NationStates Jolt Archive

"Brother Falco. Brother Falco, wake up!"
Falco blinked muzzily at the neophyte tapping the adamantium toecap of his power armour, the smaller man insistently rapping the green-enamelled metal.
"Oh. You're awake Brother."
Falco said nothing, staring at the scout, mind struggling to function, tired as he was.
Even one of the Emperor's Finest must sleep now and then, the Catalepsean Node carrying them only so far, and the Dawn Paragons' relentless pursuit of the Crystal Furies had seen Falco awake for more than three weeks without rest.
He was after all, the senior-surviving Veteran sergeant assigned this particular battle-barge.
Thoughts at last coalescing into something resembling normal, Falco smiled slightly.
"My apologies Brother."
He reached out from his sprawled position in the hold, groping hand closing on his silvered helmet, at the same time as his other hand drew his bolter to him.
Donning the helmet, murmuring the equipment rituals as he did, Falco rose, slinging his stormbolter as he did.
The neophyte waited till the battle brother had completed his rituals, respectfully silent, then he delivered his message.
"Brother Librarian Trajan has announced he can sense the traitors, that they are close."
Falco nodded thoughtfully, a wave of his armoured hand enough to dismiss the neophyte, then began the long walk through the belly of the Paragon battle-barge "His Glorious Light" towards Trajan's distant quarters.
Contrary to the Emperor's instructions, the Paragons had not suppressed their Librarians totally, operating as far out on the fringes as they had been, it hadn't been particularly hard for individual librarians to avoid the sweeps of Custodes.
Falco hadn't been sure if it was a wise choice at the time, but Primarch Mereo had given the order and so it was done.
A rueful sigh sigh came from Falco as he thought of his Primarch. He was proud to carry the man's geneseed, but he was also a loyal servant of the Emperor, and Mereo's somewhat enigmatic approach to war-making occassionally clashed with the Emperor's commands, to Falco's disquiet.
Still, Mereo was committed to the destruction of the traitor legions, especially after the Crystal Furies' betrayl of the Paragons over Armagh, the Primarch had led the survivors of the massive battle tirelessly after the broken Chaos legion, so tirelessly in fact that his Captains had become restive, rumbling that the Imperium needed them more elsewhere.
Mereo had responded to this by dispatching portions of his surviving Chapter to return to their beleagured comrades' aide, most recently the battle-barges "Blood Raven", "Night Warden" and their escorts.
This policy had left the Chapter badly understrength in some units, most dramatically in Falco's, he was the senior surviving battle brother by dint of having been wounded early enough in the last savage clash with the Crystal Furies that the company Apothecary had had to drag him back to the Thunderhawk.
Unfortunately, this had been immediately before the treacherous heretics had sprung an ambush that had almost annihilated his unit. Had annihilated them in all but name. The Paragons had no Scout companies, instead the Scout squads in each company were led by the Company Chaplain, the wisdom and dedication of the Chaplains perhaps a greater example to the neophytes than to veterans like Falco.
This policy had meant that Scouts were the majority of what remained of Falco's thousand man unit, a hundred or so neophytes, plus Brother Chaplain Abbatis, Brother Librarian Trajan, Falco himself and a half-dozen other battle brothers, along with Brother Apothecary Valetudo and the crew of the Emperor's Light.
That had been three weeks ago, and Falco was nearly recovered of his wounds, he burned to avenge himself on the Chaos-tainted marines who had slaughtered his brothers, but this warred with his knowledge of his duty, the Chapter's duty, to not expend itself on an endless pursuit of the Furies...

Falco's clunking progress through the Glorious Light halted as a cowled figure stepped out of a cabin ahead.
Swathed all in black, the hulking form's shadowed hood turned to Falco and a rasping voice acknowledged him.
"Falco."
Falco bowed slightly. "Brother Abbatis."
The Chaplain moved his cowl back, revealing a harsh countenance, scarred and battered, four studs in his left temple forming a rough cross, a black aquila tattoo under his right eye contrasting with the silver studs.
"Falco, I trust you seek Brother Trajan?" ground out the Chaplain, ice-pale blue eyes locked on Falco's helmet, seeming to read his thoughts even through the layers of ceramite and plasteel. Abbatis was a forbidding figure, even without the tracery of scars around his throat from a misfiring plasma pistol lifted at the wrong moment, and his pious fanaticism was regarded as unnerving even within such a religious organisation as the Adeptus Astartes.
Falco nodded.
"Aye, we're summoned to the bridge Brother Chaplain, Trajan says that the traitors are close."
The scarred Chaplain opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he would have said was lost as the Glorious Light rocked, the two Space Marines stumbling as the gothic behemoth tilted over.
"To the bridge Brother!" bellowed Abbatis, matching deed to word, his gleaming white robe whirling as he spun and hammered down the corridor.
Falco shrugged with a slight whir of servos and followed the Chaplain's black armoured form through the ornate labyrinth that were the Glorious Light's gangways and passages, scrambling as much as an eight foot tall super warrior encased in massive armour can scramble.
Reaching the bridge, just in time for the enormous vessel to buck again, Falco staggered across the deck, forcing a halt where Trajan was calmly directing the Light's fire.
The Librarian nodded unhurriedly "Ah Falco, there you are. As you've doubtless worked out, the heretics have decided not to be chased down, and have turned to face us."
A faint, satisfied smile flickered across Trajan's face, grey eyes momentarily hard.
"The fools. All that remain of respective Chapters are present, and we have..."
Trajan stopped suddenly, his head snapping to look at the displays scrolling at the pict-screens, the arcane displays as clear as day to him.
"Impossible..."
Abbatis strode back over to the two men, his skull-faced helmet now sealed down.
"Trajan, we're ready to teleport to the..what is wrong with you man?"
Trajan reached a gauntlet down to the pict-screens, pointing/
"The heretics..."
The normally imperturable librarian gestured at the screen.
"It's a damned Eldar world, and I can feel power writhing off it, those xeno fools have..."
The librarian's armoured fists groped helplessly in the air for the words.
"Something, something obscene. I.."
Abbatis clapped the clearly-rattled Trajan on the shoulder.
"Worry not Brother. The Emperor protects. Clearly you have noticed this in order for us to deal with it."
He turned his grim skull-visage on one of the tech-adept crew.
"Prepare the teleport rituals and the drop pods."
The man nods, ignored by Abbatis, who turns back to Falco and Trajan, enthusiasm plain even through his armour.
"We will strike whilst the traitors engage our brothers, they will not gain whatever it is they seek on the Eldar world."
Trajan looks to Falco, shrugging helplessly. Falco sighed and nodded agreement.
"Very well Brother."
Abbatis nodded, then spoke into the vox-caster built into his throat, ordering the few other battle brothers to join them in the teleportation chamber, the neophytes being dispatched via drop pods for this mission.
Even as Abbatis gave his instructions the three were heading towards the teleportation chamber, Trajan and Falco performing the activation rituals on their respective power staff and maul as they went, Abbatis absently hefting his Crozius Arcanum as he gave orders.
They turned one final darkened corridor as the Light rocked again, the detonations of the battle now muted as they had travelled far deeper into the hull to reach this rune-carved room, where a tech priest was murmuring the sanctification prayers over the armour of the assembled six men, all survivors of one squad, led by the redoubtable Brother Sergeant Scipio, who was drumming the fingers of his bionic right hand on the monstrous powerfist encasing his left.
Rumour had it Scipio, who had served in the Chapter almost since it's foundation, had lost the arm choking a squiggoth to death to save Primarch Mereo, but Scipio had never confirmed the rumour either way.
Whatever the true tale of it's loss, Scipio was hugely respected, and his squads were known for rarely taking losses unless absolutely necessary. Hence why the surviving portion of Falco's unit were his men.
Abbatis nodded shortly to the Sergeant, stepping up onto the platform, Falco and Trajan flanking him, Falco unslinging the stormbolter from his back as the tech-priest scuttled to perform the rituals on the three newly arrived Marines.
At last the adept completed his rituals, then he moved over to the control console, looking up at Abbatis, he hissed mechanically, servo-tentacles writhing questioningly as he looked at the Chaplain, who, hands resting on the haft of his Crozius, nodded shortly.
The Adept intoned a short prayer, then jabbed a switch on the console.
And then everything exploded.

Searing white light wipes everything from the universe of Man, the Paragons licked away like dust from glass.

When the light fades away Falco blinks, unhurriedly, picking himself up from his posture on one knee, the gears of his armour groaning softly as they pushed his thousand pound weight upright.
Around him his brothers also clambered back to their feet, Abbadis growling into his voxbead as he did, levering himself back to his feet, his crozius providing a very practical fulcrum to move the hissing black bulk of his armour.
"Captain? Report."
Whatever report the Chaplain recieved, it plainly irk the huge man, his empty hand twitching as it came, before schooling itself back to calm.
"Sergeant Falco, Scipio, Brother Trajan. I would speak with you."
Falco adjusted the magseals on his swords and shrugged the sling on his bolter out of the way of his shoulderpads before trudging over to the far side of the teleportation chamber.
Abbatis's skull-faced helmet considered them with empty-eyed equanamity.
"Captain Talmanes has informed me that the heretical attack has knocked us back into the warp."
A moment passed, then Abbatis continued, "And he now informs me that the navigator cannot locate the beacon of the Emperor's light. We are still moving relatively to the stars of Man, but he cannot say where we will emerge."
Trajan, looking introspected and almost...nervous, if ever a son of the Emperor could look so, grunted softly, gaining the attention of Abbatis and the sergeants, Falco tapping his sun-marked shoulderpad gently with a knuckle.
"You have something to add Trajan?"
The Librarian twitched, running the the silvered fingers of his gauntlet along the joins of psychic hood to his shaven skull.
"We're not..we're not in the Warp Falco. We're...I don't know. Something else. It reeks of Eldar witchery. I can feel it, like the vile feel of the Warp is covered in something else, dusty bone.."
He trailed off, eyes staring into the Empyrean.
Abbadis looked from Librarian to Sergeant and sighed, the sound rasping through the vox.
"Well. Wherever we are, the Captain tells me the rest of the Chapter-fleet is with us, the navigator can detect their presences in...here..apparently."
A shrug.
"Thus, as warriors of the Emperor, we shall prepare for whatever occurs at our dest-"
An other violent lurch rocked the Emperor's Light and the marines skidded across the deck as the vast craft rocked, her cathedral of a hull bouncing as reality rippled outside it.
Bracing himself against the wall, Falco was not prepared to Trajan to crash into place beside him, nor for the man's wild grin.
"Here we go again eh Brother!?"
Falco nodded as much as helmet and bracing would allow and internally speculated on how well the psyker was holding together. These thoughts, interspersed with ocassional prayers to the Emperor that the Light held together long enough that the Paragons could continue their service to Him, occupied him as the battle-barge shuddered and jerked and then burst roaring back into normal space, the sense of pressure, something malevolent just outside of eyeshot that had dogged Falco ever since the ship had been pushed into wherever it had been draining away.
He slumped, rolling shoulders to dump adrenaline as Abbatis barked demands down the vox at the unfortunate Captain Talmanes, before he stumped over to the two men.
"Unbelievable. We've lost the rest of the Chapter and the navigator is scrambling to.."
The Chaplain went absolutely silent, before whirling and jabbing a pict-screen on. Falco looked up from his crouch, the pict-screen showed a red planet, from the rate-of-closure information scrolling at the screen's side, it was obvious The Emperor's Light was tumbling toward it. Then he understood and gaped inside his helmet.
"Mars."

Above Mars, the necron tomb ship Sataissasha watched as a new vessel appeared from nowhere. Normally, this wouldn’t be any great concern to the Satai, but this vessel conformed to the appearance and design of vessels it was ‘familiar’ with, and its method of appearance set off certain sensors that weren’t used this deep in the system. The design, a space marine battle barge, with energy signatures indicating unusual power output and internal sophistication.

Such internal sophistication indicated that it was perhaps one of the earlier battle barges, neither degenerated from ill maintenance, nor affected by excessive time, though such a thing was irregular, spent in ‘the warp.’

Warp transition the tomb ship thought, watching the ship fall in a sudden, and apparently unexpected gravitational field. Having emerged, evidently out of control, at the edge of Mars’ relatively limited peacetime FTLi field, the ship was falling down towards the planet. A simple course projection analysed its likely point of impact. Assuming that it wasn’t able to manoeuvre itself, there was a fair chance it would hit ground somewhere in Sentinel Two, and the Satai was familiar enough with the vessel’s design to know that it was tough enough to survive that kind of impact.

Of course, impactors weren’t really planet killers by the standards of Mars, dust clouds being, in truth, easily neutralised. One of the various cruisers in orbit transmitted a request and suggestion to open fire on the battleship, but the Satai denied the suggestion right away.

The crescent shaped ship contemplated opening communications with the battle barge, but decided against it after a micro-second’s contemplation. The crew of the Space Marine ship probably had enough to do already, and distracting them would only cause problems. As well as that, if they actually did manage to crash, then they would be in a far worse position with regards to threatening the necron ships in orbit, or anyone on the ground - even a few minutes by thunderhawk was better than being under the mother ship’s guns.

The massive necron battleship contemplated attempting to permute the course of the battle barge, but it dismissed the idea, permuting the course of such a massive vessel would probably only serve to transfer it into a less convenient descent, where it might hit somewhere more populous than the ashen waste of Sentinel Two, with its solitary, trade city. That would be just the kind of propaganda that the necron fleet didn’t really need.

So the necron ships just waited, watching the cathedral-like armoured slab of the battle barge as it fell, with interested ‘eyes’ and alien minds.

As the Light roared and bucked in her long tumble to the surface Falco, and his brothers, were not unaware of being observed, indeed, the extensive damage the battlebarge had taken on her rough journey through the Eldar-affected Warp leaving even her crew little to do, much less her Space Marine Masters, leaving the latter almost totally absorbed in cogitator-assembled data.
Long minutes passed as the monstrous ship continued her fall Falco lifted his gaze from the pict-screens he'd been scouring and voiced the unspeakable conclusions the Marines, now joined by the rest of Scipio's squad, had reached.
"This is...this is not Blessed Sol. Holy Terra is unimaginably larger, the system crawls with ships and craft of unfamiliar type and the Emperor's shadow is totally invisible to the navigator and Brother Trajan..."
Trajan licked his lips, grey eyes nervous. "We..the navigator and I, we..the Warp, the Empyrean is different here. Porous. It's even more shifting and changeable than usual, as though it's very substance writhed through realities moment by moment. I've had the navigator sedated, he..the strain was overmuch for him."
Abbadis grunted. "Trajan it's a strain for us all. You yourself seem overtired, we perhaps all are after the long pursuit and this fresh crisis, could your conclusions be..."
Trajan gave a choked off laugh. "No Brother Chaplain, we are not imagining this due to being...overtired. This is not our reality. There are echoes of it but.." He shook his head, nervousness replaced by something that Falco thought could almost be fear. Almost.
"Unimaginably distant ones. Unimaginably distant."
Abbadis sighed. "Very well Brother, but do not become despondent. Wherever we are, we are still sons of the Emperor of Mankind, sons of Mereo, Battle Brothers of the Dawn Paragons. Only in death does duty end." A scowl was directed at the group, the skull-face visage of the Chaplain promising a grim fate for any man who took a step back.
Falco nodded swiftly, breaking the silence. "Of course Brother Chaplain. Now, we should review our situation. Captain Talmanes informs me that our landing will be unpleasant, but not fatal to us or the Light, barring incident. This aside, we must consider our combat assets, currently there are yourselves, 92 neophytes of various stages, Apothecary Neothon and Techmarine Petronius, who informs me by vox that he has reactivated our Land Raider and bikes, but all our other systems are currently deactivated, including Revered Brother Manius's former sarcophagus."
Falco bowed his head for a moment in sorrow at that. Manius had been his sergeant at his acceptance from the ranks of the neophytes, the man's eventual and well-deserved promotion to the Primarch's personal guard for valour had been followed unfortunately by his swift crippling by the same squiggoth that had taken Scipio's hand.
Following his entombment Manius had continued to lead from the front, until his death at the hands of a Crystal Fury heretic, the dreadnought's armour no match for the powerswords the traitor had wielded. Falco rasped a thumb along the bone hilt of one of those powerswords. The man had been very surprised to be killed by "A barely hatched-lackey of the False Emperor."
Shaking himself, Falco returned to his breakdown.
"We also have the ship's crew and her attached Imperial Army company, such of them as volunteered to remain for the Long Pursuit. There's approximately $hundred of them, their Colonel and his Commissar promised me tighter figures, but I doubt we'll get them before landing. They have their vehicles, lasguns and what they stand up in. We're comparatively better off with Neothon and Petronius, both of whom can still operate at full capacity, if the Light survives our landing reasonably intact."
Abbadis nodded. "Very good Falco. What we must consider is what we will-"
The big man halted as Captain Talmanes' harried voice came from voxbeads, informing them they were about to broach atmosphere.
"We'll continue this discussion on the ground."
The Chaplain moved off, and after he shot the bare-headed man a sharp look, so did Trajan. Falco moved to follow the Librarian, but Scipio placed his bionic hand on Falco's arm.
"A moment Brother Sergeant.."
Falco looked back, considering. Scipio was a good two centuries his senior, a stolidly brave man who was respected through out the chapter. He'd been the company captain's righthand man, before the man's death and now, flanked by his quiet, casualty-ravaged squad, he looked the exemplar of Marine duty. The use of Falco's formal rank was somewhat disquieting however.
"How can I help Brother?"
Scipio drummed metal fingers on his powerfist. "I.." Clearing his throat he drummed quicker. "Best say this quick. From here on we follow your orders Falco. You're...you're a born officer. You should be Captain, Abbadis and Trajan are good men, no doubt of it, but they.."
Falco sighed. "I know. The Emperor is a man, not a god, and Trajan is a witch."
Scipio nodded, relief in his voice. "Yes, that's exactly it. They're not like us, not soldiers. A priest and a witch. The lads feel the same, and so do the neos."
Falco cursed internally, the neos were obviously more under Scipio's influence than their supposed inspiration Abbadis's. Plainly the man's forbidding piety drove them to the reassuringly gruff Sergeant for a more approachable role model.
"Alright Sci..Sergeant. Thank you for that."
Scipio nodded, a quick duck of his laurel-wreathed helmet. "No problem sir. Just letting you know you're the Captain."
The new "Captain" grimaced inside his helmet. "Try and avoid calling me that in front of Abbadis please Sergeant."
"Fair enough sir, it'd only upset him." The sergeant half-saluted, then ducked off to his squad, who's body-language became much more animated, relief evident even through armour as they jogged down the passage to strap themselves in.
Falco however, trudged down the corridor and slumped into a crash-position, as the Light's shuddering superstructure began to groan loudly he doffed his helmet and glared at the reflected face, green eyes sharp with disapproval for the shaven head and dark eyebrows they belonged to.
"You stupid bastard."

Outside, The Emperor's Light continued her nosedive to the red planet, any breaches long since sealed away internally and the lost oxygen a faint trail behind her. Resembling nothing so much as a cathedral with extremely large engines attached by dubious engineering practices, she was an arrow aimed by misfortunate chance at the heart of Sentinel Two, ignoring the efforts of her crew to drag her upward into empty space.
Her tumble continuing, the martian small craft, and nearly all craft were small craft compared to the impressive bulk of a battlebarge, scattered out of her path like minnows from a shark, squawking threats and other Martian-style communications at her as the bow void-shields began to glow red under the increasing heat of her screaming descent through the atmosphere, the red gradually rippling along her gigantic length as the red nose became incandescent white, her howling dive to the surface visible across thousands of miles, the angle of the dive gradually changing enough that when the behemoth thundered into Martian soil, the shockwave was followed by the continuing roar of the cathedral-ship scouring her hull across the blasted, empty ash of of Sentinel Two, bouncing and bucking with terrifying agility for those inside.
Eventually the mad plunge and slide ceased and she lay tilted on her right side, left hull skyward, clicking and hissing as the air slowly cooled the nigh-on redhot hull.
But for those slight noises, and a few creaks from her overwrought-but-settling chassis, silence reigned around The Emperor's Light.

The battle barge, being a battleship, left a long gouge in the igneous surface of Sentinel Two where rock had been burnt, pulverised, and smashed into fragments by the ‘landing’ of the battle barge. All around, the crash had excavated a shallow, smoking crater, where the rock had been re-liquefied. Time passed as the column of iron-rich dust began to circulate in the atmosphere, arcane gravitic systems already adjusting to its existence and lowering its kinetic energy so that it began to fall as a gritty precipitation across the desert of Sentinel Two.

The ship was left where it was for a time, undisturbed, but in time, a transmission was sent. It was from a nearby source, in the grand scheme of things, one in space, far outside the planet’s orbit, a simple enough digital radio squawking that contained several layers of information. The first part that might be relevant was the ‘callsign’ which identified the sender. Normally, such callsigns wouldn’t be too helpful in the new environment, but this one was much more easily recognizable. It identified the sender.

It identified him as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, to be precise, the most senior rank of a member of the Explorator Corps, Magos Prime. Magos Prime Reston Egal, in fact, though the name would prove unfamiliar to the ship’s records, even if it had extensive records of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Another informative piece of information was the date stamp. In imperial terms, it ended with ‘.M03’ The message itself seemed rather odd, given its ‘Adeptus Mechanicus’ origin.

Greetings. I take it that you’re from the Imperium of Man, and that your arrival, given just how you arrived, is accidental. May I ask if you urgently require any assistance? In the mean time, I have attached information on the local environment and conditions in this… alternate, Solar system, for your perusal to this message.

The message contained information on the political boundaries of Mars, as well as some information on the other planets within the system, and even the fractured mess that was Earth. It included some basic notes on the nearby states, too, the eastern area being occupied by a feral magocracy, the western area containing a ‘C’tan’ city state, the north being bordered by a stable imperial group, and the south containing an area administered by an alliance of nations.

---
OOC: I might edit this to be more florid later when I’ve got time and inspiration, but that’s the basic message.

The message and the information it contained sent a ripple of consternation throughout the battlebarge, even as the human personnel assessed and began to repair some of, the damage the Light had sustained on her dive through the skies of Mars.
The Imperial Navy captain, on being handed the communication, decided the swiftest path to getting the Space Marines off his bridge and out of his way was to turn it over to them, so as the monstrous ship's engines howled and she shuddered upright, Neothon, Falco, Scipio, Abbadis and Trajan considered the implications.
Or tried to.
"It's heresy, umitigated heresy!" Abbadis bounced a fist off the briefing table, the heavy steel vibrating under the blow. "We should be preparing to attack these so-called Adeptus immediately. Their lying message is obviously calculated to spread panic among the lesser-bless'd and-"
"Perhaps you should show less fear and more judgement Brother Abbadis."
The Chaplain choked to a stop, staring at Trajan, who smiled thinly and continued to speak.
"I've searched further than I ever dared, ever could. The Warp here is virtually empty of Chaotic influences. There are human pysker traces by the thousand, but as I've said, no trace of the Emperor."
He paused, rubbing his temples and Abbadis, recovered from his shock, interjected.
"How can this be then, how can they know of what we are, how can there be an explorator group here if this is not our-
Trajan lifted his head back up and glowered the Chaplain into silence.
"Presumably they arrived the same way we did. Presumably they have adapted. Presum-"
Falco sighed and reached over to Trajan, tapping the librarian on the arm. "Trajan. Enough. That goes for you also Abbadis." as the Chaplain opened his mouth again, closing it with a snap at the sergeant's admonishment.
"Whatever we think of these Adeptus, we need their help. Petronius says the Light won't be fit for travel without serious dock time, we don't have a dock, so cooperation is necessary Abbadis. No matter if they're heretics. We have a duty to return to the Imperium, that duty takes precedence over everything else. I suggest we arrange some sort of meeting with this Explorator Magos and plan our course from whatever eventuates from that."
Scipio, who had spent the whole meeting standing behind Falco's heavy chair with his arms folded and scowling, nodded firmly. Neothon looked from Abbadis to Falco, then rasped. "Falco follows the sensible course. Petronius and I support his suggestion."
Falco stood, armour whirring to catch up with his movements. "Then I shall go and draft it immediately. Trajan, if you could relay the decision to Colonel Ventris. Brother Abbadis, I'm sure the crew would appreciate words of encouragement at this time from you and Brother Scipio."
Abbadis's scowl made it clear he knew exactly why Scipio had been included in Falco's diplomatically phrased order, the sergeant's reserved presence a sure counter to any attempt to stir up zeal for an immediate attack by the human troops and crew.
Falco, smiling pleasantly at the scowling chaplain and thoughtful-looking librarian waited until Neothon stood, then gestured.
"A moment of your time brother."
Neothon halted. "Yes Falco?"
"I've got a job for you."

++Vox Message Begins++
++Thought for the Day : Life is the Emperor's Currency, spend it Well.++
Magos Prime, hail to thee. As Acting Captain of this, the 101st Company of His Beloved Legion of the Dawn Paragons I greet you in the name of our Master, The Emperor of Mankind.
We have come to this place where the Imperium's light does not reach at the instigation of foul heretics, damaged by our pursuit of these traitors, we must beseech your aide in returning to strength. Thus, I deem it necessary to request a meeting with thee and thine here on the His Glorious Light at thy earliest possible arrival. We have much to discuss, both this strange new place and other, lesser matters.

BrotherCaptain Falco Galates, Servant of the Emperor
++Vox Message Ends++

++Vox Message Begins++
++Thought for the Day : Faith Grows from the Barrel of a Gun.++
Greetings Captain, I acknowledge receipt of your request and will gladly render what aid I am able to provide to you in returning to fully operational status. I will arrive at your location in twenty-seven minutes. Due to the amount of time my expedition and I have spent here, I will arrive in your location in a vessel of local origin, rather than our own craft, which is presently immobilised out-system.

Despite this, I am confident that my expedition members and I will be able to assist you with both information, and resources – should you require any immediate technical aid, please do not hesitate to ask for our aid. Though the Adeptus Mechanicus, myself, my associates and our converts excluded, does not exist here, there are numerous sources of machines which are sufficiently reliable to repair most damage, if not in short order.

Blessings of the Omnissiah be upon you,
Explorator Magos Prime Reston Egal, Acting Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus in Exile
++Vox Message Ends++

Mephet’ran disengaged the passive link with the artifices it used when communicating ‘out of form’ and slowly extracted itself from the photosphere of Duat’s sun, Mictlan. While its kind were known for damaging stars rapidly, they did not have to do any such thing, and for the great majority of their existence, most had never known how to be more than basking creatures, reef sharks compared to the monsters they would later become. It was in this manner that it rested, an incorporeal entity that bordered the line between the material universe and other things, beyond it, an ethereal being that inhabited fractal coils of subatomic confusion.

Passing out of the corona, the creature merged a fragment of its essence with its living metal avatar, a flux of invisible and imperceptible energies flaring between the shard of metal and the vast creature controlling it. The C’tan, assuming a male gender, as he usually did, searched through its vast memory. Like the most sophisticated database one could imagine, that memory contained countless millennia of experience, and it was looking, essentially, for a needle in a haystack. A form it had assumed, on and off for a ‘mere’ few hundred years. It took a moment to recall all the details, and the C’tan altered its body to once more become Reston Egal.

He rolled his narrow head on the top of a long neck around this way and that, mimicking the mannerism of a human, as Egal supposedly, mostly, was. He flexed this way and that, over-long limbs – he’d been thinking more of a necrontyr than a human when he devised Egal, but had stuck with it anyway, in part because Egal had been recorded among other humans before he decided that the character stood out a little too much. Nevertheless, compared to the rest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Egal was a paragon of normality, lacking more than a few token overt implants.

He moved – not bothering with the inconvenience of mimicking natural movements, but rather, levitating – to a portal in the sepulchre chamber of the necron ship he was on, and passed the Egal avatar through it, as he did so, sinking his true self deep into the ether and relocating in a moment to the primary asteroid belt of the Sol system, where another such vessel waited.

Unlike the venerable and infamous tomb-ship, this was a smaller, light cruiser, which had been the source of the previous signals the Yngir had sent. This ship, also, was a fair degree less alien seeming. Part of the ‘First Solarian Patrol Fleet’ it was a recently created vessel, nurtured to be far more hospitable to humans than its older compatriots, somewhat larger, and with a portion of the void-spaces its older brethren used for transport of their cargos converted to hospitable quarters for more willing guests. Although the vessel had been designed by the same alien intellects that created and often dwelled within its forebears, it had been created to bear a more pleasing shape that conformed to the aesthetics of humans and their sibling-races, rather than the subtly disturbing architecture of the C’tan.

Resting his feet down onto the ground, Mephet’ran turned as the portal flashed again, “Magos Santiaso,” he said, smiling a little as one of the few genuine tech-adepts he still had in his service appeared. Santiaso was a chrome creature, with, of the body visible outside of his white and claret robes that covered most of his form, about sixty percent was shining metal. Nevertheless, he was still more human than the Mechanicus members the Dawn Paragons would likely be familiar with, simply by virtue of the augment devices that he used being of rather more enhanced design, including functions that were formerly known only in the ranks of Archmagos and above.

Santiaso crossed his hands into the sign of a symbolic cog, and nodded, “Fabricator,” he said, in response to the greeting.

“I trust you have assimilated the data I sent you?”

“I have, Fabricator,” the adept replied, “it presents interesting questions…”

“Indeed. We are underway; let us explore them while we wait to arrive…” the C’tan said, as the scout-cruiser accelerated toward Mars.

"So they're coming to us?" Falco looked up from reviewing the Mechanicus's message on a data-slate, meeting Neothon's unhelmeted, brown-eyed gaze calmly. Resting the 'slate on the crest of his own removed, t-bar visored helm, he nodded.
"Apparently. And I see you've done as I asked. Hello Probationer Calibrin." He nodded to the young man standing at the Apothecary's shoulder.
Calibrin, a dark complected youth clad in the grey/green camouflage fatigues of a Paragon's scout saluted.
"How may I serve sir?"
Instead of replying, Falco picked up his bolter from where it lay on the briefing table he'd been seated at.
Proferring it pistol-grip first to Calibrin, he smiled at the younger man.
"Brother Neothon and myself have decided that you're ready to take the next step in your progress within the Legion."
He clapped the stunned young man on the shoulder. "You'll be serving with Sergeant Scipio's squad for the moment, he'll take you to Brother Petronius for your armour. Off you go now."
Clutching his newly acquired bolter to his chest, blinking, Calibrin set off as Falco waved him out. He turned back to Neothon and grimaced.
"He's too young."
The other man's tanned face crinkled in a grin. "You were younger when you reached Battle Brother."
"I was born before the Emperor arrived. I grew up with Mereo as an uncle. Calibrin is a boy."
"Perhaps. However, a lot of those boys are going to be brought up in the next few weeks with this plan of yours."
"Yes. Still."
Falco scratched at his close-cropped hair. With his helmet off he looked strange, the face of a man in his early twenties with a faint blue foxhead clan-tattoo over his right eye, dark hair streaked with silver from the unusual radiation of his homeworld making him seem older.
"I was content being a Sergeant you know. Bah. I was even content being a boy in our village."
Neothon smiled. "Doubts are to be expected, whatever that idiot Abbadis says. They're pointless, but expected. Here, Petronius wanted me to relay this to you."
He unsealed a bolt pistol from his leg. "Officer's weapon hey? You are our Captain now Falco."
"Ah..I know."
A shrug is followed by Falco taking the pistol, frowning at it a moment before shaking himself with a slight whir of servos, magsealing it to his backpack.
"Enough maudlin. The Magos should be here shortly, come, we'll wait outside with the rest."
http://photobucket.com/albums/v643/Yamatto/Other%20Kit/?action=view&current=PA-dawnparagon.png

The ‘Mechanicus’ ship was a mile long monstrosity, which, though disproportionately small compared to other necron ships, and small compared to the battle barge, was still one of the largest ships that could be imagined as landing. And land, in the igneous rusty desert, it did, its great flat surface, crescent shaped wings moving to line up with its body, hovering a mere few meters over the ground.

The ship was small compared to harvest and tomb ships, as well as escorts, because less of its space was intended for ‘cattle transport’ as its role was essentially that of a fast scout ship. In its shadow, light streamed from its interior, as two figures coasted to the ground, one gangling and tall, the other shorter, with mechadendrites streaming from the back of his robes. They were, surprisingly, alone, and the ship ascended again.

That wasn’t that unusual, in the time the Paragons had come from, the Imperial Navy had yet to lose the knowledge of how to operate a capital starship in a planetary atmosphere. The ship ascended out of sight into low orbit, and the two ‘tech priests’ began walking over towards the delegation of space marines.

“Greetings warriors of the Emperor, welcome to Mars. Not, as I’m sure you’ve realised, the hallowed Mars you are familiar with,” Egal said as he approached, his tone sounding strangely enthusiastic, “I extend the greetings of the Adeptus and the blessings of the Omnissiah to you, and your… company?”

OOC: A fairly weak post, but I've been doing quite a long one for Mars today. Creative energy used up.

Falco exchanged looks with the rest of the fully-armoured command group, shrugging imperceptibly, the motion hidden by that armour as he stepped forward to proffer his hand to the Magos.
"Ah..yes, as it happens, a somewhat under-strength one."
He smiled, cheered somewhat by the man's enthusiasm, before introducing the other Marine specialists and Army officers before leading the two tech priests back inside the Light's hull and onward into a vaulting tech-shrine adjoining Petronius's forge.
Ushering the two Adeptus to seats, the newly-made Captain takes his own, the solid metal and wood creaking under the weight of armour and more-than-human flesh.
"So. Your information on this..system's state was appreciated, if disturbing in content. With the Imperium's absence and the cultural diaspora our positions as servants of the Emperor seem to be jeapordised. In addition to seeking your help with restoring the Light to full function, I must ask how it came to be that you are able to sustain yourselves, sustain Imperium, so far from it's more concrete presence?"

Magos Egal smiled, “With great difficulty, of course, some things, like our original ships, haven’t been maintained enough to warrant use, but the truth of existence is the same here as anywhere. The Imperium’s message has its virtue even with different,” he laughed for a moment, “messengers. But in answer to more mundane concerns, I am afraid to say that our own resources are rather meagre. You will of course note that the ship we arrived upon was not exactly a normal Imperial design.

“In essence, our story is that we were on an exploration mission in seven two nine emm thirty nine, and our flotilla encountered some kind of… anomaly, not a warp storm, but a little like it, and we were transported here, a few centuries back. We’ve essentially survived by learning and providing some of our newfound knowledge to the locals. Certainly, continuing our mission requires a certain amount of dealing with the locals. Fortunately, most of them are humans.

“I’m not sure whether we’re in the past or what is termed an alternate reality. I suspect it’s the latter, given that what we know of the Golden Age of Technology is wildly inconsistent with this reality. While some of the starships and technologies around here do seem to be the ancestors of what we are familiar with, there are key differences. Warp transit is very much a fringe form of travel in this dimension for example… But anyway, forgive me, I enthuse on the technical difficulties too much. Do you have any other questions, and may I ask how you came to be here?”

Falco was silent for a long moment, grey eyes thoughtful as he considered the Magos's words, but Abadis and Trajan were not so restrained.
"The 37th millenia? You claim to come from fully seven thousand years ahead of our own time!?" Trajan stared open-mouthed at the smiling Tech-Priest, the librarian's eyes wide.
Abadis, however, was more concerned with practicalities.
"Mostly human you say?" A frown pulled his normally ugly face into a grim mask. "Orks? Eldar? And what of the traitor legions?"
Falco broke his silence as Abadis began to bark questions.
"Abadis. Peace. That's not relevant at the moment." Ignoring the murderous scowl the Chaplain directed at him, Falco smiled pleasantly at the Magos.
"Millenia Thirty Seven hey? And you're respectful of the Emperor..I presume we defeated Horus and his traitors?" Falco's smile dips a little on the last word, but is back by his next, as he raises a hand and forestalls a response.
"Sorry, not important here is it? Ah...our presence here is a matter of some confusion. We were trailing the Crystal Furies traitors out into the Veiled Region and..." He frowns. "Trajan?"
The librarian smiles nervously and licks his lips, nodding at Falco. "Yes. Yes, we were pursuing the traitors, their psychic stench allowing us to trail them through the immaterium." He runs a hand nervously over the side of his scalp as he talks, eyes twitching from face to face.
"We trailed them to the edge of Imperial space and they dropped out of the Warp above an Eldar world. It, it was..the warp energies around it were something..whatever they'd done, it had twisted the Eldar webways..."
The librarian falls silent, staring at a horror only he can see. Falco gently pats his shoulderpad, Trajan looking up in startlement, before smiling slightly.
Abadis grunts. "Yes. As Brother Trajan says, the traitors had twisted the xenos' witchery for their own heretical ends, whether to do what they did to us, cast us to this impious unreality or for some blacker purpose that we stymied we cannot know. Whatever their reasoning, it cast our legion and theirs into the empyrean and only His Glorious Light has emerged from that black and terrible nothingess yet."
Finished, the chaplain folded his arms and glared at the Magos, Trajan and Falco equally.
Falco smiled opaquely back, before looking to Egal. "That is as good a summation as we can make at this time Magos. As for other questions, well...you obviously can't return us home, so there's only one other question. Can you return the Light to working condition?"
An other opaque smile, not reaching his eyes. "We will of course...support you, should you require such in exchange for the repairs. Indeed, it might behove me to enquire whether we could rely on you for support for the duration, given the disquieting information we've received about this universe thus far. The hundred and first are willing servants of the Emperor after all. We just need to pointed at his foes and here your foes seem to be His foes."

Magos Egal smiled a little, “That seems most wise. Perhaps your chaplain would care to know a little more about events that happened after your time.

“The traitor legions and their forces laid siege to Holy Terra, and the siege culminated when Primarch Sanginius and then The Emperor, blessed of all, faced the Traitor Warmaster in single combat,” he frowned, “All legend of the Imperial Cult,” he dropped that in for the benefit of Abadis, “in my day, of course, but suffice to say the Emperor destroyed the Arch Traitor, but was wounded in the process.

“Since then he remained in the Imperial Palace on Terra, mostly locked in psychic combat with the architects of the heresy,” true of course, but Egal had no desire to go into the full, horrible details of the matter. “While the remaining loyal Space Marine forces pursued the traitors, who sought refuge in the ‘Eye of Terror’ warp storm and have remained there ever since.

“I ask that you don’t take this as an insult, as it is only a statement of fact, but I’ve not heard of the Dawn Paragons legion before now, and I consider myself something of an expert on Space Marine Legions and Chapters,” and he was indeed, though not for reasons he would divulge “a smaller unit, around a thousand marines each, that was developed by Gulliman after the heresy, I suspect that your entire legion may have been affected by whatever has transferred you here.”

He shifted on the seat a little, tilting his head back as if focussing inwards, “and possibly the same with your enemies, too, who do not appear in any of the memory engrams on the Imperium’s enemies I have access to.

“As for the more immediate question, there are certainly eldar here, yes, though they are somewhat ‘domesticated’ by the overwhelming power of humanity here, and efforts by the C’tan and others. Interestingly there are also ‘elves’ here that resemble Eldar somewhat, and even sometimes call themselves eldar, but are a quite different breed. I often wonder if our name for the Eldar comes from their language. Anyway, I digress, there aren’t many orks to be found, though there are tyranids – they’re a xenos breed discovered after your time, of course, I forget,” he lied in ‘forgetting,’ “and there are a multitude of unique xenos creatures.

“Mercifully, there has been little traitor activity noted by my party since our arrival. We’ve taken parallax measurements of the eye of terror, and here it appears to be some ten percent of the size it was in our own time, though from what we know of the Eldar causing it, it shouldn’t be here at all, but it is,” he shrugged theatrically as if to say ‘and I don’t know how’ “there are some chaos traitors, but I have heard nothing of anything so vile as traitor marines. As for the status of the Emperor’s Light,” he turned to his companion, “Magos?”

Santiso spoke, in a tinny artificial voice, “From what I have been able to ascertain, we will be able to acquire facilities to repair this vessel within four to six standard days, and we should be able to have it space-worthy and in orbit again within sixteen days. Full operation may be more difficult, as some parts are difficult to obtain, and the main engines, if my deductions are correct, may require full replacement or overhaul. I estimate between sixty and eighty days. I would be able to give better estimates if I am allowed to interface with the ship’s machine spirit…”

For a moment none of the Light's complement reply, wrestling with the questions and fears raised in each individual by the Magos's words.
Only a moment however, these are the Emperor's Finest after all.
"I..Petronius?" Falco cocks his head questioningly at the techmarine, who smiles slightly, red gauntleted hands turned upward.
"I see no reason why not. When you're ready Magos Santiso.."
Turning his attention to the senior Tech Priest, Falco rubs his chin.
"You've never encountered our legion before? That is...distressing. Primarch Mereo had detached several regiments to return to the Emperor's side before the incident that brought us here. That they do not appear on record is worrying."
He sighs.
"Worrying, but irrelevant. The idea that the rest of our legion, aye, and that of the traitors, may also have been dragged into the warp whirlpool that brought us here..."
Falco's eyes go distant, focussed on nothing, before he shakes his massive form and focuses. "The idea of ten thousand heretics arriving here..from the overview you gave us they would be stopped by the..local..forces, eventually, but at great cost."
Abadis grunts. "And we'd nearly finished the cursed filth too, chased their whole damned legion into the grave." A grim smile, twisting his scars into a hideous mask. "If you're an expert on legions, Magos, then you know how many of them we've killed. And how much evil the remainder are capable of. They must be your first priority."
Falco shoots the Chaplain a black look. "The Magos is capable of working that out Abadis. That he thinks the rest of our legion, weakened that it is, may also be arriving here is encouraging however."
Trajan cleared his throat. "Not to doubt the Magos, or to discourage you Falco, but given the circumstances of our arrival, I don't think it wise to rely on the rest of our legion arriving swiftly. The Warp is an unreliable and treacherous place. They could arrive in minutes, they could arrive in a millenia from now. We cannot count on their aid."
Falco sighs. "Admitted Trajan. So Magos. We are agreed that we will give you help for help, but I must stress that the Furies' destruction must and will always be our priority. Other than preparing and reacting to that threat, we are at your disposal."

The chromed tech-priest rose and sought out a terminal to interface with the stricken ship’s machine spirit. The interface system was part of his mechanical hands, a system of data jacks and plugs that could both drill microscopic holes and interface with anything from telegraph wires to crystal relays. This was however, not necron technology, but an old staple of the Adeptus Mechanicus, though one that was only truly applied in data adepts during the age of the Imperium.

The machine spirit was like most of those made by the Imperium, less than optimal, in Magos Santiso’s opinion. The interface was forced of course, as no tech-priest could carry mind-impulse gear for every system he was expected to encounter in his career. The strange sentience of the intelligence of a warship was, while capable, unemotional and almost clinical, but some, from lack of maintenance, battle damage, or simple delusion, over millennia gained the impression of being truly supernatural spirits, and actively resisted those that would maintain them. Thankfully, the Light wasn’t anywhere near that stubborn.

Santiso muttered something in digital machine language that was essentially meaningless but which would satisfy the expectation for ritual as he extracted the necessary data from the ship’s diagnostic cyber-jinni. With that task accomplished, Egal bid their hosts good day, and returned to the ship they had landed in to make preparations.


After that, and the polite withdrawal of the tech-priests (real and false) things happened quickly. An alert was sent out through the network that linked necron ships, alerting them to the possibility of the Crystal Furies appearing, and far across space, dormant construction vessels began the task of fabricating bespoke parts; some better than the originals, some worse, but most fitting to the original specifications of a space marine battle-barge; to fit in place of missing sections of the vessel, which were shipped (at extraordinary cost) to Mars. Elsewhere, the instruction came down to cede the area around the ‘landing’ site to the ship’s inhabitants, and this was quickly done, with documents in the legalese jargon of such transfers being hastily drawn up and signed.

Meanwhile, shroud class light cruisers, hunting for any more of the Dawn Paragons fleet that could be found, made a comprehensive search of near-sol systems. They even – for it wasn’t exactly difficult for them to do, searched the region that Falco and his ship had supposedly disappeared from in the thirty first millennium.

The problem was the down time.
At least, that was what Falco was pinning the blame on for the moment, his honour and training didn't allow him to just come out and admit that the Glorious Light's librarian and chaplain fought constantly for any deeper reason.
It also allowed him to ignore the aforementioned chaplain exhorting the Imperial Army personnel on board the cavernous vessel into ever greater heights of xenophobic zealotry, mainly, and disquietingly, aimed at their hosts.
He needed a solution, and a relatively swift one at that. If there'd been fighting, things would be much simpler. Unfortunately, this Holy Terra lacked any sort of tangible threat the Paragons could reach on the range of a Thunderhawk, leaving the Paragons berefit of distracting, cleansing battle.
He sighed and leaned back in his command chair, hands laced behind his head, staring at the baroque ceiling of his quarters.
Ludicrous. Quarters for a Preceptor, even a MasterCaptain, but not plain Captain Falco.
Hah. Captain Falco.
A chime echoed from the sealed portal of his quarters, a massive blast door with arcane techno-sigils carved onto it sealing him from the world, the chime necessary for no amount of knocking could penetrate.
Falco swung himself upright and trudged over to unseal the silver'ed hatch, as it ground open Neothon, clad in the green/black/silver uniform which replaced a Paragon's armour when not in the field, ducked around the slowly opening disc of metal, smiling cheerily.
"Hail Brother Mine, I bear glad tidings and exude a general aura of positiveness."
Falco stared at the Apothecary for a moment, then rubbed his temples.
"I knew our father should've kept you away from the damned jesters. What do you want Neothon?"
"You need to seperate Trajan and Abbadis and I need new Probationers. We also need to raise our profile, so I took the liberty of reviewing the local political data. Are you aware these people have a sort of multi-national parliament-thing? Sort of what like that anal retentive bugger Gulliman set up wherever the blue-boys went, but a heretic impious institution that accomplishes little."
Falco considered the smaller man coolly. "You are going somewhere with this I assume?"
"Yes, Send Trajan and Scipio off to this...Dooma I think it's called, and Abbadis and I can go and do pre-liminary recruiting." The brown-haired apothecary smiled winningly.
"It's a sure-fire solution."
"I'm not really sure how well that's going to work, we need Trajan to do the psychic screening of-"
"Oh this will just be the basic stuff. Given the local conditions I doubt we'll get many good ones anyway. Things, even with radioactive dust, are better than anywhere back home."
The normally ebullient medic looks chastened for a moment, given how far that home is in time and space and Falco pats him on the arm.
"Alright. You've convinced me...with some changes. You will take Trajan with you, I don't want wolves in sheep's clothing brought back, while I and Abbadis will go to the Dooma. Scipio can't really rein in a senior officer as well as we might like. So we'll leave him and Petro here to hold the fort. So by all means contact this Dooma...in the mean time, the dataslates include mention of tribespeople across the border. Given conditions, they'd have to be hardy. You could probably scrag a few of them while we prepare for our introduction."

Missive Transmitted: Deep Space [Galactic-Centre Terra axial measurement 20.293 mark –2.12, 3.93 kiloparsecs]
Destination: Dawn Paragons Legion Vessel His Glorious Light Mars
Date: 1932006.M03
Relay Duct: N/A Message Delivered by Courier
Author: Magos Prime [Act. Fab-Gen] Reston Egal
Title: 37th Millennium Adeptus Astartes Equipment Patterns
Thought For The Day: A broad mind lacks focus
Recipient: Brother Captain Falco, 101st Company, Legio II

Hail to thee in the name of the Most Glorious Master of Mankind. I have to report that, so far, no further vessels of your legion have been detected despite continuing efforts to search. Alas, space is dauntingly empty even to the adepts of the machine god.

However, our other endeavours have met with much success, and various machine spirits have been entreated to divulge information that may be of significant use to your company, to wit the STC patterns of various pieces of equipment adopted by the Astartes between the thirty-first and seventh millennia.

This courier should present you with the crystal-data-stacks containing such designs, and has been instructed, for obvious reasons, to guard them with his life. A brief outline follows.

Gene Seed Manipulation I have attached details of the technology used on later era Sanctified Mars for creation of new space marine ‘chapters.’ While in previous eras, vat-grown immobile ‘veal’ clones were used to reproduce gene seed for the founding of new chapters. However, this process took a lifetime per iteration, whereas the attached, fully artificial process using Standard Template Construct cloning mechanisms takes less than half the time.

Astartes Armour Suits As of the thirty seventh millennium the current design of marine armour is the Mark Seven ‘Eagle Armour’ with the half-developed Mark Eight Errant pattern being developed. We have, fortunately, both designs, though of course, the former is battle tested.

Weapons There are various marks of bolter design in use. The most prevalent is the Model 482, though other variants including the Godwyn, Ultima, Hurricane, Astartes Umbra and Filienostos patterns are included here. Personally, I favour the Godwyn and Hurricane patterns. Additionally, there is the belt-fed Nostra pattern, which loads in the same manner as a heavy bolter, and has obvious advantages. Also included are storm bolters, various designs of round, enhanced plasma weapons, larger and smaller scale melta-weapons, and other designs of weapon too numerous to mention. Additionally enclosed is information on gravitic-stabilisers which allow man-portable heavy bolters to be used effectively while moving, and make bolters more efficient.

Vehicles We have also located the designs for various thunderhawk variants. Unfortunately, there has been little progress in Astartes ground vehicle designs up to the thirty-seventh millennium, and there are no significant upgrades to be found.

Martian Orbit

A clumsy, squared-off looking shuttle clambers heavily but powerfully through the skies above Sentinel Two, clawing it's way into orbit as it's engines flare with actinic light against the grey skies of Mars.
As the solid vehicle climbs it's engine howls ever more, and those inside grow mildly perturbed, for one reason or an other.

"Are you certain the Thunderhawk is willing to get us there Petro?". Sergeant Scipio is a veteran of hundreds of battles and decades of service. He is also however, a recruit from a low-tech agri-world where the highest point was the haystacks on the endless rolling plains that formed it's surface. As such, his poorly concealed distaste for flying has dogged him throughout his entire service life. He sighs and very firmly does not look out the portal next to his position in the co-pilot's seat in the heavy shuttle's cabin.

Petro looks at him for a moment, smiling slightly inside of his red-painted helmet. Scipio was now drumming nervously on his right gauntlet, where usually his powerfist would be connected to his armour. Not today however, today Scipio, Petronius and the newest addition to Scipio's squad, Calibrin, would not need to crush things. Indeed, this mission was about rebuilding, not destruction.

"Of course it will Scipio. It's just that damned dust is all through the engines, as soon as we get high enough they'll be fine. Trust the Machine Spirit Scipio, and she will not fail you." The Techmarine shakes his head mock-chidingly at the Sergeant, who shrugs uneasily, embarassed at his nervousness.

Silence falls once more, and Petro goes back to concentrating on the flight, decades of communing with machines making his piloting skills enviable to all, a smooth ride only marred by the howl of the engines, a howl which cuts off abruptly as the craft punches out into orbit, dropping into a stable flight path as Petro and Scipio unbuckle from their crash couches, massive boots clamping to the metal of the Thunderhawk's floor as they move through the low-g environment, joining Calibrin, now clad in armour so new it almost glows, in the first of the Thunderhawk's transport bays.

The recent intiate looks up from where he is running a last few diagnostics on the crude-but-sturdy cogitator clamped onto the homing device they've come to deliver. "Sergeant, Techmarine Petronius."

Petro waves lazily in return, Scipio managing a grunt. "How's it coming Calibrin?"

"No difficulties sir, the Machine Spirit is nicely cooperative. We're ready to go." The younger man steps back from the cylinder, collecting and donning his silvered helmet as he does so. Petro moves over, runs a few last minute diagnostics and murmurs the Invocation to the Spirits of Cogitators before motioning the Sergeant and Intiate to lift the pseudo-satellite.
Between the three Marines, they lug the device over to the drop-hatch in the Thunderhawk's belly. Laying it down, Petro murmurs one last prayer to the device's machine spirit, before activating it, and then stepping back against the shuttle's hull, relaying the command to open the hatch to the Thunderhawk's machine spirit.
And with that, it's done. The hatch grinds open, the vaccum sucking at the firmly-clamped-in-place marines until the doors are far enough apart to let the device drop into the void below.
Even before it tumbles, Petro is closing the hatch and Calibrin has tested the signal it's designed to give off, reporting a success.
"Excellent," says Petro, "with that done, any other members of our legion arriving in Sol will have exactly the same data as we, and will know where to find our new Legion keep."

Martian Orbit

Space.
Blackness, lit by stars unimaginably far off.
Silence, so absolute as to almost tangible.

Space boils, it's fabric writhing and rippling as something moves underneath it's skin, a tear appearing in reality, a ruddy light spilling out, a bloodstain on the universe seeping out from somewhere else.

Were anyone to be nearby, they'd be surprised, stunned by being able to hear something in the vaccum. An impossibility, but happening nonetheless, a rumble like a mountain collapsing, the shriek of an impossibly large steam engine in the last stages of dying a brutal death.

The rumbling grows perceptibly "louder", a shuddering in the very bones of reality, and the tear splits open into a gaping wound, a strike cruiser's nose punching outward, the baroque vessel hurtling out of the gap in space nose down, hauling up almost as soon as it clears the horrid red light of the Warp, Space slamming shut behind it as it bursts through, back into a universe where That Which Is Not does not scrape at the walls of sanity.

The cruiser screams across the upper edge of Martian space, void shield flaring as it skips like a stone off the FTL inhibitors that have acted to rip it from the Warp.
Gradually it slows, having hurtled through half a dozen paranoid defence nets without a scratch, the message in High Gothic echoing outward from the Paragon's beacon percolates into the cruiser's vox-net.

Space is silent once more, as whoever controls the cruiser considers the content of the message. Below, those who know a Paragons' ship when they see one, send a barrage of communications and hails which are resolutely ignored.

At last there is a response to the hails emanating from the Keep, a two word vox message.
"We come."

The Ultramarines had been waiting a long time for another contact like this. The Strike Cruiser Vae Victus folded space near Mars. It had happened long agao that the Imperium of Man and the Chronosian forces had fought over the sacred forges of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Captain Jal was aboard it and watching the vessel float in space he smiled. More lost brethern of the imperium it would seem. He opened up a hail to the cruiser designated His Glorious Light,

Greetings brothers I am Captain Jal of the 4th Company of the Ultramarines Space Marine Legion. I come to with an offer of peace and alliance the Imperium slowly rebuilds itself and the Emperor's will is done. We strive to reunite humanity but first we need allies. We offer you a seat on the council of the Imperium of Man which encompasses great nations such as Dratheria, Reken, Thrashia, Lord of War, and others. Please meet with me aboard the hallowed vessel Vae Victus

Imperial teleportation chambers are inevitably darkened, the low lighting a reflection of the pseudo-mystical nature of it's technology.
However, the Paragons' teleportation banks are brightly lit, larger and simpler than the Imperium of Man's technology has any right to be.
This is explained simply by it not being so, the efficiency of the Duatii Tech Priests' technology superceding the superstitious awe of the Imperial Navy's technologists and their attendant ritualisation of the Paragons' teleportation.
Where the Marines had not been responsible for the maintenance of their technology it had been that much easier for more efficient and effective designs to be substituted by the Duatii.
Hence, the teleport portal Falco and Neothon, each in full armour but sans helmet, the quiet rhythm of the whirs and hisses of their armour only broken by the rasp of Falco's gauntleted thumb over the hilts of his power-swords.
Neothon watches his brother out of the corner of his eye, and smiles slightly.
"Stop worrying. No one could have handled this situation better."
Falco scowls back.
"And when they ask where my Librarian and Chaplain are? What then?"
Neothon shrugs, the cadaceus-and-sun designs on his shoulders gleaming with fresh silvering.
"Then you explain that your Chaplain was an idiot and wouldn't listen to reason. I look forward to Abbadis trying to explain himself if it does require more than that."
The dark-haired Captain scowls at Neothon, who grins back.
"You're insufferably cheerful about this. Always have been when you know you won't get in trouble."
Neothon opens his mouth to reply, but closes it again when a pulse of blue light from the teleporter announces the impending arrival of whoever is aboard the orbiting strike cruiser.
The light flares again, then white light blots out the centre of the portal, a magnesium flare of brightness, vanishing as quickly as it came.
It's fading reveals a half dozen figures clad in hulking terminator armour, experimental assault cannons mounted on two of them, the silver/green/black suits flanking an ebony giant, the skull-faced helmet clearly announcing a Chaplain's presence, and the ornate nature of the armour and accoutrements making the wearer the Legion's Master of Sancity.
The towering figure, imposing even for a terminator, stares down at Captain and Apothecary.
"I am Chaplain Echo. I believe you have some explaining to do, Captain Falco."

The new ship's arrival lies a week in the past and things have changed.
Abbadis and Petro have been dispatched on their embassy to Caloris Mars, the Machine Spirits having been deemed more suitable researchers than asking more of the Tech Priests, who's commitment to the Legion must already be tested by aiding in the refurbishment of the Eldar-gifted ships.
As for Falco and Echo, an understanding has been reached.
The Master of Sancity, the most senior Chaplain in the entire Legion and the religious representative to the First Company, had been quick to understand why Falco had made the decisions he had, if not to agree with them.
Regardless of his agreement with the Captain's policies, he had placed himself under the younger man's authority, declaring that credo must be secondary to strategy.
Leading to the here and now, as Falco gazes down from a catwalk above a freshly-emptied hall within the Paragons' keep, servitors carrying suit after suit of terminator armour in, the tactical dreadnought armour huge in comparison to the hive-minded cyborgs, teams of four needed to move the gigantic armour.
Echo, sans his own armour, skin startlingly black against the white of his robes, sighs down at the sight from his position at Falco's side.
"And your apothecary says he cannot tell when they will awake?"
Falco, pale skin equally contrasting against his own dark costume, rubs his tattoo with the tips of of index and middle finger, right hand gripping the rail of the catwalk he shares with Echo.
Ignoring the actual question to answer the implied one, he defends his brother.
"Neothon may be less than serious but he is committed to, and capable in, his duties. He wouldn't be in the Legion if he wasn't."
Echo raises hands in defeat.
"I apologise. I'm sure he knows what he's doing."
Falco nods, mollified, giving the Chaplain a sympathetic look.
"They do wake up. You know we've had several return to us since you arrived here."
"But not Mereo."
Falco sighs, looking back down at the scurrying servitors before he agrees.
"No, not Mereo. The Primarch will recover Brother, as sure as the sun rises, as sure as dawn comes, Mereo will wake."
Echo straightens, moving back along the catwalk, away from the view of the packed ranks of terminator armour.
Looking back over his shoulder he smiles wryly at Falco.
"I thank you for the encouragement Captain, but with most of our first company, and our Primarch, in comas, along with our exile to this wretched place, the situation could be improved upon."

The Imperium of Man, M.30

The hooded man watches the fleet sweep towards his small craft with equanamity, even as his astropath casts a nervous hail out onto the Warp.
The fleet slows and considers, the message is couched in all the appropriate terminology to be a missive of the Dark Angels Legion, but Caliban is trillions of miles from here, an enormous distance even through the Warp.
The phrase "Have Faith in Suspicion." runs through not a few members of the fleet's minds, but curiousity wins out over caution and the hooded man is invited on board the flagship, the imposing Battle Barge Twilight Sentinel, which, had anyone cared to notice, had a decaying skull nailed to it's prow, for what reason was unknowable.
A council is assembled, the senior figures of the fleet, black/green/silver armour burnished but unable to conceal fully the signs of both hard use and the grief evident in all faces of it's wearers.
The hooded man looks upon the assembled figures and sighs internally. He had hoped to an immediate end to his task, but with so few, it is not to be.
He rubs the hilts of the scabbarded sword at his side, a remainder of previous failures and future hopes, watching the fleet's captains watch him.
After a long moment, he speaks.
"So few?"
A silver-helmed giant in tactical dreadnought armour sighs, the sound buzzing through the vox-caster of his helmet.
"We pursued the Furies beyond all sense, Brother Dark Angel. They ran so far and drew us with them.."
The hooded man smiles oddly, eyes shadowed in the darkness of his cowl.
"The Ruinous Powers have led us all astray here and there Brother. It is how we respond to that leading that differences the traitor from the truly loyal."
The terminator nods slowly.
"As you say. As you say. We caught them though. Eventually. An Eldar craftworld they had fled to, and worked some foul sorcery above it, perverting the already-heretical magics of the Xeno to something far foul. It drew fully seven thousand of our surviving brothers with it, aye, and our Primarch too."
The hulking figure runs down again, and the hooded man nods.
"You destroyed them of course."
A satisfied growl comes from the packed officers, and a bearded man, helm cast in the visage of a great boar and tucked under his arm, grins wolfishly.
"They had thought to score a victory, falling upon us while we were confused and leaderless, but they miscalculated, when all was done we still had the numbers to defeat them. We slew all of them, including their villian of a Primarch. His head decorates the prow of my vessel even now."
The triumph in his eyes fades slightly.
"Still, we are a shadow. Three chapters are all that remains of our legion. How fares the rest of the Imperium? More fortunate than we I hope?"
The hooded man is silent, before a sigh escapes him.
"The traitor Horus is dead, but in his dying he killed Primarch Sanguinus and...he..he struck down the Emperor."
He raises a hand to still the sudden roar of demands and discussion.
"Hear me out. Our Father is not dead. He ordered His golden throne converted to a device to sustain him while he recovered, but forces within the Inquisition have chosen, for what doubtless seem good reasons, to hinder that purpose. The Emperor exists in a shadowed world, able to help us, but not Himself. The other Legions do not know this and any attempt to rally them to the Emperor would split us yet further, something we cannot afford."
The bearded man, face distraught, flexes his free hand distractedly, growling to himself, even as the terminator who had spoken first levels his gaze on the hooded man.
"What can we do then?"
The hooded man sighs with relief inside. He had them convinced. Now to keep them alive.
"You wait. The Emperor will be sustained, will be kept as He is now, for as long as possible. Only when I reach Him at the right moment can He be freed from His prison. I will have need of you, forces that the Inquisition cannot identify as being opposed to it's lesser functions, to act as my eyes."
Nods and sounds of assent are capped by the bearded man.
"We can do that, what else?"
"Roboute Gulliman has, in order to limit the power of the Legions to wreck the Imperium anew, made it law for them to split into Chapters no more than a thousand strong. You have three such chapters here. Split into those parts, go amongst the most loyal of the worlds you have claimed for the Emperor, barring your Primarch's homeworld, and grow strong. Serve the Imperium, it also needs to be sustained till the Emperor's return. Wehn you are needed, I will call."
The bearded man considers a moment, then nods firmly. "The Twilight Sentinel and her crew will do as you ask."
The terminator sighs again, before also giving his assent. "The Night Warden's crew will follow your plans."
One by one the rest of the captains assent and as the last Battle Barge, the Ebon Watch swears itself to his cause, the hooded man smiles, content and triumphant.
"Cypher thanks you Brothers. We will serve the Emperor in ways no one else can. Only in Death does our duty end in truth."