-Simulation-
Before you can formulate questions, movement ripples through the huddled mass of survivors.
An elderly navigator pushes through the crowd with deliberate effort. Others part to make way, their movements automatic, suggesting this man holds authority among them. His robes are far more elaborate than those worn by the others, rich fabric embroidered with patterns that might be navigational charts or family heraldry. The material hangs in heavy folds despite being stained with others' blood.
He steps forward slowly, each movement carrying the weight of age and exhaustion. When he reaches a position approximately three meters from your towering Terminator form, he bows. The gesture is deep, formal, carrying genuine respect rather than mere courtesy.
"Thank you for preserving our lives." His voice trembles, whether from age or recent terror is not clear. "The Navis Nobilite will remember your heroic intervention. Your name will be honored in our records."
You remain motionless for several heartbeats, processing the implications. These people had been serving aboard a Death Guard flagship. Whatever loyalty they once held to the Imperium, they threw it away when they chose to follow Mortarion's rebellion.
Or had they?
Your voice emerges from the Terminator armor's external speakers, deep and resonant, carrying across the cargo bay with authority that makes several survivors flinch. "Traitor. Are you still loyal to the Emperor? Are you still loyal to the Imperium of Man?"
The question hangs in the recycled air like a blade suspended over their collective necks.
The elderly navigator's third eye opens wider, the vertical pupil dilating as if trying to peer beyond the immediate moment and read what futures might unfold from different answers. When he speaks again, his voice carries bitter anger mixed with resignation.
"For tens of thousands of years, the Navis Nobilite have maintained strict neutrality. We've never involved ourselves in the Imperium's political conflicts, serving all sides equally because we must." His hands clench at his sides, the aged knuckles going white. "But the Pale King betrayed us first. He promised safe passage, guaranteed our protection, and then ordered our massacre the moment we became inconvenient."
The third eye blazes with genuine fury now, the kind of rage that comes from trust violated. "We are willing to atone with our lives for the sin of serving those who rebelled against the Emperor. We acknowledge our complicity, however unintentional." He straightens slightly, meeting your eyepiece gaze despite the terror that must be screaming through his nervous system. "Respected Astartes brother, please lead us. Allow us to attempt reversing this catastrophe, or at least die trying to make amends."
Your gaze sweeps across the assembled survivors, the helmet's auto-senses providing enhanced vision that picks out details invisible to normal sight. You see it in their faces, in their postures, in the way they hold themselves. Regret for the choice to follow the Death Guard rebels, mingled with primal fear of imminent death.
They are trapped. Committed to a cause they no longer believe in, if they ever had, surrounded by enemies on a ship plunging deeper into the Warp with every passing moment.
Your thoughts race, tactical assessment overlaying emotional response. "The flagship Terminus Est hasn't yet undergone full transformation into a plague ship. It retains basic functionality, standard systems. But we're already deep in the Warp, beyond any possibility of conventional rescue."
You pause, letting that reality settle. "A group of navigators without weapons or military support can't accomplish significant action alone. We'll proceed step by step, adapting as circumstances develop."
You turn your attention back to the elderly navigator. "I need information. The location of the ship's primary arsenal. The power facilities. Provide me with whatever knowledge you have of this ship's layout."
The navigator nods immediately, clearly relieved to have concrete tasks to focus on rather than dwelling on their situation's hopelessness. He begins describing the Terminus Est's internal geography, speaking in the careful detail of someone who has spent considerable time studying ship schematics.
While listening, you move to the Death Guard Terminator's corpse. The body lies sprawled across the deck, surrounded by pooling blood that has begun to congeal at the edges. You kneel, the Cataphractii-pattern armor's servos whining softly, and begin searching the remains.
Your fingers close on a pistol holstered at the corpse's waist. You draw it free, examining the weapon with practiced assessment. A melta pistol, though the specific pattern is unfamiliar. The heat generation coils glow faintly with residual charge, suggesting the weapon is loaded and functional. You mag-lock it to your armor's hip mounting.
Next, you check your own equipment. The chemical sprayer mounted to your left wrist contains toxic compounds, the reservoir showing approximately three full deployments worth of capacity. Enough for brief engagements but not sustained combat.
Your gaze shifts to the Death Cloud launcher still attached to the Death Guard's power pack. That weapon system would have been invaluable, capable of flooding entire corridors with poison gas that would kill anything lacking sealed environmental protection.
But the launcher is integrated directly into the armor's structure, built into the power pack's housing with such precision that removing it would require specialized tools and significant time. Attempting extraction through brute force would simply destroy the delicate mechanisms.
You abandon the idea with reluctant acceptance. Sometimes you work with what you have rather than what you wish for.
You rise to your full height, the Terminator armor making you loom over even the tallest humans present. Your voice carries command authority now, the tone of someone who has made decisions and expects obedience.
"Listen carefully. You will follow me, maintaining safe distance at all times. If a fight occurs, you take cover and remain there until ordered otherwise."
You gesture with the Manreaper, the movement casual despite the weapon's size. "I will proceed alone to the ship's primary arsenal. Once there, I'll acquire sufficient weapons and equipment to arm everyone capable of fighting. After that, we'll determine our next action based on available resources and tactical opportunities."
The elderly navigator absorbs this, then nods firmly. "Your orders will be followed." He turns to address the other survivors, speaking rapidly in a language that mixes Gothic with something older, probably Navigator chant. Whatever he says, it produces immediate compliance. People begin organizing themselves, helping the injured to their feet, creating a loose formation that can move as a group.
You do not wait for them to finish preparations. You simply turn toward the cargo bay's exit, the Manreaper gripped in one hand, the newly acquired melta pistol held ready in the other.
The slaughterhouse, as you mentally label it, falls behind you. You step into a corridor that will lead deeper into the Terminus Est's interior, toward the mid-deck sections where the main arsenal resides according to the navigator's information.
The passage is dimly lit, emergency lighting providing just enough illumination to navigate by. Your auto-senses compensate, overlaying thermal imaging and motion tracking data across your field of view.
You become aware of observation almost immediately. Mortal crew members, those unfortunate souls who maintain the ship's basic functions, watch from doorways and service alcoves. Their faces show exhaustion, malnutrition, the particular pallor that comes from never seeing natural sunlight. They track your movement with hollow eyes, neither helping nor hindering, simply bearing witness.
You ignore them. Attempting to incite rebellion among the mortal crew would be futile. If circumstances unfold as you suspect they will, none of these people will survive much longer regardless of what you do. The Death Guard's transformation into plague bearers will kill them through disease or deliberate culling.
Better to save energy for battles that might actually matter.
You enter a narrow passage, this one lined with servitors mounted to the metal walls. The cyborg constructs hang in their alcoves like grotesque decorations, their half-mechanical bodies motionless, locked in whatever power-saving mode their machine spirits utilize when not actively needed.
The passage stretches ahead, unchanging and monotonous. Metal walls. Flickering lights. Servitors in regular intervals creating a rhythm of organic-mechanical fusion that repeats endlessly.
After several minutes of walking, you feel a strange disorientation. The visual repetition creates the illusion that you are not actually moving forward, that the passage simply regenerates itself identically behind you while remaining infinite ahead. Your mind knows this is false, that you are covering ground, but the sensation persists nonetheless.
Then one of the servitors moves.
The motion is subtle at first. Just a slight rotation of the neck, servos creaking with the effort. The half-body construct turns its head to track your passage, the movement unnatural and jerky.
On the servitor's emaciated head, threaded with cables and implanted tubes that feed directly into exposed neural tissue, a pair of eyes focuses on you. They possess none of the vacant quality typical of servitor optics. These eyes carry awareness, intelligence, something fundamentally human looking out through the cyborg shell.
The servitor's mouth opens, lips pulling back from teeth that are surprisingly intact. Its throat works, mechanical voice synthesizer struggling to produce sounds. What emerges is barely intelligible, words torn and fractured by damaged systems.
" Three... Walking... Ahead..."
The warning, if that is what it is, comes out in a grinding rasp that suggests tremendous effort behind its production.
You do not hesitate. The Manreaper sweeps up and across in a horizontal arc, the blade moving with precision that suggests muscle memory you do not consciously possess. The edge catches the servitor's neck cleanly, severing it in a single smooth cut.
The head tumbles free, bouncing once against the deck plating before rolling to rest against your magnetic boot. The body remains mounted in its alcove, mechadendrites and support cables holding it in place despite decapitation.
But even as that first servitor falls silent, another moves.
This one occupies an alcove on the passage's opposite wall, positioned slightly ahead of your current location. It does not attempt speech. Instead, it simply raises one arm, the limb trembling with effort, cables swaying with the motion.
A single skeletal finger extends, pointing deeper into the passage toward whatever lies ahead. Then the hand shifts, making a walking gesture with two fingers, followed by holding up three digits clearly.
Three. Walking. Ahead.
The servitor's message delivered, it freezes back into stillness, becoming indistinguishable from its non-sentient neighbors.
You stand motionless, studying the now-inactive construct through your helmet's enhanced vision. "Who are you?" Your voice emerges quiet, almost conversational despite the circumstances.
No response comes. The servitor remains perfectly still, giving no indication it retains any awareness whatsoever.
You wait several more seconds, watching for additional movement or communication. When nothing occurs, you resume your advance, moving deeper into the passage with measured steps.
You do not trust the warning. Cannot afford to take it at face value. But you file the information away, preparing for the possibility that three enemies wait somewhere ahead. If the servitor's warning proves accurate, at least you will not be surprised. If it is deception or malfunction, you will already be ready for combat anyway.
Ten minutes of careful progress bring you to the passage's terminus. The corridor opens into a wider junction, multiple routes branching off in different directions. According to the navigator's description, the arsenal lies down the central path.
And standing in that junction, having apparently just entered from a different corridor, are three Astartes.
They wear gray-white power armor marked with Death Guard iconography. Standard plate, not the heavy Terminator suits, but still formidable protection. Bolters hang from mag-locks at their waists. Each warrior grips a massive scythe, the traditional close-combat weapon of Mortarion's sons.
The three Death Guard spot you simultaneously, their helmets tracking toward your approaching form. Recognition is immediate, their postures shifting into something resembling respect.
They move to one side of the junction, creating space for you to pass. As you draw closer, they perform the Death Guard's traditional salute, a gesture involving the scythe held at a specific angle while the free hand touches the chestplate over the primary heart.
You acknowledge the salute with a slight nod, your own posture remaining neutral. The Death Shroud are Mortarion's silent bodyguards, after all. They would not be expected to engage in casual conversation.
You begin moving past them, your trajectory carrying you toward the central corridor and the arsenal beyond.
Then, with your form already partially past their position, you speak.
"Are you still loyal to the Emperor?"
The question hangs in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled.
All three Astartes freeze. Confusion radiates from their postures, helmets turning fractionally toward each other as if seeking confirmation that they actually heard what they thought they heard.
Death Shroud do not speak. Ever. The silence is absolute, part of their mystique and their oath of service to the Primarch.
And as rebels who followed Mortarion away from the Imperium's light, the question itself is... complicated. How does one answer? Acknowledge the betrayal? Deny it? Claim the Emperor betrayed them first?
In that moment of hesitation, when their guard has dropped and their minds struggle with cognitive dissonance, you strike.
The melta pistol comes up in your left hand, aim already established, targeting solution calculated by auto-senses that feed data directly to your motor cortex. Your finger squeezes the trigger in one smooth motion.
The weapon discharges with a sound like reality tearing, a blast of superheated gas that exceeds the surface temperature of most stars condensed into a focused beam.
The effect on the nearest Astartes' helmet is instantaneous and catastrophic. Ceramite does not just melt; it vaporizes. The metal undergoes phase transition from solid to gas in microseconds, the expansion creating a small explosion. The warrior's head inside suffers the same fate, flesh and bone reduced to component atoms.
Simultaneously, your right hand, which has never released the Manreaper, moves with speed that transcends human capability. The weapon's haft rotates in your grip, blade repositioning mid-spin, and then drives forward in a thrust that becomes a sweeping cut.
The scythe's edge catches the second Astartes at the neck, punching through the gorget seal where armor is thinnest. The blade continues its arc, powered by strength that makes the heavy weapon seem weightless. It carves through ceramite, plasteel reinforcement, the fusion of spine and enhanced musculature, emerging from the opposite side in a spray of blood and mechanical fluids.
You pull hard, converting the embedded blade into a lever. The scythe tears free in a motion that nearly splits the Astartes completely in half, the body's upper torso separating from the lower section in a cascade of gore.
Two dead in perhaps three seconds.
The third Astartes, the sole survivor of your ambush, finally overcomes his shock and reacts. His hand releases the scythe's haft, dropping toward the bolter at his waist even as his voice erupts in a roar of fury and betrayal.
"Damn Death Shroud! Traitor!"
The curse emerges distorted through his helmet's speakers, but the rage behind it is unmistakable. He just watched two battle-brothers, warriors he fought beside for years or decades, killed with casual efficiency by someone they believed was an ally.
His fingers find the bolter's grip, begin drawing the weapon from its mag-lock.
Your melta pistol is already tracking toward the new target, aim adjusting with mechanical precision. Your finger pulls the trigger again. And again. And again.
Each discharge sends another beam of superheated destruction downrange, the weapon cycling with remarkable speed for something generating such extreme temperatures.
The first shot catches the Astartes in the center of his chestplate, punching through the ceramite and creating a molten crater that exposes the fusion-powered organs beneath. The second hits his shoulder, vaporizing the joint and causing his entire arm to fall away, the bolter clattering to the deck still gripped in a severed hand.
The third shot, and the kill shot, strikes his helmet's faceplate dead center. The Astartes' head erupts in a spray of superheated matter, the pressure wave from the internal explosion actually lifting his body slightly off the deck before it collapses.