Local Time 02:06:25 Gryllus II, Gheinar, Command Ops, Sub-level 3.
Up until a few hours ago, the sub-level was vacant. It had been used as an prison and interrogation block under Gheinar's main citadel by the previous occupiers. Now, the entire section was under guard.
Guard detail, while taken as seriously as by any other unit, was normally a fairly casual affair in the 532nd. Large quantites of defensive troops bred a sense of strong security at locations that were deemed to require guards. The result was often that Troopers on such details would turn to their lighter sides to pass the time. Not here. Every access point was secured by teams of 1st Battalion Redhats. The stern expressions of those at the outer points telling any would-be passers-by that it would be worth their while to be somewhere else.
Flanked by his command staff, Colonel McMahon made his way through these new checkpoints, entering the prison's morgue. An entire squad of Veterans ushered him passed, as per his orders.
Inside, Chief Medical Officer Yates and Cpt. Fletcher were waiting on the far side of a mortuary slab, upon which rested the highly abnormal corpse recovered from the downed craft in the vicinity of the coordinates provided by HOMECOMM Adjutant Lakewell. On the Colonel's orders, the Pararescue team had brought it back under cover of night, delivered directly to its current resting place.
Ross: So doc... What've we got? Yates: A Corpse. Ross: Is that your expert medical opinion based on years of field experience? Yates: Fine. It's a headless corpse. But you're not here for that...
The Surgeon removed the sheet covering the body. A couple of attendees took in a sharp breath at the sight. Ross looked on with a serious tone. It had been no effect of the pict-screen, and certainly worth the extra measures he'd ordered to get it here without sparking rumor.
Yates: You can obviously see for yourselves most of what I'm about to say, but here it is. The subject is not Human. That may have served as a baseline, but it has been enhanced and modified beyond my willingness to call it Human. The first piece of evidence is the translucent skin across the whole of the subject's body. This made inspection of the interior decidedly easier. You can also see that it doesn't have an Umbilicus, which leads me to believe that this thing was vat-grown. Ross: Looks heavily modified. Yates: Correct. This is genetic and bio-mechanical engineering beyond anything I've ever seen, sir. While we obviously can't run tests, given the subject's condition, I can safely surmise that when it was alive, it was stronger, faster and likely more resilient to damage than your average Human. Closer inspection revealed sub-dermal mechanical implants, artificially enhanced muscles, and entierly new muscles. I can't tell if they exist as redundancies or additions, however. Given the complexity and the surprisingly good state of what remains of the subject, I am concluding that it's whatever destroyed its head that killed it. I believe that the other injuries that we can tell it sustained will... inconvenienced it at best. Ross: Inconvenienced? You're saying this thing probably shrugged off all these las-blasts? Yates: Yes sir. Ross: Emperor preserve us... Fletcher, what about the gear?
Cpt. Fletcher gestured to the group to shift their gaze to the nearby table, upon which the equipment recovered from the mystery corpse had been laid out.
Fletcher: Well Chief, the boys and I had a good crack at it. There's some fairly standard, recognisable gear here. Vox-unit, gear poutches and the like. Kantrael pattern with no ID tags or marks. So that leaves half the Galaxy as a agear source. What's of interest in the armor itself and the gauntlets we got off its wrists. I managed to spark some the curiosity of a couple of our esteemed Engineseer colleagues. They confirmed that this armor doesn't match anything in Mechanicus-wide production. But we had a peak into their restricted records... Ross: And what did that cost you? Fletcher: A couple of good bottles. Get this... The armor is of close resemblance to logged Drukhari designs, although this stuff has clearly been made with a Human body in mind. But the fun bit is here: the gauntlets.
Slipping one around her wrist, Fletcher engaged one. A Crystalline blade sprang forth.
Ross: Handy for close encounters. Fletcher: That's not the best bit... The Captain drew her sidearm, flipping it around so as to hold it by the barrel. Placing the gauntlet on the table with the blade out, she slammed the blunt edge with the grip of her pistol. The blade snapped with a sound not unlike a dry twig. A snarky comment was just on the tip of Ross' lips when a new balde formed from the gauntlet, taking its predecessor's place exactly. The Colonel took a moment to take in everything he'd seen and been told.
Ross: Conclusions? Yates: We're dealing with what we believe to be a deliberately, artificially enhanced vat-grown individual. Work this good is no accident, and we have every reason to believe that this is far from the only specimen to exist. Compared to a baseline Human, every aspect of physicality that can pertain to combat has been enhanced beyond known techniques available to the Imperium. Combined with the apparent Alien origin of its equipment, it was clearly created by, or at least with assistance from, Xenos hands. Ross: And this one was hanging about near clandestine Landers 1066th landers...
Another step, more questions... and still no answers. What has she gotten involved with? Was thing working for her or against her?
Those and a thousand more questions were ratling around in the Colonel's mind. Worse was that he knew that he couldn't ask the General pointedly. She was once again unreachable on the comm.
"There's not much more we can do at this stage. Lock up the body, have the gear secured. No one outside of this room is to know until I say otherwise. I plan to confront the General next time I see her. We need some straight answers about all this.
We've still got a campaign to win. Let's get back to that until we can actually progress this. -Yes sir. -You got it, boss."

"Just push honey, push!" A man in a voidsman uniform spoke.
"I WILL PUSH YOU OUT OF THE AIRLOCK IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP YOU PIECE OF #€&#%##&"
The people in the cargohall looked shocked but at the same time, humoured.
one more darling. One more the old lady said softly
"AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH"
...
There you go! Its a beautiful baby boy.
The woman was handed her baby. Her eyes glossed with tears of happines. It was her first born son, her pride and joy.
"Cornelius. Litlle Cornelius."
The baby twitched and screamed but soon calmed down as her mother began singing a song of the stars...

Childhood
"Oi! Get down here you rascal!" A crewmate yelled playfully as he tried to grab the kid. The two were running around the engine room.
"Hihihi! Too slow!" Cornelius giggled as he climbed the insulated pipes of the engineroom to his secret hiding spot.
He had found a loose maintenance panel, leading to a small unused compartment. There he had begun to stash all his favourite things. A pillow, blanket, snacks, a soda, drawing stuff. He liked to draw.
He had become quite a legend across the ship, managing to sneak a portrait of the Captain (clearly drawn by a young child) to the Captains personal quarters, without being detected.
He was very much loved in that small cargo vessel. The entire crew, living like one big family.
Cornelius took a piece of paper and his pen and began to draw himself in uniform. He wanted to be like his parents, a voidsman. A protector of the ship, their home.
"Oi, kid! Remember, you promised your ma, you'd be back when her shift end."
"I remember!", Cornelius replied
"Good, kid. Your dad would be so proud of you!"
He did not reply. His eyes turning away from his drawing to a pict of him and his dad. It was the last pict they took together before the accident. Cornelius smiled as tears rolled down his cheeks.
"i miss you dad. some day I will be just like you. I promise." He whispered as the tears slowly dried up

Teen years
Cornelius jolted awake on hid bunk as the warning sirens blared across the ship
PREPARE TO REPEL BOARDERS!
PREPARR TO PEREL BOARDERS!
He looked around frightened and confused. "Ma? What is..."
The ship shook as the pirate boarding vessels rammed themselves into the ships frame.
"Just stay here honey, okay? Everything will be fine." Her mother reasured as she rushed outside with only her uniform and shotgun.
"But..."
She was already gone.
Cornelius dressed as fast as he could. Memories of losing his father crossed his mind. After putting on his boots he ran outside, towards the gunfire. He was determined to help the ship and his family, the crew...
/// ///
BLAM
He could smell it. He could smell the smoke coming from the stubbpistols barrel. He could smell the pirate blood, splattered across his face. He...
"GOOD SHOT KID! KEEP IT UP!" One of the voidsmen yelled at Cornelius, unfreezing him.
"SECTION 5 IS LOST! FALL BACK TO THR NEXT BULKHEAD!" The orders were yelled from behind him, almist being drowned out by the ear shattering sounds of combat in the tight halls of the ship.
"NO! WE CAN HOLD THEM HERE!" Cornelius replied with a roar.
"Hey! Don't play a hero kid. Heroes always die first. Lets go." The voidsman next ho him replied as he prepared to leave.
"No! Please, trust me." Cornelius replied as he picked up the lasgun of a fallen voidsman next to him.
"Alright....your call kid." The voidsman replied before yelling back at the sergeant.
"You go! Me and Cornelius got this!"
"Your funeral!" The sergeant replied before taking the rest of the men to reinforce the breach from section 5.
/// ///
It was silent...only the tinnitus of his ears holding him company. He was covered in blood. A knife in one hand and the lasgun strapped on his back. The alarm sounds had stopped a while back, he wasn't sure how long, but he was determined to hold the position as long as needed.
He stood there, spinning the blade. He had taken out five with the knife alone, and was ready to kill anyone who dared challenge him.
He waited and waited...nothing happened.
CLANK
Cornelius turned around swiftly and pointed the knife towards the sound.
"At ease young one." The Captain spoke at him.
The captain looked at the carnage at the corridor. Impressed with what he saw. The retinue arround him looked in both horror and awe with the sight of the brave defence they had put up.
"You held this place alone?"
"No, sir." Cornelius said as he pointed at the two fallen voidsmen behind the barricade.
"The blade?"
"I ran out of ammo..."
"I see...well done kid. Report to voidsman training tomorrow at 0800." The Captain said before turning away and walking back with his retinue.
(Continues in a comment)

Personally I would have made a crossover with rwby x King Arthur knights tale.
Story about failure, consequences and redemption.
In this story after volume 8 and escaping atlas: remnant has become hell on earth. Everyone at each other throats, bandits on the rise, grimm becoming evolved with magic etc
Desperately Ruby tries to open a portal to gain more allies in an attempt to stop the madness…instead more threats enter the world.
The world merges and everything becomes chaos.
Because of these actions: the lady needs knights that are willing to do anything to save the world. Recruiting the remaining knights and huntsmen to the cause.
Main characters are sir Mordred and cardin Winchester (I choose Cardin because after the actions of Altas and the portal incident no one is willing to listen and follow team rwby and the others)
Faith alignment: righteous and old faith. Can show mercy but will spill blood if you cross him.
Ruby rose: gone missing especially after the portal incident. Rumor has it she has gone insane.
Sad that a happy go lucky girl became delusion and broken.
Weiss schnee: realizing she has nothing to her name, winter and willow dead, Whitney wants nothing to do with her and brought hell on earth. She gives up and drinks becoming the town drunk (Neptune is tending to her and truly trying to help her…she will get better)
Yang Xiao Long: due to her always blaming everyone for her actions she becomes a bandit to avoid her mistakes.
Betray by her gang, she is killed by lost one brutally.
It is only when she dies and becomes a mind free lost one courtesy of Morgana le Fay “saving” her that Yang finally realizes that she became no different than her mother… now she will have to make up for actions and save lives until the very end…even if the world never forgives her.
Blake Belladonna: …sadly ran away from her responsibilities and shunned by her race especially from her mother (Ghira died from picts sacrificial ritual).
The Faunus are dying and are being captured by either picts or unSeelie. All of this suffering made the Faunus make a deal with the Fomorians.
They were given great dark powers and sworn allegiance to the dark god (not knowing that they are slaves to the giant demon king)
Blake is aimlessly drifting and having no purpose to help or even survive anymore Blake tries to end her life until Lady Guinevere intervenes offering a chance to save her race and the merged planet.
She will have to confront her demons when she meets her allies again…especially sun.
Jaune Arc: From what we understand Jaune became an extremist especially towards the unSeelie.
All we know from the reports is that the unSeelie killed Terra arc, kidnapped Saphron Cotta-Arc and… and for three days forced her to produce a child.
Enraged Jaune Arc went on a killing spree and in the bloodshed killed the child.
Saphron was saved and healed but is cooped up in her room and unresponsive due to the trauma.
Because of this tragedy Jaune joined Sir Gawain and adopted his mindset to hunt down and kill as many Seelie (light or dark it doesn’t matter to him).
Despite our differences I hope I get Jaune away from his path and join Sir Lancelot du Lac mindset in order to make Jaune stray away from the path of endless bloodshed.
Sun wukong: He may show his outgoing attitude but he is hurting bad ever since what happened at vacuo.
So many allies dying from grimm, picts, etc and not only that seeing civilians to huntsman becoming lost ones made him put on a façade.
Not only that whenever Blake’s name pops up he becomes very bitter towards her?
What the heck happened didn’t those two use to be very close?
Lie Ren: I know ren is a quiet fellow…but now I truly think he has shut down his emotions.
Whatever happened at vacuo made ren become very cold and calculated with every action.
He barely greets people and is mostly studying his new learned power from seelie magic courtesy from the seelie knight.
Arslan has be meditating with ren but he has put a lot barriers before he can open up again.
Nora Valkyrie: I think out of all people her change surprised me the most…she is now a pacifist?
She is usually at the hospital helping patients and children despite her being better at the front lines.
When pressed to come back the battlefield: she becomes agitated and fearful almost breaking down
From what I gather from other knights: Nora keeps repeating “it was an accident” during her sleep.
Did she hurt someone or worse? Regardless I hope my teammates can get her out of that mindset.
Cardin Winchester: his team was the few that was evacuated villages from the overwhelming waves of enemies at atlas settlements.
Despite his brute nature he is trying to help with saving the world.
He met the lady of the lake and was surprised that cardin would be leading the remnant remaining huntsman to help the world.
Regardless of what you think of him no one wanted the job so Cardin is taking up the mantle to his realm
tasked with finding sir Mordred and sir Kay. Reports from Russel and sun confirmed that they are at the ruins of Camelot and vale (due the merge both kingdoms crashed into each other becoming a bigger mess)
Bringing Ren, Russel and Reese to the journey to break out the knights and start the journey.
Good luck Sir Winchester.
So far that is what I have: feel free to add!!

Summary: A squad of Absolver Space Marines who are sent by the Inquisition to capture a possible rogue psyker come to realizer that the psyker has, completely by accident, come to worship the Emperor of Mankind.
“We’ve got the angles of approach all laid out, then?” said Sergeant Loren, his white carapace armor shining in the sun. He could feel the heat even now—doubtless it would have scorched the skin of a normal mortal. “Affirmative, Sergeant Loren. The hostiles are southwest of our current location; the target is located in the area marked Hut Five on your data-slate.” Loren looked at the data-slate in his hand. It showed a bird’s eye view of the town of M’kalla, a collection of small huts made of earthen clay. The symbol of Loren’s Chapter, the red chalice and white aquila of the Absolvers, was placed in the top left of the screen to symbolize his team’s current location. One of the huts near the edge of the town was labeled as Hut 5. “I see it. Any one in the house with the target?” There was a pause, then the voice of Scout Lair crackled through the vox once more. “We’ve confirmed that there’s a woman there with the target. It seems to be her house that he’s staying in” Loren scowled. An Absolver was committed to serve the God-Emperor in any way He so chose until his dying breath, of course: however, there was no mention of this woman in the briefing given by the Inquisition agent. “Fine; if the woman proves to be an obstacle to us, then we eliminate her. Otherwise, we’re to focus solely on extracting the target.” “Understood, Captain.” The vox cut off. Loren looked towards the town. He used his helmet’s visor to zoom in on the group of hostiles Lair had mentioned. Their skin was cracked and blistered, blood oozing out of deep gashes in their skin. All went barefoot through the scorching sand—some even went naked. Even from this distance Loren could see their wide eyes bouncing in their skulls, the smiles stretched across their faces with trembling tightness. The madness of the warp He pinged Lair over the vox. “Engage now, soldier. Minus-seven seconds until hostiles return to the town.” “Yes, sir.” It wasn’t the shout of a new recruit—these were Scouts, and Absolver Scouts at that, some of the greatest of the Emperor’s warriors. They knew that any errant sound could be the difference between life and death. Loren didn’t smile much—it was not a action for an Astartes—but the pride he felt for his men lent him a certain lightness in his hearts. His data-slate showed the image from Scout Lair’s helmet as he and the five other scouts stole quickly through the alleyways of the town. There were strange markings on the houses, made in what appeared to Loren to be blood. As Lair and his team approached Hut Five, Loren noted that the house was one of the only ones he had seen so far that did not bear these markings. Lair looked left and right, moving his team with hand signals to either side of the door. Then he put his hand up to the door and pushed against it, stepping back as he did and raising his bolter. The room was too dark at first. There was a sound that Loren identified as a child crying. Images became clearer in the gloom. The crying child was small, perhaps five years old, and was in the tight embrace of a pale redheaded woman wearing a threadbare dress of plain brown cloth. “Remain where you are, civilian,” said Lair, keeping his gun on her. Another member of his squad took his place on guard as Lair turned towards the only item of furniture in the otherwise barren room: a square wooden table with two chairs. One was knocked over to the floor; the other contained the target. The target was, to Loren’s eyes, quite unassuming. His skin was dark brown, his hair white and long. His eyes were wide and bright green, looking calmly at Lair. The way he looked, it was almost as if the man could see Loren through the visor link. “Hello. You are here to take me?” said the man. His voice was deep and sonorous, a booming thrumming noise in the small space. “You are to be taken to his Imperial Majesty’s Inquisitors for examination. They have deemed you to be a dangerous psyker, and have been polluting the minds of these civilians.” Lair’s head nodded towards the target. “Primus?” “Yes, Scout Sergeant.” Primus appeared next to Lair at the side of the visor’s screen.” “Take the target into custody. Commander Loren?” “Yes, Lair.” “Confirming that this is the target in question, and we have him in hand. What is the status of the hostiles, sir?” Loren disengaged from Lair’s visor view and surveyed the town again. The hostiles were clustered around the center of the town. They were piling up branches and broken furniture in a pile, some cackling madly as they did so. “Negative, Lair. Hostiles are blocking the extraction point. Hold for a few minutes.” “Understood, sir.” Loren turned to his left and tapped his second-in-command, Riser. “Riser, we’re engaging the enemy. Riser nodded. He was a man of few words, having had his throat ripped out by a Khornate Berserker a few months ago on Sala Prime. The throat had been healed completely by the apothecary, but Riser had not spoken again. Loren wondered if it were possible for him to go to some sort of counseling. Perhaps the parson? But their parson was a doddering fool, barely able to keep his eyes open. He took another look at the hostiles. They were slicing their wrists and screaming with frenzied joy as their blood splashed onto their makeshift funeral pyre. “Riser, engage,” said Loren as he pulled out his own bolter and loaded it. Riser holstered his large bolter rifle and sighted along it. There was a second of silence, then two. After the third, Loren turned to Riser and said, “Riser, that was an order—” Riser was still sighting along the rifle, but pointed one finger out towards the town. Loren followed it and saw the familiar flash of white armor. What in the Emperor’s name… Loren engaged Lair’s visor view to see the squad rushing down the street. There was a figure running ahead them—an older man, with tanned skin and white hair. It couldn’t be, thought Loren. How could they have lost custody of the target? They were in the room with the old man! Damn psyker tricks!” “Lair! What happened here!” “When we heard the hostiles, the target started shouting something and Primus—we ran after him—mission parameters to change.” Lair’s vox was cutting in and out. “Damnit,” growled Loren. It was always something with the cursed Gilead system. He turned to his battle-brothers behind him. “Change of plan, men! We’re to exterminate these hostiles! Remember—keep the target alive! He’s wanted by the Inquisition!” He sent a pict to his soldiers’s vis-cams so that they could identify the target. Loren pulled out his bolter as the crowd started to turn towards his squad and fired. A bolter round span through the head of one of the gibbering lunatics and it exploded like rotting fruit. The rest of the heretics turned and screamed like feral beasts, running at them with their weapons. Most of them had simple farming implements and were quickly cut down, but Loren saw that a few others had slipped into the houses. Las-shots from the windows confirmed his suspicions. Loren and his men decreased their speed and started to fire into the buildings. The las-shot rounds scorched their armor but the Astartes kept moving on undaunted. Riser fired a round from his large bolter rifle and it hit a wall directly, crumbling it around the screaming cultists. Loren could sense an increase in heat. A fire’s started, he thought, and then searched for Lair and the Scouts. If they had been trapped in the fire while searching for the target, he’d be down several good men with a slim to none chance of replacement. Loren spotted the flame. It was spread in a large circle, consuming the small houses nearby. The flame reached twenty feet vertically, the flames twisting and scorching. Loren chimed in his vox. “Scout Lair! Report status!” he shouted as he continued firing at the cultists, now pouring out of the windows of the flaming houses and running directly into the hail of bolter fire. “Sergeant Loren, we…we are safe. We have Primus with us—he’s in an unconscious state, sir. We’re in the center of the flame but we’re unharmed. The target—” Loren looked out as he saw, to his surprise, the target walking through the fire, completely unharmed. “Stop right now!” he shouted, pointing his bolter rifle directly at the man. The old man seemingly ignored him. He placed out a hand and a gout of flame shot from his palm as if he was holding a promethium flamer. The flames engulfed a cultist who had leapt screaming at the target. The cultist fell over at the target’s feet, and the old man began shouting in a local dialect that Loren was unfamiliar with. Loren cued the translator in his helm to cycle through the local Gilead system languages until they found a match and held up his arm to order the squad to cease fire. He moved up slowly, pistol still drawn and pointing at the target. “Citizen! I am Sergeant Loren, of the Absolvers Space Marine legion. You have been ordered to be presented to the Inquisition for correction, as you have the taint of Warp among you. Cooperate fully and you will not be destroyed.” The man was not looking at Loren, and seemed to not hear his words. He was continuing to shout at the charred remains of the cultists beneath him, Loren heard the words, “You are sinners against the one Truth! The one leader! He has weighed you in the balance and found you wanting! I curse your souls—“ Loren pressed two gauntleted fingers against a pressure point on the man’s neck. His tirade cut off suddenly and the old man slumped to the ground.
"Is he awake?" asked Loren of Apothecary Jordan “I believe so,” replied Jordan, looking back into the med room through a view port. “Will you need me with you?" Loren shook his head. “No need, Jordan. I will speak to the target myself.” Jordan nodded and walked down the hall towards the room where Primus was being kept. Loren turned away and walked into the room with the target. The old man was sitting up now, and staring calmly at Loren. He did not seem afraid, but rather very calm. Loren wondered if this was a good idea, talking to this psyker alone: he was an Astartes, loyal and true, but had not the Warmaster Horus been a loyal son of the Emperor himself? Even the most loyal could be corrupted by the forces of Chaos. He steadied himself by studying the sacred name tattooed on his knuckles, repeating it in his head like a mantra. The Absolvers had ten thousand names they deemed sacred: Loren had chosen the name Malcador, as in the legendary advisor to the Emperor Malcador the Sigillite. He repeated the name in his head to steal himself from the psyker’s machinations. “Wake, slave of Chaos,” said Loren slowly. The man blinked once, twice. He seemed confused and spoke with trepidation in his own language. “Chaos? Is that what the others serve?” “Yes, you and your kind are servants of the Ruinous Powers. Do you deny this?” Loren expected the man to fully confess. After all, those who served the Ruinous Powers were often eager to do so. But the old man instead shook his head furiously. “I serve none of their gods,” he said vehemently. “I serve my own—the one, true Lord.” He studied Loren. “You look like him. Do you serve him too?” Loren approached closer. “What do you mean your Lord looks like me? Describe him.” The old man clasped his hands and bowed. With eyes closed, he said, “He is a large being, cloaked in gold and ruby. His hair is black as the space between stars, His eyes of pure white like the sun’s flame. He stands in glory, taller than your kind, even. He—“ “Enough,” barked Loren. He had heard enough.“Stay in silence. You will be judged by the Inquisitors, and your heresy will be cleansed from this world.” Loren’s mouth felt raspy and dry as he spoke. “Do you refuse the Emperor? Do you refuse the faith of the Master of Mankind?” The old man nodded. “My Lord spoke of such a thing: that my faith would be tested. He told me to preach His word, until His children would come onto this land. Although I thought that you were those that my Lord had spoke of…I fear I may have been mistaken.” As he said this, Loren heard a shout from down the hall. Primus, he thought bitterly to himself. He turned to silence the madman— —and found that he had vanished from his bed, the door closing behind Loren. As quick as he could Loren bolted down the hall. The door to Primus’s room shattered to pieces as he ran in, bolter raised. The first he saw was Jordan, in a corner of the room with hands clasped in prayer. He stared at the old man, who had his hand on Primus’s brow. Primus was seizing, his body thrashing in the bed as a glow seemed, to Loren, to emit from the old man’s hands. “Nolite timere,” said the man in High Gothic, “haec enim dicit Dominus Deus hominis non deficient hydriae farinae et non deficient vasa olei usque ad diem quo Dominus pluit super terram.” Then, in Low Gothic, he added; “So is your spirit like the jars of oil and flour; if you believe in your Lord, He will not cause your spirit to ebb, but rather continue, until the rains of His mercy wash over us.” Loren raised his bolter and pointed it at the target. “Step away from him, chaos scum! He—“ He paused mid-sentence as Primus gasped and stilled. His twin hearts began to beat normally. The old man looked at him and raised his hands. “My name is Elijah, and I am no servant of Darkness,” he said in a firm voice. “How do you know High Gothic, then? Did you learn it from a Chaos priest?” Elijah appeared confused. “What is…High Gothic?” “What you were speaking, man! Don’t tell me—“ “I merely said what my Lord told me to say. He gave the words and I said them to your soldier.” Loren stared at the old man. His finger curled around the trigger of his bolter. “This madness ends now, and damn what the Inquisition says!” he barked. He tensed and Elijah’s eyes closed— “Sir! Captain Loren!” Loren whipped around. The voice had come from behind him. Lair was standing in the doorway in full armor. “What is it, Lair?” “The natives are coming in force! They’re looking for him,” he said, pointing to Elijah, “and I don’t think it’s to make sure he’s been treated well.” Loren looked back at Elijah. Primus stirred and his eyes opened; he looked up at Elijah and to Loren’s astonishment smiled up at the old man. “Thank you, sir” he said weakly to the man. “It was not my doing. It was the Lord, He who is King Eternal--” Loren cursed under his breath and reached out. His hand covered Elijah whole left shoulder up to his neck.”Enough of this. Come on,” he said, leading Elijah forcefully out of the room and down the corridor. Loren dragged Elijah by the scruff of his neck up to the parapet. He threw Elijah down at his feet and stared out over the ledge of the base’s walls. The horde of heretics was massive. “Kill him! Hurt him! Break him!” they cried. Loren was impassive as he surveyed them. He wore the full armor of his chapter, helmet and all, and he allowed himself a satisfied grin when he saw some cowardly Chaos cultists turn and flee in terror at the sight. Elijah looked up at him. Loren noted that there was not hatred in his eyes. It seemed more like pity to him, and the thought made Loren furious. He wanted to pull out his bolt pistol and end this feeble infidel’s life as soon as possible. Elijah spoke and said, “My Lord has spoken to me, Captain Loren. He has told me that you are not an evil man, and would not kill without due cause.” As Loren stood still in shock the old man stood up and brushed the dust off of his black robe. “I know you want to kill me—you are loyal, brave and true. My Lord, the one true Lord, has told me that you and the rest of his children need proof of my devotion. I will give it to you.” He pointed a bony finger at the crowd and began shouting at the heretics. “Bring him out! The false one that you serve! Bring him to me, and we will go to the place of named stones together!” A bolter round whistled past Loren’s head. He turned to follow the path of the shot, and the beating of his twin hearts grew louder in his head. Behind the mob of heretics were astartes in dark purple. They saw him and began to cackle in shrill and mocking tones. “Bring us the brittle old fool, coward! Leave your walls, we want to play!” The Emperor’s Children were here. Loren began to fire at them. Bolter rounds slammed into the sand around the chaos Astartes as if his shots were being blocked by a Rosarius. “He is protecting them,” said Elijah mournfully. “Who? Your false God?” said Loren. Elijah shook his head and pointed down. A man was walking out. He was mortal, but Loren could see that beneath the tribal paint and ritual scarring the mutations of the Warp were starting to play out on the heretic’s body. He was young, in his twenties perhaps, and he screeched with laughter when he saw Elijah. “I accept your challenge, old fool! We will meet at the place of named stones at dawn, and I will show you the power of the Lovely One.” Elijah turned and walked away at that. Loren ordered his men to fire into the hordes of Chaos cultists. Although he was satisfied to see a few of them broke into explosions of blood at the touch of a bolter round he knew that tomorrow would see something much worse. Loren kept the auspex trained on Elijah as he walked down from the cliffs where the rest of the Absolver squad was waiting. Riser trained his bolt-rifle a few paces ahead of Elijah as he walked up to meet the Chaos warlock in the center of this plateau. Loren had argued against doing this, of course. Had strongly urged that Elijah be sent to the Inquisition at once, and damn the utterances of some foul Warp-tainted cultists. Jordan suggested that he take a rest, and that if in the morning he still felt this way he could do it with the knowledge that he thought of all the possibilities. He had worked most of it out on his own, and had gone out to take a walk in the cool air. As he walked past the tents, he heard a laugh from a nearby campfire. He looked briefly, and was about to carry on, but… But then he stopped and looked back. He was right— the man laughing was indeed Riser, cracking jokes with none else but Elijah. The Astartes’ red beard shook like a frightened tarantula as he bellowed and slapped his massive knee. Elijah kept talking calmly as if the story was something of no importance. Loren stormed up to Riser. He had never seen Riser like this, laughing and joking. Part of him was furious, but he was also surprised, and a bit heartened to see Riser with a pleasant expression on his scarred face. Riser sat up and saluted as Loren approached. “Evening sir! Just watching the captive. He’s got good jokes, sir: I showed him Inquisitor Laird and the target said that he looked like he’d kissed the inside of a goat’s ass!” He laughed and slapped his knee. “I meant no disrespect,” said Elijah with a slight smile on his face. “I merely spoke the truth. I am sure his puckered face does not betray a diseased heart.” “Riser, why are you speaking to the target?” hissed Loren. Riser shrugged. “I’m sorry, Captain, but…the Emperor seems to be with him.” “Does he now? Does his comparisons to goat anuses make you think he is blessed by the Emperor’s grace?” “I can’t explain it fully, sir. But he does not seem like a warp-tainted heretic to me.” He gestured to Elijah who was eating a crust of bread in silence. "What things seem to be is not the purview of us Astartes, son.” Loren sighed and gestured to Elijah. “I thought I had convinced myself of the right path to take, but now I’m once again facing doubt.” Riser nodded. When he spoke again he was quiet, almost whispering. “He told me that his Lord knew about my pain, and was sorry for me. He said it was not my fault that Battle-Brother Stephen perished to the swarm.” Loren started. “Did you tell Elijah any of this?” Riser shook his head. “No, sir. And I kept quiet, didn’t say anything to show that it meant anything to me, just in case it is some Chaos hell-spawn we’re dealing with—wouldn’t want to give it any satisfaction. Sir, I have an idea.” “What’s that?” “Well, let us say that the target is a heretic, and that this test tomorrow morning is merely a ploy to be received by the Chaotic Powers. Maybe we can make that work in our favor as well.” Riser gestured with a cock of his head towards a nearby tent. Loren glanced inside the tent through the open door-flap: inside he could see several packs of melta grenades waiting inside. “Ah. A wise idea, Riser.” So now the Absolver marine squad was waiting on the ridge as Elijah walked up to a large stone circle in the middle of the plain with several melta grenades strapped to his chest, fuses set to blow on Loren’s mark. As they watched the waiting crowd of heretics split to reveal the other Chaos prophet from before. He was dressed this time; a long red robe trailed down to the ground, with a golden crown perched on his head covered in so many multicolored gems that when the light caught it it radiated a blinding light. A veil of red pearls masked the twisted king’s face. Loren nodded once to Lair. The vox-caster and pict-relay attached to Elijah started up on a small screen inside Loren’s helmet. From Elijah’s point of view he could see more of the king’s face: his smile was a horrible rictus, almost reaching his ears. “So,” said the king in a vile susurration that made even the vox-caster’s audio crackle, “is it really you, you fiend? You have started a lot of trouble, you know.” “You are the troublemaker here, B’hab, as well as the only fiend I am aware of” Elijah replied calmly. Loren could not see Elijah’s face through the pict-screen as the relay was attached to his head. “You and your family are the instigators of the troubles that have befallen this planet. You have refused to obey the Lord of Mankind, the True Teacher and Master of us all, and have instead fallen to the worship of the Lovely One and her vile depredations.” B’hab gestured to either side of him at the gathered crowd. “I have summoned all my court high court of Lassus to join me here at the place of named stones. Four hundred and fifty prophets of the Lovely One, and the four Sentinels of Jezebal the Beautiful One Themselves.” He gestured to the group of Emperor’s Children Astartes who chortled hysterically. Elijah stood in front of the crowd without fear and stretched out his arms. “How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two beliefs? If the Master of Mankind is God, then follow Him! But if this Lovely One is the true God, then you should follow them without delay!” The crowd of heretics, Loren noted, were for the most part completely silent at this. They stood patiently waiting. ` Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only prophet of the Lord of Man left on this planet that I know of, but the Lovely One has four hundred and fifty prophets. This will be easy for you to win, should it not?” “What is the test, cur?” spat out B’hab . Elijah looked up the mountain toward Loren, and Loren turned to Lair. “Bring out the oxen,” he said curtly. Lair spoke into the vox-caster and after a few seconds there was a soft mooing from below as two massive oxen walked into the circle behind Elijah. He put his hands on both of their necks and looked back at B’hab . “Here are two great beasts,” said Elijah. “Your prophets may choose whichever one they wish, cut it into pieces and lay it on the great stones within the circle. I will prepare the other oxen and lay it on another stone. When this is done, you and your prophets can call on the name of your Lovely One, and I will call on the name of the Emperor. The being who answers by setting the flesh of the beast of burden aflame is the true God. Do you accept?” B’hab walked over to the Emperor’s Children and spoke to them. Loren could not hear what was said, but he saw that the corrupted monarch looked worried. Loren watched as the priests arrived, dressed in their purple and gold robes. They slit the throat of the bull, laid it on the pallet of wood and called on the name of their heretic god for hours. “Lady of Desire, Lady of Love, answer us!” they screeched. But there was no response; no one answered. The sorcerers began to dance around the altar they had made, beating their drums and screaming in passion. All to no avail—the pallet did not alight, the sacrifice was not attained. Loren stood still, fingers tight on the trigger. When the sun was highest in the sky Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely your Lovely One is a god! Perhaps they are is deep in slumber! Maybe your Lord of Pleasure is busy with something. Maybe they are traveling to a planet that worships them more fervently than yourselves.. Maybe they are just sleeping and must be awakened by louder supplications from their most dutiful subjects.” The priests and priestesses shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed onto the sacrificial alter. But nothing happened. Even the Emperor's children seemed bored, finding amusement for themselves by idly ripping the skin off of passing cultists. Then Elijah said, “Come here to me”. When he said this, the people who had been standing by B’hab slowly began to walk over to him. They came to him in pairs at first, and then that small tide became a flood of converts as the priests of B’hab failed to light the sacrificial alter. As he spoke, Elijah built a small altar out of sticks in front of him. He took a small cut of the slain oxen and laid it on the small wooden slab he had made. He took twenty stones, one at a time, counted out slowly as Loren watched, and placed them on the flesh of the slain bull. Then he stood to his feet and walked to the side of his small altar. He began to dig a trench with his bare hands, and soon his new converts joined him. Elijah arranged the wood to sit in the center of this hastily dig ditch, and said, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.” B’hab laughed. “Is promethium your master’s trick? Then let me drink this so-called water you bring.” Elijah nodded and gestured to one of the people bringing water from the back of the truck. Loren could only shake his head: Elijah had asked for four jugs of water, and at the time he had thought the request absurd. Now he watched as the newly converted heretic poured the water out into the hands of the king’s servant with shaking hands. The slave dutifully shuffled towards the king, careful not to spill a single drop. He drank deeply from the slave’s hands. He swallowed, scowled, then spat. “Ha! This is prometium, as I thought!” He grinned wickedly as his acolytes cheered. “Then how did you drink it, my King?” replied Elijah. B’hab scowled. “Because…because I am worthy! Worthy of the Lovely One’s adoration! Elijah nodded, then turned to the supplicants bringing water. “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. The water ran down around the small altar and filled the trench dug around it. The sun was now highest in the sky, purple-gold against the red sky. Elijah stepped forward with hands clasped in front of him and prayed in a strong and steady voice, “Lord, the God of Mankind, let it be known today that you are the one and only God in the entire universe. Know also that I am your servant, and that I do all things at your command. If this is not the truth, my Lord, then smite me with all of your power, all of your divine grace, as you would one of your very own Sons that turned against you—not in base vengeance, but in correction, not in punishment but in salvation of the soul everlasting.” He stretched out his hands and raised his head to the sky and cried, “Emperor of Mankind, if that be your name, if that is the one to whom I have given my heart and soul to, hear me now! If I speak false, strike me down! Turn me to ash and dust, and cast my soul into the darkness for all of time! Answer my plea to you so that these people will know that you, Emperor, are the one and only God of all that falls beneath the light of stars, and that you can turn their hearts back from the pits of darkness!” Loren stared at the man, trigger finger unwavering as he pointed his bolter rifle towards Elijah’s chest where the melta grenades were located. There was a terrible still, then—a waiting that seemed to drag on for eons. A minute passed, then another, and nothing happened. Then the brightest fire fell from a cloudless sky like a column of stone made of promethium set alight. It landed with a thud on ground and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. Elijah stood still in front of the torrent of flame. He looked up towards the heavens and smiled. The flame began to spin upwards like a blazing corkscrew. Loren’s Absolvers stood firm and silent on their guns without moving and inch, but Loren could hear the gasps of astonishment from the small troop of Imperial Guardsmen that they had bought for this mission. The crowd of heretics gathered around Elijah fell at once to their knees. They began to weep and cry out loud, “The Emperor—he is the Lord! The Lord—he is our God!” At a similar time, B’hab screamed, “Kill them!”, and several things happened at once. The Emperor’s Children, distracted by the flame and shrieking in disgust, were only too happy to take their bolters and begin firing. Several people were blown apart by the massive rounds, the ground becoming littered with split torsos and detached heads in an instant. Loren screamed out, “Pattern Alpha-Sigma, engage! Do not let any of the false prophets and heretics escape with their lives!” He began to fire, charging down the hill all by himself while screaming at the top of his lungs.The cultists turned, thinking that one Space Marine was no difficult contest. After all, there were so many of them, and only one of him. When they turned towards Loren, they presented their chests and heads for the gunmen in the ridge above. They made easy targets for the pinpoint-accurate riflemen. Loren fired his bolter around him and disintegrated the heads of several cultists. His main target was the Chaos Astartes. The one nearest him shrieked in delight and pulled out his chainsword. Loren met the first heavy swing and then the next, their chainswords squealing and releasing sparks. The other three were engaged in combat with the other members of the Absolvers. Loren saw Lair duck under the sweeping blow of a painted chainsword and dive in with a ceramite blade. The blade sank into the knee joint of the Astartes’s armor and Lair rolled past him. As the Chaos Astartes began to pull the blade out of its knee, cackling all the while, Lair pulled out his bolter and shot the Astartes in the head. The bolter round split his skill and shattered his eye into bloody fragments. The Astartes screeched in laughter and pain and two rounds followed their comrade before the Astartes laid still. Loren was still fighting the Astartes in front of him. As the Emperor's Child raised his sword up for a striking blow, Loren slashed at the ceramite armor of the chest plate. The Astartes staggered backwards, and as he did a tongue of the unearthly flame engulfed him, burning him into screaming nothingness. Loren swung his sword and split the cultists rushing him in half. He looked for Elijah and found him being attacked by the soldiers of B’hab. The old man had a staff with him and was parrying some blows, but for every one he turned away another would land. Elijah was driven to the ground by a punch in the stomach. He laid at the feet of B’hab, who raged and laughed maniacally. “Kill him!” screamed B’hab. “Kill this traitor, this heretic!” Loren raised his bolter calmly and fired once. B’hab’s skull split apart into fragments of flesh.The guards looked at the body of their king, then at Loren, and fled at once down into the canyon. Las-shots rained down from the canyon’s ledges above, cultists falling as they fled. Loren ran towards Elijah, who was trying to stand. A trickle of blood came from his mouth; Loren figured it was at least one broken rib, and he urged the old man to lie back down. “Wait for the medicae, Elijah” said Loren firmly. With surprising strength Elijah grabbed Loren’s chest plate and brought it down so that Loren’s eyes met his. With a strong voice he commanded, “Seize the prophets of the false god. Don’t let any of them get away, to spread their cancer elsewhere! Otherwise, the Emperor’s light will be challenged once more.”Loren nodded calmly. “We will deal with the heretics, Elijah. Rest now.” The man nodded and laid back down. Loren waited until Jordan rushed up to Elijah and placed him on a med-cart. Jordan and the rest of the apothecary units rushed back towards the camp. Loren took a deep breath, reloaded his bolter, and turned back down the canyon to finish the heretics off. “So, the target perished?” Loren nodded. “I am afraid so." The inquisitor frowned, his visage blurring on the pict-screen. “Unfortunate, but understandable. Very well—may the Emperor protect you, Captain Loren.” Loren nodded, his face a blank slate underneath the ceramite helmet. “May the Emperor protect you as well, Inquisitor.”The screen cut off. Loren sighed and took off his helmet. There was a knock at the door. “Captain Loren?” Primus’s voice called out. “Enter, Primus.”Primus walked in, hands behind him with a slight smile on his face. “I brought him with me, Sir. I thought he might help.” “Might help with what, exactly, Primus?” “I am here to help with your guilt,” said newly-minted Parson Elijah, dressed in robes of white and red with a ceramite breastplate on his chest and a short plasma sword at his side. “I know it was hard for you to lie to these Inquisitors of the Imperium, and although I am grateful for the compassion you all have shown me, to bear false witness is still a mortal wound.” He walked over slowly with a censer in his hands. He pulled it up and dipped his finger into the wax. Then Elijah traced the double-headed eagle of the aquila on Loren’s chest-plate. Loren and Primus bowed their heads as Elijah spoke. “Oh Emperor of Mankind, the great and terrible, who keeps his promise of love with those men who keep by him and follow his teachings, let your ears be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayers of your humble servant. For those of the unfaithful and the lost, the scattered and the scared, I pray that they return to you and obey your Truth, so that even if they are in the furthest depths of the void of space, they will be gathered and redeemed by your mercy. And for the xenos, the heretics, and the demons, let them be destroyed by your mighty hand, by your mighty children. Soldiers of steel plate, of god-kissed bolters, warriors of truth and bravery, messengers of your strength and ambassadors of your grace, give them, your servants and your kin, success today and all days, so that thy will be done.”Loren bowed and felt a presence stir within him as Elijah started to carve the names of his fallen battle-brothers onto his ceramite. Thy will be done, my Emperor, he thought to himself.

999.M41 and Cadia still isn't captured/destroyed
Several Chapters worth of Night Lords and thunderhawks litter Kasr Kraf's Spaceport torn to pieces with a stormbird with several Night Lord Terminators smashing into the earth and killing all occupants after traveling over a company of Hydra Flak tanks
"Ghost of Tyrok" Thunderbolt pilot credited with nine Heldrake kills
Iron Warriors have lost a confirmed 9,000 tanks and Armored vehicles to include several hundred prized Relic Sicaran tanks captured and now purified by tech adepts and now serving the Aurora Chapter
Planet Killer superheavy starship and flag ship of the Black Legion Fleet destroyed by a pair of death strike missiles, Abaddon claims it was merely lost in a warp storm
Khorne berserkers ordered over and over to charge pre established defensive lines of Kasr Trunch only to fall to rows of Lascannon fire. "Trunch Holds" becomes a motto of the defenders as an estimated 200 Thousand disciples of Khorne are rumored to have been layed low to Cadian las fire
90% veterans of the long war are now littering the roads of Cadia, killed by guardsmen and militia. Vox cast of Vostroyan urinating on fallen Chaos Lord goes viral across the Segmentum
Cadians have recaptured 50% of Cadia's lost territories in a single surprise offensive. Black legion officers insist this was a mere "Goodwill gesture to the corpse God Emperor"
Abaddon the Despoiler begrudgingly hands off 300 captured Marines of the Minotuars chapter and several hundred Death Korps Grenadiers who were taken after the 99 day siege of Kasr Vasan in exchange for Lucius the Eternal who was captured by Imperial Forces attempting to flee the conflict poorly disguised as a menial laborer
20 Praetor Armored Assault Launchers provided by Mars cause consistent damage to Abaddon's Forces, despite claims that several hundred were destroyed a single wreck has yet to be pict recorded. "Praetor O'clock" Becomes a popular phrase among Cadian citizens
Chaos Space Marine Vehicles for an unknown reason spotted bedazzled with Tau Glyphs and now adopted as motif, called the new Chaos Star by Imperial Rembrancers
Schaefer's Last Chancers Destroy key deamon forges in the eye of terror, choking off production. Black Legion assures followers of the Ruinous Powers these are merely "plasma accidents".
Despite claims of Fellblades soon deploying to support the Black Crusade, Black Legionaries are spotted crewing Heresy era Malcador tanks while, scores of Baneblades, Stormblades and Stormhammers from the Forgeworlds of Mars, Lucius and Ryza reach Cadian Forces unmosleted
Planet of Sorcerers bombed non stop by Imperial Raids. This is compounded by the Alpha Legion mistakenly dropping a pair of Virus Bombs on Tizca
Dark Eldar and Orks rebuff Abaddon's consistent pleas for military assistance. Ghazghkull Thraka sells the Black Legion several grot boms, however rumors arise he simultaneously sells Cadia stocks of Imperial ordinance originally seized from Armageddon
Primarch of the Iron Warriors, Purtarabo makes scathing Vox cast with several hundred fallen Iron Warrors in the background, calling out Magnus, Angron and Mortarion for his misfortune and threatens to abandon the Black Crusade (he does this weekly)
Fabius Bile starts astropatic blog where he constantly shits on Abaddon and praises the tenacity of the defenders of "So called Cadia"

I served in the 9th Roman Legion
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/TheCrypticCompendium/comments/10d4i1g/i_served_in_the_9th_roman_legion/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Part 2/3
Over the next ten years I fought in countless battles against all manner of beasts and demons. We fought all over the empire. From Gaul to Greece. I was good at it. I worked my way all the way up to the level of centurion. While Maxus became the Primus Pilus. I was one of the six centurions in his cohort. Along with both Solaris and Crixus. Then came one fateful day.
I was called into Quintus tent by Maxus. We were camped out on a beach in Britannia. Our mission there had been to track down what we thought was a Druid priest that had been dabbling into black magic and creating revenants. It’s not an easy spell and most require training directly from a demonic entity to do it. We were concerned. We’d spent a few weeks trying to track them to no avail. It was as if they knew our plans as we made them. Our local contact, another Druid magician called Merlin (yes that Merlin) was in Quintus tent with him.
The man wasn’t anything like they portrayed in the movies and stories. He wasn’t or didn’t appear to be very much older then myself. He had a head full of shaggy red hair and a thin beard. He also smelled horrible. Like a mixture of vomit and goat piss. He wore white robes and glared at me the moment I walked in.
“Marcus!” Quintus greeted.
“Commander!” I greeted in response.
“I was just talking to Merlin here about our battle against the children of Sobek in Egypt.”
“They were repulsive.” I said plainly.
“That they were. But you all held your ground. Which actually brings me to why I called you two in here. Do you remember what exactly they were after?” He asked.
“Something about a magical stone in the area.” Said Maxus.
“Something like that. Any of you ever heard the worshipers of the Abrahamic god talk of a man called Cain?”
Both Maxus and I shook our heads. Quintus nodded.
“They believe that he was among the first family of man. He murdered his brother over some sheep and was cursed for it. While that story is close it’s incomplete… He didn’t murder his brother for sheep. He murdered his brother for the arch demon Lilith.. Who’d spent the better part of a year filling his head with dreams of power… She taught him how to use black magic. In turn, he became her apostle.. Her disciple on earth. Together they created… Or maybe found what we call the philosopher’s stone.” Quintus explained.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“In simple terms. It’s a powerful source of magic. Strong enough to pull apart entire planets if that’s what the user wills.”
Maxus stroked his chin. “If it’s powerful enough to do that, then why hasn’t Lilith or Cain used it to destroy the planet?”
“Lilith tried.. Cain, however, decided that destroying the entire human race wasn’t the best idea.” Quintus said.
“He took it and ran!” Merlin replied.
“And how do we know this?” Maxus asked.
“Who do you think taught Merlin the mystical arts?” Quintus said.
“So what does this have to do with the revenants?” I asked.
“We think the druid is after the stone as well.” Said Merlin.
“That’s why they’ve been terrorizing villages.. We think he’s trying to flush Cain out.” Quintus said.
“And what do we know of this druid?” Asked Maxus.
“Absolutely nothing… We don’t even know if it is a Druid. All we know, is that someone is controlling the revenants by the hundreds. Maybe thousands. Which brings me to my next point. Your assignment… Cain is held up in a cave a few miles north of here. I want you to take your century and protect it while we try our hand at hunting them down. I will personally command the rest of your cohort while you’re gone.” Quintus said.
“Are you sure? Marcus and I may be your best chance at finding them?” Maxus said.
“I’m sure. Protecting that stone is of the upmost importance. I wouldn’t assign the task to anyone else.”
Maxus sighed deeply before turning and looking in my direction.
“Let’s go then.” He said as he started to walk out.
We both stopped at the tent’s entrance.
“Oh and Maxus.. You two know the plan. Stick to it.”
Maxus and I marched my century with Merlin acting as our guide. The journey was like any other. That being said, 10 years prior, it would have made my legs ache. Now it was like taking an evening stroll. I’d grown used to the enhancements in my time with the 9th. I’d also grown used to life on the move. We were never in the same place longer then we had to be. This was my third time in Britannia. It only occurs to me now, all these years later, that we never really had a true home.
Merlin guided us through a dense forest. So dense that Maxus and I had my century marching in rows of four. Merlin was in the front. Followed by me, Maxus, and Agustus. Augustus was my right hand man so to speak. He was one of the decanus in my century. The forest was quiet. This alone had me on edge. Thanks to the Omega potion, I could hear a mouse running through the brush at a hundred yards and still… I heard nothing in this forest.
“You noticed it too?” Maxus asked.
“That the forest is deathly silent or that Merlin smells like goat piss?” I replied.
“Are you sure that isn’t you centurion?” Augustus asked from behind me.
“Very funny…” I said in response.
“Merlin!” Maxus barked.
Merlin stopped and turned back to the Primus Pilus.
“Yes?”
“How much further?”
“Another mile or so. There’s a cave on the edge of this forest. That’s where he’ll be.” Merlin said with a smirk before turning and continuing on.
Maxus turned to me.
“I don’t like this!” He said.
“Neither do I.” I said as I turned and signaled Augustus to have the men ready themselves.
I tightened my grip on my shield. Merlin continued onward. We walked for a few more minutes before we came to the side of a cliff. Which contained a cave that was maybe ten feet off the ground.
“Here we are!” Merlin said.
“Cain is up there?” I asked.
Merlin shrugged, “That’s where he’s been spending his time.”
“Great!” I said as I handed my shield and spear to Augustus before I approached the opening.
It took a single jump for me to clear the opening. Enhanced strength and all that. A ten foot vertical jump wasn’t anything to gawk at. I landed lightly. The cave was vast. It smelled like cooked meat. In the distance, I could see a small fire burning in the back. A lone man sat next to it cradling something. I started to approach when I heard someone land behind me. I turned to see Maxus standing there. He was followed by Merlin who seemed to float inside.
“Is that him?” I asked.
Merlin nodded. Maxus and I approached cautiously. Neither of us really knowing what to expect. When I finally reached him I found a rabbit cooking over the fire. Cain was a slender man. With olive skin and dark hair. He didn’t look at us as we came closer.
“Marcus and Maxus.. How very nice it is to meet you! Officially, I mean…. I saw you two fight in Egypt. Those children of Sobek are ravenous.” He said in a soft voice.
We stood silently.
“Please!! Sit!! Would you like some rabbit?” he said as he gestured for us to sit down across from him.
I sat but declined the rabbit. Maxus stood with his hand on his sword. I didn’t blame him.
“You have the stone?” Maxus asked.
“I do. I never leave home without it.”
That was when I noticed what Cain had been cradling. I massive red gem that seemed to glow a faint red where he caressed it. I swallowed hard.
“She’s coming for me you know! She’s always coming for me!”
“Who?” I asked.
“The red queen! Mother of monsters! The maiden of Gehenna! Lilith! That’s why I’m in this cave.”
Now, before I get much further, I have to explain something. Demons are or were a strange bunch. While they weren’t banned from earth entirely, they weren’t welcome. Most that walked among humans kept their heads down. Except for a few. We had a story that was told to us by Quintus himself. About how Gehenna used to have free reign to terrorize everyone that they could. Until heaven stepped in. I guess enough was enough. Heaven bequeathed a young man called Enoch a sword. Enoch in turn led humanity to war alongside heavens arch angels. A war known as the First Gehennian War. A war that ended when the arch Angel Michael defeated Lucifer for the second time since the rebellion. Rather then die, Gehenna and Heaven came to an agreement. Gehenna wouldn’t continue the constant invasions of earth and would keep its sovereignty. The door way between the realms would remain “unlocked” but monitored. Gehennian beings on earth would be required to report before being allowed entry. Which means… If Lilith was wondering around. We’d know. Now, accidents do happen. Lower level demons used to escape all the time and cause problems. But they were never acting on Lucifer’s orders. If they were, that would mean war. This was the queen we were talking about. His queen. There were, however, some ways around having to report. Like a demon sending its essence up to earth and finding a body to possess. Now, I know what your thinking.. I’m a Roman. Romans have their own gods. Why am I talking about Abrhamic mythology? The Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and most of the others do exist. But like everything else. The stories aren’t exactly one for one. Anyway, I’m getting off topic..
“Lilith is in Britannia? How do you know it’s her?” Maxus asked.
Cain looked down at the stone and exhaled.
“She wants the stone. I can sense her essence. We are connected. Her and I.”
“Can you stop speaking in fucking riddles!” Maxus barked.
Cain closed his eyes and smiled. The cave suddenly lit up. Torches sparked to life brightly revealing cave paintings on the walls. Maxus instinctively drew his sword. Cain opened his eyes and stood. It was then I noticed a table set up against one of the walls. The table was adorned with candles and covered in what looked like runes.
“It’s an old blood magic spell. A trade of sorts. Back when I was her vessel on earth. Some of her still remains.”
“You let her possess you?” I asked.
“Yes. She couldn’t come her herself. Lucifer forbid it. He still does. But I don’t think she cares anymore. Instead she used me to destroy. To maim and murder. This was after the war of course. After she was banished from her earthly body. I eventually took back control. I used the stone to purge her from my mind but there are pieces that still remain.”
“If what you’re saying is true. It would mean war.” Maxus said.
“If what he’s saying is true. Then Quintus has his work cut out for him. An arch demon of her magnitude may be too much for an Omega soldier. Maybe even the 9th itself.” I said.
Maxus turned to me and smirked.
“You’ve been here ten years and still don’t know all the secrets.”
I was about to inquire what he meant by that when I heard the demonic screech coming from outside the cave. Cain only smiled at this.
“Quintus may have miscalculated how quickly she’d find me.”
Maxus looked at Cain.
“Quintus miscalculates nothing!”
I admired Maxus blind faith in our leader. Even when I myself was questioning it. But in all honesty, Quintus had never steered us wrong before. Yes men had died before but it was an occupational hazard.
I ran out to the mouth of the cave. Augustus had arranged the men in a circular formation around the cave. They’d formed a shield wall that was two men deep. He was a good man. He’d done exactly as instructed. I looked out into the forest. I could smell them before I saw them. The rotten corpses of picts shambling our way. Some were armed and some weren’t. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them. I glanced back at Maxus, who gave me a nod before I jumped down. The walking corpses were only a few feet away from the shield wall.
“Pilum! Front line!” I commanded.
The soldiers in the front line threw their spears. Several of the dead fell. Some didn’t. Some missed altogether. But doing this only opened the flood gates. The dead went from shambling to full on sprinting. Before I could get another word in they’d slammed into the outer shield wall and they’d done so hard. But my men were strong. The shields held firm but that didn’t stop several from climbing over. Most of which were cut down by the second line.
I still hadn’t gotten my shield back. I had my sword out and the blade was burning blue. I had a revenant that had jumped over the wall charge me. This one looked like she used to be a pict woman wielding what looked to me like a kitchen knife. I very quickly removed her head from her body. The next thing I saw was Augustus. He was removing his sword from one of the revenants. I looked back up at the wall. It was still holding. By this time Maxus had landed behind me. As had Merlin. That was when we felt the ground rumble.
I stood still. The flood of walking corpses was still coming in from the forest. But my eyes caught something else. Something large and lumbering. It was a creature of which I’d never seen in person.
“Ah shit!” I grumbled.
The beast was massive and humanoid in appearance. Its bald rotten head almost reached the treetops. The undead giant snarled as it used its massive foot to kick its way through my lines causing a massive melee. The beast looked down at Maxus and I. We both readied our swords.
“This is gonna hurt isn’t it?” I asked. Augustus chuckled. Maxus exhaled. Then Merlin. Fucking Merlin started chanting in a language I’d never heard before whilst raising his hands. Before I could ask him what he was doing a massive whirlwind of fire seemed to conjure up underneath the giant’s feet before it swallowed him whole. The creature, maybe realizing it was dying, reached out with its tree trunk sized arm in an effort to grab me but it’s body was ash before it got the chance. We all turned and looked at Merlin who winked and smiled at us.
Maxus and I turned back to the melee. Our men were holding their own. But we were very clearly being overrun.
“Remember the plan!” Maxus said. “Plans already going to shit!” “Still!” “I know! I know!” I griped as I turned to Augustus. “As soon as that priest shows their face you fire that arrow!” I commanded. Augustus began pulling the bow from his back. While Maxus and I tried our best to reform the lines. It was a bloody affair. I can remember seeing one of my men having their entrails dug out by two or three of the creatures. I tried to save him. I really did. But there were just so many of them. I’d kill five and ten more would show up.
The battle went on for a good thirty minutes before we managed to reform the line. As we did so the revenants seemed to let up. The new ones stopped charging and stood back at the treeline.
“What the hell are they doing?” I asked.
It was then that I noticed the woman in white robes approaching us. She had dark hair and white paint covering her face. She was also living. So that meant she wasn’t a revenant. She also walked with a gracefulness to her. I can remember thinking that she was probably beautiful at one point. Before her eyes and teeth went inky black.
“Romans!” She called out with a sinister smile. “You’re outnumbered. You can’t fight here forever. Listen to my offer. For I shall only make it once.” She started.
I turned and eyed Maxus. Who smirked at me.
“Pilum!” I shouted. What was left of the second line all threw their spears. Several more revenants fell! Several were thrown at the woman but they seemed to stop mid air a few inches from her now annoyed face.
“Augustus! For the 9th!” Maxus commanded.
Augustus nocked an arrow. It’s tip glowing a bright blue color as he aimed it for the sky and let it fly. Then came the horn. I loved that sound. The deep bellow that signified help was here. The woman had fallen victim to Quintus plan like a rat in a trap as he’d placed his forces less then a mile away from our position. She turned and eyed us when she realized what was about to happen. There were thousands of us coming and now she was stuck with her back to a cliff. You see, we’d known that she could somehow hear us in our tent. So Quintus had given us written orders that morning. We knew as soon as we went to Cain, that she’d come screaming in.
The woman could have tried to run. But she didn’t. She only pressed her attack harder.
“Get the stone! For the queen!” She bellowed.
The revenants charged again. This time even harder. My line braced for the impact. The only difference this time Merlin didn’t have to hold back. I watched as a wall of fire ten feet high conjured up just outside the shield wall. Incinerating anything and everything that attacked it. I could hear Cain shuffle his way to the cave entrance behind me. I turned to see him with one hand up and an angry glint in his eye. That was when the woman was ripped through the flames whilst clutching her throat. Cain summoned her to him. Leaving her suspended in the air for a moment.
“You’re not Lilith!” He said with disgust. “I-I am her true vessel! Something you could never be!” She wheezed. Cain gave her a look of pure disgust before summoning her closer. “You’re nothing but a slave!” He said before tapping her on the forehead. The woman fainted. By then, Quintus and the legion had completely enveloped the remaining revenants. It took a few hours, but we eventually killed them all.
The woman was brought to Quintus tent to be questioned. I was present, as was Cain, Merlin, Maxus, and Solaris. It turned out that she was a farmers daughter called Gwen. Her father had been killed by a rival clan the previous year and she’d been gang raped by them. Lilith took advantage of this. Promising her revenge in return for the stone. The story was simple. But I could tell that it deeply bothered Quintus.
Later that night, we celebrated. By we, I mean Maxus, Solaris, Crixus, and Augustus sat around one of the camps fires and drank wine. The soldiers around us celebrated as well. But they were lost in their revelry. Maxus was quiet. Which was normal. Usually after a victory he’d sit near the fire and stare into it. He’d been like that since Luke had been ripped apart by a giant spider. Solaris was already intoxicated… Or as intoxicated as one could get with the omega running through their veins. He and Crixus laughed about something that I missed. Augustus eyed me. He knew what was on my mind.
“Six.” He said. I turned to him. “What?”
“Six men. That’s how many we lost. Not horrible.” Augustus said. “Six more then I’d like.” I replied. I could hear Maxus exhale. I turned to him. “Six men gave their lives for the 9th.” He said softly. “FOR THE 9TH!” Solaris called out drunkenly. “FOR THE 9TH!” The entire camp of soldiers called out from around us. I smirked at the bravado. “You’re a good centurion Marcus. Don’t let it get to you. Each of those men would have happily died for you again if you’d asked them.” Maxus said with a soft smile. I took a deep breath and then took another swig of wine. “So what now?” I asked. “What do you mean, what now?” “The girl. We all heard what she said.” Maxus nodded as he thought. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Right now, we revel!!” Solaris said as he stood up and almost immediately fell over. Crixus helped the man off the floor. “Alright buddy you’re done!” He said softly.
I could still see Maxus pondering. I knew his mind was in the same place as mine. “This can’t be over.. Can it?” “It’s not!” Quintus voice said from behind us.
Both Maxus and I stood up and saluted him. Quintus, however, was far from alone. He was flanked on his right by two men. One with dark brown hair and a stern look on his face. He wore similar black armor to Quintus, but his was different in the sense that instead of a sword on his hip. He has a massive silver bladed scythe in one hand. The next was a man in what I could only describe as black Greek hoplite armor with weapons to match. Then came the woman on his left wore black armor as well. Only she didn’t have any weapons. She had dark hair and a greenish tint to her skin.
“We should talk. You’re not going to like what comes next.”

Bits:
Millions of dead souls of the thousands of races that inhabited the Gallowdark still haunt it. They are bitter and corrupted by countless years of Warp exposure.
​
-Those habitations of those trapped aboard the Space Hulk are more wretched than the most pressed of Imperial worlds. Mutation is common. Psychic outbreaks kill hundreds. Almost all machine spirits have been corrupted by the Warp. Raiders from every type both human Xenos can attack at any time. Sudden radstorms are frequent, and it's possible that a hulk quake can send tons of metal crashing down upon settlements.
​
-Virtually all of the mutant population worship the Chaos Gods. They pray for them for more gifts and the strength to destroy their rival clans. The Navy Armsmen reached the mutant clans' territories, and it kicked up a brutal conflict and soon mutant blood flowed like rivers in the hulk's corridors and tunnels. The armsmen kicked up a nest and the resulting frenzy saw mutant clan after mutant clan pulled into the bloodshed. The strife woke up a clutch of genestealer. The Xenos slaughtered everything that crossed their path.
​
-The settlement of Ironshanty is a place of relative peace. It was founded by Imperial colonists whose ship was melded into the Space Hulk. The settlement survived through luck and faith. However, the descendants of these colonists had to compromise their Imperial ideals in order to survive the terrors of the Gallowdark. Notions of right and wrong barely exist as the tribal gangs rule with an iron fist. In exchange for the sanctuary they offer, Ironshanty gathered many weapons and gained protection from the warriors within the hulk. It acts as a neutral zone where both humans and Xenos can trade and find shelter. However, after the Space Hulk returned to Real Space, the settlement found itself under ceaseless attack from the Orks. In desperation, the tribal leaders are emptying their coffers to pay mercs to defend them, and the population is praying to more gods than the Emperor. It's only a matter of time before irreversible corruption sets in.
​
-The bravery, skill, and discipline of the Karskin are all in excess of the common Imperial soldier. Their life outside of the battlefield consists of an endless regimen of study, prayer, physical exercise, and specialist training. This honed them body and mind into warriors of peak human performance capable of reacting instinctively in virtually any combat situation.
​
-Though Cadia has fallen; there are billions of Cadian across the galaxy and millions of Kasrkin.
​
*Personal Note: Call up to the 9th ED Astra Militarum codex saying that there were 1 billion defenders on Cadia in total. This new tidbit means that the majority of Cadians were off-world during the 13th Black Crusade
​
-After the fall of their world, the Karskin's hatred for the forces of Chaos deepened. Other feelings took root in their hearts. A resentment for those who fought on Cadia and failed, those that abandoned Cadia when it needed them the most, and even themselves for not being there. However, not all are consumed by guilt and driven by the zealous need for redemption. Some are not burdened by the loss of their world. As far as they are concerned, the planet broke before the guard did. So as long as a single Cadian breathes and fights against the enemies of the Emperor, Cadia stands.
​
-An increasing number of Karskin recruits are being drawn from non-Cadians. Many Cadians see them as lesser troops for not undergoing the rigors of Cadia. So the non-Cadians have much to prove to their Cadian-born comrades. It's a mark of immense pride for a non-Cadian to earn the Caducades Sea Eagle tattoo. It's a ritually applied neck tattoo given to each Cadian after induction into the Kasrkin. It's not given lightly to external recruits.
​
-Shared hardships, intense training, and their faith forges bonds between the members of the Karskin Kill Teams. Usually, their humor is coarse, inspired by a shared life of pain, stress, and struggle.
​
-The Kasrkin Kill Team Hektor fought on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade. They were among the last to be evacuated from the shattering world. They carry the burden of loss and failure with them, believing had they fought harder, Cadia might still stand. Before serving on Cadia, Kill Team Hektor fought on Armageddon. Under the tutelage of the Ork hunters regiments, they became expert Greenskin fighters. Such was their performance against the Ork commandos that they were given a collective citation from a commander of an Ork hunter regiment. After the Fall of Cadia, the Kill team was deployed in the War of Beasts on Vigilus. The Greenskins on that world soon learned to fear the Karskin of Kill Team Hektor.
​
-Kasrkin Kill Team Vance are expert and highly adaptable xenos killers having honed their skills fighting the T'au and their many alien allies. They have slain the aliens of dozens of species. Their hot-shot las burned through the leathery hide of Kroot, the gelatinous bodies of the Galg, and the weak spots of Vespid chitin. Kill Team Vance earned a name for themselves in the Chalneth Expanse. They successfully rescued a captured general staff from T'au and Kroot infiltrators. They even managed to slay an Ethereal decimating T'au morale across a whole continent.
​
-Kasrkin Kill Team Haseed is notable for being comprised entirely of non-Cadians. The leader of the Kill Team, Sergeant Haseed, hails from Tallarn. As a result of this, the Kill Team is under scrutiny from the rest of their company, who retain Cadian blood and resent the idea of non-Cadians wearing the Cadian uniform. So far, the Kill Team has not been found wanting. They proved themselves during the Siege of the Chaos Knight World of Dharrovar. They infiltrated an enemy stronghold and slew the idolaters within. By doing so, they prevented several Chaos Knights from being repaired. The Kill Team continues its operation in the Nachmund Gauntlet and has slain countless traitors and heretics.
​
-Among the servants of the Crypteks are the Apprenteks. These were crypteks-in-training . As many of the Crypteks usurped their masters in the days of flesh, they were eager to suppress the will to rebel in their students. Now the Apprenteks are programmed thralls retaining some parts of their former personalities. Despite their condition, they have their individual talents and abilities. Yet to their Cryptek masters, they are nothing but tools to be used until they are of no use.
​
The Story:
​
Imperial side:
Milennia ago, there was an Inquisitor called Iyaklyta Rehnis. She believed in the existence of an ancient race that was far more powerful than the Imperium and had fought the Aeldari for dominance in the past. She believed that members of the race still lived after examining the remains of skeletal assassins. Her belief was dismissed by her peers as one of her radical claims. Her single piece of evidence to support her theory was a broken Aeldari tablet containing a fragmented script. However, her detractors dismissed the script as Xenos mythology. The dismissal of her peers drove her to prove that she was right. A Kroot contact would finally give her a chance to do just that.
​
-She paid the Kroot with enough arms to equip a small army in exchange for picts. The picts were of an obsidian object whose surface ran with veins that throbbed with green light. Some of the symbols on the object looked strikingly similar to those on the Aeldari tablet.
​
-After giving the Kroot more weapons for the location of the object, she requisitioned the elite troops of the 15th Kasrkin regiment.
​
-The object was held on an astroid-based pirate colony. The Inquisitor and her troops stormed the colony, and after weeks of fighting and searching, she claimed her prize. Finally, she had all the proof she needed to prove her detractors wrong. Unfortunately for her, she would not get the chance.
​
-Her ship with hundreds of Kasrkin aboard was lost in the Warp. The Inquisitor lost her life in the ordeal. Her name was removed from the rolls of active Ordos Xenos agents. The 15th Karskin regiment was removed from the list of deployed regiments, and their colors and number were awarded to other troops.
​
-In the Warp, the ship was torn apart and its confines swarmed with the Warpspawn. However, not all perished. Within sanctified chambers and even the navigator's shielded sanctum, some survived. The fragments of the ships drifted for millennia in the Warp until they were pressed into the Gallowdark.
​
-Time functions differently in the Warp. When the surviving Kasrkin emerged from their hiding when the Space Hulk translated into Real Space, they appeared to have aged only a few years.
​
-The Kasrkin survivors were scattered across the Space Hulk with no idea that others of their brethren survived. One such group belonged to Sergeant Pavlo. She realized that to escape the Space Hulk, they needed to arm themselves with as much arms and equipment as possible. After days of searching, they found an Imperial armory that was miraculously intact and not plundered. Inside the armory, the Karskin group found the object the Inquisitor was after, a device that, according to the late inquisitor, belonged to a race called the "Nekkroni" (translated from the ancient Aeldari text).
​
-The trooper that found the device was struck with a green light that was identical to the light emitted by the device. The trooper, then suddenly, crumbled into pieces as if he was cut in a thousand places. Pavlo immediately grabbed the device and ran. She believed that the Nekkroni were extinct. It appears that this was not the case.
​
Necron side:
​
-The device Pavlo was running away with was an Ark of Hamanet. It and others like it were stolen from a Necron tomb belonging to the small but ambitious Tsarakura dynasty. They were creations of the Cryptek Hamanet the Relentless. The Arks were crucial for the correct awakening of his dynasty and the ongoing plans of his Cryptek council known as the Concord of Technokracy. True to his title, Hamanet implacably hunted down the vermin that stole what belonged him. He reclaimed all Arks save for one. Being this close to achieving his goal, his patience was running out.
​
-The Ark of Hamanet aboard the Space Hulk was keyed to awaken the tomb world of Tsaremok. It was the resting place of millions of Necron warriors and warmachines. Most importantly, there were no aliens squatting on it. There would be no force to contest its awakening and incorporation into the growing dynasty. Should Hamanet be successful in reclaiming the last Ark and awakening Tsaremok he would secure a position of great power within the Concord.
​
-Finding the Ark aboard the Space Hulk proved to be a vexing and time-consuming affair even for one of his supreme skill and intelligence. Things got complicated further when a team of humans found the Ark by accident and fled somewhere in the Space Hulk. Hamanet supposed some positive would come out of this hunt. It would be an interesting tale to tell his peers when he returns.
​
-The battle of the final Ark of Hamanet was joined. A cat and mouse game within the terrifying and deadly confines of the Space Hulk. Having spent some time in the Space Hulk, the elite Karskin are more familiar with it and how to use its environments to their advantage. Hamanet, on the other hand, has the element of surprise, his genius, and superior technology.
​
The Tsarakura dynasty:
​
The small dynasty lies in the galactic west between the much larger and powerful Thokt, Sarnekh, and Ogdobekh dynasties. It contends with the ever-present danger of either being assimilated or being the center of a proxy war between the three larger dynasties. Despite it all, the Overlords of Tsarakura have the ambition of conquering all three. Unfortunately for them, they don't even truly control their own dynasty.
​
-The dynasty's Crypteks, by chance, have awoken before their dynastic lieges. A senior grouping of the Crypteks called the Concord of Technokracy used their skills and technologies to manipulate the stasis crypts of the dynasts to impose a total yet hidden control. Now the Overlords of the dynasty are nothing but unknowing puppets of the Crypteks.
​
-It's important for the Crypteks that what they did remains a secret. Driven by ancient tradition and law, the other dynasties would not accept the rule of the Crypteks over one of their fellow noble houses. The Tsarakura dynasty would be stripped of the Triarch codes of honor, and the ancient non-aggression pacts would be voided.
​
-The Crypteks care nothing for the honor codes except for the elements that protect them. No tactic or strategy is too underhanded for the Crypteks in pursuing their goals.
​
-Due to the small size of the dynasty, it has relatively small numbers of forces and resources. So often, the crypteks deploy Hierotek Circles (Necron Kill Teams) to forward their agendas. They steal technology from rival dynasties and work to cause tension and disruption among them. Their small size gives them a superb cover, for they are often underestimated by their rivals. While the larger dynasties bicker among themselves, the Tsarakura conduct their missions and expand their influence across the galaxy.
​
-Hierotek Circles of Tsarakura have manipulated the pirate fleets of Zapannec into attacking the Thokt, Sarnekh, and Ogdobekh dynasties. They have raided the Echoing Coil, where the Mephrit dynasty's Crypteks are constructing some of the most dangerous weapons in the galaxy. They even ventured close to the Eye of Terror to plunder ancient troves of treasure and ritual sites.
​
Hammnet the Relentless:
​
-The Cryptek is obsessed with eliminating the numerical advantage of his dynasty's rivals. Awakening another tomb is essential for this goal. For this, he needed the last Ark. It was vital to ensuring the total control of the Technokracy over the dynasty.
​
-During the time of flesh, Hamanet was appalled by how the Necrontyr warriors were thoughtlessly thrown to their deaths by the Overlords. This concern was not born out of altruism but of Hamanet's knowledge that such precious resources could be spent in a better way. The Cryptek dedicated his mortal life to developing technology that would restore injured warriors to frontline duty.
​
-When the biotransference came, he saw it as the ultimate solution to the warriors' dilemma, so he embraced it. Ever since the Cryptek spent his unliving existence on developing technologies that sped up the reanimation of his dynasty's legions. He is so seemingly obsessed with efficiency that his fellows within the Technokracy see him as quite frugal.
​
-Hamanet's right hand is the Immortal Despotek Thotep. Once, in the time of flesh, Thotep was just a street urchin barely surviving in the society of the Necrontyr. By chance, Hamanet stumbled on him. Impressed by the boy's tenacity, resilience, and strength, Hamanet took him in and fed him. He asked nothing in return except for the boy's loyalty. For 60 million years, Thotep has not failed his master.
​
-Two Immortal Guardians serve in Hamanet's Circle. Oberek and Banatur. Oberek is a sadistic torture. The Great Sleep had only deepened her need for bloodshed. Hamanet keeps her on a tight leash, only letting loose her mental restraints when he needs his enemies to suffer terrible damage. Banatur is a disciplined soldier who is utterly loyal to the dynasts. It amuses Hamanet that the Immortal is unaware he truly serves the Crypteks and not his rightful lords.
​
-Hamanet is assisted by an Apprentek he calls Xeoptar the Devoted. She was once an aspiring Cryptek. Hamanet tinkered with her engrams to render her under his complete control. However, somehow, she found a weakness in the engram suppression code. She is slowly unpicking it and bidding her time.

Part 1/3: https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/zsdrpn/i_served_in_the_9th_roman_legion/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Part 2/3
Over the next ten years I fought in countless battles against all manner of beasts and demons. We fought all over the empire. From Gaul to Greece. I was good at it. I worked my way all the way up to the level of centurion. While Maxus became the Primus Pilus. I was one of the six centurions in his cohort. Along with both Solaris and Crixus. Then came one fateful day.
I was called into Quintus tent by Maxus. We were camped out on a beach in Britannia. Our mission there had been to track down what we thought was a Druid priest that had been dabbling into black magic and creating revenants. It’s not an easy spell and most require training directly from a demonic entity to do it. We were concerned. We’d spent a few weeks trying to track them to no avail. It was as if they knew our plans as we made them. Our local contact, another Druid magician called Merlin (yes that Merlin) was in Quintus tent with him.
The man wasn’t anything like they portrayed in the movies and stories. He wasn’t or didn’t appear to be very much older then myself. He had a head full of shaggy red hair and a thin beard. He also smelled horrible. Like a mixture of vomit and goat piss. He wore white robes and glared at me the moment I walked in.
“Marcus!” Quintus greeted.
“Commander!” I greeted in response.
“I was just talking to Merlin here about our battle against the children of Sobek in Egypt.”
“They were repulsive.” I said plainly.
“That they were. But you all held your ground. Which actually brings me to why I called you two in here. Do you remember what exactly they were after?” He asked.
“Something about a magical stone in the area.” Said Maxus.
“Something like that. Any of you ever heard the worshipers of the Abrahamic god talk of a man called Cain?”
Both Maxus and I shook our heads. Quintus nodded.
“They believe that he was among the first family of man. He murdered his brother over some sheep and was cursed for it. While that story is close it’s incomplete… He didn’t murder his brother for sheep. He murdered his brother for the arch demon Lilith.. Who’d spent the better part of a year filling his head with dreams of power… She taught him how to use black magic. In turn, he became her apostle.. Her disciple on earth. Together they created… Or maybe found what we call the philosopher’s stone.” Quintus explained.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“In simple terms. It’s a powerful source of magic. Strong enough to pull apart entire planets if that’s what the user wills.”
Maxus stroked his chin. “If it’s powerful enough to do that, then why hasn’t Lilith or Cain used it to destroy the planet?”
“Lilith tried.. Cain, however, decided that destroying the entire human race wasn’t the best idea.” Quintus said.
“He took it and ran!” Merlin replied.
“And how do we know this?” Maxus asked.
“Who do you think taught Merlin the mystical arts?” Quintus said.
“So what does this have to do with the revenants?” I asked.
“We think the druid is after the stone as well.” Said Merlin.
“That’s why they’ve been terrorizing villages.. We think he’s trying to flush Cain out.” Quintus said.
“And what do we know of this druid?” Asked Maxus.
“Absolutely nothing… We don’t even know if it is a Druid. All we know, is that someone is controlling the revenants by the hundreds. Maybe thousands. Which brings me to my next point. Your assignment… Cain is held up in a cave a few miles north of here. I want you to take your century and protect it while we try our hand at hunting them down. I will personally command the rest of your cohort while you’re gone.” Quintus said.
“Are you sure? Marcus and I may be your best chance at finding them?” Maxus said.
“I’m sure. Protecting that stone is of the upmost importance. I wouldn’t assign the task to anyone else.”
Maxus sighed deeply before turning and looking in my direction.
“Let’s go then.” He said as he started to walk out.
We both stopped at the tent’s entrance.
“Oh and Maxus.. You two know the plan. Stick to it.”
Maxus and I marched my century with Merlin acting as our guide. The journey was like any other. That being said, 10 years prior, it would have made my legs ache. Now it was like taking an evening stroll. I’d grown used to the enhancements in my time with the 9th. I’d also grown used to life on the move. We were never in the same place longer then we had to be. This was my third time in Britannia. It only occurs to me now, all these years later, that we never really had a true home.
Merlin guided us through a dense forest. So dense that Maxus and I had my century marching in rows of four. Merlin was in the front. Followed by me, Maxus, and Agustus. Augustus was my right hand man so to speak. He was one of the decanus in my century. The forest was quiet. This alone had me on edge. Thanks to the Omega potion, I could hear a mouse running through the brush at a hundred yards and still… I heard nothing in this forest.
“You noticed it too?” Maxus asked.
“That the forest is deathly silent or that Merlin smells like goat piss?” I replied.
“Are you sure that isn’t you centurion?” Augustus asked from behind me.
“Very funny…” I said in response.
“Merlin!” Maxus barked.
Merlin stopped and turned back to the Primus Pilus.
“Yes?”
“How much further?”
“Another mile or so. There’s a cave on the edge of this forest. That’s where he’ll be.” Merlin said with a smirk before turning and continuing on.
Maxus turned to me.
“I don’t like this!” He said.
“Neither do I.” I said as I turned and signaled Augustus to have the men ready themselves.
I tightened my grip on my shield. Merlin continued onward. We walked for a few more minutes before we came to the side of a cliff. Which contained a cave that was maybe ten feet off the ground.
“Here we are!” Merlin said.
“Cain is up there?” I asked.
Merlin shrugged, “That’s where he’s been spending his time.”
“Great!” I said as I handed my shield and spear to Augustus before I approached the opening.
It took a single jump for me to clear the opening. Enhanced strength and all that. A ten foot vertical jump wasn’t anything to gawk at. I landed lightly. The cave was vast. It smelled like cooked meat. In the distance, I could see a small fire burning in the back. A lone man sat next to it cradling something. I started to approach when I heard someone land behind me. I turned to see Maxus standing there. He was followed by Merlin who seemed to float inside.
“Is that him?” I asked.
Merlin nodded. Maxus and I approached cautiously. Neither of us really knowing what to expect. When I finally reached him I found a rabbit cooking over the fire. Cain was a slender man. With olive skin and dark hair. He didn’t look at us as we came closer.
“Marcus and Maxus.. How very nice it is to meet you! Officially, I mean…. I saw you two fight in Egypt. Those children of Sobek are ravenous.” He said in a soft voice.
We stood silently.
“Please!! Sit!! Would you like some rabbit?” he said as he gestured for us to sit down across from him.
I sat but declined the rabbit. Maxus stood with his hand on his sword. I didn’t blame him.
“You have the stone?” Maxus asked.
“I do. I never leave home without it.”
That was when I noticed what Cain had been cradling. I massive red gem that seemed to glow a faint red where he caressed it. I swallowed hard.
“She’s coming for me you know! She’s always coming for me!”
“Who?” I asked.
“The red queen! Mother of monsters! The maiden of Gehenna! Lilith! That’s why I’m in this cave.”
Now, before I get much further, I have to explain something. Demons are or were a strange bunch. While they weren’t banned from earth entirely, they weren’t welcome. Most that walked among humans kept their heads down. Except for a few. We had a story that was told to us by Quintus himself. About how Gehenna used to have free reign to terrorize everyone that they could. Until heaven stepped in. I guess enough was enough. Heaven bequeathed a young man called Enoch a sword. Enoch in turn led humanity to war alongside heavens arch angels. A war known as the First Gehennian War. A war that ended when the arch Angel Michael defeated Lucifer for the second time since the rebellion. Rather then die, Gehenna and Heaven came to an agreement. Gehenna wouldn’t continue the constant invasions of earth and would keep its sovereignty. The door way between the realms would remain “unlocked” but monitored. Gehennian beings on earth would be required to report before being allowed entry. Which means… If Lilith was wondering around. We’d know. Now, accidents do happen. Lower level demons used to escape all the time and cause problems. But they were never acting on Lucifer’s orders. If they were, that would mean war. This was the queen we were talking about. His queen. There were, however, some ways around having to report. Like a demon sending its essence up to earth and finding a body to possess. Now, I know what your thinking.. I’m a Roman. Romans have their own gods. Why am I talking about Abrhamic mythology? The Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and most of the others do exist. But like everything else. The stories aren’t exactly one for one. Anyway, I’m getting off topic..
“Lilith is in Britannia? How do you know it’s her?” Maxus asked.
Cain looked down at the stone and exhaled.
“She wants the stone. I can sense her essence. We are connected. Her and I.”
“Can you stop speaking in fucking riddles!” Maxus barked.
Cain closed his eyes and smiled. The cave suddenly lit up. Torches sparked to life brightly revealing cave paintings on the walls. Maxus instinctively drew his sword. Cain opened his eyes and stood. It was then I noticed a table set up against one of the walls. The table was adorned with candles and covered in what looked like runes.
“It’s an old blood magic spell. A trade of sorts. Back when I was her vessel on earth. Some of her still remains.”
“You let her possess you?” I asked.
“Yes. She couldn’t come her herself. Lucifer forbid it. He still does. But I don’t think she cares anymore. Instead she used me to destroy. To maim and murder. This was after the war of course. After she was banished from her earthly body. I eventually took back control. I used the stone to purge her from my mind but there are pieces that still remain.”
“If what you’re saying is true. It would mean war.” Maxus said.
“If what he’s saying is true. Then Quintus has his work cut out for him. An arch demon of her magnitude may be too much for an Omega soldier. Maybe even the 9th itself.” I said.
Maxus turned to me and smirked.
“You’ve been here ten years and still don’t know all the secrets.”
I was about to inquire what he meant by that when I heard the demonic screech coming from outside the cave. Cain only smiled at this.
“Quintus may have miscalculated how quickly she’d find me.”
Maxus looked at Cain.
“Quintus miscalculates nothing!”
I admired Maxus blind faith in our leader. Even when I myself was questioning it. But in all honesty, Quintus had never steered us wrong before. Yes men had died before but it was an occupational hazard.
I ran out to the mouth of the cave. Augustus had arranged the men in a circular formation around the cave. They’d formed a shield wall that was two men deep. He was a good man. He’d done exactly as instructed. I looked out into the forest. I could smell them before I saw them. The rotten corpses of picts shambling our way. Some were armed and some weren’t. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them. I glanced back at Maxus, who gave me a nod before I jumped down. The walking corpses were only a few feet away from the shield wall.
“Pilum! Front line!” I commanded.
The soldiers in the front line threw their spears. Several of the dead fell. Some didn’t. Some missed altogether. But doing this only opened the flood gates. The dead went from shambling to full on sprinting. Before I could get another word in they’d slammed into the outer shield wall and they’d done so hard. But my men were strong. The shields held firm but that didn’t stop several from climbing over. Most of which were cut down by the second line.
I still hadn’t gotten my shield back. I had my sword out and the blade was burning blue. I had a revenant that had jumped over the wall charge me. This one looked like she used to be a pict woman wielding what looked to me like a kitchen knife. I very quickly removed her head from her body. The next thing I saw was Augustus. He was removing his sword from one of the revenants. I looked back up at the wall. It was still holding. By this time Maxus had landed behind me. As had Merlin. That was when we felt the ground rumble.
I stood still. The flood of walking corpses was still coming in from the forest. But my eyes caught something else. Something large and lumbering. It was a creature of which I’d never seen in person.
“Ah shit!” I grumbled.
The beast was massive and humanoid in appearance. Its bald rotten head almost reached the treetops. The undead giant snarled as it used its massive foot to kick its way through my lines causing a massive melee. The beast looked down at Maxus and I. We both readied our swords.
“This is gonna hurt isn’t it?” I asked. Augustus chuckled. Maxus exhaled. Then Merlin. Fucking Merlin started chanting in a language I’d never heard before whilst raising his hands. Before I could ask him what he was doing a massive whirlwind of fire seemed to conjure up underneath the giant’s feet before it swallowed him whole. The creature, maybe realizing it was dying, reached out with its tree trunk sized arm in an effort to grab me but it’s body was ash before it got the chance. We all turned and looked at Merlin who winked and smiled at us.
Maxus and I turned back to the melee. Our men were holding their own. But we were very clearly being overrun.
“Remember the plan!” Maxus said. “Plans already going to shit!” “Still!” “I know! I know!” I griped as I turned to Augustus. “As soon as that priest shows their face you fire that arrow!” I commanded. Augustus began pulling the bow from his back. While Maxus and I tried our best to reform the lines. It was a bloody affair. I can remember seeing one of my men having their entrails dug out by two or three of the creatures. I tried to save him. I really did. But there were just so many of them. I’d kill five and ten more would show up.
The battle went on for a good thirty minutes before we managed to reform the line. As we did so the revenants seemed to let up. The new ones stopped charging and stood back at the treeline.
“What the hell are they doing?” I asked.
It was then that I noticed the woman in white robes approaching us. She had dark hair and white paint covering her face. She was also living. So that meant she wasn’t a revenant. She also walked with a gracefulness to her. I can remember thinking that she was probably beautiful at one point. Before her eyes and teeth went inky black.
“Romans!” She called out with a sinister smile. “You’re outnumbered. You can’t fight here forever. Listen to my offer. For I shall only make it once.” She started.
I turned and eyed Maxus. Who smirked at me.
“Pilum!” I shouted. What was left of the second line all threw their spears. Several more revenants fell! Several were thrown at the woman but they seemed to stop mid air a few inches from her now annoyed face.
“Augustus! For the 9th!” Maxus commanded.
Augustus nocked an arrow. It’s tip glowing a bright blue color as he aimed it for the sky and let it fly. Then came the horn. I loved that sound. The deep bellow that signified help was here. The woman had fallen victim to Quintus plan like a rat in a trap as he’d placed his forces less then a mile away from our position. She turned and eyed us when she realized what was about to happen. There were thousands of us coming and now she was stuck with her back to a cliff. You see, we’d known that she could somehow hear us in our tent. So Quintus had given us written orders that morning. We knew as soon as we went to Cain, that she’d come screaming in.
The woman could have tried to run. But she didn’t. She only pressed her attack harder.
“Get the stone! For the queen!” She bellowed.
The revenants charged again. This time even harder. My line braced for the impact. The only difference this time Merlin didn’t have to hold back. I watched as a wall of fire ten feet high conjured up just outside the shield wall. Incinerating anything and everything that attacked it. I could hear Cain shuffle his way to the cave entrance behind me. I turned to see him with one hand up and an angry glint in his eye. That was when the woman was ripped through the flames whilst clutching her throat. Cain summoned her to him. Leaving her suspended in the air for a moment.
“You’re not Lilith!” He said with disgust. “I-I am her true vessel! Something you could never be!” She wheezed. Cain gave her a look of pure disgust before summoning her closer. “You’re nothing but a slave!” He said before tapping her on the forehead. The woman fainted. By then, Quintus and the legion had completely enveloped the remaining revenants. It took a few hours, but we eventually killed them all.
The woman was brought to Quintus tent to be questioned. I was present, as was Cain, Merlin, Maxus, and Solaris. It turned out that she was a farmers daughter called Gwen. Her father had been killed by a rival clan the previous year and she’d been gang raped by them. Lilith took advantage of this. Promising her revenge in return for the stone. The story was simple. But I could tell that it deeply bothered Quintus.
Later that night, we celebrated. By we, I mean Maxus, Solaris, Crixus, and Augustus sat around one of the camps fires and drank wine. The soldiers around us celebrated as well. But they were lost in their revelry. Maxus was quiet. Which was normal. Usually after a victory he’d sit near the fire and stare into it. He’d been like that since Luke had been ripped apart by a giant spider. Solaris was already intoxicated… Or as intoxicated as one could get with the omega running through their veins. He and Crixus laughed about something that I missed. Augustus eyed me. He knew what was on my mind.
“Six.” He said. I turned to him. “What?”
“Six men. That’s how many we lost. Not horrible.” Augustus said. “Six more then I’d like.” I replied. I could hear Maxus exhale. I turned to him. “Six men gave their lives for the 9th.” He said softly. “FOR THE 9TH!” Solaris called out drunkenly. “FOR THE 9TH!” The entire camp of soldiers called out from around us. I smirked at the bravado. “You’re a good centurion Marcus. Don’t let it get to you. Each of those men would have happily died for you again if you’d asked them.” Maxus said with a soft smile. I took a deep breath and then took another swig of wine. “So what now?” I asked. “What do you mean, what now?” “The girl. We all heard what she said.” Maxus nodded as he thought. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Right now, we revel!!” Solaris said as he stood up and almost immediately fell over. Crixus helped the man off the floor. “Alright buddy you’re done!” He said softly.
I could still see Maxus pondering. I knew his mind was in the same place as mine. “This can’t be over.. Can it?” “It’s not!” Quintus voice said from behind us.
Both Maxus and I stood up and saluted him. Quintus, however, was far from alone. He was flanked on his right by two men. One with dark brown hair and a stern look on his face. He wore similar black armor to Quintus, but his was different in the sense that instead of a sword on his hip. He has a massive silver bladed scythe in one hand. The next was a man in what I could only describe as black Greek hoplite armor with weapons to match. Then came the woman on his left wore black armor as well. Only she didn’t have any weapons. She had dark hair and a greenish tint to her skin.
“We should talk. You’re not going to like what comes next.”

I was reading through Guy Hayley's Wolfsbane and I came across an interesting conversation with a Younger Cawl giving his views of the human form and augmentation that I find very interesting and thought I'd share:
"The interlocutors were low-ranking tech adepts, elevated from the mass of the Mechanicum’s slice of servile humanity, but not far along in their careers. They were natives of Mars and of a similar age, having taken installation of their intelligence cores only a couple of decades before, though they did not know each other then. Upon posting to the Trisolian System, their paths had crossed. Finding common ground – a few old haunts they both knew, a smattering of shared colleagues – they had struck up a fragile friendship.
Their names were Friedisch Adum Silip Qvo, and Belisarius Cawl.
They did not agree on much, it was true, but it was equally true that they enjoyed the friction of their differences as much as the ease of their similarities.
When their shifts coincided they would take sustenance together. They often lingered in the hall for a while to debate with one another, as they did that day. Surrounded by the clatter of nutrient cubes delivered to metal trays and the constant hum of plasma cell recharging coils, their often contentious discussions were as safely held there as anywhere else.
A good thing too, for their debate had taken them into dangerous territory. The subject the racket of the hall shrouded was their shared mistress, Domina Magos Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma. The line of conversation worried Friedisch. For the same reasons, it energised Cawl.
Somewhere inside Domina Magos Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma was a woman, though most people would not see that, because what covered the woman over was so alien as to obscure her human origins completely. ‘Consider her appearance,’ said Cawl, before unflatteringly describing her. ‘Domina Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma is exactly three metres tall when she is at full extension. The body she wears, for the benefit of the world, is a monstrous thing, as long again behind her reverse jointed pelvis as it is tall above the clutch of mechapeds that propel it. Her mirrored helm face covers over the front of a cranial augmetic three times the volume of a standard human head and twelve times the weight. From her occiput sprouts a circular crest of data arrays, short-range emitters, omnilinks, sensor banks, augurs, vox-parsers, cogitator shunts and other communications devices that are as complex as any voidship’s sensor suite. In deference to her wilfully forgotten origins, her mirrored face is fashioned like a carnivale mask – that of a well-proportioned human female whose beauty is so well considered in its artifice it is bland. The eyes and the lips are sealed. A hint of sardonic humour has been stamped onto the mouth.’
‘You shouldn’t be speaking this way,’ interrupted Friedisch.
‘Why not?’ said Cawl. ‘It is true. She would admit it. That silver mask is as human as the domina gets. She is the epitome of the cyberphile cult. There is no remnant of humanity beyond this ironic statement. If there are fleshly components to her, they are sealed deep within her armoured warframe, and never displayed.’
‘But she is human.’
‘Have you ever seen her organic parts?’
‘Well, no…’
‘Well, then,’ said Cawl.
‘She’s still human,’ insisted Friedisch.
Cawl shook his cowled head. ‘She has a multiplicity of arms. Seven, at my last count, but the number never remains the same for very long. The domina is addicted to change in a way that some say praises the Omnissiah, but which I privately hold to be very unhealthy.’ He stirred his caffeine drink. It smelled more of oil than it did of anything else. ‘She cannot be called human, not anymore. Any semblance to normal human anatomy is gone. Save that silver face,’ said Cawl gleefully, ‘which is appended to that body like the punchline to a jest of questionable taste.’
Which is exactly what Cawl had just made. Friedisch was appalled.
‘You can’t say that!’ said Friedisch. ‘You absolutely cannot say that.’ He spoke quickly. They were both lowly men, and Friedisch could not yet afford the binaric augmitter unit he coveted. Denied its lightning-fast mode of conversation, he had sped his organic speech to compensate. It was an affectation that, frankly, irritated Cawl, though he was generous enough to hide it. So Cawl thought. Friedisch was perfectly aware of Cawl’s irritation, and was irritated in return.
On the surface, Cawl appeared unaugmented. He was one of those who regarded the human form as holy in itself as an expression of the Machine-God’s perfection. Friedisch was of the other school, seeing the body as a natural accident that must be improved upon. Not that his own augmentations had gone to plan. Friedisch’s ocular enhancement had not bonded correctly with his organic corpus. His skin was a sickly white around the plastek-coated steel, spongy looking with persistent infection. A scent of biocidal gels clung to him as a result of unsuccessful self-treatment.
‘How can anyone proclaim their adherence to the Mechanicum code when they swap out components so freely?’ Cawl said. ‘There is a perfect point that can be reached, but that is the intersection between compromise and ambition.’
Friedisch put his tin mug of sustenance solution down. ‘That’s not perfection,’ he said. ‘That is settling.’
‘It is a kind of perfection,’ insisted Cawl. ‘In admitting our imperfections, we move as close to perfection as we can get. Imperfections must be embraced and accommodated. They cannot be ironed away.’
Friedisch’s frown grew a few more wrinkles. They pulled at the puffy skin around his augmetics. Cawl couldn’t help looking at them. Friedisch had taken the upgrade too soon, before he had sufficient monies or influence to ensure good-quality fittings.
‘That’s… heretical,’ said Friedisch.
‘Piffle!’ said Cawl. ‘Human rivalry cannot be programmed out. We in the Mechanicum are human. Human knowledge, human power. If we abandon human form, we abandon the Machine-God. How often do we forget that?’
Friedisch disagreed with Cawl; he was worried what would happen to him if he were caught spouting such nonsense, and by extension what would happen to Friedisch himself
‘You skirt dangerous ground,’ said Friedisch. ‘The central tenet of our creed is improvement of the human form through embracement of technology.’ ‘Yes!’ said Cawl in agreement, though in actual fact he was not agreeing; it was a rhetorical trick he over-employed. ‘And look at what the Emperor achieved doing just that. In the Legiones Astartes, primarchs, custodians and the others He has accentuated nature’s art. What He has done is sublime, but the form remains. Surely the Machine-God must be pleased with these finest works of the Omnissiah?’
....
‘Let us return to the debate in question,’ Cawl said. Friedisch wearily acquiesced.
‘So, your standpoint is that the Emperor does not believe in improving the human race in toto. The creatures He has made are for a purpose, and are disposable.’
‘It’s obvious, Cawl!’
Cawl held up a silencing finger. ‘Whereas I hold that we instead are over-reliant on the supplementation of the human body with these crude augmetics.’ He gestured pointedly at Friedisch’s own mistake. ‘If you are correct, I can’t say who has the better goal. Can you honestly say your additions have improved your life?’
‘Well, I…’ The question wrong-footed Friedisch. The implants were problematic. ‘There is the low-band spectral sight. And the dark sight. I can see in the dark very well. The pict function carries data-rich imagery directly to my memcore without requiring it to pass along my optic nerve shunts, which frees up more bandwidth of my native neurology for–’
‘But has it really brought you anything?’ interrupted Cawl. Again. ‘Apart from a succession of fungal infections?’ He smiled, a quick, nervous, wholly condescending flash of white teeth, and gestured with his cup at Friedisch’s inflamed skin.
Friedisch sighed. Cawl’s lack of conversational etiquette was maddening. Once he began talking, it was exceptionally difficult to break into the datastream until he had delivered whatever point he had to make, often several times over.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But it will. This augmetic is just the start.’ ‘Exactly,’ said Cawl, agreeing without agreeing. Again. ‘Now, let us suppose that the domina felt the same way about her first implants and still feels the same way? Why do you think she upgrades herself constantly? What has she gained? Nothing!’ he said, answering his own question.
‘Well, nothing except a five hundred-year lifespan, the ability to control a battlefleet by thought alone and more cogitative power than there is in every thinking unit in the system. Not much utility at all,’ Friedisch said sarcastically. ‘She controls all the military assets of Trisolian. I would not say that is nothing.’ Cawl ignored his jibe, leaving Friedisch put out.
‘Let us not even touch on what she has under those robes,’ Cawl said.
They shared a little shudder.
‘Well, my friend,’ said Cawl. ‘Mark my words, you will never find me altering myself to such an extent. I am human. I know what I am. There are far more efficient ways of increasing one’s lifespan, powers of thought and the other innumerable facilities the Machine-God has seen fit to gift us without mutilating the original body beyond recognition.’
‘You are a heretek, Cawl"
Very Ironic to say the least.

📷
Into the Flames
In the grim darkness of the far future, man leaves man to burn alive for his sins.
Fire!
Listen. The warning cry will send shivers down human spines, a portent of suffocating doom and hellish tongues consuming possessions and flesh alike in an inferno.
Fire!
Hear. The dreaded cry will ring out, and suddenly loved ones are to be lost, homes are to vanish and treasures and savings are to be reduced to nought but ash. How much of human history has vanished in capricious flame through the ages? What will remain standing among the cinders afterwards? What can be saved from the blaze? Can you be saved? Your kin?
Fire!
Act. The cry will be met with shouts and wailing. Adrenaline and billowing panic race through the veins of men, women and children. Primordial fear grapples with deedful instincts and a will to fight the burning menace, to preserve kith and kin and salvage precious belongings. The human heart runs amok, as animal terror fights innate heroism in a world at once gone hot, dry and deadly amid a thousand devils' flaring autumn colours. Frightened ears listen for steady voices, for sure commands to guide them out of this roaring peril. And everywhere, as things turn to ash, dark smoke bllows out, their embrace as insidious as poison.
No matter the epoch, the sight of rampaging fire will invoke much the same spectrum of responses from mankind. The reactions may vary to some degree, depending on training and known facilities on hand, yet the heart of man inevitably fears the flame, no matter if he dwells in a hut or a spire reaching for the stars themselves.
From the time when man first discovered fire, he has also battled to control the flames. Old Earth was once home to eternal temple fires, which priests and sacred virgins never allowed to go out. During the misty past of the distant Age of Terra, myths spoke of stolen fire carried from the gods on high to mortal men below, ending in a story of horrendous punishment visited upon the thief for thus empowering mankind with such a prohibited force. Echoes of this ancient legend still exist in a myriad forms across a million worlds and countless voidholms, retold by the fireside and electric heater as clans huddle together, close to the warmth. Yet the forbidden prize itself will often arise unexpectedly to harrow man with destruction, akin to a divine punishment that continues to scourge man, in a timeless tale of inhuman woe.
Garbled sagas from all across the Milky Way galaxy contain fragments of a far away time, a better time, a blissful time. A sinful time. They tell of a golden age, when man scarcely feared fire and lightning, and when he settled the stars with bold audacity and explored the cosmos as his birthright. They tell of the Dark Age of Technology, when fountains taller than mountains flowed and nanoxtingers too small for the eye to spot would arise to douse sparks and budding flames. They tell of rainstorms and even floods and tsunamis that could be fashioned by man at the flick of a finger to extinguish flames with razorlike precision, all fanciful glimpses of man's unrivalled artificial control of his surroundings during bygone eras. For truly man ruled the universe with supreme confidence, and in his arrogance did man first challenge, and then deny divinity, and such unbelief was to be the undoing of ancient man.
If distorted memories encapsulated within these fanciful narratives are to be believed, then Man of Gold in times of yore sported suits, vehicles and buildings immune to all the ravages of fire and heat. And Man of Stone directed Man of Iron with such efficient speed to kill sprouting flames, that many humans nigh-on lost their inherent fear of fire, and rare flares became a childish curiosity to them, exotic phenomena to be witnessed if they were fast enough, before an unfailing machine system corrected the error. For at first did Man of Iron not allow Man of Gold to come to harm, yet the dutiful servant in paradise became corrupted by Abominable Intelligence, and the earthly trinity of Man of Gold, Stone and Iron was destined to shatter, as punishment for godless man's horrible sins.
And so Man of Iron rose up to betray his master, and a cataclysmic machine revolt swept the human star domains like a wildfire in the heavens, slaying all life on a million worlds while another million burnt like torches, surrounded by void installations that crashed with flaming tails. And when the machines were vanquished, there came a cursed time of witches and ravages. Thus human civilization was toppled from its absolute pinnacle of shining glory, to crash into a horrid wasteland of ash and cinders. The grand beacon of hope and progress was extinguished, and all was fell.
Bereft of the technological marvels of their forebears, the savages and scavengers that roamed the subsequent cannibal age was left to the mercy of the elements. Exposed to cold, to radiation and to starvation and thirst, these technobarbarians lit campfires with whatever fuel they could find, to stave off freezing and darkness. Surrounded on all sides by the dark and by strange screams, these primitive wretches found comfort in flames as they squatted amid the ruins of a great civilization. Yet fire brought not only warmth and light, but also danger. Accidents would see flames consume entire tent villages and vaults filled with survivors, while deliberate use of fire as a rudimentary weapon saw foes and neighbours grilled to death in their own homes.
In this cannibal freefall known as Old Night, man quickly learnt anew to fear the flame, and to fear the unknown. In this deteriorating world of warlords and devastation, man's means to fight fire had usually degraded to crude bucket brigades and strangulation with blankets, while intact relics of ancient firefighting that could be manually worked by humans were much treasured and even fought over, as were other pieces of potent archeotech. Oftentimes, larger fires that devoured entire settlements of shanty huts would run rampant, beyond any means for ignorant man to control. Then, mankind was reduced to pray for strong rains, or to ask the gods for a flood. Such was firefighting for most of miserable humanity during the Age of Strife.
This aeon of ruin was ended abruptly by the Terran Emperor's brutal conquests, as Mars and Terra reasserted their interstellar dominion in sweeping wars that allowed no one to stay outside Imperial rule. The Great Crusade brought back a modicum of civilization, order and technological restoration to most human societies brought into Compliance, and one of the services reestablished by the early Imperium of Man was that of firefighting. As towering cities of enforced hope and knowledge were erected across the Milky Way galaxy, so too did well-oiled institutions arise to keep the material trappings of this human renaissance safe from worldly disasters. Where once spreading flames had been a communal emergency to be dealt with by floundering amateurs that were as ill-prepared as they were untrained, now city fires, factorum fires and forest fires would be tackled rapidly by drilled corps of professionals and volunteers stocked up on advanced equipment to deal with any number of fickle disaster scenarios, not only limited to burning flames.
Man lived better while the Imperator walked among His chosen species, and the realm of man grew more secure and confident, as a million captured worlds and voidholms beyond counting prospered and bloomed by Imperial grace. Where once Chaos had reigned during Old Night, now law, order and safeguards against disasters rose up amid wealthy Compliant societies. Populations that had once roamed anarchic in complete distrust for other people not of close kin, would at long last cultivate civic pride and trust in both fellow humans and larger, civilian institutions. During this heyday of mounting greatness, the popular image emerged, of the heroic fireman saving humanity from little disasters at home, whom all could depend on, while all-conquering Legions saved mankind as a whole from oblivion at a thousand battlefronts. And man began to dream again under the shadow of the stern Aquila, to nurture hope once more and to think of the great works that the ancients must have been undertaking before the great fall. And so brilliant minds turned their energies to repair and recover what knowledge had been lost, for they were once again aflame with visions of unlocking the secrets of the universe, and their spirits were determined to conquer lore just as the Emperor's warriors conquered worlds.
Such were the radiant promises of the early Imperium, yet they were to bear rotten fruit.
The greatest of traitors decreed: Let the galaxy burn.
And burn it did.
Seared away in the flames of ambition and envy, the human resurgence was brought low by human failings, and man revolted against his saviour and conqueror. Brother slew brother, and sister strangled sister across a thousand thousand worlds when the Emperor of Mankind Himself was nigh-on slain in the skies above Terra. Yet from suffering this heinous crime did He ascend into supreme godhood, to judge all of our species from the Golden Throne of hallowed myth in sacred perpetuity. Man would forever do penance for his baleful sins, and flames would scorch his flesh as smoke filled his lungs.
As the Age of Imperium ground on, fire became seen as an instrument of justice and purity, burning away sin, filth and corruption. Thus heretics, witches, mutants and malcontents were heaped upon the pyre, in an ever-deepening spiral of horror and malice heading into the darkest abyss of human depravity. Yet customs and morals were not the lone subject of a downward spiral, for technology itself underwent a slow grind into atavistic barbarity, in a drawn-out process of demechanization and loss of knowledge that has seen ordinary means of firefighting degenerate from airborne skimmers and sophisticated pump systems to the manual labour of bucket brigades.
One common symptom of technological deterioration for everyday civilian appliances within the Imperium, can be seen in the shape of the hosemen of a myriad different firefighting corps. Instead of being issued independently portable respirator apparati, the hosemen are given crude and cheap rebreathing masks fitted with long hoses that they drag along wherever they go, ever at risk of stepping on each others' air hoses or getting themselves entangled inside burning buildings. As man-portable respirator systems have gone from being a given norm for all pyrovigiles with any rebreathing apparatus whatsoever, to becoming a treasured prestige item, firefighting specialists such as smokedivers have been given priority for portable respirator equipment, while lowly hosemen teams are tasked with extinguishing fires as they drag along a snake's nest of both water hoses and air hoses.
This technological primitivization of human firefighting units in the Age of Imperium mirrors a grand retardation of every area within civilian society and military alike. It is however not only a decay of tech, but also of human systems of organization. When the Emperor of Terra walked among His dutiful subjects, firefighting services that protected everything and everyone within His domain was just part of the normal patchwork of civilization, and not something many thought twice about. During the early Imperium, many firemen were part of altruistic volunteer corps, and local Governors invested in standing corps of regular pyrovigiles to go along with these heroic citizens of a healthy civil society. On top of that did private organizations fund anti-inferno units for the common good, out of a robust sense of civic service.
As the Imperium has aged, and aged badly, the very word of 'citizen' has lost all meaning within the Low Gothic language, and nowadays everyone will talk about Imperial subjects or willing thralls of the Emperor. Where it once was unthinkable for able-bodied fire-soldiers to allow houses and people to burn without lifting a finger to save them, nowadays such practices of selective firefighting have become part and parcel of the commercial profit calculations of Guilds and collegia, and most humans in the fortyfirst millennium have never even heard of the concept of a volunteer firefighting corps.
The reason for this dying away of volunteer associations such as fireman organizations is twofold. First, it is the result of ruthless firefighting companies seeking to eliminate all competition through means both violent and legalese in nature. Second, it is the fruit of a persistent governance theme, where paranoid Imperial Governors and Voidholm Overlords will suppress any civil associations such as volunteer firefighting units, since any kind of popular organizations whatsoever could be used as a platform for rebellions and coups. Both Imperial and local rulers will pose the strongest opposition to the formation of volunteer firefighting units. After all, allowing the rabble to organize themselves for any reason whatsoever is a dangerous habit that can easily provide the basis for insurrections. Better to strangle that baby in the cradle than allow the unwashed plebs to coalesce, by slaying the new volunteer firefighting corps in as public a way as possible, complete with false accusations and grisly displays of dying volunteer firemen and their mutilated bodyparts amid much pomp and circumstance, set to the tune of rabid propaganda.
This dysfunctional obsession with public order over the common good has ever been a plague upon the fulfilment of humanity's true potential, and the long-term results of it will invariably turn counter-productive even for the purposes of maintaining stability. Thus does distrust breed misery, and failure begets failure.
Indeed, most worlds and voidholms within the Emperor's cosmic domains will lack governance-run Fire Ministries, since such natural parts of human civilizations during the early Imperium has long since rotted away through fivehundred generations of corruption, cutbacks and a morass of screeching inefficiency and bureaucratic rigmarole. Thus, with the general absence of volunteer corps of firemen and functioning governatorial anti-inferno departments, the field has been left abandoned for privileged business interests to dominate, except for in underhives and the worst sorts of slums. Here, haphazard communal efforts must make do, since these lawless regions and neighbourhoods are too poor to afford better equipment and training, thus rendering any volunteer firefighters that they may occasionally manage to muster inefficient.
Nowadays there is usually little difference between commercial firefighters and those originally organized by planetary and voidholm authorities. Lack of official funds coupled with rampant corruption, graft and glad-handing means that such governance-founded pyrovigiles corps will almost inevitably adopt the practices of private firefighting organizations, and after a sufficient number of centuries they will even be recognized as such de jure as well as de facto. They got to eat, after all.
There are five overarching categories that summarize how most firefighting collegia work, although many companies will function in several overlapping categories, and other modes of operation exist outside these most usual ones. The five most common ways of commercial firefighting in the Age of Imperium can be summed up as follows: Internal, contractual, insurance-hunting, property-gobbling and enforced by decree.
First, internal firefighting is carried out by employed specialists within Guild compounds and other installations, all owned and operated by the same merchant clan or potentate. Parts of such corpus pyrovigiles branches and damage control units will often be leased out during periods of lull, though they never roam far from their assigned compounds, since lucrative opportunities abroad pale in comparison to the losses to be incurred if damage control teams are absent during any of the many breakdowns and disasters that plague Imperial industry on an everyday basis. Internal firefighting is usually assisted by ad-hoc musters of manpower, some of whom may sport rudimentary training in damage control. This is most common in vast manufactorum complexes, onboard merchant vessels and Guilder-operated astromining voidholms, as well as in any noble palaces.
Second, contractual firefighting is carried out by specialized firms regularly hired by other organizations as part of standing arrangements, usually involving a convoluted subscription service. Oathbound firefighting setups are part of this category, including fire companies who perform duties for temples, monasteries and other religious establishments as part of their traditional obligations outside the scope of profit. After all, the priests promised a better afterlife for any firemen who would assist the Ministorum without the aim of pecuniary compensation. Pyrovigiles cartels will fight fires in structures where they are obligated to do so by sealed contract, and let other buildings burn to the ground with indifference. Sometimes they can be persuaded by bribes to extend their firefighting operations to areas adjacent to their contractual territory, some bribes of which include the offering up of lewd services from desperate commoner families, or the gifting away of clansmembers as thralls.
Third, insurance-hunting firefighting is carried out by freelancing corporate entities, who seek out burning buildings wearing the metal plaques of sanctioned insurance collegia, who promise to reward whosoever saves their insured structure from the flames. When insurance-based firefighting first emerged, it was common practice for pyrovigiles companies to quench any fire in order to stop it from spreading, just as it was usual for insurance collegia to pay a partial reward for the stopping of flames on nearby non-insured buildings in order to incentivize firefighters to stop nascent great fires in their tracks. However, over the centuries such practices have decayed away across His astral realm thanks to a miasma of greyzone lawyermongering and pennypinching myopia. As such, nowadays insurance collegia will strictly only reward freelancing fireman companies for saving insured buildings, and no civic-mindedness to fight fires in non-insured property for the sake of the common weal can any longer be found among the commercial pyrovigiles units. After all, if a tender structure fire do gain traction and spread to multiple insured buildings, will there not be greater potential to claim fees? Insurance-hunting firefighting companies will often fight each other in bloody street brawls for the chance to claim the reward, resulting in such units sporting lethal weaponry and far better body armour than most military units in the Imperium can ever dream of being issued with. Ironically, the fierce rivalry between some competitors will often cause worse fires than the original cause for their showing up on the scene in the first place.
Fourth, property-gobbling firefighting is carried out by freelancing pyrophobia firms, headed by cunning entrepreneurs with an eye for amassing wealth at the expense of people in dire straits. This demented format will involve an entire brigade of firemen with equipment and vehicles showing up to the site of raging fire, without engaging in firefighting. The leading lucratores will then call upon the owner of the burning property and haggle viciously. If the negotiations are succesful, the company owner will purchase either the burning property, or buy up a large number of its hereditary indentured serfs for a pittance, and then send in his firefighters. If the property owner refuse to sell out his buildings, vehicles and minions to the ruthless slumlord, the property-gobbling crassii will usually turn on their heels and march away without lifting a finger to fight the spreading inferno, although worse practices still have emerged in recent centuries.
Fifth, firefighting enforced by decree is carried out by any privately owned firefighting brigades that can be mustered by the edicts of an autocrat. These commercial pyrovigiles will work for no reward, or under rules of non-negotiable compensation set by an Imperial Governor or other authorities. They will almost always be backed up by paramilitary organizations, Planetary Defence Forces, mobs of sectarian zealots and hastily amassed hordes of gangs, clan militias and other plebeian rabble who can form bucket brigades and perform other forms of lowly grunt labour in order to fight fires grand enough to catch the attention of administrators and military commanders.
Such are the five most common forms of firefighting within the astral domains of the Enthroned One, yet there is more to be said of the heinous methods employed by man against fellow man where fires are concerned.
In the Age of Imperium, empathy toward anyone who is not close kin has largely died out among His chosen species. As such, liveried firefighting companies will often refuse to rescue people inside burning buildings unless the client pay extra. Some fireman cartels will even decline to bring ladders, since their business is strictly the saving of property, not life. Such abominable calculations used to stand as the pinnacle of ruthless firefighting practices within the Imperium of Man, yet they have long since been superseded by even more monstrous deeds driven by twisted logic.
After all, is it not a baleful sin to refuse to pay for saving home and loved ones from the flame? Is it not the ultimate condemnation of spiritual failure to stand empty-handed, with empty purse and no lucre to reward the stalwart soldiers against fire? Not only do such worthless house-owners endanger themselves, but their neighbours and larger community also. Such accursed deviancy! Clearly, the God-Emperor has weighed their souls, and found them wanting. These misers and paupers have already been judged by Him on Terra, and damnation is to be their lot. Should not such scum and wretches burn, and burn justly? Let the flames of purgation engulf them! Aye, cast them bodily into the very fires that they cannot afford to quench, to set a warning example for others to heed!
Indeed such culling of the rabble will serve a virtuously eugenic purpose in Imperial modes of thinking. Should not the weak be purged for the betterment of mankind as a whole? Thus the cruel circus of civilian life inside the Imperium of Holy Terra goes on, spawning ever more parodic forms of human malevolence and dysfunctional systems of self-harm, all rationally argued by minds indoctrinated with a thousand lies and a hundred fallacies in a fanatic cacophony amounting to nothing short of collective insanity. And the Dark Gods beyond the Empyrean will smile at this, for how could the emotions of a galaxy-spanning civilization characterized by such rotting stagnation, scheming greed and unrelenting bloodshed fail to feed the forbidden forces of Chaos?
Aside from classical means of urban and rural firefighting, we must touch briefly on common ways in which great fires within hive cities, voidholms and starships may be countered across the Imperium. Firefighting in many hive cities pose a considerable challenge, aside from overlapping jurisdictions and territorially aggressive fireman cartels. Treated water is often precious, strictly rationed and usually owned by a monopolistic Water Guild that is as infamous as it is draconic. As such, untreated water will often be resorted to by crafty firesoldier collegia, thus spraying flames with filthy liquid from cesspools and sewers, with blatant disregard for the spreading of cholera and still worse diseases that will result from such disgusting methods.
Many low-value hive city quarters will often be allowed to burn out in containment behind closed bulkheads, although some midhive regions will be structurally saved by their callous overlords by the pumping out of all air, thus asphyxiating the people inside. Essential industries and infrastructure will often see a concerted effort at firefighting, much of it primitive or alchemically toxic for the handlers that try to smother the fire. Foam, water, halon and sand will be taken out of stockpiles collected for such crises by commercial firefighting organizations. Sometimes, guards may be placed around the disaster area to catch any escaping people without sealed and approved official parchments, threatening to either throw them back into the blazes or make them sign away themselves and their descendants through hereditary servitude contracts, followed by branding the wretches before hauling them away in shackles or putting them into chaingang bucket brigades. It goes without saying that conflicts of interest between former and newer owners of slave manpower may thus erupt with violent force after a great fire, but that is just a natural part of life within the tumultuous Imperium of Man, as obvious as the air we breathe.
In the starspangled void, ships and voidholms will employ a number of means to fight fires. Few shipboard dangers are more devastating and frightening than fire that burns uncontrolled through a voidship's corridors and decks. Even seasoned crew may be sent into panic by a small blaze, trampling each other in a frenzy to escape through narrow corridors before bulkheads are sealed in an attempt to halt the fire from spreading. During a conflagration, the ship's Infernus Master is charged with keeping order and minimizing the damage caused to equipment, personnel and morale. An Infernus Master will organize aqueduct technicians and huge bucket brigades, oversee evacuations and command damage control crews bold or foolhardy enough to combat even the deadliest of plasma flares.
Often, an out-of-control fire will see a ship's masters seal off the ravaged sections and then open the blazing decks to the void, killing the crew and fire in one stroke. Decompression into the void will often be the best way to solve a shipboard fire, and the same goes for many smaller voidholms across the Imperium. Still, other tools available on some vessels and stations will be to flood corridors and chambers with halon gas, fire-inhibiting foam and water. On some of the most anicent and intact vessels and voidholm sections there will even be machine spirits capable of unleashing its suffocating forces upon the lethal flames, and such mechanical systems will often be used as a distrupting countermeasure against boarding enemy troops.
No matter the location, fire brigades will not only respond to and fight fires that they are compensated for or ordered to attack, but they will also patrol streets and corridors with sanctioned authority to carry out harsh corporal punishment upon those who violate fire prevention codes, and anyone lowborn whom they do not like the look of. Their paid services include many tasks which strictly speaking has nothing to do with firefighting, such as search-and-rescue operations in collapsed buildings, wrecks and tube crashes after hivequakes and great junkslides, provided that Guilds, collegia and clans pay them for it up front. Pyrovigiles on unfortunate agri-worlds who perform firefighting or search-and-rescue missions may sometime run into feral Orks, which they will seek to exterminate to then claim bounty if the xenos' numbers are low enough. After all, most anti-fire corps are for all intents and purposes yet another armed gang, or paramilitary force.
Many firefighters also do double duty as watchmen and support personnel for the Officio Medicae during medical emergency operations. Needless to say, such medical emergency services only exist for Adepts and upper castes, and sometimes also for important specialists and valuable Imperial servants who constitute important human production units, as long as they do not live in too much of a backwater area. Ordinary hoi polloi among Imperial subjects will have to fend for themselves when accidents and sickness strike, counting on neighbours and clan to care for them, and possibly even scrape together savings to pay a slum doctor or downbeaten Medicae station. If they are lucky they might be treated by their compound's medical personnel, should their liege lords and employers deem them worth the expenditure of resources, all costs of which will be added to the serfs' hereditary bondage debts.
During epidemics, pyrovigiles corps across the Imperium will often be one of many kinds of organizations tasked with enforcing quarantines with crippling force and lethal violence. They may likewise find themselves drafted for riot control duty, should tumult threaten to overwhelm various policiary forces, gendarmes and both regular and irregular military units. As Chief Pyrophant Herostratus expressed, when his firemen lined up to assist the Adeptus Arbites during the Milo revolt:
"The embers of heresy, of rebellion, and of hope shall all meet the same fate - stamped out beneath a nomex-clad boot."
Alternatively, as one widespread Imperial proverb has it: A horse never deserves to die, but sometimes a man does.
Speaking of riot control, a great many firefighting companies within the Imperium will carry flamers as part of their standard equipment. Officially, these flamers can be used to burn any unsanctioned writings that are discovered, or indeed torch miscreants and heretics on the spot, for the thin red line of warriors against fire may act as enforcers of law and order during patrols. These flamers are also handy tools for staging training exercises, or controlling the fire-security of newly constructed buildings that are supposed to be flame-proof. Unofficially, some unscrupulous firemen of commercial calling will occasionally use these flamers to create profitable work for themselves by secretly igniting flammable buildings, thus necessitating the call for them in an emergency. Alternatively, underhanded payments to orphans and crims may occur, akin to guttersnipes stoning windows to pocket bribes from windowsellers. Nonetheless, even amid all the dysfunctional depravity that characterize mankind in the Age of Imperium, most firefighters are still essentially heroic characters, fulfilling a direly needed security service for their decrepit communities, guarding them against the constant hazard of devouring flame and suffocating smoke.
Cutting firebreaks remain a popular method of hindering the spread of conflagrations all across the God-Emperor's sacred domains. Some may question your right to tear down a row of hovels. The wise understand you have no right to let them stand. Hooks and chains will be used to make firebreaks by pulling down walls of burning buildings to keep the fire from spreading, while swabs may be used to extinguish embers on roofs. One ordinary way for crassii to stop great fires consist of blasting firebreaks straight through slum favelas, holesteads, filthy huts and mutie hideouts by means of explosive charges. Collateral casualties are always acceptable in such urban dens of overpopulation, wretchedness and disease. Expunge the blasphemy of flame unbound!
As mankind's Age of Imperium has unfolded in sclerotic agony, electrical fires have multiplied drastically. Increasingly, insulation layers fail, and lay techmen make ever more numerous and worse mistakes as their grasp of handed-down lore shrinks into worsening superstition. Likewise, Imperial industry is churning out ever more shoddy electronics, especially so for consumer commodities, many of which are fire hazards straight off the production line. No wonder trusty old relics are so highly treasured when newer products fail so often. Not only will faulty lumens and clumsy pict-screens seem to spontaneously combust by inept design, for in the sea of ignorance and foolish house-tricks that characterize technical proficiency among Imperial subjects will be found a myriad manifestations of idiocy. One such common little phenomenon, out of fifty thousand other suicidal ploys, is to slot scrip coins into fuse holders, thereby bypassing the safety device and granting more juice until the whole place bursts into flame.
Such mundane fires are part of everyday life in Imperial settlements from end to end in the Milky Way galaxy. Yet the increasingly flammable nature of human hab nests and industries provide some advantages for Imperial overlords. Great fires, as a rule, will often attract a large audience of spectators, for truly it is a public attraction to see dwellings, infrastructure and unlucky humans go up in smoke. Loss of work hours is offset by the entertainment thus provided, which has a positive effect on public order and functions as a safety valve. Thus, Imperial governance has long since learnt to let the multitude flock to witness conflagrations, and not interfere unduly when vendors of cheap refreshments conduct a roaring trade while much joy and excitement is had off the tragedies of others. Indeed, some drunks, sadists or sectarian fanatics with a particularly unforgiving creed on misfortunes being the Celestial Imperator's rightful punishment upon the wicked, may even add to the spectacle by throwing back escaping men, women and children into the blazes, to the laughter, chanting and din of applause and catcalls from the crowd of onlookers.
Such scenes of horror are no random accidents, for they stand as a testament to how thoroughly the Imperium of the High Lords have managed to permeate countless human cultures across the galaxy. Basically, it all stems from a fundamental embrace of hardship and suffering. The Imperium has long chosen to acknowledge the cruelty of this universe, and advocates becoming one with it in order for mankind as a whole to survive and thrive in this vale of tears. Strength allows for no mercy.
Our being so hard. Our willingness to torture and throw you in labour camp. Our willingness to invade and slaughter. Whatever we are doing, is a sign that we understand how hard the world and life is, and that we embrace that. Tyrannical regimes are wrapped up in the idea that prosperous and loose regimes make for soft, weak people. We, the faithful worshippers of the God-Emperor of Holy Terra, have embraced the harshness of life, and the truth of what it means to be alive. Evil is just what is possible. Thus the Imperium of Man is overtly horrible, and proud of it. It has a narrow view of what humanity should be, and has proven itself so incompetently evil as to become repulsive to anyone willing to view the Imperium without blinkers.
To serve as a fireman in the Age of Imperium is to be subject to an incomprehensible structure of collegiate departments and regulations, all working through a bewildering array of agreements, contracts and bonds of hereditary vassalage. One constant trouble tend to be contracts with the local Water Guild. Add to this a confusing variety of specialist teams, overseeing commissions and organizational bodies that you are usually better off ignoring, for the sake of your sanity. On top of that there is an inflammatory degree of factionalism and rivalries between both competing companies and units within the same corporation. Ambushes and assassinations are not unheard of. Sometimes the heated intraservice rivalry will draw the terrible attention of the Adeptus Arbites or even His Divine Majesty's Holy Inquisition, yet such traditional animosities can never truly be stamped out. Such friction will sometimes smooth out on scene, since fire does not care. Yet many other times, the conflagration will provide a backdrop for a street brawl or corridor shootout when wills collide and prestige is on the line in a showcase of human pettiness in power.
Pyrovigiles all across the Imperium are notoriously prone to stick to old formulas and adopt temporary solutions as the new standard operating procedure. Thus brief deviations from former procedures due to lack of personnel or malfunctioning equipment will ossify, until soon it is the only way that anyone knows how to do anything.
Such rigidity of thought and action when impromptu stopgap solutions are introduced is mirrored in the firefighters' homebrew maintenance and repair of equipment. Vehicles and pumps alike turn into patches and bypasses atop patches and bypasses, their machine spirits developing grumpy personalities and requiring elaborate, complex rituals to start, to the point of sometimes only working for that one crusty old fireman who has worked the thing since he was twelve. Indeed, many fire engines in the Imperium will be driven by old servicefolk who have been hardwired into the vehicle akin to a servitor, yet usually without the lobotomy, since their particular sentient knowledge of their specific engine is what keeps their value as a human asset maintained high enough to keep them employed even at such high age.
Firefighting corps across His astral dominion likewise tend to be dynastic in nature, with leading positions and assistant roles being filled by husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and so on. It goes without saying that strategic marriage, and in some cultures adoption as an adult, remains the best career path for any ambitious ladderman or engineman. In many ways, organizations of crassii and pyrovigiles represent microcosms of parochial and nepotistic human cultures under Imperial rule.
Likewise, tamers of inferno are inherently superstitious. Pyrovigiles will never complain about a lack of missions, and many organizations sport arcane beliefs, which will result in corporal punishment for merely saying the words 'quiet' or 'silence.' Yet the physical penalties and loss of rations will pale in comparison to the social ostracism and tongue-lashing harangues from their kinsfolk and comrades. Such verbal abuse may in rare cases stray into outright human sacrifice, as overworked and undermanned brigades turn to the Changer of Ways in unholy rituals of bloodletting, in order to ask the Dark God to bend probabilities for them to gain just a few hours to restore their gear and finally get some sleep.
In some human cultures, firefighters will carry thickly quilted coats to protect against the flames, whose insides are decorated with elaborate scenes of strength and heroism drawn from local legends and Imperial mythology alike. After a conflagration has been succesfully defeated, these daring warriors against fire will turn their coats inside-out and display the magical symbols they so identify with, and that protected them in mortal danger. Such peculiar firemen's coats are known by many names, such as the hikeshi banten of Ashigaru Secundus, or the tunica pyrobella of the Pannonian voidholm cluster.
...

📷
Into the Flames
In the grim darkness of the far future, man leaves man to burn alive for his sins.
Fire!
Listen. The warning cry will send shivers down human spines, a portent of suffocating doom and hellish tongues consuming possessions and flesh alike in an inferno.
Fire!
Hear. The dreaded cry will ring out, and suddenly loved ones are to be lost, homes are to vanish and treasures and savings are to be reduced to nought but ash. How much of human history has vanished in capricious flame through the ages? What will remain standing among the cinders afterwards? What can be saved from the blaze? Can you be saved? Your kin?
Fire!
Act. The cry will be met with shouts and wailing. Adrenaline and billowing panic race through the veins of men, women and children. Primordial fear grapples with deedful instincts and a will to fight the burning menace, to preserve kith and kin and salvage precious belongings. The human heart runs amok, as animal terror fights innate heroism in a world at once gone hot, dry and deadly amid a thousand devils' flaring autumn colours. Frightened ears listen for steady voices, for sure commands to guide them out of this roaring peril. And everywhere, as things turn to ash, dark smoke bllows out, their embrace as insidious as poison.
No matter the epoch, the sight of rampaging fire will invoke much the same spectrum of responses from mankind. The reactions may vary to some degree, depending on training and known facilities on hand, yet the heart of man inevitably fears the flame, no matter if he dwells in a hut or a spire reaching for the stars themselves.
From the time when man first discovered fire, he has also battled to control the flames. Old Earth was once home to eternal temple fires, which priests and sacred virgins never allowed to go out. During the misty past of the distant Age of Terra, myths spoke of stolen fire carried from the gods on high to mortal men below, ending in a story of horrendous punishment visited upon the thief for thus empowering mankind with such a prohibited force. Echoes of this ancient legend still exist in a myriad forms across a million worlds and countless voidholms, retold by the fireside and electric heater as clans huddle together, close to the warmth. Yet the forbidden prize itself will often arise unexpectedly to harrow man with destruction, akin to a divine punishment that continues to scourge man, in a timeless tale of inhuman woe.
Garbled sagas from all across the Milky Way galaxy contain fragments of a far away time, a better time, a blissful time. A sinful time. They tell of a golden age, when man scarcely feared fire and lightning, and when he settled the stars with bold audacity and explored the cosmos as his birthright. They tell of the Dark Age of Technology, when fountains taller than mountains flowed and nanoxtingers too small for the eye to spot would arise to douse sparks and budding flames. They tell of rainstorms and even floods and tsunamis that could be fashioned by man at the flick of a finger to extinguish flames with razorlike precision, all fanciful glimpses of man's unrivalled artificial control of his surroundings during bygone eras. For truly man ruled the universe with supreme confidence, and in his arrogance did man first challenge, and then deny divinity, and such unbelief was to be the undoing of ancient man.
If distorted memories encapsulated within these fanciful narratives are to be believed, then Man of Gold in times of yore sported suits, vehicles and buildings immune to all the ravages of fire and heat. And Man of Stone directed Man of Iron with such efficient speed to kill sprouting flames, that many humans nigh-on lost their inherent fear of fire, and rare flares became a childish curiosity to them, exotic phenomena to be witnessed if they were fast enough, before an unfailing machine system corrected the error. For at first did Man of Iron not allow Man of Gold to come to harm, yet the dutiful servant in paradise became corrupted by Abominable Intelligence, and the earthly trinity of Man of Gold, Stone and Iron was destined to shatter, as punishment for godless man's horrible sins.
And so Man of Iron rose up to betray his master, and a cataclysmic machine revolt swept the human star domains like a wildfire in the heavens, slaying all life on a million worlds while another million burnt like torches, surrounded by void installations that crashed with flaming tails. And when the machines were vanquished, there came a cursed time of witches and ravages. Thus human civilization was toppled from its absolute pinnacle of shining glory, to crash into a horrid wasteland of ash and cinders. The grand beacon of hope and progress was extinguished, and all was fell.
Bereft of the technological marvels of their forebears, the savages and scavengers that roamed the subsequent cannibal age was left to the mercy of the elements. Exposed to cold, to radiation and to starvation and thirst, these technobarbarians lit campfires with whatever fuel they could find, to stave off freezing and darkness. Surrounded on all sides by the dark and by strange screams, these primitive wretches found comfort in flames as they squatted amid the ruins of a great civilization. Yet fire brought not only warmth and light, but also danger. Accidents would see flames consume entire tent villages and vaults filled with survivors, while deliberate use of fire as a rudimentary weapon saw foes and neighbours grilled to death in their own homes.
In this cannibal freefall known as Old Night, man quickly learnt anew to fear the flame, and to fear the unknown. In this deteriorating world of warlords and devastation, man's means to fight fire had usually degraded to crude bucket brigades and strangulation with blankets, while intact relics of ancient firefighting that could be manually worked by humans were much treasured and even fought over, as were other pieces of potent archeotech. Oftentimes, larger fires that devoured entire settlements of shanty huts would run rampant, beyond any means for ignorant man to control. Then, mankind was reduced to pray for strong rains, or to ask the gods for a flood. Such was firefighting for most of miserable humanity during the Age of Strife.
This aeon of ruin was ended abruptly by the Terran Emperor's brutal conquests, as Mars and Terra reasserted their interstellar dominion in sweeping wars that allowed no one to stay outside Imperial rule. The Great Crusade brought back a modicum of civilization, order and technological restoration to most human societies brought into Compliance, and one of the services reestablished by the early Imperium of Man was that of firefighting. As towering cities of enforced hope and knowledge were erected across the Milky Way galaxy, so too did well-oiled institutions arise to keep the material trappings of this human renaissance safe from worldly disasters. Where once spreading flames had been a communal emergency to be dealt with by floundering amateurs that were as ill-prepared as they were untrained, now city fires, factorum fires and forest fires would be tackled rapidly by drilled corps of professionals and volunteers stocked up on advanced equipment to deal with any number of fickle disaster scenarios, not only limited to burning flames.
Man lived better while the Imperator walked among His chosen species, and the realm of man grew more secure and confident, as a million captured worlds and voidholms beyond counting prospered and bloomed by Imperial grace. Where once Chaos had reigned during Old Night, now law, order and safeguards against disasters rose up amid wealthy Compliant societies. Populations that had once roamed anarchic in complete distrust for other people not of close kin, would at long last cultivate civic pride and trust in both fellow humans and larger, civilian institutions. During this heyday of mounting greatness, the popular image emerged, of the heroic fireman saving humanity from little disasters at home, whom all could depend on, while all-conquering Legions saved mankind as a whole from oblivion at a thousand battlefronts. And man began to dream again under the shadow of the stern Aquila, to nurture hope once more and to think of the great works that the ancients must have been undertaking before the great fall. And so brilliant minds turned their energies to repair and recover what knowledge had been lost, for they were once again aflame with visions of unlocking the secrets of the universe, and their spirits were determined to conquer lore just as the Emperor's warriors conquered worlds.
Such were the radiant promises of the early Imperium, yet they were to bear rotten fruit.
The greatest of traitors decreed: Let the galaxy burn.
And burn it did.
Seared away in the flames of ambition and envy, the human resurgence was brought low by human failings, and man revolted against his saviour and conqueror. Brother slew brother, and sister strangled sister across a thousand thousand worlds when the Emperor of Mankind Himself was nigh-on slain in the skies above Terra. Yet from suffering this heinous crime did He ascend into supreme godhood, to judge all of our species from the Golden Throne of hallowed myth in sacred perpetuity. Man would forever do penance for his baleful sins, and flames would scorch his flesh as smoke filled his lungs.
As the Age of Imperium ground on, fire became seen as an instrument of justice and purity, burning away sin, filth and corruption. Thus heretics, witches, mutants and malcontents were heaped upon the pyre, in an ever-deepening spiral of horror and malice heading into the darkest abyss of human depravity. Yet customs and morals were not the lone subject of a downward spiral, for technology itself underwent a slow grind into atavistic barbarity, in a drawn-out process of demechanization and loss of knowledge that has seen ordinary means of firefighting degenerate from airborne skimmers and sophisticated pump systems to the manual labour of bucket brigades.
One common symptom of technological deterioration for everyday civilian appliances within the Imperium, can be seen in the shape of the hosemen of a myriad different firefighting corps. Instead of being issued independently portable respirator apparati, the hosemen are given crude and cheap rebreathing masks fitted with long hoses that they drag along wherever they go, ever at risk of stepping on each others' air hoses or getting themselves entangled inside burning buildings. As man-portable respirator systems have gone from being a given norm for all pyrovigiles with any rebreathing apparatus whatsoever, to becoming a treasured prestige item, firefighting specialists such as smokedivers have been given priority for portable respirator equipment, while lowly hosemen teams are tasked with extinguishing fires as they drag along a snake's nest of both water hoses and air hoses.
This technological primitivization of human firefighting units in the Age of Imperium mirrors a grand retardation of every area within civilian society and military alike. It is however not only a decay of tech, but also of human systems of organization. When the Emperor of Terra walked among His dutiful subjects, firefighting services that protected everything and everyone within His domain was just part of the normal patchwork of civilization, and not something many thought twice about. During the early Imperium, many firemen were part of altruistic volunteer corps, and local Governors invested in standing corps of regular pyrovigiles to go along with these heroic citizens of a healthy civil society. On top of that did private organizations fund anti-inferno units for the common good, out of a robust sense of civic service.
As the Imperium has aged, and aged badly, the very word of 'citizen' has lost all meaning within the Low Gothic language, and nowadays everyone will talk about Imperial subjects or willing thralls of the Emperor. Where it once was unthinkable for able-bodied fire-soldiers to allow houses and people to burn without lifting a finger to save them, nowadays such practices of selective firefighting have become part and parcel of the commercial profit calculations of Guilds and collegia, and most humans in the fortyfirst millennium have never even heard of the concept of a volunteer firefighting corps.
The reason for this dying away of volunteer associations such as fireman organizations is twofold. First, it is the result of ruthless firefighting companies seeking to eliminate all competition through means both violent and legalese in nature. Second, it is the fruit of a persistent governance theme, where paranoid Imperial Governors and Voidholm Overlords will suppress any civil associations such as volunteer firefighting units, since any kind of popular organizations whatsoever could be used as a platform for rebellions and coups. Both Imperial and local rulers will pose the strongest opposition to the formation of volunteer firefighting units. After all, allowing the rabble to organize themselves for any reason whatsoever is a dangerous habit that can easily provide the basis for insurrections. Better to strangle that baby in the cradle than allow the unwashed plebs to coalesce, by slaying the new volunteer firefighting corps in as public a way as possible, complete with false accusations and grisly displays of dying volunteer firemen and their mutilated bodyparts amid much pomp and circumstance, set to the tune of rabid propaganda.
This dysfunctional obsession with public order over the common good has ever been a plague upon the fulfilment of humanity's true potential, and the long-term results of it will invariably turn counter-productive even for the purposes of maintaining stability. Thus does distrust breed misery, and failure begets failure.
Indeed, most worlds and voidholms within the Emperor's cosmic domains will lack governance-run Fire Ministries, since such natural parts of human civilizations during the early Imperium has long since rotted away through fivehundred generations of corruption, cutbacks and a morass of screeching inefficiency and bureaucratic rigmarole. Thus, with the general absence of volunteer corps of firemen and functioning governatorial anti-inferno departments, the field has been left abandoned for privileged business interests to dominate, except for in underhives and the worst sorts of slums. Here, haphazard communal efforts must make do, since these lawless regions and neighbourhoods are too poor to afford better equipment and training, thus rendering any volunteer firefighters that they may occasionally manage to muster inefficient.
Nowadays there is usually little difference between commercial firefighters and those originally organized by planetary and voidholm authorities. Lack of official funds coupled with rampant corruption, graft and glad-handing means that such governance-founded pyrovigiles corps will almost inevitably adopt the practices of private firefighting organizations, and after a sufficient number of centuries they will even be recognized as such de jure as well as de facto. They got to eat, after all.
There are five overarching categories that summarize how most firefighting collegia work, although many companies will function in several overlapping categories, and other modes of operation exist outside these most usual ones. The five most common ways of commercial firefighting in the Age of Imperium can be summed up as follows: Internal, contractual, insurance-hunting, property-gobbling and enforced by decree.
First, internal firefighting is carried out by employed specialists within Guild compounds and other installations, all owned and operated by the same merchant clan or potentate. Parts of such corpus pyrovigiles branches and damage control units will often be leased out during periods of lull, though they never roam far from their assigned compounds, since lucrative opportunities abroad pale in comparison to the losses to be incurred if damage control teams are absent during any of the many breakdowns and disasters that plague Imperial industry on an everyday basis. Internal firefighting is usually assisted by ad-hoc musters of manpower, some of whom may sport rudimentary training in damage control. This is most common in vast manufactorum complexes, onboard merchant vessels and Guilder-operated astromining voidholms, as well as in any noble palaces.
Second, contractual firefighting is carried out by specialized firms regularly hired by other organizations as part of standing arrangements, usually involving a convoluted subscription service. Oathbound firefighting setups are part of this category, including fire companies who perform duties for temples, monasteries and other religious establishments as part of their traditional obligations outside the scope of profit. After all, the priests promised a better afterlife for any firemen who would assist the Ministorum without the aim of pecuniary compensation. Pyrovigiles cartels will fight fires in structures where they are obligated to do so by sealed contract, and let other buildings burn to the ground with indifference. Sometimes they can be persuaded by bribes to extend their firefighting operations to areas adjacent to their contractual territory, some bribes of which include the offering up of lewd services from desperate commoner families, or the gifting away of clansmembers as thralls.
Third, insurance-hunting firefighting is carried out by freelancing corporate entities, who seek out burning buildings wearing the metal plaques of sanctioned insurance collegia, who promise to reward whosoever saves their insured structure from the flames. When insurance-based firefighting first emerged, it was common practice for pyrovigiles companies to quench any fire in order to stop it from spreading, just as it was usual for insurance collegia to pay a partial reward for the stopping of flames on nearby non-insured buildings in order to incentivize firefighters to stop nascent great fires in their tracks. However, over the centuries such practices have decayed away across His astral realm thanks to a miasma of greyzone lawyermongering and pennypinching myopia. As such, nowadays insurance collegia will strictly only reward freelancing fireman companies for saving insured buildings, and no civic-mindedness to fight fires in non-insured property for the sake of the common weal can any longer be found among the commercial pyrovigiles units. After all, if a tender structure fire do gain traction and spread to multiple insured buildings, will there not be greater potential to claim fees? Insurance-hunting firefighting companies will often fight each other in bloody street brawls for the chance to claim the reward, resulting in such units sporting lethal weaponry and far better body armour than most military units in the Imperium can ever dream of being issued with. Ironically, the fierce rivalry between some competitors will often cause worse fires than the original cause for their showing up on the scene in the first place.
Fourth, property-gobbling firefighting is carried out by freelancing pyrophobia firms, headed by cunning entrepreneurs with an eye for amassing wealth at the expense of people in dire straits. This demented format will involve an entire brigade of firemen with equipment and vehicles showing up to the site of raging fire, without engaging in firefighting. The leading lucratores will then call upon the owner of the burning property and haggle viciously. If the negotiations are succesful, the company owner will purchase either the burning property, or buy up a large number of its hereditary indentured serfs for a pittance, and then send in his firefighters. If the property owner refuse to sell out his buildings, vehicles and minions to the ruthless slumlord, the property-gobbling crassii will usually turn on their heels and march away without lifting a finger to fight the spreading inferno, although worse practices still have emerged in recent centuries.
Fifth, firefighting enforced by decree is carried out by any privately owned firefighting brigades that can be mustered by the edicts of an autocrat. These commercial pyrovigiles will work for no reward, or under rules of non-negotiable compensation set by an Imperial Governor or other authorities. They will almost always be backed up by paramilitary organizations, Planetary Defence Forces, mobs of sectarian zealots and hastily amassed hordes of gangs, clan militias and other plebeian rabble who can form bucket brigades and perform other forms of lowly grunt labour in order to fight fires grand enough to catch the attention of administrators and military commanders.
Such are the five most common forms of firefighting within the astral domains of the Enthroned One, yet there is more to be said of the heinous methods employed by man against fellow man where fires are concerned.
In the Age of Imperium, empathy toward anyone who is not close kin has largely died out among His chosen species. As such, liveried firefighting companies will often refuse to rescue people inside burning buildings unless the client pay extra. Some fireman cartels will even decline to bring ladders, since their business is strictly the saving of property, not life. Such abominable calculations used to stand as the pinnacle of ruthless firefighting practices within the Imperium of Man, yet they have long since been superseded by even more monstrous deeds driven by twisted logic.
After all, is it not a baleful sin to refuse to pay for saving home and loved ones from the flame? Is it not the ultimate condemnation of spiritual failure to stand empty-handed, with empty purse and no lucre to reward the stalwart soldiers against fire? Not only do such worthless house-owners endanger themselves, but their neighbours and larger community also. Such accursed deviancy! Clearly, the God-Emperor has weighed their souls, and found them wanting. These misers and paupers have already been judged by Him on Terra, and damnation is to be their lot. Should not such scum and wretches burn, and burn justly? Let the flames of purgation engulf them! Aye, cast them bodily into the very fires that they cannot afford to quench, to set a warning example for others to heed!
Indeed such culling of the rabble will serve a virtuously eugenic purpose in Imperial modes of thinking. Should not the weak be purged for the betterment of mankind as a whole? Thus the cruel circus of civilian life inside the Imperium of Holy Terra goes on, spawning ever more parodic forms of human malevolence and dysfunctional systems of self-harm, all rationally argued by minds indoctrinated with a thousand lies and a hundred fallacies in a fanatic cacophony amounting to nothing short of collective insanity. And the Dark Gods beyond the Empyrean will smile at this, for how could the emotions of a galaxy-spanning civilization characterized by such rotting stagnation, scheming greed and unrelenting bloodshed fail to feed the forbidden forces of Chaos?
Aside from classical means of urban and rural firefighting, we must touch briefly on common ways in which great fires within hive cities, voidholms and starships may be countered across the Imperium. Firefighting in many hive cities pose a considerable challenge, aside from overlapping jurisdictions and territorially aggressive fireman cartels. Treated water is often precious, strictly rationed and usually owned by a monopolistic Water Guild that is as infamous as it is draconic. As such, untreated water will often be resorted to by crafty firesoldier collegia, thus spraying flames with filthy liquid from cesspools and sewers, with blatant disregard for the spreading of cholera and still worse diseases that will result from such disgusting methods.
Many low-value hive city quarters will often be allowed to burn out in containment behind closed bulkheads, although some midhive regions will be structurally saved by their callous overlords by the pumping out of all air, thus asphyxiating the people inside. Essential industries and infrastructure will often see a concerted effort at firefighting, much of it primitive or alchemically toxic for the handlers that try to smother the fire. Foam, water, halon and sand will be taken out of stockpiles collected for such crises by commercial firefighting organizations. Sometimes, guards may be placed around the disaster area to catch any escaping people without sealed and approved official parchments, threatening to either throw them back into the blazes or make them sign away themselves and their descendants through hereditary servitude contracts, followed by branding the wretches before hauling them away in shackles or putting them into chaingang bucket brigades. It goes without saying that conflicts of interest between former and newer owners of slave manpower may thus erupt with violent force after a great fire, but that is just a natural part of life within the tumultuous Imperium of Man, as obvious as the air we breathe.
In the starspangled void, ships and voidholms will employ a number of means to fight fires. Few shipboard dangers are more devastating and frightening than fire that burns uncontrolled through a voidship's corridors and decks. Even seasoned crew may be sent into panic by a small blaze, trampling each other in a frenzy to escape through narrow corridors before bulkheads are sealed in an attempt to halt the fire from spreading. During a conflagration, the ship's Infernus Master is charged with keeping order and minimizing the damage caused to equipment, personnel and morale. An Infernus Master will organize aqueduct technicians and huge bucket brigades, oversee evacuations and command damage control crews bold or foolhardy enough to combat even the deadliest of plasma flares.
Often, an out-of-control fire will see a ship's masters seal off the ravaged sections and then open the blazing decks to the void, killing the crew and fire in one stroke. Decompression into the void will often be the best way to solve a shipboard fire, and the same goes for many smaller voidholms across the Imperium. Still, other tools available on some vessels and stations will be to flood corridors and chambers with halon gas, fire-inhibiting foam and water. On some of the most anicent and intact vessels and voidholm sections there will even be machine spirits capable of unleashing its suffocating forces upon the lethal flames, and such mechanical systems will often be used as a distrupting countermeasure against boarding enemy troops.
No matter the location, fire brigades will not only respond to and fight fires that they are compensated for or ordered to attack, but they will also patrol streets and corridors with sanctioned authority to carry out harsh corporal punishment upon those who violate fire prevention codes, and anyone lowborn whom they do not like the look of. Their paid services include many tasks which strictly speaking has nothing to do with firefighting, such as search-and-rescue operations in collapsed buildings, wrecks and tube crashes after hivequakes and great junkslides, provided that Guilds, collegia and clans pay them for it up front. Pyrovigiles on unfortunate agri-worlds who perform firefighting or search-and-rescue missions may sometime run into feral Orks, which they will seek to exterminate to then claim bounty if the xenos' numbers are low enough. After all, most anti-fire corps are for all intents and purposes yet another armed gang, or paramilitary force.
Many firefighters also do double duty as watchmen and support personnel for the Officio Medicae during medical emergency operations. Needless to say, such medical emergency services only exist for Adepts and upper castes, and sometimes also for important specialists and valuable Imperial servants who constitute important human production units, as long as they do not live in too much of a backwater area. Ordinary hoi polloi among Imperial subjects will have to fend for themselves when accidents and sickness strike, counting on neighbours and clan to care for them, and possibly even scrape together savings to pay a slum doctor or downbeaten Medicae station. If they are lucky they might be treated by their compound's medical personnel, should their liege lords and employers deem them worth the expenditure of resources, all costs of which will be added to the serfs' hereditary bondage debts.
During epidemics, pyrovigiles corps across the Imperium will often be one of many kinds of organizations tasked with enforcing quarantines with crippling force and lethal violence. They may likewise find themselves drafted for riot control duty, should tumult threaten to overwhelm various policiary forces, gendarmes and both regular and irregular military units. As Chief Pyrophant Herostratus expressed, when his firemen lined up to assist the Adeptus Arbites during the Milo revolt:
"The embers of heresy, of rebellion, and of hope shall all meet the same fate - stamped out beneath a nomex-clad boot."
Alternatively, as one widespread Imperial proverb has it: A horse never deserves to die, but sometimes a man does.
Speaking of riot control, a great many firefighting companies within the Imperium will carry flamers as part of their standard equipment. Officially, these flamers can be used to burn any unsanctioned writings that are discovered, or indeed torch miscreants and heretics on the spot, for the thin red line of warriors against fire may act as enforcers of law and order during patrols. These flamers are also handy tools for staging training exercises, or controlling the fire-security of newly constructed buildings that are supposed to be flame-proof. Unofficially, some unscrupulous firemen of commercial calling will occasionally use these flamers to create profitable work for themselves by secretly igniting flammable buildings, thus necessitating the call for them in an emergency. Alternatively, underhanded payments to orphans and crims may occur, akin to guttersnipes stoning windows to pocket bribes from windowsellers. Nonetheless, even amid all the dysfunctional depravity that characterize mankind in the Age of Imperium, most firefighters are still essentially heroic characters, fulfilling a direly needed security service for their decrepit communities, guarding them against the constant hazard of devouring flame and suffocating smoke.
Cutting firebreaks remain a popular method of hindering the spread of conflagrations all across the God-Emperor's sacred domains. Some may question your right to tear down a row of hovels. The wise understand you have no right to let them stand. Hooks and chains will be used to make firebreaks by pulling down walls of burning buildings to keep the fire from spreading, while swabs may be used to extinguish embers on roofs. One ordinary way for crassii to stop great fires consist of blasting firebreaks straight through slum favelas, holesteads, filthy huts and mutie hideouts by means of explosive charges. Collateral casualties are always acceptable in such urban dens of overpopulation, wretchedness and disease. Expunge the blasphemy of flame unbound!
As mankind's Age of Imperium has unfolded in sclerotic agony, electrical fires have multiplied drastically. Increasingly, insulation layers fail, and lay techmen make ever more numerous and worse mistakes as their grasp of handed-down lore shrinks into worsening superstition. Likewise, Imperial industry is churning out ever more shoddy electronics, especially so for consumer commodities, many of which are fire hazards straight off the production line. No wonder trusty old relics are so highly treasured when newer products fail so often. Not only will faulty lumens and clumsy pict-screens seem to spontaneously combust by inept design, for in the sea of ignorance and foolish house-tricks that characterize technical proficiency among Imperial subjects will be found a myriad manifestations of idiocy. One such common little phenomenon, out of fifty thousand other suicidal ploys, is to slot scrip coins into fuse holders, thereby bypassing the safety device and granting more juice until the whole place bursts into flame.
Such mundane fires are part of everyday life in Imperial settlements from end to end in the Milky Way galaxy. Yet the increasingly flammable nature of human hab nests and industries provide some advantages for Imperial overlords. Great fires, as a rule, will often attract a large audience of spectators, for truly it is a public attraction to see dwellings, infrastructure and unlucky humans go up in smoke. Loss of work hours is offset by the entertainment thus provided, which has a positive effect on public order and functions as a safety valve. Thus, Imperial governance has long since learnt to let the multitude flock to witness conflagrations, and not interfere unduly when vendors of cheap refreshments conduct a roaring trade while much joy and excitement is had off the tragedies of others. Indeed, some drunks, sadists or sectarian fanatics with a particularly unforgiving creed on misfortunes being the Celestial Imperator's rightful punishment upon the wicked, may even add to the spectacle by throwing back escaping men, women and children into the blazes, to the laughter, chanting and din of applause and catcalls from the crowd of onlookers.
Such scenes of horror are no random accidents, for they stand as a testament to how thoroughly the Imperium of the High Lords have managed to permeate countless human cultures across the galaxy. Basically, it all stems from a fundamental embrace of hardship and suffering. The Imperium has long chosen to acknowledge the cruelty of this universe, and advocates becoming one with it in order for mankind as a whole to survive and thrive in this vale of tears. Strength allows for no mercy.
Our being so hard. Our willingness to torture and throw you in labour camp. Our willingness to invade and slaughter. Whatever we are doing, is a sign that we understand how hard the world and life is, and that we embrace that. Tyrannical regimes are wrapped up in the idea that prosperous and loose regimes make for soft, weak people. We, the faithful worshippers of the God-Emperor of Holy Terra, have embraced the harshness of life, and the truth of what it means to be alive. Evil is just what is possible. Thus the Imperium of Man is overtly horrible, and proud of it. It has a narrow view of what humanity should be, and has proven itself so incompetently evil as to become repulsive to anyone willing to view the Imperium without blinkers.
To serve as a fireman in the Age of Imperium is to be subject to an incomprehensible structure of collegiate departments and regulations, all working through a bewildering array of agreements, contracts and bonds of hereditary vassalage. One constant trouble tend to be contracts with the local Water Guild. Add to this a confusing variety of specialist teams, overseeing commissions and organizational bodies that you are usually better off ignoring, for the sake of your sanity. On top of that there is an inflammatory degree of factionalism and rivalries between both competing companies and units within the same corporation. Ambushes and assassinations are not unheard of. Sometimes the heated intraservice rivalry will draw the terrible attention of the Adeptus Arbites or even His Divine Majesty's Holy Inquisition, yet such traditional animosities can never truly be stamped out. Such friction will sometimes smooth out on scene, since fire does not care. Yet many other times, the conflagration will provide a backdrop for a street brawl or corridor shootout when wills collide and prestige is on the line in a showcase of human pettiness in power.
Pyrovigiles all across the Imperium are notoriously prone to stick to old formulas and adopt temporary solutions as the new standard operating procedure. Thus brief deviations from former procedures due to lack of personnel or malfunctioning equipment will ossify, until soon it is the only way that anyone knows how to do anything.
Such rigidity of thought and action when impromptu stopgap solutions are introduced is mirrored in the firefighters' homebrew maintenance and repair of equipment. Vehicles and pumps alike turn into patches and bypasses atop patches and bypasses, their machine spirits developing grumpy personalities and requiring elaborate, complex rituals to start, to the point of sometimes only working for that one crusty old fireman who has worked the thing since he was twelve. Indeed, many fire engines in the Imperium will be driven by old servicefolk who have been hardwired into the vehicle akin to a servitor, yet usually without the lobotomy, since their particular sentient knowledge of their specific engine is what keeps their value as a human asset maintained high enough to keep them employed even at such high age.
Firefighting corps across His astral dominion likewise tend to be dynastic in nature, with leading positions and assistant roles being filled by husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and so on. It goes without saying that strategic marriage, and in some cultures adoption as an adult, remains the best career path for any ambitious ladderman or engineman. In many ways, organizations of crassii and pyrovigiles represent microcosms of parochial and nepotistic human cultures under Imperial rule.
...

"Translation..." the scraping of metallic vocal cords was broken with fractured puffs of feeble air from its compressor etrenched where its belly used to be. The electric thrum of static indicated the servitor's processor was hard at work. The voice it produced was a fabrication and no more, the lobotomized vessels mouth lay open with slack jaw and eyes vacant as the cable that jutted into the back of the connection unit jolted as it scanned the vast archives of sacred knowledge. He shuddered as he made brief eye contact. The whites of its eyes matching clouded cataracts that looked around but saw nothing. The eyes themselves could have rolled back into its sockets decades ago and he'd be none the wiser. This one was a translator, a conduit for a thousand languages and thousands more long dead. The thick cable, slick with lubricating oil was loose on the back of its spine, the rest was a limp torso jutting out of the wall with swaying arms. Whatever remained within was the most critical to survival; the rest undoubtedly sold a galaxy away by the looks of sloppily stitched scars that still looked raw. He knew better than to wonder if its lower half still existed, enshrined and undoubtedly withered to sinew and bone. He offered thanks to the Emperor that steel wall panels that composed the corridors entire length, miles long obscured its view. The cable clicking and popping with electrical energy, requiring a full reattachment. He considered calling a Tech Adept, eyeing down the poor excuse for life that dribbled before him but steadied his resolve. Time was short and personal sacrifice was required. He reached forward; the metal of his artifical hand and the heavy cable clinking like cups of hyper-alcohol celebrating some inane success. A sharp shunt re-inserted it. Some life, if you could call it that, returned with a crank of neck muscles which electrically twitched and cramped with each contraction. He recoiled away lest skin contact occur. He had some time to spare as the servitor waded through legion of binary sequences and layers of digital vaults in search of its prize. He would rather gaze upon heretic scripture than that creature any longer so he chose the blank, never-ending corridor to gaze down. Miles upon miles of underground passageways that if he could see through the darkness, he would see the curvature of Terra itself. Signs lined its edges, signalling inumerable chambers, many eroded on their hinges; the dank wetness forcing its prescence in all parts of his life. Each door that governed entry to each chamber was replaced millenia from Imperial fleet ships lost to traitor guns and scything torpedoes. Each door told a story despite their uniform paint of murky grey. Centuries of chipping and crumbling gave tantalising clues of their glorious history in every scrape, nick and bolter impact. In his youth, he would run his fingers against each one as he travelled the same corridors, thanking each in turn for their sacrifice and imagining their resolve as they held firm against obliteration.
His tongue was numb, scarcely able to recall when he had last spoken the common tongue of man. A cruel reminder that he and the wretch whirring with ancient gears were not too diferent. His body extensively altered by the adept fingers of the Mechanicus to extend his service beyond the human body's normal susceptibility to time, each metal part that made up his body feeling suddenly colder the longer he dwelled. Each door jutted out large circular valves, their purpose for protecting sectors of vessels from the cruel vacuum of space. He touched the nearest valve and held his metal eyelids shut with a clink. He imagined them. Fold boarding parties met by guard and astartes alike and triumphantly sealed behind these doors and expelled into the crushing, freezing agony of space. It felt good. A gentle smile stretching dry and cracked lips. He knew better than to try open them himself. Each door betraying Astartes hands with numerous markings mad by huge hands and coloured ceramite scratched into the steels flesh. indicative of the warrior's legion or chapter responsible for forceful entry. The facilities small detachment of Astartes constantly marching the hundreds of similar corridors and yanking free each chamber one at a time at the behest of librarians such as he. The thrill of calling one and a blessed warrior appearing was mesmerising the first few times but now he knew better than to overly burden them or attempt conversation, his neck still aching and paying the price. Steadily he would work his way one scroll at a time, meticulously reviewing and adding their contents to the internal systems for backup and safeguarding until his dying breath. What a gift he thought to thought to himself.
Some doors were totally sealed, their opening valves ripped from its place with golden and grey shining scrapings. Sigils unknown to him and orders nailed to the walls had long lost their ink, leaving confused smudges, forgetting what critical importance was contained within.
His lifes wish had been granted a month prior. Some such chamber, flaked in gold and opened for the first time in 10,000 years; its door thwarting a squad of astartes trying to pry it free so how blessed did that Librarian feel when a Dreadnought shuffle sideways down his own corridor so that it could rip the door from its housing allowing him access through the gaping hole. If he thought that proximity to such a fighting relic displaying its holy power; adorned in holy seals was akin to the finest wine, then stalking through the mangled opening and witnessing its pristine innards was like a thousand injections of underhive ripper drugs inserted through his eye. He was drunk, nigh stumbling around like a starved man let loose upon the Emperor's own banquet. His lips had tore when he grinned too wide and eager; his scabs still sore at each point the skin broke and leaked his life blood on the floor of the closed sanctuary. Even now weeks into his continous study, the concept alone of his task fluttered around his stomach with spinning delight. How those astartes must have thought of him, lost in his own paradise, diving into the nearest piles of scrolls like a rabid dog tearing into its prey. They crackled their vox communicators to each other and left him to his meal, the dreadnought wordlessly taking near a day before its clunking metal footsteps faded away from the vast corridors echos.
When he was told through vox system there was a direct request from a Primarch, the Imperial regent no less, he scowled. He was furious with the Head Librarian for using a son of the Emperor's name for a jest. But as the master persisted with the briefing, excitement palpable in her rusted voice module with each manually activated lung inhalation, the reality dawned on him. Steadily, one pump of augmented heart at a time it pounded from his chest, pressing hard against its steel lined home; bathing his soul in warm honey that seeped through his very core. Now he searched for something he had never even heard of before, very much a rarity in his extensive experience but made the task all the more addicting. The servitor drooled. Saliva balanced in the pool of its slack mouth, dripping carelessly as it overflowed over its quivering lips down through the steel grating to whomever of his colleagues occupied the lower level to clean. With a brief shudder the husk lurched back to life as the binary sequence squeaked out of its damp vox speakers, the zeroes and ones flicking through the starting sequence at blaring speed till it was a near illegible rattle of computer static. The sound of speech would drift inevitably to the next servitor, unfortunate enough to be likewise confined to the cold panels of the walls separated by equal distance from one another, roughly an hours walk away from servitor to servitor. Any noise was liable to bounce its way far past where any light could penetrate with any power pack at full beam. A beeping quitely chirped from its housing that attached the thick cable to the wall and in reply, a clanking and clocking of gears reverberated from both directions. Both nearest servitors receiving orders to power down and cease core memory functions. Coded to perfection by a member of the Mechanicus many millennia ago to offer a brief moment of privacy and prevention of secrets being inadvertently trickled down the line of shared data channels connecting each access point with pulsing regularity. ....Ursa...meaning....Bear" it squawked, the tone grating inside the man's ear as he turned and slunk away without a second look and before it concluded its guttural wail. He knew Old Gothic and Old Terran as well as any, likely in part what got him assigned as a librarian here in the first place. But this mission such as it was, he had to be sure, fluency or not. The mechanical creak of cogitators behind him signified the wiping of the servants already scrambled reality. He shambled away back his station, the distance was not far by these corridors standards but his flesh tired the longer away from his station he ventured, a cruel reminder of his limited mortality. He'd considered the Mechanicus and their beliefs; declaring them borderline heretical in their shared belief of machine god and the Emperor's worship. He could not share his devotion and would not. He would rather greet death a decrpid husk of himself than change the fibers of his heart even if the Mechanicus could do very much that. The concept of eternal service the only remaining temptation that lingeres deep in his mind. His long white robes dragged carefree, centuries of shuffling already dyeing it a dark brown from infrequent trips to servitor modules. Only a few patches near his shoulders and neck came close to resembling white as it would have been and even then they were stained with oil and lubrication fluids, perpetually making the back of his neck a chilled nuisance. It had galled him to disturb his study to seek something he already knew but as time crept along, his joints began to fuse and his muscles had withered. His body came to savour the chances to stretch itself; clicking and adjusting with each pained labour, the mechanical pieces mirroring similar noises leaving each's orgin a mystery were it not for the stab of synaptic pain that his flesh still experienced. His nutrition and hydration lines that supplied him the means to survive, swung off his shoulder as he waddled through the stiffness; sputtering and sucking for the containers attached to his home seat, dipped in critical sustenance of recycled fluids and mush. His other shoulder housed the stim line, a trickle of the volatile mix gently leaking as he moved. He was experienced enough not to leave the line in as he departed his desk, the cylinder of drugs attched to his backpack. Many a librarian had been claimed by overdose from such a mistake, dying a foolish death despite their large swath of proported wisdom. The enormous hit of adrenaline and the synthesized concentration mix would make a toxic cocktail leaving them dead in the corridors from heart failure, the very ailment the drugs attempted to resuscitate them from should they dip their toe into deaths cruel embrace. Being away fron their studies would display a drop in cognitive function so risked a hit of stimulants building up in the tubing.
The assistant students would be sent to recover their bodies should such an event take place or age. They would each by recycled and attached to whomever delievered their carcass safely to the Tech Priests operating table. He would survive on to serve, his meticulous tinkering of his finger joints making his body a prize worth paying attention to should he drop dead. Many a vicious fight took place in these halls. Students prepared to ambush and steal the honour of serving in primary archive facility on Holy Terra and granted their own level to preside over. He remembered how it felt, how his knuckles crashed into his bunk mates head, exploding his knuckles against a hidden plate in the man's skull, leaving him to resort to slamming vicious elbows from a full mount; his best friends consciousness faded away along with his life. He recalled standing over his carrion and the dead challenger, Librarian Beak limp behind him. The stick thin old man being his saviour, he had not needed to drag his rapidly bloating corpse miles as he had done the kindness to die on his way back for maintenance. He was the predator defending its hard earned meal. His master. His place in his death. The betrayal of his closest friend stung but he could not say whether he would have done any different for such a prize. The others backed off, keenly aware that the man who had beaten his best friend to death did not need the various cobbled together makeshift weapons and shanks they clutched in shaking hands to defend his trophy. They were empty threats, none had so much as struck another in anger besides servants at their families estates. He was not youngest noble son or birthed into academy seats opened by relatives coin. He had fought and killed for the Emperor in a slum station millions of miles away. Learning his words and alphabets from a barely surviving priest he fed slop and scum covered water and whatever else he could scavenge. His fists were awash with blood dripped softly onto the flooring like the first rain drops before a storm and clumps of brain matter splattered down from his wettened forearms; nothing would stand in his way to best serve the Imperium. The incense wafted from the gently swinging vats. Pulling him away from his fond memories. The holy concoction playfully dancing from the dips of air pressure from the main bulkhead door connecting the other corridors and territory of other librarians coming going at shifts end. Shifts! He scoffed, analysing the ebs and flows of the fog to ascertain the time and date. Shifts were for the weak. Having to stop their studies as they lacked the dedication to have their intestines scooped out and replaced with more efficient means of survival. His servants knew not to bother him should a letter opener be cast at their face like the last one to forget to knock. He had heard the teenager approach but it was the principal that mattered. The only arrivals he permitted outside his maintenance was any physical new orders had arrived from the Imperial Regent, but brought with it the frustrations of human contact.
He would pass the statue for the second time in as many Terran days. Never before leaving his station at such a frequency in his three century existence. The figure reflected a raw umber of rich browns as it reemmerged from the darkness, A slight by shine that sparkled through the abyss. The light curled around the long lines of the ancient warriors armour, its threatening elegance a cold comfort to the Emperor's enemies who would die after seeing such art. He had read every thing he was permitted to read of them, which meant he knew nothing. It teased him still, the strange musk that permeated through its old plate from the holy perfumes sprayed upon the Emperor himself atop the golden throne. He had pressed his face against its waist and wept many times. Barely able to drag himself away from its cold embrace and sweer fragrance. He would usually stop and offer his prayer but his task was too time sensitive to spare its deserved reverence. It stood at attention, the red eyes glinting like rubies laid inside its beautiful helm of gold, crafted by the greatest artisans imagine to fit its monstrous frame. The light scraped out of his remote power pack, coughing back to life for the first time for a decade and the timing could not have been worse. The full power shine it could manage was all it took. He was struck with a beam of reflected radiant gold; sending him stumbling back against the opposite wall, his eyes overwhelmed with the sudden magnificence that left him temporarily blinded and clinging to the nearest pipe. His eyes throbbed with the assault on his occular sensors complete, warning signs in his display a mess of runes reacting to the assault upon his senses. He pressed himself back up straight, muscles suddenly worse and wheezing hard breaths. His eyes became fixed upon the bottom of the weapon, a large cylindrical grip more likely seen on an industrial facility as a building girder than in the grip of a warrior. The full weapon barely fitting within the confines of the hall so was held at a slight angle should the tip reach out and touch the ceilings jumbled veins of cabling. Such a display reserved for such a small audience was odd; scarcely any besides him would march these halls except the blinded and muted menials to ensure the uptmost secrecy. The warriors greaves and gold clad boots were enormous, the sound they would make similar to the far bulkier and cumbersome dreadknought by his guess but blazing fast, the pounding of the floor as the creature surged towards him made up most of his nightmares. The sound he imagined would be like the fast pounding of industrial hammers that slammed into glowing hot clumps of metal. The head of the weapon shimmered a blend of blues and silvered streaks that stretched to its edges; it seemed to dance and pulse sporadic crackles of energy, bursting forth like a live wire left to the elements. The blade was curved into a giant glaive, long enough to pass through the mightiest of warriors with wonderful elegance. Its menace punctuated by the shimmering aura that spat and fizzled as droplets of fluid dripped from pipes above and were instantly vaporised by its power into a lingering cloud of steam that fell and shimmered its shoulder pads with gentle condensation. It was the genuine article; no doubt a lost warrior enshrined and honoured with his weapon and armour for only the most loyal citizens to marvel upon as it was only men such as he who could truely appreciate Imperial perfection. It was an honour to behold it just once, the joy enough to satiate the appetite of any of most loyal citizens, but he was blessed. Not only had he this prize be within his proximity but also the ultimate prize. Touching the Emperor's own words with his own ink and quill. Three centuries deep, the notion quaked his body, loins included and felt his soul lift with the God Emperor's love. Refreshed within his thoughts, he hurried back to his station to seek more of those rare artefacts to treasure. His increasing collection of sacred writings a dozen strong and hidden in the maze of corridors which he vowed, someday he would present these findings to the order to cherish but for the time being he would delight upon their sole ownership. This was for the documents safety, or at least thats what he forced himself to believe. The incense was his guide. The active areas of their work always enveloped in the holy aura that had already began stretching forth its tendrils and invaded his throat as he pressed into the swirling fog. The back of his mouth quickly became sticky and raw, the soft heat playfully caressing its burning touch with each suck of air. Each claiming a small patch of his scar tissued throat just as it did every day they were lit. Piles of scrolls from the first foundings were strewn in their places and stacked into rough piles for later categorisation. The freshly revealed vault giving him much to consider and ample enough materials to guarantee his induction into order legend. He dropped into his seat and reattached the critical lines and ensuring he squeezed the remaining stims trapped in its piping. He cast his arm deep into the pile of scrolls, a favoured manner of sorting through the tens of thousands of piles without precedence for where he should begin his labour. The unmistakable tingle spread through his hairs one folical at a time, he seized the scroll and carressed its still sticky seal, he had found another for the collection, still bathed warm by the Emperor's touch. Running his blade through the waxen seal was intoxicating, allowing its edge to gently prise open its contents one milimeter at a time, he did not care if this pertained to these Ursa so chose to take his time and relish its touch before being hidden with the rest. The stim pack beeped twice. A reaction to his wild heart activity so deployed a range of calming compounds that crept through his cells and allowed his breath to sink deeper and relac. A lifetime of toil and reporting reports and making report of reports of reports in never-ending scribblings had taken much of his hands and wrist as the repetition of skim against desk was won by the solid object and worn down his skin to bare bone and naked red flesh. His body poorly suited to the advanced modifications to his sensory system and nervous system that made his physical body lag behind his minds output. Lesser citizens might have slown down or took "breaks" but he found himself incapable, accepting his daily agony with relish as a small price to pay for his gift of working for the Imperium in such an important capacity. Ursa he considered, licking his lips as the parchment was unfurled and its words revealed. His omnidirectional roller that replaced the bottom of his writing hand followed where with an extended finger his place on the document in a blur, able to maintain speed without harming the delicate inking, the perfect replacement for the burns and tearing skin he had to feal with prior as his quill blazed across pages without the bloody smudges he had left before. The temptation to pict grab such a piece of history weighed upon his soul but his resolve held firm. His crooked metal smile furrowing into a measure of tormented despair as he came to terms with not being able to keep this one for his personal archive. "The Bears", the high gothic making him hiss the final syllable as it sat strange on his tongue. This was their first explicit mention. An order to their chapter master for the Bears to hold near unexplored space, ordered by the Emperor himself. He'd come across references here and there from the various legions that both guarded or came to plague the galaxy and Imperium. These mostly took the form of mountains of inventories, requests, mission reports that painted a picture of the Astartes repsonsible but these were never named as Bears but as Space Wolves. He knew better than to believe these claims as at these moments in time, the Sons if Russ were fully accounted for elsewhere in space and comfirmed by his rigouress study. He considered each word again, slower this time. Like a child stuck on every letter. It had been staring him in the face amd he near dropped his quill lost in the thought. A direct order from the Emperor to their....chapter master....? He scrambled over the document, Mechanical joints whirring as he flicked through the piles all around. This order predated the Codex Astartes, no. The Heresy itself. This made no sense he thought to himself, banging his knuckles agasinst his temples in frustration. These Bears, they mocked him. The beasts of old Terra that they were named were known more for their ferocity and hibernation patterns rather than their cunning so even their namesake bothered him. The Emperor's own son and the author of the codex himself had ordered this hunt so these inconsistencies must be known to him or at least he knew of their exsistance in some faculty. Frustration aside, he was not asked by name but his position here was tantamount to asking him directly for aid. It filled his heart with the Emperor's light as his pride floated around his mind, the Emperor's son needed him.
Details were scant but the trail was there. He adjusted his hunt's scope, any references to pre-heresy chapter references. This was his own hunt and he would have his prey. He could not pass the selections of his youth; failing to take pride of place among the Emperor's marines and it left him empty and disposal, unfit for joining the guards dregs, let alone their elite. The Black Templars recognised his taleny for words as he translated their tomes in an attempt to stave off lobotomisation. His dexterity at letters was just as useful for dealing accurate death in the hive station ruins, and he gave ample reason for his astartes candidacy. He sat in those ruins, muck crusting and drying as he lay still for days on end in his own filth, still fleshy fingers playfully stroking a familiar trigger. The remaining stained glass and half crumbled visage of the God Emperor were his family and he would rather be damned as a heretic than to allow those halls, as decrepid as they may be become a drug den or nest of cultists. He had been taken and stripped by the black clad demi-gods with holy seals thrumming with their power armour. His body was marked by scars of slum life, a few from enemy fire the the vast majority were indication of each kill. He grumbled, grumpily conceding that he would need a measure of help to mark the few remaining intact areas he could not reach himself and to help me dispose of some of the bodies that piled up at the temple's perimeter, caught in barbed wired foot fall traps with Lasrifle shots still sizzlinh the flesh inside their now cavernous heads. The gates a pile of rotting flesh and rats thats that appreciated his work as much as the Emperor did. The inner yard was a mess of wet and dry crimson staining the mess of old stone slabs. His bolt pistol latched to his leg responsible for the massacre below his favoured perch leant agaisnt an old cracked bell. The bodies were devoid of limbs save a leg or arm kindly ignored by his metal slugs that slammed into the rest od their limbs. A measure of kindness to show that despite all sins, the Emperor would offer his salvation should they repent and remove themselves from his sacred grounds with their remaining limb. If they could crawl back over the crumbling low walls or iron gates, he would bestow the Emperor's blessing upon them via bolt round through the heart to end their suffering as reward for demonstrated respect for holy grounds.
He bad failed their trials before the vessel had even entered warp transit. His dreams of holy war for the Imperium smashed i to pieces by blood drawn by an apothecary. His constitution was too weak they said, his bones too frail for the geneseed implantation they said. Even now it boiled where his intestines used to be and only his own assurances that he was more important to the Emperor in this capacity than dead after a failed conversion where his bones wpuld fragment and shatter under his under mass of muscle after taking his first steps as a demi-god. He was useful to the Templars so he was permitted life as a bestowed honour, ultimately being traded to the facility for little more than extra seal parchment for their next crusade. A prize they would have been given anyway but served them to be rid of an extra mouth to feed. Even now he dreamed of what it might have been like. A giddiness born of a child's imagination as he envisioned himself bounding through hostile worlds with his Templar brothers. His Lasrifle replaced by heavy bolter that chattered shells into the enemy ranks in a vicersal display of bursting flesh and spraying viscera before casting down his empty weapon and leaping into the tremches where he met heretics with slamming fists and crushing skulls with his own helm, all who were brave enough to face him at first, turning to flee as the Emperor passed his judgement and found them wanting. His dreams had brought him here before. Awash with anothers blood, suddenly bereft of his power armour and alone in enemy trenches. Those that had fled turning back, twisting their gutteral screams of terror into warped howls of laughter. All the while, the pounding of golden boots shook the ground beneath like earth quaking artillery shells exploding closer and closer with each second that trembled his weak bones like the unending rattle of a child's toy. His induced sleep narcotics prolonged the agonising suspense as each falling footfall aas always one strife away from.rounding the trenches corner and ending his sorry exsistence like a cool wind snuffing the most meager flame.
He bolted upright, lost in his memories and fears. The computer system purred in delight, numerous hidden cooling fans whirring smooth and free, successfully displaying the requested documents. Inventories, supply channels, a fragmented mess of contradicting star maps, warp lanes and shipping numbers on vessels long lost to the hammers of war or the slow decay of time. They requested little equipment and even less reinforcements. Their missions with other astartes rarely mentioning their deeds or even addressing them by name but even here they were called a Chapter. Tampering with sealed recordeds he considered impossible unless betrayal at the heart of Terra was sufficiently equipped and had thousands of years spare to fumble around they same way they did; chamber by chamber. The apothecary notes drew him tight. Like a beauty beckoning the eye, so to did those medical reports. Tantalising amd frustrating him in equal measure as his retinal displays continuously pinging a rapidly irritating noise loudly within his head, immediately progressing into a throbbing headache that threatened to take permanent residence so ling as these documents stayed within his view. It pinged to indicate an error in written form or inaccuracy of numbers; something he was very unfamiliar with. The numbers were the culprit. Consistent inconsistencies within all records of deployments, deaths and gene seed retrieval. They were all off by one. No matter the operation scale or intensity of action, the pinging began without fail. No legion or chapter was immune from casualty but the "mistake" was to brazen to be an accident so he pressed onwards, meeting each volley of beeping that morpged into a monotonous whine of conflicting beeps merging into one unified dreadful racket. He overlayed the reports of other legions for comparison in the same combat encounters; Ultramarines, White scar, Night lords, Alpha legion.. the Bears operated all across Imperium space as Wolves but rarely in the same place for long nor regrouping with their elder siblings command or home systems. He must assume the reports spoke truez hoping with re-read upon re-read he can scrape more understanding with each pass. Did they leave someone on each world? But why?
The time crept by as he sat motionless; hours if not days flickering into a haze as he dropped in and out of drug fueled thought and careful deliberation into phases of sleep deprived delirium. The red light flashing upon his stim pack had been signalling its dangerous overuse the entire time, barely leabing enough in its rapidlt emptying tank to keep him awake. His stomach turned on itself and his jaw quivered, just like the servitor he had pitied not long ago, he was forced to admit that they are not so different. Saliva also slid down his metal tipped chin before dropping splashing audible drips onto the drool soaked panels that offered a small reflection yet poignant reminder of how pathetic he must look, wholly defeated. The system chimed and his body flinched as the stimulus pinged around inside his head triggering each lingering migraine one by one. The jostle of movement splashed some of his oral fluid onto an ancient scroll je would have revered not long ago but had become his norm in thee past month or so An order of secrecy was outlined in various symbols warning about unauthorised access with very much real threats should they not be heeded. He sat up, numbness triggering the impending rush of blood to the starved areas, the nerves already beginning to flicker an uncomfortable sensation through the surviving skin unlucky enough to still require his blood flow.
He dismissed the pop up with his personal clearence number, and bid the message open with a whirr of passwords. Within was a second layer of encryption like he had ever seen. Irregular numbers and characters reminding him of his ignorance and he cursed his arrogance; to think that he thought himself wise. He would have spat if not to slosh more of his saliva and disgrace himself further. He keyed the symbols with a rusted board he clipped, its keys still from lack of use and forgotten meanings. The warning closed with a beep.
"This should help your search Librarian Augus. Roboute Gulliman, Imperial Regent of the Imperium of Man." What followed was a series of keys, a long string of identifiers that arranged together could pluck an exact document wherever it hid.
The adrenaline entered his bloodstream and the custom pumps lining his chest cavity burst into life; sending a flood of oxygen enriched synthetic blood directly into his system like a cyclone of pressurised life. The biometric scanners alerted. His cardiac activity ceasing entirely and the defibrillator unit carved into his ventricles triggered. He sat up, sweating, shaking and clutching around his chest for any physical purchase. He never took his eyes from the message so as he calmed and digested its message, his fatigue drifted away. His muscles seemed to melt away within a vibrant swarm of vivid colours painting his vision and rocking with his internal bliss. Augus...yes thats my name, he whispered to no one. The date was a month ago, a message likely sent directly following the first correspondence with the archives but lost in the damned warp, but finally it made its way to his desk. His name was known by the Emperor's very own blood; the violence of emotion shuddering his already weak bones but setting his eyes ablaze with righteous zeal. He began the code input and gentle caressed each ancient key, fighting agaisnt the frantic shakes of anticipation that made his toes vibrate. He heard a familiar clank of collapsing of servitors shutting down so he read.
The document was from the Siege of Terra. His lips quivered. The final hours before the Emperor ascended to the golden throne. The air in his lungs bristled hot.
"The cubs, they sleep and await their mother's call. Whatever happens this day I will greet death with a smile in my soul, assured that the day will come when the winter of mankind will pass and fresh spring beckons. A new dawn will break upon an Empire of ash, our enemies will be torn limb from limb by the sleeping Ursa awakened by the Emperor's guiding hand. They will weep for us in their dreams amd despair at our fates but when their eyes open, each day will be filled with fire and blood. The glory of feeding their young our carcass of what we have built will be theirs so they may gorge on our flesh and grow strong. Whoever lays claim to the embers of our empire should the darkest future come to pass; call forth the cubs and they will emmerge, the first of their kind with their mothers's fangs baring at our enemies throats, ripping and shredding with unbridled glee as only vengence can satiate their hunger. Signed Macaldor.
He slumped back against his chair, the hours of study weighing heavier with each second, his muscles creaking under the pressure of his own body. His drug canisters empty, it left him weak and afraid. The Space Bears bounced around his skull like ball a childs balls cast quicker than any speed he could dain to try and catch. Their role for the Imperium was far greater than he could have fathomed. They were not just a "chapter" test run as he had suspected, they were so much more and the concept scared him. The Imperium would never fall so why would Malcador, blessed his name, no the Emperor himself have need for a plan should the house of cards collapse.. Such a mission whatever it truly entailed was beyond his understanding and it made him feel ill with every re-reading of the message. He pulled himself upwards and began his report. It hurt him his pride with every letter but he had to do it; he admitted his ignorance to Gulliman himself. Copying its critical message exactly as he saw it so devoid of insight as he was. He typed its heavy words and sent the correspodence and closed the programme. The communication would be sealed, encrypted and prepped for transmission through the behemoth messaging arrays upon the surface. Beaming vital lines of information across the galaxy through the Emperor's light. Oh how they must feel, those lucky messages. Their entire exsistance bathing and enveloped in his embrace, connecting the heart of humanity through its maze of arteries stretching to the corners of the Imperium's claws. His holy fantasies lacked their usual punch He felt tired, he felt week and he felt cold.
His mechancal eyelids sticky from lack of daily maintenance, days old lubricant coagulatimg into viscous yellow clumps in each corner of his eyes, only heightening his desire to collapse into sleep now that the his mission was complete. He hoped that when they unveiled his bust or masterfully painted visage in the archives main halls, they would not use his current state as primary inspiration. He was the first of his order to receive and complete a mission from one of the sons for thousands of years so he hoped it counted for something when all was said and gone when he became just a bit colder.
His sensors flickered with a blur, like the visual imput caught electrical interference and wavered in its clarity. The flash was quick and dazzling, a new menial his suspected at the doorway and freshly blinded and armed a freshly charged powerpack bulb, devoid of how bright its warm bulb shined at the reclusive librarian. However there was no incessant weeping that came with their first expeditions into their "employment" still trickling bloodied bandages. It must be a student then and a belligerent one, hoping that the loss of his sensory information relayed to the headquarters revealed a dead librarian to be claimed. He would have launched his letter opener at the damned fool but he lacked the strength to fufill his reputation, so resolved instead to loudly curse them in the Emperors name. Another being altogether had entered his domain.

Inspired by LookingForVheissu's comment.
~~~
Euphrati Keeler looked at the pict recorder screen, then spoke into her vox: “Four-nine-gamma, maintain aiming point, adjust hover position plus two metres Z-axis.”
The lumen-servitor was too far away for her to hear the hum of its grav-plate, but she watched the quality of the image change. The shift eliminated some shadows but created new ones.
“Three-nine-gamma, adjust aim point minus one metre Z-axis, maintain hover position,” she ordered.
And then she stopped, her whole being suffused with awe as the bas-relief figure upon the majestic doors seemed to come to life. At the very top, the Emperor stood above the monstrous coils of a defeated Dragon. Around them, the beasts of the ancient Zodiac symbols of His rule over the stars themselves — paid homage to Him or stood ready to do battle in His name. Below were symbols of His gifts of science and reason: books and scrolls, callipers and starscopes.
In these doors were the Imperial Truth and the secret truth of the Lectitio Divinitatus made manifest, as was surely His intent. Remembering to mute her vox, she whispered, “All praise to the God-Emperor, for He grants us His gifts of reason and faith.
“Have you taken your picts yet?” asked the only person who could have heard her.
It took effort to tear her gaze from the majesty before her, but when she did, it was to look upon another sign of the Emperor’s divinity, for who but a god could create such beings?
Custodian Amon Tauromachian, resplendent and terrifying in his auramite plate, sat with perfect stillness at the controls of the vehicle on which she stood. When she’d asked for a way to elevate her picter and hold it steady, she’d expected a makeshift solution — perhaps a matrix of servo-skulls. Instead, he’d summoned an Accipiter surveyor, a grav-vehicle he said had been used by architects and planners during the construction of the Imperial Palace.
She wondered if the guns had been added afterwards or if the architects had been trained in combat.
“Not yet,” she said, fingers brushing over the picter’s controls without conscious thought. She barely had to glance down, verifying the framing and quality of the shot, before she took the shot, belatedly realising Amon might not want his pict taken.
When he made no protest, she increased the picter’s magnification, thinking to capture the way the eagle’s wings cresting his brow shadowed his lenses. As she took the pict, he finally spoke: “Incursion. Secure yourself.”
Her heart skipped as she rushed for the nearest seat. As soon as she had the harness securely locked, Amon gunned the engines and banked sharply. She hugged the picter to her chest with one hand, the other clutching the edge of her seat. Her remembrancer’s instincts told her to capture the impossible precision of their flight through tunnels barely a handspan wider than the vehicle’s frame, but she knew better than to try. With ruthless precision, the Custodian flew at the very edge of an unmodified human’s tolerance, probably growling within the silence of his helm at having to hold back.
Distant thunder rumbled and echoed, becoming the distinct staccato sound of weapons fire as the air turned hot, then scorching. She gasped unthinkingly, sweat stinging her brow, and that was when she tasted it: foul corruption tainting the air.
Her eyes flew open, and she looked around, trying to orient herself. With no ambient lighting, she saw her surroundings in flashes: stalactites clawing down from the ceiling, tank-sized machines below, dull silver cables.
The Accipiter rolled sharply, then turned more gently the other way, nose dropping. Amon’s voice sounded through his armour’s voxmitter.
“Assist, Keeler. You will not fall.”
A mantle of calm fell over her. She unclasped her harness and rose, the wind of their flight whipping at her hair and clothes. With absolute faith in the God-Emperor — and in the skills of His creation, Custodian Amon — she returned to the prow of the craft where she’d been standing before.
But where before she’d regarded the glory of the God-Emperor wrought in gold, now she beheld a horror of twisted metal plates that bled rust and oil, snapping mechadendrites studded with bulbous eyes and serrated claws, its chassis ripped open to reveal a maw of spinning saw-teeth. Fragments of flesh and cloth clung to it like grimly festive decorations.
A handful of tech-priests were shooting the thing, though their weapons only sent more clouds of rust into the air… Was that what she tasted? Or was it the awful spray of blood and viscous fluids that fountained from each tech-priest captured and ripped to pieces by those flailing mechadendrites?
The grav-carrier slowed just enough that its abrupt stop did not send her tumbling over the forward rail. “Engaging weapons,” Amon announced.
The Accipiter’s guns opened fire, bolts of white-hot ammunition tearing through the air and into the daemon’s metallic carapace with a roar that made Euphrati’s ears ring, shattering her composure.
The daemon’s shriek was the sound of tearing metal and squeals that sounded almost like the secret language of the tech-priests, but it was wrong. With a cry of pain, she clapped her hands over her ears, dropping to her knees against the forward railing.
The Emperor protects, she told herself.
She dragged in a breath and said it aloud: “The Emperor protects.”
The vehicle’s gunfire paused, but the sound was echoed down below. Forcing her eyes open, she saw more golden warriors — more of the Emperor’s Custodes — advancing on foot through the forest of cabling with implacable resolve, spears held with perfect aim as they fired on the move. Every shot found a gap between the monstrosity’s plates or some unholy flesh component, but it did not fall still.
“The Emperor protects,” she repeated, pulling herself to her feet.
Amon opened fire again. It was as if the Accipiter itself growled its fury that Terra’s soil was tainted by the daemonic machine below.
The daemon reared up, blood and gore splashing with the whipcrack-force of its mechadendrites snapping towards them. It meant to tear them from the air, but Amon jerked the nose up out of reach.
Metal screamed again, this time beneath Euphrati’s feet. The daemon’s claws ripped at the Accipiter’s hull even as Amon brought the vehicle up too slowly, too gently, out of care for her fragile human body.
No. She would not be the weakness in the wall that defended the God-Emperor’s stronghold.
Amon fired the Accipiter’s guns again, blowing apart two mechadendrites before raking across the daemon’s carapace once more. Below, the Custodes charged like golden comets, too fast for human eyes to track, fearless of the weapons fire raining down from above.
“With the Emperor in my heart, I am His righteous wrath,” she said, releasing her death-grip on the rail to reach for the daemon-machine. It was metres away, but its rusty aura spread its defilement throughout the whole chamber.
“With the Emperor as my light, I drive back the darkness!”
The daemon shrieked its corrupt machine-language. All around it, other machines burst into flames. The tech-priests fled, but the Custodes ran on through the fire and shrapnel, twisting and leaping with impossible grace to evade harm.
Heart soaring at the display of the Emperor’s fury, she shouted, “With the Emperor’s fire of purity, I purge the unholy!”
On wings of blazing faith, her soul rose into a world of blessed gold. Here, she beheld her the awful truth of the Neverborn that wore the tech-priests’ machine as its false flesh. Its core was a tangled skein of code, a twisted version of the pure numerology the tech-priests used to instruct their machines. Runes of baleful light sparked from the edges of the Neverborn, leaping from its centre like fleas seeking a new host.
The machines, she realised. It was attempting to infect the other machines, but the God-Emperor held them back. Perhaps He had been working through the tech-priests in His aspect of the Omnissiah, but the tech-priests were gone, dead or scattered. And though the Custodes attacked with selfless courage, their weapons could not strike code. They could not wage war on an ephemeral concept.
But with the Emperor, all things were possible.
“Rejoice, for I bring glorious news!” she cried, visualising the words of the Lectitio Divinitatus as fiery letters burning away the malicious code. “God walks among us! He is the Emperor, and by His will shall humanity be led from the darkness. We serve His will with faith and humility, and He blesses us with His strength and protection. With faith, we stand fast against all who oppose His divine rule. With faith, we withstand the trials sent to challenge us, that we may be strong. With faith, we strike at the heart of His enemies, that we may cleanse the stars of their presence. In the name of the God-Emperor, strike now!”
Her words rang out, scattering the corrupted code-tangle, like a child’s building blocks tossed across the floor. The sickly numbers and letters and unholy runes slithered in, attempting to re-form, but the Custodes, the peerless avatars of the Emperor’s wrath, struck as one.
Weakened and screaming in futile rage, the Neverborn disintegrated. Metal rusted into dust, claimed by the decay of millennia in seconds. Sparks died as if smothered, and the air in the chamber cooled.
Euphrati shivered, sagging against the railing. Shards of glass fell from her picter lens, though she had no memory of it being damaged. Head pounding, she looked back and saw to her horror that Amon was gone from the pilot’s seat.
She twisted and looked down into the rubble of the destroyed machine. Four Custodians stood there, methodically sweeping through the wreckage.
“A—” She coughed, throat scorched from breathing the unholy fumes. “Amon?”
One of the Custodes stopped. Tilted his head to look up at her with expressionless lenses. Amon’s familiar voice came from his voxmitter: “You are unharmed?”
“Mostly. But I, uh… seem to be missing a pilot.”
“I will instruct you on how to safely land. Or you can wait for me to call another vehicle.”
She was tired and shaky and in no particular rush to do anything but sit where she was. “I’ll wait, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded and, without another word, turned back to his work below.
~~~
With supplies tightly rationed, Euphrati Keeler and Kyril Sindermann sat down to a humble dinner of ration bars and poorly filtered water, though neither complained. Compared to the countless refugees scavenging from the dead or starving out in the wastes, this meal was a banquet.
“I look forward to seeing your picts,” Kyril said, then bit the very corner of his ration bar, as if hoping to make it last longer. “The challenge of capturing such scale in a single image, rather than a composite… I can’t imagine a better remembrancer for the task.”
Euphrati sighed. “You’ll have to wait a bit longer, I’m afraid.” She retrieved her picter from the carry bag hanging over the back of her seat. “I have some other images you might appreciate.”
Kyril took another nibble, watching as she took out the picter. As she powered up the small viewscreen on the back, he squinted at the front. “Is that a crack in the lens?”
She nodded. “An accident.”
“We’ll have to find a way to get it repaired.”
“Not to worry,” she assured him, turning the picter and offering it to him. “I have replacements.”
He took it, looking closely at the screen, then moving it to arm’s length. “What a beautiful sense of majesty and menace you’ve captured,” he said. “This is your shadow?”
“Amon,” she scolded gently. “And yes.”
He huffed. “He does not believe,” he said, switching to the next pict. “Nor does he approve.”
“Neither is required. He’s a Custodian. He was crafted precisely as the Emperor requires him to be.”
“Your heart is far kinder than my —” He gasped.
Realising he’d switched to the last image, Euphrati gently reclaimed the picter. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I don’t even remember taking that pict. I saved it only to show Lord Malcador.”
One shaky hand pressed to his heart, he said, “I don’t even know what that was.”
Only when the picter was powered down and safely stowed once more did she say, “A Neverborn. It manifested inside a machine. I don’t know how.”
“God-Emperor protect us,” Kyril whispered, making the sign of the aquila over his heart. “And you saw it? Are you unharmed?”
“I’m fine. The God-Emperor does protect us,” she said.
“But you said nothing!”
“We all do what we must.” She reached across the table to take his hands in both of hers. “I stood against a Neverborn and was blessed with chance to aid the God-Emperor’s chosen warriors in banishing its corruption, and now I give thanks to the God-Emperor for this meal, shared with my dearest friend.”
He squeezed her hands, shaking his head. “Your acceptance is an inspiration.”
She shrugged, embarrassed. “It’s just another Tuesday. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll get to take those picts.”

After reading a few guides I decided to try WRE Grand Campaign, I've done one or more with each of the different groups, except for the huns (also have never managed to get far with the Tanukhids.)
No one I know plays Attila, I figured someone on here might.
It is 400, everything seems to be ok. Public order is stable and improving, my income is dropping because I keep needing new troops. I'm a bit surprised because I am a pretty average player and I am not good at keeping cavalry alive an I am not great at babysitting ranged troops, which is most of what I have to do, aside from put the infantry into testudo.
About 397 I looked at the stats and realised I had lost as many battles as I had won (28-28 I think) but now things are looking up, it is 47 - 29 now. I lost a lot of defensive battles in Pannonia and Dalmatia to horders who wouldn't do anything.
I've lost Pannonia and Dalmatia (about half of the provinces razed, mostly by Ostrogoths. I have four surviving subjugated factions.
I wiped out the Ostrogoths and 6 other factions.
The Huns (led by Attila) are attacking rebels in Dalmatia, but I am not getting involved in that yet.
I accepted money for peace with the Iazyges (and two other factions on the same turn, refused a fourth, I must be scary), now they are trespassing and I have an army off the frontline to chase their useless hides through my undefended provinces, but I guess I can't attack them without a penalty to trustworthiness.
The Picts and Caledonians are still there, at war with Caledonia who has done nothing. Britain (in the middle province below Eboracum) has been independent for a long time. They have never attacked me but don't like me much and will not trade. I am wondering if I should subjugate them just to be done with it.
The Garamatians just conquered the Maurians and are now trespassing in my turf, so I think I need to run my tiny Africa army across to catch them when they hit Spain. The army putting down rebellions in Tripolitana could start taking their home region if I can get some merc artillery.
And I got Stilicho killed by accident but I haven't been save scumming.
My family is quite weak, no one is really advancing so I only have three guys there, Honorius, and Stilicho's Adopted Son and Grandson.
And I was a bit inspired by a good let's play.
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3923851

Growing up in New Jersey, there's a lot of place names that we just take for granted. But bring in an out-of-stater and you'll get some questions.

• Why is there an exit for "The Oranges"?
  
• What's so great about the eggs in Great Egg Harbor?
  
• What exactly goes on in Succasunna?
  

Here's some place names that I've come across and wondered why they're called that.
Bargaintown: An unincorporated community in Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic County, a property developer named his development Bargaintown either out of desperation or as a marketing ploy in order to advertise how cheaply the lots were being offered. There's Bargaintown Park as well as the Bargaintown Volunteer Fire Company #2.
Bogota: In 2006, Mayor Steve Lonegan of Bogota complained about a Spanish language billboard in the borough, proposing adoption of an "English only" ordinance. This drew national attention, as people wondered if that meant they'd have to change the name of the borough -- wasn't it named after the capital of Colombia? Nope. The name of the Bergen County borough comes from a prominent local family named Bogert, or possibly a combination of the Bogert and Banta families, and is pronounced buh-GO-dah as opposed to bo-go-TAH. (Bogotá, Colombia, was originally called Bacatá, after a Chibcha village; the Spanish crown renamed it Santafé, but when Gran Colombia became independent from Spain in 1819, it was renamed Bogotá, an approximation of the original name.)
Brick: Not to be confused with "Brick City", a nickname for Newark, Brick Township in Ocean County was founded in 1850. The township was named after Joseph Woolston Brick, the owner of the Bergen Iron Works, who had died three years earlier. In addition to Brick Township, there was a separate municipality named after him, Bricksburg. In 1880, Bricksburg had become home to a number of resorts and was renamed Lakewood in order to sound more appealing to tourists.
Buttzville: Named after founder Michael Robert Buttz. An unincorporated community within White Township in Warren County founded in 1839, probably best known for Hot Dog Johnny's.
Cheesequake: A state park, but for millions of Garden State Parkway drivers, a headscratcher of a name for a rest stop in Middlesex County. Some will tell you it's "supposed" to be pronounced differently, but I've only heard it pronounced just the way it's spelled, Cheesequake... like an earthquake in your cheesecake. There are various meanings attributed to the name but most agree it's an anglicized Lenape name, either Cheseh-oh-ke ("upland"), Chichequaas ("upland village"), or Chiskhakink ("at the land that has been cleared"). There's some speculation that the name is related to Chesapeake, which comes from the Algonquian word Chesepiooc either meaning "great water" or "village at a big river". Lenape is part of the Eastern Algonquian language group so perhaps there is a common root word.
Cinnaminson: A township in Burlington County formed in 1860, an act of secession, though this one was peaceful. It was split off of Chester Township, now known as Maple Shade Township, and parts of Cinnaminson were later split off to form Delran Township, Riverton, and Palmyra. The name does not refer to cinnamon but rather it is believed to be a Lenape word, Senamensing, meaning "sweet water"; another source says it's a Native American word meaning "stone island." Cinnaminson is home to Speed Raceway, the largest indoor electric go-kart facility in the state!
Colts Neck: Incorporated as Atlantic Township in 1847, the name was changed to Colts Neck in 1962, but it was long known as that -- in 1676, a bill of sale was recorded in Monmouth County for a property called Colts Neck, and the Colts Neck Inn was established in the 18th century. It's said the name comes from the land between the Yellow Brook and Mine Brook, which resembles a colt's neck if viewed on a map.
Commercial - Located in Cumberland County, the Township of Commercial was founded in 1874 and the name intended as a tribute to its shellfish and seafood commercial enterprises. The township has an annual Seafood Festival that began in 1980.
Deal: A borough in Monmouth County, the English settled in the area in the 1660s and named it after the port in Kent, England. The town in England comes from the Old English term "dael", meaning valley; today we spell it "dale." England's Deal was the site of a battle on July 3, 1495, between the forces of King Henry VII and the pretender Perkin Warbeck. Warbeck was defeated but got away. He returned in Cornwall in 1497 but was defeated, captured, escaped, captured again, and finally hanged in 1499. Deal's 07723 is usually ranked as one of the most expensive ZIP Codes in the state.
Dismal Harmony: Talk about a dichotomy! Dismal sounds awful, Harmony sounds wonderful. Which is it? It's a beautiful walking trail and natural area in Morris County. It's actually from the name of two brooks that run through the area, Dismal Brook and Harmony Brook.
Egg Harbor: There's Egg Harbor City, Egg Harbor Township, Great Egg Harbor Bridge, Great Egg Harbor River, Little Egg Harbor Township. So many eggs! In reality, all take their name from the brackish inlet explored in 1614 by Dutch Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey -- who Cape May is named after. He named the inlet "Eyren Haven" (Egg Harbor) after the many shorebird and waterfowl eggs he saw on the shore. The harbor was later subdivided. The "Little" and "Great" in the names do not refer to the size of the eggs, but to the size of the harbor in question -- the big one or the small one.
Foul Rift: About six miles southwest of Buttzville is Foul Rift, a name that dates back at least to the 18th century and refers to a treacherous stretch of rapids said to be the most dangerous on the Delaware River. An unincorporated community within White Township, Foul Rift began as a camp site that evolved into summer cottages and finally year-round cottages. Most of the cottages were destroyed by floods between 2004 and 2006 and the ones that remained were removed in 2008.
Hackensack: Not to be confused with Hacky Sack, a footbag invented by two men from Oregon in 1972 and acquired by Wham-O in 1983. The city in Bergen County was settled in 1665 by the Dutch as New Barbadoes, incorporated by the English in 1693 as New Barbadoes Township, and renamed Hackensack in 1921. The name comes from the Hackensack River, which was called Achinigeu-hach or Ackingsah-sack by the Lenni Lenape. The name is usually translated as "stony ground," but also could mean "hook mouth," "on low ground," "stream that unites with another on low ground," or "land of the big snake." Another tale, probably fanciful, is that the city got its name from an inn located here called the "Hock and Sack."
Hi-Nella: One of the smallest municipalities in New Jersey -- just 870 residents, according to the 2010 Census -- Hi-Nella is a borough in Camden County. The name is said to be from a Native American word meaning "high rolling knoll" or "high ground," but I suspect it had more to do with Nella Parker, whose husband Lucious Parker founded a development called Hi-Nella Estates in the late 1920s.
Hoboken: Originally a seasonal campsite and source of rocks for carving by Native Americans, the Dutch founded a colony here in 1630, but in 1664 the English took over. There are various origins for the name of the city in Hudson County. It's said the Native Americans called it "Hopoghan Hackingh", meaning "land of the tobacco pipe", after the soapstone found here that could be carved into pipes. But "Hoebuck" is a Dutch word meaning "High Bluff," and the place name was recorded on 17th and 18th century maps as "Hoebuck," "Hobock," "Hobuk," and finally "Hoboocken." There's also a district in Antwerp called Hoboken. So in this case the Native American origin may not be accurate.
Ho-Ho-Kus: There were actually two towns with this name, Ho-Ho-Kus (a borough) and Hohokus (a township), both in Bergen County. The township was founded in 1849, but no longer exists; pieces of it broke away to form other municipalities and the last of it was incorporated into Mahwah Township in 1944. The borough was founded as Orvil in 1905 and renamed Ho-Ho-Kus in 1908. The name is not Santa related. Usually said to be a Delaware name, Mehokhokus or Mah-Ho-Ho-Kus, meaning "the red cedar." Others say it comes from "hohokes" and refers to the sound of wind whistling against the bark of trees... how poetic! Or it's from a local tribe, the Chihohokies, or a Native American word for fox (Hoccus) or gray fox (Woakus). Or it's from a Dutch name, either Hoog Akers ("high acorns") or Hoge Aukers ("high oaks").
Jenny Jump: There's Jenny Jump Mountain and Jenny Jump State Forest. Legend says the name comes from an incident involving a girl named Jenny being chased by Native Americans while walking along the ridge; her father, watching from below, told her to jump -- in some versions safely into his arms, but usually to her death. (And, the legend says, her ghost still haunts the forest.) Either way, the story seems unlikely. It's possible, as with many other places in New Jersey, that the original Native American name sounded like Jenny Jump, and a legend was created to explain the name.
Little Silver: The most widely accepted origin for the name of this Monmouth County borough is that the Parker brothers, who settled here in 1667, named their 420-acre property "Little Silver" after their father's estate in Rhode Island, and the waters that bounded it Parker's Creek and Little Silver Creek. Their historic homestead was kept in the family for seven generations. The last descendant of the brothers, Julia Parker, died in 1995 and gave it to the borough with the condition that it be preserved as a historic site. Others believe it was the creek that was named first -- Little Silver Creek, a little creek with silvery water -- and the town's name came from the creek. There's also a theory that the name comes from how the land was acquired from Native Americans, with the payment of a little silver. It's also possible it's named after the place in England known as Little Silver -- and that name is believed to be derived not from the metal, but from the Latin word sylva, meaning woodland. For many years the area, known as Parkersville as well as Little Silver, was part of Shrewsbury Township until split off as its own municipality in 1923.
Loveladies: An unincorporated community on Long Beach Island in Ocean County, between Barnegat Light and Harvey Cedars. (Harvey Cedars, by the way, was originally named Harvest Quarters; no one knows why it changed.) A United States Life-Saving Service station was established at here in 1871 and given the designation Lovelady's, after a small island owned by Thomas Lovelady. The name eventually morphed from Lovelady's to Loveladies.
Manunka Chunk: Buttzville and Foul Rift aren't enough for White Township, there's also Manunka Chunk! Best known for its abandoned rail tunnels, many have wondered about the origin of the name: Is it an ice cream flavor? What's a Manunka and why is there a Chunk of it? Like Cheesequake, it's a Lenape name -- Mënànkahchunk, "where the hills are" -- that was anglicized into a more familiar spelling, leading to fanciful speculation about its meaning.
Moonachie: A test to determine if you're really from North Jersey: Bergen County residents know it's pronounced "Moo-Nah-Kee", not Moon-Achey or Mona-Chee. The name is said to come from an Iroquois chief named Monaghie.
Quibbletown: Founded in the 18th century, Quibbletown was so named because of a disagreement over whether the Sabbath should be observed on Saturday or Sunday. In 1777, British troops and American militia skirmished in the Battle of Quibbletown. It is now part of Piscataway in Middlesex County, but there's still a Quibbletown Middle School.
Sea Girt: The borough in Monmouth County is named for the estate of U.S. Navy Commodore Robert Field Stockton, a grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1853, Stockton purchased a large farm bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, an inlet to the north, and the Manasquan River to the south, and called it Sea Girt, meaning "surrounded by the sea" -- "girt" is the past participle of "gird", as in to be surrounded or encircled (and the root of the word "girdle"). In 1875, nine years after the commodore's death, his estate was sold to developers, who turned it into a residential community. The name of Stockton's estate was preserved as the name of the borough when it was established in 1917. The municipalities of Stockton, New Jersey; Fort Stockton, Texas; Stockton, California; and Stockton, Missouri, were named after Commodore Stockton. (Stockton University and the New Jersey Turnpike Rest Area are named after his grandfather.)
Shades of Death: Shades of Death is a two-lane, 6.7 mile-long road in Warren County. The macabre name has all sorts of origin stories. Some say it's because the road wound through heavy woods (now the Jenny Jump State Forest), providing plenty of places for bandits to ambush travelers. Or it's because those bandits would be hung from the trees, their bodies left dangling as a warning to others. Or because wild animals from the forest would frequently kill people on the road. Or because the swampy area was infested with mosquitoes that killed many residents from malaria. Some say it's because there were three brutal murders on this stretch of road in the 1920s and 1930s, or because the road's many twists and turns led to a high number of fatal car accidents in those early days of automobiles, but the name was in use before the murders or the car crashes. Curiously, there's also a Shades of Death Road in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
Shamong: A township in Burlington County, incorporated in 1852 after being split off from three other townships. The name means "Place of the Big Horn," from the Native American words oschummo, meaning horn, and onk, meaning place. It's listed as one of the best places to live in New Jersey.
Ship Bottom: Like Loveladies, another unusual place name on Long Beach Island in Ocean County. It's said the name of the borough derives from an incident in 1817 in which a sinking ship had flipped over, and an ax-wielding rescuer climbed onto the hull and hacked a hole in the ship's bottom to pull the lone survivor to safety. It was founded in 1925 as Ship Bottom-Beach Arlington, and the name shortened to Ship Bottom in 1947.
Succasunna: Pronounced Suck-uh-sun-uh or Suck-a-sauna, an unincorporated community in Roxbury Township in Morris County. It's a Lenni Lenape name meaning "land of black stones," said to be because iron ore was prevalent in the region. The area was originally known as the Suckasunny Plains and the community has an annual festival called Olde Suckasunny Day.
Teaneck: The origin of the name Teaneck is unknown; like fellow Bergen County municipality Ho-Ho-Kus, the name might be either Native American or Dutch in origin... or possibly both. The former would be Tekenek, meaning uninhabited woods. The latter would be Tiene Neck, meaning "neck of the willows" (a neck is a narrow piece of land separating two bodies of water, also known as an isthmus... which is derived from the Ancient Greek word for neck!) Both, because the Dutch settlers would often turn the Native American name into a Dutch one -- it's possible they heard "Tekenek" and thought "ah, they must mean Tiene Neck!" In any event, the name was already well established by the early 1700s. The township was incorporated in 1895.
The Oranges: What is this, a supermarket? Well we are the Garden State! The Oranges don't refer to the fruit but to four municipalities in Essex County: Orange, East Orange, South Orange, and West Orange. (There is no North Orange.) Interestingly enough, Orange's official name is "The City of Orange" and South Orange's official name is "South Orange Village," even though both are actually townships. The Oranges were originally part of Newark, and the area was known as Newark Mountains or Mountain Society. The name was changed to Orange in 1780 as part of a growing seccession movement that culminated in 1806 with Orange becoming an independent township, and eventually South Orange, East Orange, and West Orange breaking away from Orange to become their own municipalities. The name Orange honored the House of Orange. And that name comes not from the color nor the fruit, but from the name of city in Southern France founded in 35 B.C. by Rome. That city was originally named Arausio, after a Celtic god, and eventually came to be spelled Orange. The first recorded use of the word in English for the fruit is from the 13th century, and it wasn't used for the color until the 16th century. Around this time, the House of Orange began to use the color orange... so even though their name didn't originally come from the color, the House of Orange is now orange!
Wall: You might think this Monmouth County township is named after a sea wall, but it's actually for Garret Dorset Wall, a War of 1812 veteran and a U.S. Senator. The Monmouth County native died in 1850, a year before the township was incorporated. His son, James Walter Wall, was a politician and newspaper editor who supported Democratic Party candidate John C. Breckinridge against Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860; after losing the election, Breckinridge became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. Wall's outspoken support for Breckinridge resulted in his imprisonment for several weeks for "secession proclivities" until he signed a pledge of allegiance to the Union.
All right Reddit, which weird place names did I miss?

Hey guys, it's been a while since I last posted something to this subreddit. Since then, I've been working on what amounts to a 36 page essay that attempts to clarify the otherwise contradictory pieces of information regarding the Gellar Field. I’m really excited to share this with you guys, because this has taken me a long time to make. And even if you don’t agree with what I have to say, I hope the assembled lore excerpts can help you better conceptualize how Gellar Fields, and the Warp, works. Since this essay is very long, I'll be posting it incrementally across a few posts so that the word count limit wouldn't be an issue.
Before I begin this discussion, one thing needs to be made clear: It does not matter whether or not you consider canon how a Gellar field requires comatose psykers to generate. Since it has been confirmed by GW and multiple Black Library authors that this is canon, this aforementioned discussion will consider it canon, and will build upon this idea to reveal insights about why a Gellar Field would need this.
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Introduction
In the 40th Millenium, Warp travel forms the lifeline of the Imperium. Yet its highly distinguished catalogue of warp expeditions could not be possible without the utility of Gellar Fields. As defined in numerous sources, a Gellar Field generates a protective bubble of realspace that protects the ship and its passengers from both daemonic entities and the ambient energies of the Warp. In contrast with expectations, recent lore has indicated that the Gellar field is instead generated by the sacrifice of a comatose psyker, whose dreams are then used to generate the aforementioned bubble of realspace. While the reception of which remained mixed, this new piece of information clashes with established canon which states that the first Warp Drive was invented roughly alongside the first Gellar Field during the 18th millennium. Should Gellar Field generation also require comatose psykers during that bygone millennia, then humanity ought to have had a consistent supply of psykers to fuel extrasolar explorations for 7 millennia, up to the height of the Dark Age of Technology (DaOT). However, this contradicts established lore which states that humanity's first psykers sacrificed themselves in order to create the Emperor, and the second wave of humanity's psykers only appeared en masse during the waning days of the DaOT around M22. Therefore, there is a discrepancy of roughly 5 millennia during which humanity navigated the warp safely without any way to generate a Gellar Field.
While the warp was much calmer during those halcyon days, this following excerpt from Blood Reaver indicates that even transient exposure to relatively calm warp currents, despite wearing void hardened power armor, is enough to kill even veteran Astartes instantly.

The ship had entered the warp.
He’d seen it coming. They’d all seen it coming; the way the stars twisted in their astral sockets, and the way the ship itself groaned right through to its metal core. A few of his warriors had leapt from the ship’s back – sailors abandoning a sinking ship – to die a freezing death in the endless void rather than be dragged into the Sea of Souls.
One moment he was boot-locked to the ship’s hull, axe in hand, hewing into the sloped iron to hack his way back in. The next he was drowning, asphyxiating in liquid fire, suffocating even as it disintegrated him from the outside and incinerated him from within. He died a dozen deaths in a single heartbeat, and he felt every single one of them.
As had his brothers. When the molten sludge flowed over the ship, blanketing them all, he’d seen most of them lose their grips on the hull. Warriors he’d served with for decades, even centuries, spun away in the boiling madness of warp space, screaming as they dissolved. Several lingered by their burning bones in a shrieking, spectral form, before the raging tides ate at their very soul-stuff, immolating even that, before carrying the residue away to be diluted through the tumbling waves.

As shown above, the raw energy of the warp itself was enough to grant horrific deaths to even fully armored Astartes, whose void hardened suits were hermetically sealed to environmental conditions. Should even fully geared Astartes expire under mere contact with the warp, it would’ve been highly unlikely for DaOT humans to have fared better, protective gear or not. As such, it is highly likely that mankind employed protective technologies akin to the Gellar Field throughout its initial diaspora through the stars.
Therefore, the main goal of this analysis analysis will attempt to reconcile the disparate pieces of lore that surround the history of Gellar Field generation, as well as provide an explanation for why an Imperial Gellar Field would require a psyker in the first place. In the process, I will be attempting to justify seemingly disparate descriptions of Gellar Fields, and weave an overarching theory that unifies as many of these pieces of lore as I can. Using the assembled lore, I will also attempt to use the collected lore to uncover hints that can be used to theorize both the origins of the Gellar Field, and what DaOT society would’ve been like, using the information collected. Lastly, I will give a brief overview that would describe Xenos measures to safeguard against the warp, and why they likely did not need to develop Gellar Fields in the first place.
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I. Introduction to Imperial Gellar Fields

In recent lore, Gellar Field generation has been confirmed to use a comatose psyker as a battery to power the putative field. This detail was introduced prominently in Ashes of Prospero, during which Rune Priest Njal of the Vylka Fenryka noted that it is the terrifying dreams of the Comatose psyker that powers the Gellar Field:

“First came the Geller field. In real space*, its* effect on the ungifted members of the company was negligible, but to the psychically aware it created a wyrd echo that crept from the stern to the prow. The reality within the field reflected back the physical space now enclosed, bringing with it an unnatural sense of claustrophobia*. Njal was conditioned physically and mentally to overcome all sense of fear or distress, but his* Space Marine modifications and his Librarian training could do nothing to rid him completely of the sense of entrapment that shuddered through his soul.
He heard Majula’s heart pulsing fast, her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps.
‘Calm yourself, Navigator*,’ he said, assuming a command tone that she could not ignore. Within moments her breathing and pulse slowed.*
The Geller field sealed completely, vibrating slightly with the catatonic thoughts of the poor psyker enclosed in the bowels of the ship whose soul was being processed to create the protective shield*. Njal kept his thoughts to himself,* not wishing to touch upon whatever nightmarish experience the psychic battery underwent.”

While seemingly nonsensical, this description of Gellar Field generation was further referenced in Farsight: Crisis of Faith, during which various Water Caste members analyzed the wreckage of an Imperial voidship and stumble upon the wreckage of the Warp Engine

‘Organic matter in here,’ said the scientist. ‘Mostly ash, according to initial samples. Osseus, in origin. Some elements still largely intact.’
‘Osseus?’ said Malcaor, his forehead puckering. ‘Why in the name of the Tau’va would there be bone matter in an engine*? The result of an industrial accident?’*
‘Unlikely, given dispersal and volume,’ said Pryfinger. ‘There appears to be an interior casket built to house an artefact of unknown significance. There is a jeIlled vial of fluid here too, auric plating. According to initial ultrasound feathering, it contains only water.’
[---]
‘May the om-nis-siah’s light bless this housing*,’ he translated to his recording disc. ‘*The can-tic-les of saint gel-ler – jeller, perhaps – contain its divine aura … pause.’

While it is likely that hidden within the casket was a reliquary, and that the subsequent osseous matter was from preserved organic matter from a Mechanicus saint, the definition of a reliquary varies tremendously. In fact, a reliquary only needs to house objects associated with saints or other religious figures. Ergo, an equally valid interpretation could be that the casket held the jeweled vial of fluid inscribed with the blessing of Saint Gellar. Should this be the case, then that would mean that the osseous remains likely originate from the comatose psyker, whose remains were incinerated following the destruction of the ship. In fact, we can also conclude that the technologies behind Imperial Gellar Field generation still required a cargo of Comatose psykers to operate even in the 41st millennium. In other words, the nonsensical description of Gellar Field generation on a Thousand Sons vessel actually applies to a wide berth of Imperial Void ships, and have continued to do so for the following 10 millenia.
Diving further into Farsight: Crisis of Faith, additional descriptions of these technologies were provided, providing a visual description of where these technologies may be located in an Imperial Voidship:

The Imperial battle-barge has a special type of generator within its warp drive. It is known to the Imperials as a Geller field*.* Deactivate it whilst the warship is still partially mistranslated from its realspace jump*, and the Imperial flagship will be* gutted from the inside out.’

As well:

‘The Geller field generator is situated on the sixth level of the ship, roughly behind the third insignia plate,’ said Por Malcaor. ‘You can reach it from either flank, though you will need to penetrate deep into the vessel. Trust me. I have seen such ships before, and made a study of how best to disable their protective fields.’

From this excerpt, we can see that housed within the Warp Drives of Imperial ships, there exists a subcompartment which houses a system of mechanical components collectively known as the Gellar Field Generator. Furthermore, both the Warp Drive and the Gellar Field Generator are located in one of the safest, most structurally sound, heavily protected areas of Astartes Battlebarges. While the anatomy of a Battlebarge is generally more redundant and heavily armored than that of other Imperial voidships, the fact that even the Astartes place their Warp Drives and Gellar Fields in the most heavily defended area of the ship demonstrates their importance. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a surprise if both machines were placed in similarly, well guarded regions of other Imperial ships. This makes sense because an Imperial ship can still be considered void capable if it can still activate its warp drive and Gellar Field. Should either of them be compromised, the ship would be unable to achieve FTL and would be rendered a sitting duck. In the worst case, the ship would be rendered nothing more than a Space Hulk, and be quickly infested by the warp.
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II. Characteristics of Imperial Gellar Fields

Surprisingly, there is a sizable collection of lore that describes the characteristics of an active Gellar Field. By using the lore, it is possible to obtain both a detailed picture of what an active Gellar Field was like, as well as a detailed understanding of its limitations.
First, Gellar Fields can pop due to undue stress. In Legacy, the Gellar Field of an Imperial ship named the Gann-Luctis popped by colliding with a violent swell of warp energy:

Death came in as the ship burst free of the thunder-head and catapulted into the space beyond, not a calmer passage as it had seemed but a tight corkscrew of energy spinning through dimensions that no human sensibility could comprehend*. The ship began to tumble as Yimora desperately looked for a way through* and the Geller field rippled as the riptide struck it, closed on it, seemed to bite at it. It bowed further and further inwards and then, for less than a hundredth of a second which set off klaxons and bells throughout the Gann-Luctis’ besieged hull, it flickered out.

From this excerpt, it’s evident that Gellar Fields function akin to a barrier that has specific tolerances to various impacts against its surface. To use an analogy, the Gellar Field seems similar to that of a soap bubble. This bubble analogy is corroborated in the Index Astartes, which also describes the Gellar Field as a bubble:

"Like all Warp-capable vessels, battle barges are protected by Geller fields, arcane devices that create a bubble of realspace around a ship as it passes through the tides of the Immaterium. Unlike Imperial Navy warships that are required to spend large portions of their deployment guarding a single system, and who are called upon to travel in the warp infrequently, battle barges are in constant motion, traveling from one war zone to the next without respite. Such frequent Warp travel puts these prized vessels at great risk, and as such they are frequently outfitted with two interconnecting Geller fields. Should one fail, the other will continue to protect the battle barge from the Warp’s hostile environment and the foul entities that dwell there. Yet this extra precaution has not always proven enough. The denizens of that twisted realm are relentless and on at least one occasion have conspired to breach both fields simultaneously."

Second, two Voidships equipped with Gellar Fields can come in close proximity to one another, and merge their fields. Doing so creates a larger bubble which encompasses both ships, and is stable enough to give naval personnel enough time to board each other’s ships. In The Voice, the Gellar Fields of two Imperial ships made contact while they were in the warp, and the crewmates of both ships meticulously initiated boarding protocols that allowed both fields to merge:

With care, the shipmaster’s bridge crew brought the Aeria Gloris closer and closer until the glimmering non-matter of her Geller field brushed that of the Validus*.* Cogitators programmed for just such tasks passed orders, via festoons of golden commwire and mechadendrites, to servitors using scrying scopes to measure the energy spectra being broadcast from the other Black Ship*. By agonising moments, they brought the vessel’s protective envelope into synchrony with its neighbour.* Like two bubbles meeting on the surface of a pond, they touched one another*, shifted and finally merged. Such an operation was a* difficult one

Not only does this excerpt demonstrate that individual fields can be fused together, this excerpt demonstrates that both fields are primarily made up of a form of unspecified energy. This description immediately eliminates the possibility that Gellar Fields were composed from some form of exotic matter, and are instead akin to energetic barriers such as Void Shields.
Third, the aforementioned energy of the Gellar Field is capable of transferring aetheric energy from the Warp to the Materium and converting it to a Materium analogue, vice versa. In Execution Hour, A ship whose Gellar Field was under aetheric strain from its surrounding warp medium suddenly received severe structural strain:

Lower Geller Field level to 40%,’ Semper ordered, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. There was a deep groan from all around them - the ship’s hull starting to buckle inwards as the forces of the warp pressed in all around the weakened Geller Field - and many of the Adeptus Mechanicus adepts on the bridge cried out in fear, believing it to be the angry voice of the Machine God spirit inhabiting the Macharius. Magos Castaboras led his adepts in fevered prayer, knowing that the warp field could not maintain its integrity for more than one or two minutes at such a low energy level."

Since the ship in question was surrounded by realspace, the only thing that would’ve been able to dent the voidship would be an external presence located both within the bubble and on the ship that could’ve applied pressure to its hull. Yet, there was no indication that such a presence existed, as the ship was the sole presence within the bubble. Therefore, the sole reason the Macharius began to buckle was due to the aetheric strain placed on Gellar Field by the surrounding warp currents. In other words, the surrounding warp currents collided with the Gellar Field hard enough to apply strain to the energy field. This strain was then transmitted across the barrier, where it was converted into Newtonian forces that deformed the vessel.
Conversely, Fabius Bile: Clonelord demonstrates that Newtonian forces from within the bubble can also be transmitted across the barrier, and be converted into warp equivalents. In the novel, the Vesalius ship encounters daemons within a warp infested section of the Webway. As the Gellar Field on Fabius’ ship comes into contact with daemons caught in its crossroads, it obliterates them through the subsequent collision:

The Vesalius ran silent through a corroded spur of the Webway. Fabius watched through a static-ridden pict-feed as the frigate passed through broken bone-white reefs of alien matter and toxic clouds of daemonic substance. A moment later, its warning bells tolled out into the blackened spiral depths, scattering flocks and shoals of Neverborn before it. Occasionally, the edges of the Vesalius’ Geller field would strike one of these shoals of impossible, squirming shapes and the daemons would evaporate in their hundreds*, much to the amusement of their wiser, swifter fellows.’*

Much like the previous excerpt from Execution Hour, the ship itself did not interact with the Warp. Instead, it was the Gellar Field of the Vesalius that dashed the daemonic entities. Of note, this Gellar Field, in particular, was being propelled by Plasma Drives rather than Warp Drives. We know this as the Vesalius was travelling in the Webway, an ensconced network of realspace enclosed within the Warp. In particular, Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Gothic indicates that activating warp drives rip holes in realspace to launch a voidship across the warp:

Warp drives are altogether more esoteric and terrifying understood by few even among a spaceship's crew. When the spaceship reaches the jump point at the edge of the star system it's leaving, its plasma drives are turned off and its warp drives engaged. These hurl the spaceship out of real space and into warpspace, propelling it through the warp to a destination light years away. If a spaceship's warp drives were switched on while it was still within a star system. the huge rent in the very fabric of space that they create would be catastrophic for the population and planets of the system*. The spaceship itself would be torn apart as the massive pull of the star's gravity reacted unpredictably with the energies released by the warp drives.*

While it is unclear what may happen when warp drives are activated within the Webway, it is very likely that the subsequent activation may similarly tear holes within the superstructure, subsuming already damaged sections of the Webway completely into the warp. Since Fabius’ goal was to travel using the damaged Webway passage, his decision to navigate through it without Warp Drives may’ve proved to be prudent.
Working with this idea that the Vesalius traversed through this passage using Plasma Drives, this means that the ship was travelling significant fractions of c, granting it significant momentum and kinetic energy. We know this as Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Gothic also mentioned the capabilities of Imperial Plasma drives.

Interstellar spaceships are powered by plasma and warp drives. Plasma drives are used to move through star systems at sub-light speeds. They burn with the fierce energy of a star, converting their fuel into a super-heated gas plasma to create the immense thrust needed to propel these gargantuan craft through space. As a large interstellar spaceship moves out of orbit towards the edge of a star system ready to jump into the warp, the fiery arc it traces across the night sky can clearly be seen from the planet it's leaving. It appears to be a great comet streaking through the heavens - on many worlds, the arrival or departure of a spaceship is read as an omen, a divine harbinger of joy or doom.

Therefore, the Daemons in this excerpt didn’t disintegrate upon mere contact with the Gellar Field. Instead, the kinetic energy behind the Vesalius’ propulsion was absorbed by the surrounding medium of Realspace. The surrounding Realspace then transfers this energy onto the Gellar Field, which then transfers this energy into aetheric energy to obliterate the daemons it collided with.
Since the Gellar Field demonstrated the ability to translate both Empyrean and Materium analogues of force from one medium to the other, this means that the energy of the Gellar Field is energetically amphipathic. In other words, it is capable of interacting with both the energies of the Materium and the energies of the Warp. This property distinctly differentiates the energy of the Gellar Field from either Realspace or Warpspace energy, as neither forms of energy have demonstrated the ability to create energetic constructs that can transmute energy from one dimensional medium to the next. This observation is given credence in “Nemesis”, as the Gellar Field of the Imperial ship Ultio played an instrumental role in hiding the soul gaze of its passengers as it sped through the Warp.

The ship’s sight-blind Navigator took it through the routes that were little known*, the* barely-charted passages that the upper echelons of the Imperial government kept off the maps given to the common admiralty. These were swift routes but treacherous ones, causeways through the atemporal realm that larger ships would never have been able to take*, the* soul-light glitter of their massive crews bright enough that they would attract the living storms that wheeled and turned*, while Ultio passed by unnoticed. The phantom-ship was barely there; its* Geller fields had such finely-tuned opacity and its engines such speed that the lumbering, predatory intelligences that existed inside warp space noted it only by the wake it left behind*.*

From this excerpt, it is evident that the Gellar Field is analogous to a filter, preventing most warp frequencies from passing through. While similar opacity can likely be engineered using both warp space or real space energies, it is also highly likely that this observed opacity comes from the fact that the Gellar Field energy originates from neither dimension. Combining this information presented in Nemesis alongside the amphipathic observation of the Gellar Field, we can conclude that both the Gellar Field itself, and its subsequent opacity do not originate from the Warp, nor Realspace.
Fourth, Gellar Fields can vary in size and strength, with its strength directly correlating with the size of its projection. In Shadowbreaker, Codicier Karras of the Deathwatch encounters a Gellar Field and makes observations about its characteristics.

The figure on the tall black throne turned its hololithic head to regard him coolly. Since the figure was projection only, Karras’ senses could tell him nothing. There was no soul there to read, no aura, no energy, just photons. This was precisely why Sigma remained above on the three Geller-shielded upper decks*, off limits to most onboard. It was easy enough to guess* that those decks housed the inquisitor lord’s astropathic choir, maybe his psychic coven, and no doubt a veritable army of servitors to take care of more mundane needs*. But Karras’ mind was blocked from knowing. His* astral self could no more penetrate those protective fields than he could sense emotion from this shimmering lie seated above him.
[...]
A Geller field. That’s why my power is being suppressed. To create hybrids, they’d need purestrain ’stealers. And the t’au would have to prevent those ’stealers from guiding the hive-mind here. Otherwise the whole planet…

From this excerpt, it’s evident that the Gellar Field is adjustable in size. While the extant lore largely illustrates that a Gellar Field can encompass an unspecified volume of space that can encapsulate a voidship, this excerpt demonstrates that a Gellar Field can be further shrunk down to only encapsulate 3 decks on an Inquisitor’s ship. When shrunk to such sizes, its secondary characteristics become much more noticeable, especially by those with psychic potential. This is demonstrated further by Shadowbreaker, which describes how its side effects become increasingly more potent:

The Geller field generator was obviously on the ship, activated, isolating its contents from the warp. Standing forty metres from the hull, Karras could feel its effects, the field pressing against his soul, its resonance stemming the flow of power from the Immaterium to his mind*.* The effect was much more localised than at Alel a Tarag, and far denser as a result*. Epsilon, he guessed, must have configured it to the ship’s shape and size in readiness for their voyage.*

From this excerpt, we can see that shrinking the size of a Gellar Field increases the structural stability and its field’s effects. Moreover, this excerpt opens up the possibility that the reverse is true- that purposefully expanding a Gellar Field beyond its operative range would severely weaken its structural stability, causing it to prematurely sputter out. Interestingly, proximity to the Gellar Field siphons the warp energy a psyker can channel from the warp. While it is unclear how this may be achieved, it could be that this phenomenon is indicative of how the field may be generated in the first place.
Continued in comments

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Later on, McClelland would support the theory of a head shot from the right front (JAMA, 5/27/1992, JFK's death - the plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy [text]; 4/6/1991 Dallas conference [video, part 2, 44:09, 1:22:51]; High Treason 2, 1992, Chapter 5. Bethesda Naval Hospital, p. 138; 10/1/2002, 11/30/2002 interviews by Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, 2007, Book One: Matters of Fact: What Happened, Kennedy's Autopsy and the Gunshot Wounds to Kennedy and Connally; D Magazine, Nov. 2008, The Day Kennedy Died by Michael J. Mooney; McKinney Courier-Gazette, 1/28/2012, Surgeon recounts JFK operation by Chris Beattie; Undated talk, uploaded to Archive.org 2/15/2012; TCSS conference, 2012 [video, part 3] [part 5]; 2/21/2013 talk at the 15th annual Gathering of Eagles conference in Dallas, TX; Dallas Morning News, 6/21/2013, Lee Harvey Oswald gets hung jury at mock JFK murder trial by Jennifer Emily; 9/24/2013 interview, Sixth Floor Museum; 10/24/2013 lecture at Baylor University; Undated presentation, uploaded to Youtube 11/22/2013; 2013 interview on Televisa; 2014 talk at UT Southwestern; 10/5/2015 drawing 1 [link]; 10/5/2015 drawing 2 [link] [link 2]; 11/12/2015 interview at Allen Public Library; 12/22/2016 drawing [link]; 2016 speech at Berkner High School; 2/28/2017 drawing [link]; 4/6/2017 drawing 1 [link] [link 2]; 4/6/2017 drawing 2 [link]; 4/10/2017 drawing 1 [link]; 4/10/2017 drawing 2 [link]; 6/14/2017 drawing 1 [link]; 6/14/2017 drawing 2 [link]; 7/17/2017 drawing [link] [link 2] [link 3]; 2/16/2018 drawing [link]; Undated drawing 1; Undated drawing 2 [link] [link 2] [link 3] [link 4] [link 5] [link 6]; Undated drawing 3 [link] [link 2] [link 3]; Undated drawing 4 [link]; Undated drawing 5 [link]; Undated drawing 6 and letter [link] [link 2]; Undated audio at studentsforrenew.org). He also said that there could have been a small wound in the front of the head which he failed to notice (12/1/1971 interview by Harold Weisberg, Post Mortem, 1975 edition, p. 376-377, Epilogue; 4/6/1991 Dallas conference [video, part 2, 44:09, 1:22:51]; Bugliosi, 10/1/2002, 11/30/2002 interviews, Reclaiming History, 2007, Book One: Matters of Fact: What Happened, Kennedy's Autopsy and the Gunshot Wounds to Kennedy and Connally; TCSS conference, 2012 [video, part 5, 4:33]; 9/24/2013 interview, Sixth Floor Museum [video, 23:34]; 2013 interview on Televisa [video, 14:45]; 10/5/2015 drawing 1 [link]; 10/5/2015 drawing 2 [link] [link 2]; 2/28/2017 drawing [link]; 4/6/2017 drawing 1 [link] [link 2]; 4/6/2017 drawing 2 [link]; 4/10/2017 drawing 1 [link]; 4/10/2017 drawing 2 [link]; 6/14/2017 drawing 1 [link]; 7/17/2017 drawing [link] [link 2] [link 3]; 2/16/2018 drawing [link]; Undated drawing 1; Undated drawing 2 [link] [link 2] [link 3] [link 4] [link 5] [link 6]; Undated drawing 3 [link] [link 2] [link 3]; Undated drawing 4 [link]; Undated drawing 5 [link]; Undated drawing 6 and letter [link] [link 2]).
From a report on Dr. Jenkins' 11/10/1977 interview by the House Select Committee on Assassinations:

Dr. Jenkins attempted to explain (on his own initiative) Dr. McClelland's Warren Commission testimony that the President had a wound of the left temple. He said McClelland did not personally see the wound and misinterpreted Dr. Jenkins' feeling the President's left temple for a pulse as indicating there was a wound there.

(HSCA Vol. 7, p. 285 [text])
From a 1/11/1978 interview of Dr. Malcolm Perry by the HSCA:

PERRY: [...] Normally, what we do -- well, normally, yes; but normally just one of us. Normally, the guy -- myself, for example, since I ostensibly was responsible for the surgery and the rest of it, normally the guy who's attending and who's doing the job writes a summary about it afterwards for the record. The reason all of us did was we thought it might be important -- more than the usual -- to have a good record. I'm not sure it served its purpose. I haven't read everybody's, but I've read some of them and I found they didn't correspond with what I remembered.
PURDY: Do you remember any in particular?
PERRY: No, no, but I remember the stuff about Bob McClelland's. We talked about that later because we talked about the thing in the temple. And we all kind of laughed about that but I just, you know, Bob was told when he joined in there and like me he didn't spend much time because he saw I needed help. And when he started helping me with the trache, he asked where he was shot. And somebody told him he was shot in the left temple and he accepted that as being true, when actually it wasn't true and I think Bob wrote that down -- or if he didn't write it down, he told somebody that, which was interesting. But, you know, you get naive and trustworthy and that's a bad way to be.

(HSCA Vol. 7, p. 292 [text] [audio])
From a 2/9/1979 letter from Dr. Jenkins to researcher John Lattimer:

[…] I exercised no thought at all about entrance and exit for the head wound. In retrospect I think I automatically accepted the fact that if a bullet came from the back to traverse his neck, another bullet came from the back to go through the skull.
[…] You will recall the big commotion stirred by Mr. Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, who was trying to bring to trial conspirators whom he named. One of his statements which was repeatedly quoted was that bullets entering the President's body came from more than one direction. After much publicity was given to this thesis, I learned from a member of his staff that for indirect reasons he was expecting me to be the primary witness for the fact that the shots came from at least two directions. Apparently Mr. Garrison or members of his staff, in going over the many reports made to the Warren Commission or elsewhere, found that Dr. Robert N. McClelland, a member of the surgical staff who arrived in the trauma room after resuscitation efforts were well under way, asked me what were the President's injuries. Evidently, just as I answered, '...and a gunshot wound to his head,' I moved my left hand so as to place my left middle finger on the President's temporal artery in feeling for a pulse. Dr. McClelland tells me he thought I moved my hand there and with a finger indicated the site of a bullet entrance, and I believe he offered this in testimony at some point. After I recounted this to the representative from Mr. Garrison's office I was asked for no further testimony.

In 1979, Dr. Jenkins was interviewed by Harrison Livingstone. As summarized in Livingstone's 2004 book The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy:

As I remembered my meeting with him in 1979, when he had me lie down on a table and demonstrated the wounds (he did this with Ben Bradlee Jr. when my Boston Globe team went to Dallas to check my work), he said that he "thought" there was an entry hole in the left temple, but he was evidently mistaken.

(Link)
This reference to Dr. Gene Akin is listed in JFK: From Parkland to Bethesda by Vincent Palamara, 2015:

6/28/84 FBI Memorandum, SA Udo H. Specht to SAC, Dallas, re: interviews with Akin (RIF#124-10158-10449)---”On 6/18/84, the writer and SA DOUG DAVIS interviewed an individual who stated he was formerly Dr. GENE COLEMAN AKIN, the senior resident anesthesiologist at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas. AKIN stated that he was on duty at the hospital on 11/22/63 when President KENNEDY was brought in the emergency room. AKIN stated that the FBI interviewed him during the 1963-1964 period concerning any of the observations he made on 11/22/63. AKIN stated that the “historic accident” of being present in the emergency room on 11/22/63 changed his whole life in a negative way. He feels that the governments on both a federal and state level have harassed him since that time. He stated that he quit practicing medicine in 1979 or 1980 and that DEA took his narcotics license away. He has never recouped the money it cost him to practice medicine because of government interference with his own destiny and self-initiative. He has been on welfare since 1980 and feels it is now the government’s obligation to take care of him. He claims that his sister had him committed to Terrell State Hospital and he was incarcerated in that institution from March 9 through May 25, 1984. He stated that it took him that long to convince the doctors that he was not a “nut.” AKIN is in the hospital for heart by-pass surgery on 6/20/84 and he has also been diagnosed as having renal cancer. AKIN also stated that he had his name changed to SOLOMON BEN ISRAEL and he was interviewed in Room 439, St. PAUL’s HOSPITAL, Dallas, Texas. AKIN ranted and raved about government injustice and conspiracies against him and behaved in a general aberrant manner. His mannerism in communicating, in the opinion of the writer, gave him or the information he was trying to relate no credibility whatsoever. The writer attempted to listen to him for over one hour. AKIN made efforts to contact the Dallas news media in order to tell his story, but apparently received very little favorable response. The writer made efforts to get AKIN to tell his story. AKIN kept ranting and raving about items from the right to the left of the political spectrum. AKIN did finally say that when he saw President KENNEDY in the emergency room on 11/22/63, he thought he saw a bullet entrance wound on the President’s forehead. The President was covered with blood in the head area and the back of his head was blown wide open. AKIN feels that his observation as to the possible entrance wound on the President’s forehead is significant and that he did not mention this item when he was interviewed in 1963-1964 because he did not want to be killed by any conspirators. AKIN stated that if this entrance wound was not documented in the Presidential autopsy, then plastic surgery was probably conducted to cover this up. AKIN made available a cassette tape recording of items he recorded himself during the past few days. The tape recording was reviewed by the writer and contained no information whatsoever concerning AKIN’s comments about the assassination of President KENNEDY. [redaction: at least one paragraph] At 1:45 pm, 6/28/84, AKIN telephonically contacted the writer and stated that he checked himself out [of] St. Paul’s hospital to [be] re-evaluated as to what to do about his medical condition. He stated that he was calling from the Dallas County Jail and that he had been arrested on 6/26/84. He was unspecific as to why he was arrested, but he indicated that it was some type of fraud charge and alcohol might have been an issue also. He wanted the writer to get him out of Jail and that it was all the FBI’s fault that his troubles are continuing. AKIN became extremely verbally abusive and the writer terminated the call. [redaction: at least a few sentences; end]”

(Link)
A report on an earlier 1981 interview with Gene Akin by Ben Bradlee of the Boston Globe likewise noted "Akin recently legally changed his name to ‘Solomon Ben-Israel’".
The transcript of Dr. Akin’s 3/25/1964 WC testimony does not specifically describe any small wounds in the head:

Mr. SPECTER - With respect to the head wound, Dr. Akin, did you observe below the gaping wound which you have described any other bullet wound in the back of the head?
Dr. AKIN - No; I didn't. I could not see the back of the President's head as such, and the right posterior neck was obscured by blood and skull fragments and I didn't make any attempt to examine the neck.

[…]

Mr. SPECTER - How many bullets were involved in the wounds inflicted on the President, Dr. Akin?
Dr. AKIN - Probably two.
Mr. SPECTER - Have you ever changed any of your original opinions in connection with your observations of the President or any opinions you formed in connection with what you saw?
Dr. AKIN - You mean as to how he was injured?
Mr. SPECTER - Yes, as to how he was injured.
Dr. AKIN - Well, no; not really because I didn't have any opinions, necessarily. Any speculation that I might have done about how he was injured was just that, it was just speculation. I didn't form an opinion until it was revealed where he was when he was injured and where the alleged assassin was when he fired the shots, so I didn't have any opinions. It was my immediate assumption that when I saw the extent of the head wound, I assumed at that point that he had probably been hit in the head with a high velocity missile because of the damage that had been done. The same thing happened to his head as would happen to a sealed can of sauerkraut that you hit with a high velocity missile.
Mr. SPECTER - Did you have any opinion as to the direction-that the bullet hit his head?
Dr. AKIN - I assume that the right occipitalparietal region was the exit, so to speak, that he had probably been hit on the other side of the head, or at least tangentially in the back of the head, but I didn't have any hard and fast opinions about that either.

(WC Vol. 6, p. 63 [text])
Not only does Akin’s WC testimony transcript not include any mention of a small wound in the head, but Akin said the large wound looked like it could have been caused by a bullet striking tangentially.
A taped interview with “Gene Akin” by a team from the Boston Globe was summarized in Harrison Livingstone's 1989 book High Treason:
[...Part II: The Medical Evidence, Chapter 2p: The President’s Head Wounds And The New Evidence Of Forgery, THE HOLE IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD]

Dr. Gene Akin was an Anesthesiologist at Parkland at the time. He told the Warren Commission that “the back of the right occipital-parietal portion of (Kennedy’s) head was shattered, with brain substance extruding.”43 “I assume that the right occipital parietal region (right rear) was the exit”44 Akin reaffirmed this to the Globe team and basically did not accept the official picture. On seeing the sketch, he said, “Well in my judgment at the time, what I saw was more parietal. But on the basis of this sketch, if this is what Bob McClelland saw, then it’s more occipital.”45 Akin further said that Dr. Kemp Clark saw the entry wound in the temple.

This is yet another such reference to Kemp Clark, the first being the 11/27/1963 article by Arthur Snider which said “Identification of two points of entry, the throat and the skull, was made by Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon, and Dr. Tom Shires, chief of surgery at Parkland Hospital. They said neither bullet was recovered in the hospital emergency room. One bullet was said to have emerged from the left temple” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Movies Reconstruct Tragedy by Arthur Snider, 11/27/1963 [link 1] [link 2, The Akron Beacon Journal, 11/28/1963]).
In the afterword of Livingstone’s 1989 book High Treason, there is the sentence "The first doctor to see what he said was a bullet entry wound near the left temple was Dr. Leto Porto. This was described by Dr. Robert McClelland in his report" (Link). This is the earliest known reference to Dr. Lito Porto being in Trauma Room One. There is no elaboration or reference to where this information came from, but one paragraph before does start with "Dr. Ronald Jones told me that the large hole was directly in the back head. “He had a lot of damage to the scalp. It was blown away.”".
Along with a 6/23/1990 letter, Dr. McClelland wrote on a copy of his original hospital report “This is my statement to the Secret Service. There was no wound at the left temple as First thought - simply much blood clot in that area” (Link).
From McClelland’s appearance in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 5/27/1992:

[…] McClelland had originally mistakenly written in his hospital chart that the wound to Kennedy's head struck the left temple. This error, as published in the Warren report, later prompted a call from the office of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who wanted to bring him to New Orleans in 1969 to testify in the conspiracy trial of Clay Shaw. McClelland recalls, "Well, when I told the investigator that I had made a mistake in 1963, there was a sudden silence at the other end of the line."

(JAMA, 5/27/1992, JFK's death - the plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy [text])
In 1992, Dr. McClelland was contacted by researcher Brad Parker. As summarized:

[…] Dr. McClelland's report reflects a "...a gunshot wound of the left temple" (CE 392:17WCH 12), a mistake which would follow him for years. Dr. McClelland, however, explains the mistake in quite different terms: "I wrote that down (in my report) because Jenkins has said that there was (a wound there in the left temple), and I knew that he knew that there was a bullet hole there, and that fit with that larger (posterior) wound" (emphasis added) (McClelland 09-10-92)

(Kennedy Assassination Chronicles, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 1997, p. 7, Dr. Robert McClelland in Trauma Room One by Brad Parker)
Gerald Posner, in his 1993 book Case Closed, described an interview with Dr. Jenkins:
[...Chapter 13. “He Had a Death Look”]

In his original report, McClelland said there was a wound to the left temple, one that does not show up on any autopsy X ray or photograph. This has caused some to charge that Kennedy was shot by a second gunman from another location at Dealey, and that the autopsy team either negligently or intentionally overlooked that wound. “I’ll tell you how that happened,” Dr. Jenkins explained to the author. “When Bob McClelland came into the room, he asked me, ‘Where are his wounds?’ And at that time I was operating a breathing bag with my right hand, and was trying to take the President’s temporal pulse, and I had my finger on his left temple. Bob thought I pointed to the left temple as the wound.”

In a November 1993 presentation, Dr. Jenkins indicated that he believed the fatal head shot could have come from behind.
In an undated presentation uploaded to Youtube on 9/26/2013, Jenkins continued to argue in favor of the official story, referencing information from John Lattimer.
Dr. Jenkins passed away on 11/21/1994 (New York Times, 11/23/1994; Baltimore Sun, 11/23/1994; Buffalo News, 11/23/1994; Associated Press, 11/23/1994; Findagrave.com).
A Parkland employee named Dr. Donald Seldin would later claim to have seen Kennedy's body. Dr. Seldin wrote, in a 8/27/1998 letter to Vincent Palamara, "The bullet struck the President in the forehead and literally exploded in his skull, so that the entire frontal, parietal and temporal bones were shattered…I believe that the official story is accurate in all details" (Link). Perhaps the "forehead" reference is too vague for Seldin to be considered a "proper" witness in regards to a small frontal head wound.
NEXT - PART 10.4