"Relay, relay, relay."
The servo-skull's vox emitter droned without pause, its mechanical insistence grating like a gnat of metal.
With a sigh born of exhaustion, the astropath leaned back into his seat. His clouded eyes rolled beneath their lids, his mind stretched thin across the immaterium. He has been doing this every minute since departure, his soul fraying at its edges.
The chamber remained hushed, every soul waiting.
Seconds passed—then the servo-skull clicked, beginning its countdown anew.
"Countdown begins—"
The servo-skull droned.
The astropath still sagged, eyes glazed, until suddenly his chest heaved—
"Approved." he croaked
The Custodian turned his golden helm to the psyker beside him. She inclined her head in solemn acceptance and stepped forward. Lowering herself to the deck's cold metal, she pressed her hands together in a gesture of prayer.
Her palms opened, and a rush of guttural syllables spilled forth—an alien litany not meant for mortal tongues. For those blind to the warp, only a shift was felt: the hum of the ship's bulkheads dampened to silence, and the groaning of iron dulled as if swallowed whole. The temperature plummeted.
But for those with sight, the warp itself recoiled. In the immaterium, a flare of light ignited—a beacon shining like a newborn star. The psyker spread her arms wide, voice rising, unseen eyes blazing with the strain of holding the flame aloft.
Light-years away.
The fleet waited.
Thousands of ships hung in disciplined silence, their prows dark against the stars. Aboard the Oath, the Navigator sat hunched within his chamber, his form taut as a bowstring. He peered into the void, straining against the weight of unrevealed paths.
On the command deck, Maloris stood with the two Custodians at his side, statues of vigilance. Mortal officers glanced toward the Navigator's chamber, none daring to speak.
Suddenly, the Navigator jolted upright. His third eye widened, bleeding tears of ichor, yet his lips curled in awe. In the suffocating black of the warp, he beheld a light—not the Astronomican, never that—but a rising star, fragile yet defiant.
"I see," he whispered. Turning toward Chalstrom, his voice rasped with finality. He nodded once, then bowed his head toward Maloris.
"My lord?" Chalstrom asked, awaiting the command.
"Jump," Maloris intoned, his voice a deep decree.
At once, an order roared through the ship.
"Engage Geller Fields!"
"Void-shields at readiness!"
"Confirm astropathic synchronization with fleet—relay codes triple-checked!"
"All stations, brace for translation!"
Across the fleet, crew hurried through sacred rites. Enginarium priests anointed conduits with oils, reciting canticles of ignition. Void-marines locked down blast doors. Servitors wheeled to their stations, their flesh fused with levers and cogitators.
"Ready," Chalstrom confirmed, nodding sharply.
The ships slowed in measured unison, formation tight. Across their hulls, Geller Fields shimmered to life—psychic bastions burning in unseen fire.
And then, space tore.
Reality itself folded before them into vast distortions, swallowing each vessel. One by one, the ships slipped into the howling madness, vanishing like sparks into an eternal storm.
The void was silent once more.
light-years away
Aboard Apoleon's vessel.
The psyker collapsed in a convulsion, foam spilling from her lips. Her limbs flailed against the deck, spasms wracking her body as she shrieked in wordless agony. None moved to aid her.
The custodian watched with unblinking calm. His helm turned toward the observation ports where phantom silhouettes of the fleet bled into realspace. It had worked.
"Board the Chapter flagship," Apoleon commanded.
"Compliance," the ship's captain replied crisply, turning to her bridge crew with no hesitation. Orders rippled outward like a stone across water.
The astropath sagged into his chair, relief washing over his features as the servo-skull's endless prompting finally ceased.
The Custodian allowed his gaze to linger once more on the writhing psyker. Her chest heaved shallowly, her mouth frozen wide in silent gasps. Her soul had burned itself to ash.
You have served your purpose well, he thought grimly.
The ship turned, engines burning as it glided to dock with the Raven Guard strike vessel.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Far from the fleet's translation point, billions of miles across the dark, a star system circled its ancient sun.
Nine worlds traced their paths across the void, but only one bore life.
The third world.
On this day, in this year, the planet was drowning in war. A war so total that even civilians had long since ceased to be spared. Men and women alike were torn from their homes, forced into uniforms, and trained only enough to hold a weapon before being thrown into battle. They were not soldiers—they were offerings.
And their enemy was not another country, nor creed, nor terror born of ideology.
It was the future.
Months before, the skies of that world had opened, and from it stepped travelers bearing the weight of impossible revelation. They came from the year 2052, and with them came knowledge of mankind's ending. They spoke of monsters—creatures not of imagination, but of evolution unshackled. Beings that swarmed across the Earth in numbers beyond counting, predatory, ravenous, and merciless. They called them Whitespikes.
The warning came too late.
In the future, humanity had already been driven to the brink. Cities had fallen. Armies had shattered. Nine of every ten lives were marked for extinction in a matter of months. In desperation, the survivors tore a wound in time and reached backward, begging their ancestors for aid.
At first, the nations of the world united. They gathered their armies into one coalition and hurled them into the breach. But it was not enough. The Whitespikes devoured them, tearing through tanks and men alike, leaving only ash and bones in their wake.
And so the draft began.
Civilians, the unwilling and unready, were conscripted en masse, their lives weighed as little more than a delay against inevitability. They were sent forward in waves—fathers, daughters, scholars, merchants—each consumed in their turn.
for in the future, the planet trembled beneath the weight of its despair. Cities burned. Skies blackened with smoke. Across every land, the thunder of battle rolled ceaselessly, as mankind struggled not against an army but against extinction itself.
Aboard the Oath.
Maloris stood still, his eyes narrowing upon the new starfield revealed before them. This—this was the source of the transmission. Perhaps, even, the location of Atrius.
A single sun glowed at the center, its fire spilling across nine circling orbs. Probes streamed far ahead at great light speed, traversing the void, mapping the system's celestial bodies with relentless precision. Vox-chatter dimmed to silence as officers beheld the images.
"impossible" a whisper was heard, gaining the attention of the present custodes.
"What is it?" Maloris asked his voice deep upon the metalic deck.
Chalstrom gestured for the auspex officers to display a 3d visual of probe mappings.
Maloris's gaze shifted toward the hololith.
"Celestial arrangement: 99.87% match to archived Sol-pattern," the machine voice intoned.
"Primary stellar spectrum: 99.94% probability of designation Throne Star."
Unease spread across the deck. Chalstrom ordered the auspex engines to project.
One by one, worlds shimmered into image. Their forms matched ancient data, yet not exactly—echoes of familiarity yet alien in detail. A storm-wreathed world appeared. Another, vast and pale. Each new image sharpened the shadow of recognition. they became confused.
"Transmit comparison to Veritas Invicta," Maloris ordered, his jaw set. "Have the Mechanicus confirm."
There were minutes of silence, then
From the Ark-Mechanicus came a reply, etched in binaric cant and projected with sacred precision:
{Data-correlation: Confirmed. Configuration: Sol. Probability: 99.999.}
Silence deepened across the command deck.
they were all confused, how can this be possible?
The probe's vision resolved upon a blue sphere—green and brown patches adorning its surface, clouds veiling oceans vast as eternity.
Maloris's eyes narrowed, and beneath the Custodians' helms, their gazes locked.
They did not speak the word aloud. None dared. Yet in the silence of their hearts, the name thundered: Terra.