The ship was bombarded from all sides. It was felt as it constantly took hits, tilting in every direction. I quickly rushed to the bridge, with Cassandar and Avenius running behind me. We squeezed through the crowded and mostly bloodstained corridors. Above us, my companion, Mister Bird, squawked. A strange bird with blue feathers and an oddly long neck and beak. He squawked, guiding us through the least crowded corridors, which was difficult with 170 million people on board. At one point, I had to run along a wall, grabbing iron beams to leap past a section that was no longer passable. As I entered the bridge, everyone looked at me. "I'm taking the helm." After a few minutes, Cassandar and Avenius entered the bridge.
From the engine nozzles billowed plumes of black mist, heavy, unnatural, shrouding the battlefield like a pall. The entire area vanished in this darkness. When I touched the helm, the ship reacted immediately. The engines howled like the roar of a thousand souls, and the Arcadia tore from the ground with such brutal force that even the restraints couldn't fully protect the crew. Metal trembled. The air thickened. The g-forces pressed everyone into their seats. The Astartes had to brace themselves against walls and handholds. Even they, genetically augmented giants, felt the pressure of acceleration. The unrestrained soldiers, technicians, and wounded slammed against floors and armored walls, leaving trails of blood and bruised bodies.
Higher and higher, the engines strained with all their might, leaving a column of black mist behind them. The traitor ships in orbit couldn't lock on fast enough; missiles punched through the mist left in the Arcadia's wake. As we broke through the stratosphere, we felt the planet's gravitational pull diminish with each passing second.
"Lord Augustus, prepare jump coordinates! Lord Cornelius, clear our path!"
"Done!/Aye, aye!" they replied in unison.
Grumpy quickly began clicking on the screen, setting the exit parameters. Silent, in all his power, used the cannons and lasers, destroying everything in front of them. I quietly steered the helm, maneuvering the traitor ships so they would fire on each other. The Arcadia was fast, there was no denying it.
Cassandar and Avenius stood on the bridge, not uttering a word, simply observing everything quietly, not wanting to distract them. They needed to focus completely now. They were impressed by how easily Harlock evaded successive enemy ships. Suddenly, a Xenos woman formed from green lights. They immediately recognized she wasn't human. Avenius started to react, but his commander's hand caught him. If she were an enemy, someone from the crew would have reacted, but seeing her, they just quickly nodded and returned to their duties. For now, they waited.
Nibe approached Harlock's throne and sat on the armrest, gazing at the two Astartes before turning towards the windows.
"Course set!" Grumpy shouted, throwing his arms up in a gesture of victory.
"What are you waiting for!" Silent yelled in a nervous moment.
Suddenly, everything outside the window vanished; flashes shorter than a nanosecond illuminated the void. Everyone stopped their work, then cheered in a gesture of victory. They had managed to escape. Harlock released the helm and returned to his throne.
"Legate, it's over. You can attend to your people," I said coolly, touching Nibe's hair. "My people know they are to assist."
"This isn't the Warp," Cassandar replied, observing the unfamiliar sights.
"No, it's not. I don't use outdated technology. I'd offer you some rooms, but we can't afford such luxuries. Lord Augustus, how long will the journey take?"
Grumpy scratched his head. "The ship lost a lot of energy. Under normal circumstances, it would take two days."
"How long?"
"Five days," he replied, feeling the captain's cold gaze upon him.
This was a shock to the two Astartes; if Imperial ships possessed such engines, the crusade wouldn't have lasted 200 years, but 20. They spoke for a little longer; Avenius wanted to bring up the topic of the woman, but his Legate's glance clearly told him to be quiet. The flight continued. When the remaining Astartes learned how long the journey would take, they couldn't believe it. By the end of the day, the first report was completed: out of 40,000 Astartes, 8,000 survived. Of these, 6,000 were seriously wounded, and the ship was filled with Priests of Mars and medics who treated them even under such conditions.
Twice a day, the pirates distributed food, not gruel or synthetic human by-products, but real food like bread.
I sat in my cabin with Nibe. She drank as always, while I gazed out the window from my chair, contemplating my purpose, or rather, my purposes. The first was to survive the Heresy. I had eight years of continuous war ahead of me. I had to make good use of it, no matter how that sounded. I didn't want to fight every ship I encountered in the future.
"Captain," one of the crew knocked. "Legate Cassandar and Officer Avenius wish to meet with you."
I looked at Nibe; she smiled and raised her goblet. "Let them in."
They entered my cabin cautiously, looking around as if expecting a trap. Their eyes scanned every corner, ready to react to the slightest movement. A few candles on the desk cast flickering light, barely dispelling the gloom enough to discern my face and Nibe's silhouette lounging on the sofa nearby. For them, it made no difference; Astartes see in darkness better than many humans in daylight.
"She's...?"
I cut him off before he could begin. "Not your concern. Not today."
For a long moment, silence reigned. Only the candles crackled, and the ship's hull groaned in the distance, as if the Arcadia itself were listening to the conversation. Cassandar stepped closer.
"What happened out there? Why did our cousins attack us?" he asked grimly, hitting the desk with his hands.
"You can't wait five days. You wouldn't believe me anyway," I replied, pouring myself some brandy.
"NO!" he snarled.
Stirring the alcohol in my goblet, I sighed. I slowly began to explain to them what resided in the Immaterium, enough for them to understand that these beings were not friendly and that too much knowledge of them could lead them to join the traitors. I told them about the Battle of Isstvan V, the beginnings of the betrayal, and how half of the Legions had turned against the Imperium. When I spoke of Calth, they could barely believe it; they were angry, very angry. They didn't resemble the Ultramarines I knew. Though they still had 10,000 years before they would become the Ultramarines I knew.
"It's hard to believe," Cassandar said, finally managing to articulate some words. He looked at Harlock, wondering if he should say anything more. "I just wanted to know that."
He added, then they left the cabin to help their people. They weren't familiar with the ship and had a lot to do. The cramped conditions were immense; it was hard even to stand. Almost every soldier embraced another to give at least an extra centimeter of space. The provisions prepared by Guilliman to feed so many people came in handy. The kitchen now worked around the clock, run by both pirates and regular soldiers. It was similar in the hospital wing.
For some reason, all the Astartes gathered around the Gate of Saint Peter, according to the pirates who knew this from Harlock. Behind it lay the engine room, and thus the heart of the entire ship, but only two people on the entire ship knew how to open it: Harlock and Nibe. It measured over twenty meters in height. Monumental, its surface was filled with grooves and details, as if someone had covered it for years with symbols and history that no one could understand anymore.
It was adorned with gold that didn't glow, didn't shine, but was old, almost burned into the surface. This created a strange contrast with the blackness itself, like light trying to penetrate shadows. The motifs resembled a forgotten religion: figures in robes, angels with somber faces, wings, swords, halos. At the very top was carved a scene: a man kneeling before something incomprehensible, only light.
Several Astartes tried to push one of the gate's wings together, but they didn't even budge. The pirates said they'd seen their captain enter and exit with no problem, but they had never managed to see what was inside or even how to open the gate. In their pursuit of learning as much as possible, the Ultramarines began to study the gate, sketching its appearance, describing its composition, although they didn't know what the black metal was besides the gold. Avenius himself led the effort, and although Cassandar didn't support it, he didn't forbid them from continuing. They had a few days of respite.
"Why are you sitting around here?" an unfamiliar voice asked.
Avenius turned to see a man with a metal prosthesis for his right hand. He wore a long brown coat with a "jolly roger" embroidered on the back. Avenius remembered him; he was on the bridge to Harlock's left, responsible for communications if he remembered correctly.
"Your captain allowed us to occupy this deck," Avenius replied, not wanting to offend him too much, knowing he was high in the pirate hierarchy.
"I know, but I'm curious why all the Marines are sitting under Peter's gate?!" he asked in a slightly accusatory tone. "You don't have access there!"
"And we won't enter," Avenius replied dryly. "We're not even trying; we're just curious about the gate itself."
Grumpy scanned them with his eyes, then walked away, exchanging a few words with another pirate before leaving. The second pirate awkwardly melted into the crowd, observing them. The Astartes were perfectly aware of his actions, but there was nothing they could do. They went about their work, feeling the pirate's gaze on their backs.
Grumpy told the captain about the Ultramarines' activities but dismissed it with short words, "That's all," not delving deeper. Since his captain wasn't concerned as long as they didn't try to get inside, neither should he be. However, he left a few pirates to observe them just in case.
Cornelius, known to the crew as Silent, and a few men were taking inventory in the armory, one of the few places only they had access to, which kept it from being crowded.
"We used almost three hundred incendiary grenades," a pirate said, tapping his finger on what looked like a tablet. "Silent! Where are we even going to restock them?"
"We have a forge on the ship," he replied curtly, counting how many armors had been lost in the fighting.
"Those little things did the job; the bastards fell to the ground, and the fire just wouldn't go out. I saw one of the traitors get hit in the head with one, boom, explosion, no head, and everything around was on fire. Not even adamantium ceramite saved that bastard."
"Do you always talk so much?" Silent asked, moving to the next shelf.
"Am I bothering you? Sorry, you know, sometimes you're an insufferable jerk. You don't even want to talk, or you're on the bridge or in your cabin. I've never even seen you take a dump."
"Are you done?"
He paused for a moment, thinking. "I was talking to the guys, you know, the ones who fought. It's not normal. You know?" he said, more seriously.
"What's not normal?" Silent asked, knowing where this was going but trying to avoid the conversation.
"DAMN IT!" he yelled, throwing the tablet at Silent. "THEY DIED! And yet I had breakfast with my buddies! Don't play dumb, Silent, what's going on?!"
Silent looked at the tablet for a moment. "Along with Grumpy and Ms. Alexandra, we had a talk with the Captain," he began slowly, wanting to explain it well. "This isn't an ordinary ship."
"Don't joke! I didn't realize that when we make weeks-long Warp journeys in two days, or when an entire armada pounded one ship for hours and couldn't blow it up!" he snarled, picking up the tablet. He glared at him from under his brow. "Let me finish. This vessel's engine is a miracle of the Golden Age of Man. That's what the Captain told us, but I doubt it. Getting to the point, the entire crew is connected to the engine. As long as the engine works, we and the ship are, in a way, immortal."
"In a way? What does that mean?"
"Simply put, as long as the engine doesn't overheat or require power redirection, we won't die," he explained as best he could to the pirates who had gathered around them, hearing the commotion.
Silent was aware of the rumors and unrest among the crew. The Captain didn't react, so he, along with other high-ranking officers, went to ask what had happened on Armatura. They were supposed to announce it once they got rid of the Ultramarines from the deck, but apparently, it couldn't be helped.
"This is more messed up than I thought," he growled, joking softly. "So, they can kill us at will, but as long as this beast's engine works, we'll revive. Right?!"
"Yes, now get back to work. We still have 114 shelves to go," he replied, returning to work and ending the topic.
Silent walked away from the group, continuing his work. The rest talked for a while longer, exchanging thoughts, then also returned to work. But the information spread; one pirate told another, and so the news spread throughout the entire crew. They had enough sense to talk privately or in their barracks. It was clearly stated that no one was to find out, and they succeeded.