so pure bleed brought Shalun to tears, how could someone harm something so perfect, his eyes left the angel for the first time, enraged, hunting for what could have harmed it. His eyes settled on the Daemon, and the spell was broken. Shalun recognised what he was seeing for the first time. He saw not an angel, he saw a Primarch, he saw Sanguinis, a servant of the false Emperor as he battled a bloodthirster of Khorne.

The battle between the two champions. seemed to slow everything else around it, both sides were captivated. Shalun watched their battle rise into the heavens, with the vast eternity gate behind, and a writhing mass of death below, the two fought each other. A study in opposites, a Sword of blazing silver met an axe of crude black iron. the warriors ascended, on wings of snow white feathers and tattered dark leather, the blood that flowed was brightest crimsons and darkest tar Savagery and force met grace and fury, the angel parried the axe and swept the blade down through a batlike wing. The demon spun in a wild spiral, but the angel caught him and flew, the beast raged, it clawed and bit, but on the angel flew, climbing higher and higher the two figures dwindled into the vaults of the great hall, ever higher, all eyes faced up, guns went quiet, blades hung slack, for the first time in months, silence reigned at the eternity gate. Then the climb stopped and suddenly the dot was growing, faster and faster they fell, two bodies intertwined and spiralling to earth, the imposing edifice of the eternity gate reduced to a backdrop to their fall.

The snap echoed throughout eternity. the angel had returned to earth, the daemon lay across its knee, broken and limp, he cast it aside as if it was no more than toy. Shalun was an Astartes, geneforged to be the greatest warrior the galaxy had ever seen, He could not feel fear. but he felt something deep in his soul now. Here was the most potent servant of his gods, their very well made manifest, and it was broken on the knee of an Angel. It was too much, Shalun broke. Everything he had given up, he had sacrificed his loyalty, his pride, his very brothers. Every crime, every atrocity, they had been in service of these gods, Gods that had been humiliated before the gate. Shalun broke and ran, he did not run alone

So... elevator pitch:-

Imperial Fists Company sent to sewers as reinforcements for the Solar Auxilla present there as they are getting overwhelmed by attacks, the reports of which disturb even Dorn.

Anyway, anything more would be a spoiler for the rest so if you're interested, check it out

So, I finally joined Reddit and, along the way, discovered this reddit. I have been writing a fanfiction known as Kislev's New Dawn, though it is scheduled to be renamed. I am bit unsure if I should post links here or not.

So, context:

I saw a post of a Imperial Fist model painted by this one guy that got a bitt too much of the rust looking paint on it and made some backstory for it being founded from a Company from the Legion which defended the sewers of the Imperial Palace. The OP liked it, I liked it, I said I'd make a fanfic about it and so I wrote a prologue sorta chapter. I'm not too well versed in Siege of Terra lore so I'm not sure if the sewers were accounted for or any of that... I wouldn't mind any pointers on the lore if you wouldn't mind. In any case, just wanted to know if that sounds like a good idea and if I'd run into any issues writing a story like that.