Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 472 Dark Current
Until the edge of the glorious planet appeared in front of the porthole of the Spirit of Vengeance, Gavial Loken was still recalling the momentary anger of Sejanus in the strategic hall.

"They refused our communications," Abaddon's eyes lit up with barely suppressed anger, "We are within sight of each other! Can't they even send a message through the stars?"

Sejanus's hand was dripping with blood, and drops of blood and a little bit of flesh fell from his palm, smearing an empty pool of blood on the ground. Loken looked at him and seemed to smell the smell of burnt residue.

Beside them, the Star Language Choir lay broken and covered in blood, their hearts shattered in their chests, their heads bursting into bloody flowers of bones. The smell of blood suddenly spread in the room.

The Thousand Dust Sun flagship had undoubtedly rejected Sejanus's peace request, otherwise they could not find any reason why the 15th Legion's highly skilled psykers could not hear their voices at such a close distance...

Even causing these astropaths to howl in terror of the darkness and die.

"Open fire," Crescent Cyjanus said briefly, "but don't overdo it. Let them see our attitude."

"Why hold back? We are here by the Emperor's command—"

"That's enough, Abaddon," Cyjanus shouted. "Always stay rational and clear!"

"Is that the same as a blood debt, Hastur?"

Torgadon raised his hands: "Okay, brothers--"

"You don't want me to pat you on the shoulder with my bloody hands," Cyjanus said. "I have a standard in my mind, my brothers. The interruption of communication can still be explained, and the decision of the Thousand Dust Sun is still within the margin of our tolerance. But once they cross the line, once the rebellion is confirmed, the death of these astropaths, I will double the cost from Prospero."

He paused, "When we meet Magnus, I will speak to him in our father's name."

And now, Loken thought, following the Emperor's lead, Prospero had arrived before them.

The terminator cuts a glittering arc on the surface of the planet in front of us. The clear water, sandy plains and forests are covered with bright sunlight, and everything seems to melt in the pure light. As for the dark night side, the black satin planet flows with a gentle and gorgeous luster, and the decorations bestowed by spiritual energy become more and more obvious.

A swirling loop of Iron Warriors shone like a pearl necklace at the outer edge of the equator. This was Prospero's skyport - now empty in the stormy season of the Warp, except for the Thousand Dust Sun's own red-painted warships. This loop was also part of its elaborate and terrible orbital air defense system.

He boarded the command bridge, passing countless busy officers and servitors. The air was filled with the noise of levers being pushed and various panel bearing buttons being pressed. The conversations of mortals trying to achieve their work goals merged into vague waves. The operating tables and control lines with a metallic luster and a few traces of wear and tear created an illusion of dimness, even though every electric candle along the way was shining against the shiny obsidian background.

"...Please answer," the voice came over the noisy noise, like a silk thread, winding around the air and reaching Loken's ears, "Fifteenth Legion, please answer us. I, Hastur Sejanus, in the name of Horus Lupercal, request to speak with the Primarch Magnus and exchange the Emperor's judgment.

"We have been ordered to punish you, but destroying a world is not our wish. If our Gene Father is still alive, he would also want to meet you earnestly. I believe you know better than us what you have done, and I hope you can listen to the voice of the Luna Wolves, the voice of the Emperor."

"The sentence has been handed down, but the Luna Wolves believe that the Emperor's mercy will give you a chance to defend yourself, a chance to make amends or clarify. Otherwise, what I say now will become one of the evidences of your resistance to Terra's order. Is this what Prospero wants? At least, this is not what we want to see."

Without blinking, Sejanus rested his hands on the control panel while the servitor faithfully recorded his voice and saved the audio in the recorder.

Loken walked forward, passing through countless projections floating in the air, and saw the image in front of Sejanus. Prospero was silent as usual, and a little flowing starlight flickered on the orbital ring as the angle of the star changed.

"No answer?" Loken asked, noting that this was no longer an astropathic communication. The waves would cross the short distance, and the warp would no longer interfere with the transmission of sound - if the air defense port on Prospero was willing to listen.

"Not yet," said Sejanus, humming softly, his eyes full of deep thought. "If there is no misunderstanding, and they really have some reason to harm the interests of the Emperor..."

"We'll alert the enemy," said Horus Archimandre the Younger. "We'll be facing a combat-ready Psionic Legion, one with its own Primarch. Cyjanus. Perhaps we're wrong."

"Then continue to hold them back with words until Abaddon's forces are in place and we launch our assault. You will find that this is what I am doing, Aximander."

Sejanus said in a low voice.

"Hasta," Loken spoke suddenly.

Sejanus turned his head, then realized something, and his brows relaxed slightly, but not completely.

The light in the port began to flow, and Prospero's reply was delivered to a screen. Cyjanus read the message and contacted Ezekiel Abaddon on the communication channel.

"I will go to Tizca myself," he said, "with the legions at my command, Abaddon. Do not act rashly."

-

"… like it was yesterday," Perturabo said, watching Morse fetch the green stone from his bookshelf, preserved in a small stasis field.

A dull, feeble light flickered on the surface of the green stone, like both metal and mercury, a dangerous energy still locked within the stone, its power still visible after a hundred and fifty years.

"This is the last legacy of Hrud's technology in the modern era," Morse said, "and your sergeant..."

"Zoran Anderson."

"A gift from Sergeant Anderson to the Iron Warriors," the Craftsman changed his words swiftly, his eyes cold and cautious in the green light. Beyond that, golden lines covered his robes and even his cheeks, and the light of the Astronomican was so dim that he could hardly identify the planet Moloch. But the Iron Blood had to find the direction, so he did.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Perturabo asked, keeping his voice calm. "What do you feel?"

Morse shook his head, still staring at the stone. Slowly, his fingers pressed the edge of the stasis box and hovered around the generator that constructed the force field. Finally, he stopped, still with a heavy heart, and then sat down on a chair. "I remember in our campaign book, you decided to use the interaction between the stasis field and the entropy field to suppress the flow of Hrud's entropy energy. In most cases, your decision was accurate, except for that accident." Morse said, "I think, after obtaining this stone, you didn't find any other reasonable way to preserve it except using the stasis field."

"That's right, Morse."

"It accumulates energy in the stasis field, energy about time... The power contained in it does not flow according to the normal time sequence, so it accumulates. It's like the energy of every minute in the past 150 years is stacked in the same moment, and the power is accumulating a hundred times... Maybe it's equivalent to 15,000 years, I think."

Perturabo frowned. "What's the harm?"

"Not until it breaks through the stasis field," Morse said, nodding slightly toward Perturabo, his face alight with golden light.

"When will the stasis field be broken?"

"Not right now, anyway, but it won't be long. Since we're about to reach Morro, I don't want any surprises now. Give it to me, I need to reinforce the stasis field with a spell, if you plan to keep it."

"Thank you for your help."

"Don't thank me, Perturabo. Not as Warmaster - I'm really worried that one day this title will become your evidence of guilt, or as Perturabo." Morse said, reaching out and pinching his brow.

Perturabo noticed that the way he pressed was slightly different from usual, and then he realized that this was because Morse had once again abandoned his simulated human senses. Perhaps this was necessary to expend energy and search the universe for the old places he had visited in his ancient memories.

Suddenly, Morse turned his head and disappeared from Perturabo's sight in an instant, and the small stasis box stumbled and rolled on his seat.

Countless surveillance cameras inside the Iron Blood immediately told Perturabo that Morse suddenly appeared beside the helmsman. The mortal captain began to issue orders in a panic under the new order. The Queen of Glory dived downward in a terrible turn, avoiding some invisible obstruction, like a fish swimming through swaying anemones.

The tough steel machinery and subspace keels trembled and screamed silently under the brutal control. Morse slapped the table with one hand, and the psychic power flowed into the inside of the entire ship along the metal structure like lubricating oil in the gears, coating the Geller Stand with a second layer of invisible film.

A sharp scream originating from the depths of the vast ocean was smashed by the front end of the Iron Blood. The ship shook violently, and then calmed down instantly under the will of the craftsman.

+What? +
+Darkness…+
Perturabo's skin stung slightly in the dangerous environment, and a harsh warning sounded in the Primarch's brain. He inspected the ship's modules and felt distressed for the cracks and damage on some of the outer armor. He sensed all the internal information on the ship, filtered out the useful part, and sent the latest auxiliary instructions to various relevant departments through neural links.

The images sent back from the scanner were immersed in dizzying absolute blackness, and the energy detection parameters exceeded the limits of the display table, as if they were sailing in the eternal aftermath of death's own fusion bomb.

He immediately added a new order, closing all the windows and sensor devices that imaged the outside world on the Iron Blood. After a moment's thought, the image in the captain's room was also closed.

Then, he picked out the crew members and even the servitors who were in extreme fear one by one, stared at them through the waves of data, and then issued an order to clear them. The mortal officers raised their guns as ordered, and more servitors were ready to clear the deck.

+How long? +
+Maybe until we get to Morro,+Morse said, his voice steady again,+We are being held back. I hope this means we are on the right path.+
The darkness he perceived was still trembling, like a ruthless eye about to open, echoing at the edge of the world with a dead call. Fragments of darkness collapsed, slid, and flickered in the darkness, and black embers swirled on the back of the lightless world, adding thickness and strength to the dark ocean current.

Perturabo took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, he could feel the illusory smell of blood between his lips and teeth. On this Iron Blood, the gunshots exploded into wet cracking sounds, and he could clearly hear every death coming.

"Don't panic," he said to his crew and warriors, thankful that they had not set out with a larger fleet than they could currently care for. "Don't be afraid. Keep your calm and your faith, which will sustain us through this shadow."

More images slid into his mind. In the darkness, he saw the bloodshed that had occurred time and again in human history, the blades that pierced from behind, the leaders who fell under the hail of gunfire or artillery fire, the rotting fragments of amputated limbs and the skulls in the deep water... The images were filled with blood, and the black smoke surged into bulging bubbles, waiting to burst and spread...

No. He pulled away from the perception of the Iron Blood, left those dangerous data, and expelled the cruel roar on the edge of his mind. These scenes that had happened in the long history stirred the anger accumulated in his heart, tore at his tense nerves, and made him want to roar loudly, venting the anger that had accumulated since the victory of Ullanor.

Then he found that he had done so.

He covered his cheeks with both hands and slowly sat back in his iron chair. Relying on the heat-conducting ability of iron, he regained a bit of coolness in his mind to stabilize his spirit.

-

What made that shadowy fleet question their whereabouts?
When the dim light of Terra's Astronomican finally reappeared before Ahriman's eyes, he was still thinking about this matter, thinking about why the fleet rejected their message and sent that word or warning. It touched his will, leaving an inexplicable uneasiness and warning there.

The Brilliant Light leaped out of the endlessly rolling ocean and floated up into the real universe, feeling the joy brought by the sudden reduction in pressure.

The obstacles along the way were not bad. Apart from the common ones such as a slight jam at the Betanjamon Pass, the ocean currents and storms in the route did not really harm the lonely flagship. Now they are already in the range of the Solar Segment, and the rest of the journey will be completed in reality - whether it is to facilitate the entry process approval or considering the instability of the subspace in recent days.

However, Ahriman then noticed that there were some fine dust particles scattered among the asteroids ahead. Some of the fragments of varying sizes were entangled with each other, while others were scattered behind the light of the stars, moving slowly and casting elongated shadows.

One...or more ships were destroyed here and turned into wreckage in the universe.

Ahriman was alert, exploring the markings and traces on the ships, trying to identify their origins - why would a batch of ships be destroyed in the Solar Segmentum? Who could do this in front of the Emperor?
Everything was quiet, no distress signals, engine hum or any other noise, these ships were dead, nothing was left.

The image gradually enlarged, and most of the paint and recognizable special structures no longer existed, as if the person who did it happily crushed these ships like a cookie, and let the coarser residue fall casually on the vast ground...

The pattern of flames... the combination of flames and books...

An answer that was hard to say whether it was a surprise to Ahriman, but certainly greatly confused the Chief of the Black Crows, appeared in his will.

Word Bearer?
(End of this chapter)