Eight-Pointed Stars
By Dan Pickens
Kalev was no Navy man. He had expected to find himself fighting in some epic battle on some nameless planet during one of the Emperor's holy campaigns. He had wanted to die while struggling to breathe some alien atmosphere, perhaps filtered through a rebreather mask.
What he had not wanted was to be stuck on some Imperial cruiser for the first ten years of his service to the Imperial Guard. Ten years was a long time, and seven of them had seemed all the longer as he slowly progressed through the ranks to the rank of sergeant. Kalev had held his position for three years and had never served in combat which seemed to him to be a great waste of the Emperor's resources.
He had put in for transfer several times but was always denied by the regimental commander, a decrepit waste of an officer who seemed to care little that his youthful troopers were aging away to become just as useless as himself. It was apparently in the commander's beliefs that young soldiers didn't know what was good for them and that the leadership was necessary where it was.
So for the past ten years Kalev had been part of a small security detachment on board the Imperial cruiser called The Golden Shield that made planetfall only when it was of the most vital importance, wandering somewhere out towards the Eastern Fringe and away from the Imperium. Why the ship did this was never information that made it to the company level, and even if it had, he was sure that his lieutenant had kept it a military secret. All Kalev knew was that, should the cruiser become compromised, he was part of the defense force for something or someone on board that was considered to be of such high value that no one was allowed to know what the hell it was anyway.
Kalev took another swig of the bitter Amasec he kept in his flask and stared resentfully out of a porthole on the cruiser's starboard flank. He didn't even hear the footsteps as the commissar approached from behind.
"Thinking too much on the void can be a dangerous activity," said Commissar DeVitz, his ancient voice sounding scaly and overused in Kalev's ear.
Kalev spun about abruptly and stood at parade rest automatically before responding. The Commissar stood extremely close to the sergeant, almost standing on his boots.
"Merely contemplating the Emperor's benevolence, Commissar," Kalev said.
"A lie," hissed DeVitz, squinting his eyes at Kalev. He sniffed loudly, crinkling his nose in a showy way as if he hadn't previously detected the smell of Amasec on Kalev's person. "Drinking on duty as well, Sergeant?"
"Ah, well," started Kalev, wishing he had magic words to make the Commissar disappear.
DeVitz laughed hoarsely. "What duty are you doing anyway, Kalev?"
Kalev didn't know what to say. He had never seen his Commissar act this way before. It took him a moment, but before long he could smell the distinct aroma of some alcohol stronger than Amasec through his own fear. Kalev realized he wasn't breathing and exhaled.
"Here, give me some from that flask, boy," laughed DeVitz giddily. Kalev handed DeVitz his flask and the Commissar helped himself to a generous amount of it. Suddenly he was serious.
"Not a word to anyone, Soldier, or I'll…"
For a moment, Kalev thought the old fool would throw up.
"I'll kill you," finished the Commissar on a heavy exhale. In a rare instant, Kalev's eyes locked with DeVitz's. All Kalev saw there was the practiced contempt that all commissars have for everything they deem out of line.
DeVitz then eyed Kalev's flask suspiciously as though it were in some way personally responsible for every heresy in the universe. Then, deciding he was done with it, DeVitz shoved the flask back into Kalev's hands and turned to walk off.
"Carry on," DeVitz waved behind him as he stalked down the corridor. Kalev never would have known he was drunk.
Kalev looked into his flask and then took another swig.
Behind the command deck of the Shield was the grand and immensely ornate Astropathy chamber. Several robed adepts murmured incantations to the Emperor as they waved ceremonial censers, filling the air with a heady aroma. The chamber was dominated by a great throne in the center of the room, which connected the floor to the ceiling with a strangely beautiful mixture of machinery and ostentatious display. Several small stations connected to each wall, each one with a biomechanical servitor operating vast numbers of complex controls in order to manipulate the various communication auguries covering The Golden Shield.
Sitting in the throne, her neck connected to the back of her chair by several thick cables, was the ship's Astropath, Leigh Xizo. Her skin was pale, her hair platinum. Her eyelids were nearly closed, concealing a bright purple aura which emanated from tiny glolamp implants where her eyes had once been. Her small frame seemed dwarfed by the throne, and the simple Astropath's robes she wore contrasted the grandiose architecture of the Astropathy room.
The great door hissed open as the ship's captain, Luc Gostlin, entered the Astropathy chamber. He was dressed in a great grey coat that was adorned with only his rank on the shoulder boards and a golden rope, his long black hair reaching down to the middle of his back. While he was not young, he was not completely ancient either, and thanks to years of gene therapy the lines of aging had only just begun to show on his face.
Without taking heed of the adepts in his path, Gostlin pushed into the room and marched straight up to the chair to kneel beside the Astropath's chair.
"What is our new course, Xizo?" the Captain asked, lowering his head after he had posed his question.
Xizo's head tilted slightly in Gostlin's direction, and a cruel smile curled on her pale lips. She ran her fingers into Gostlin's hair, finding a hold on the Captain's scalp and then digging her nails into the sensitive skin there.
The air thickened, and Gostlin choked as it became harder to breathe. The swirling smoke from the censers made breathing all the more difficult, and the ship's Captain found that he could not escape the Astropath's grasp as his mind was filled with her thoughts. Her words crowded his brain, which felt as though it would burst, and he tried to concentrate but failed. Just when he thought his mind would explode from the pressure, Xizo let go and Gostlin fell onto his hands breathing hard. The air returned to its normal volume, and even the censers didn't seem to be emitting as much smoke as they were just a moment ago.
One thing was for sure, though, and Gostlin smiled up at the Astropath's beautiful purple eyes. Gostlin now understood exactly what he had to do.
The space outside the cruiser was as cold and silent as it always was: a silent dirge to the universe's fallen creatures. Far beyond The Golden Shield, stars shined bright blues and reds, pinpoints of civilizations far from the Imperial cruiser's grasp. On the Shield's port was a massive crimson nebula, curling and roiling in the radioactive depths of space.
The cruiser had never passed so close to a nebula before, it augury systems incapable of tracking any other ships that may lie in waiting to ambush the Shield. But now the ship's navigator, Dolun, took them closer to the nebula than ever before.
It was rumored that Dolun had a secret relationship with Mistress Xizo, though the pair were rarely seen together. Still, after thirty years on board, it was widely believed that the pair had developed some kind of relationship.
In the helm, the Captain discussed the Astropath's message with Commissar DeVitz.
"These are the coordinates we were given," said Captain Gostlin, referring to a three-dimensional display of the nebula beside the forward observation port. "The Administratum is very concerned that we activate it here."
"So I hear," said DeVitz, looking out the observation port at the real nebula rather than at the electronic display. "But in my lifetime I've dealt with far more corruption and heresy than you have, Captain, and with all due respects I have a bad feeling about this."
"What would I tell the Administratum then, Commissar?" asked Gostlin. He had chosen to wear his large navy blue overcoat now in honor of the Commissar's visit. He figured that the overcoat with all of its medals would give him an air of authority to at least seem worthy enough to speak his mind to the Commissar.
"We shall see about that, Gostlin," said DeVitz. The old Commissar turned to face The Golden Shield's captain directly. His wrinkled face held the tiredness and stress of his position, though his eyes betrayed the boredom he felt with his assignment. "For now I see no option but to continue the mission."
"I can certainly understand your lack of willingness to activate something as ancient as this device," said Gostlin. "It seems more like we're planning on destroying ourselves with it just to prevent it from falling into enemy hands."
"Impossible," said DeVitz. "The very nature of the object prevents us from doing so. The fact that The Golden Shield has been able to carry it for the past ten years without it activating on its own is a miracle of the Emperor in and of itself."
"No change in orders then, Commissar?" asked Gostlin. He was anxious to end his conversation with DeVitz, feeling that he had wasted too much time with the old fool.
"No change in orders," answered Commissar DeVitz. With a final scornful glance at the crimson cloud of gas, the old Commissar swept out of the room.
The sky above Kalev's head was black as the void, a cold wind chilling him to his bones. He wore only light fatigues, pale shades of red cloth that passed as desert combat clothing. Beneath his feet were rolling dunes of obsidian sand, collectively reflecting green from some unseen light source. Looking around, Kalev could see nothing for miles – no features on the horizon, no clouds in the sky, just endless sand dunes that blended into the pitch black sky somewhere infinitely beyond his gaze.
Where is your adept?
A hissing voice echoed across the sky, as though it were the wind itself; Kalev wasn't sure he was hearing the words, as much as feeling them. He tried to respond, but found his vocal chords would not work.
Why does she not answer our call?
Again the voice echoed above Kalev, this time more clearly. Again, Kalev tried to answer but could not. He felt his eyes begin to water, and rubbed the building tears out from under his eyes. When he pulled his hand away from his face, he realized that he was now looking from his hand back at his own face – a face with two empty holes where his eyes had once been.
Where is your adept?
Kalev tried to scream as the voice echoed above him one more time, but no sound came out. As he tried harder and harder, the wind around him intensified and he could feel his throat straining. Then, as though glass had shattered, his voice broke through the roaring wind.
Sitting straight up in bed, Kalev screamed at the top of his lungs. His bunkmate fell out of the bunk above him, startled by the sudden rude awakening, and instantly began to complain. Sweat rolled down Kalev's forehead, and he put his hand on it as it began to throb violently.
"I think I'm sick," Kalev said. He tried to stand up and nearly fell over, having to brace himself on the wall of his cell.
"You alright, Kalev?" asked his bunkmate, Nero. Nero was shorter than Kalev, and several years younger. Nero's hair was bright red and he had a wide goofy smile that always seemed inappropriate for a man in uniform. Only now he wasn't smiling, and a look of genuine concern was plain in his pale green eyes.
Kalev wanted to say something witty, but all he could manage to do was wretch all over the floor by his footlocker, chunks of half-digested military slop covering the Sergeant's feet and a good portion of the floor.
"Nasty!" cried Nero, leaping up onto Kalev's bunk before the vomit reached his spot on the floor. "I'm taking your ass to the apothecary. Can you walk?"
Kalev looked at Nero, his eyes bloodshot and half-closed with sleep and nausea. His nose was running and sweat covered his body. The sergeant was in no kind of shape at all, and couldn't answer. Nero knew his obligation to his roommate and friend, and helped Kalev out of their cell trailing footprints of regurgitated waste down the vaulted hallway of the Shield's habitation deck.
Later, after having been cleaned up and treated for his nausea, Kalev was called to his commander's office. A rare event and one he was concerned of given the circumstances of his recent sickness, but how the word of exactly what had happened reached Lieutenant Kemp so quickly he did not know.
As he entered his lieutenant's spacious workplace he took note that the lights were dim, casting long shadows among the vaulted ceilings and creating dark spaces in the statuary niches in the walls. The lieutenant himself sat at his long ebony desk, scrolling through an embedded dataslate and only acknowledging Kalev's entrance with a wave of his hand.
"Sir, Sergeant Kalev reports, as ordered, Sir," said Kalev, snapping his heels to attention and saluting with the sign of the Aquila.
"I suppose you're wondering why you're here?" asked Lieutenant Kemp without looking up. His ancient commanding officer was of an age to rival all of his compatriot officers on board, stuck on The Golden Shield for the rest of their miserable careers and well aware of it. He had one augmetic eye which glowed red in its gunmetal setting on the right side of his skull, but Kalev could not see the other eye which was sunken in the shadows on his face.
"I am, Sir, quite," replied Kalev.
"I didn't want you here, Sergeant," replied Kemp, finally looking up. There was a look of disappointment on his wrinkled countenance, as though he had lost a man in combat who was very dear to him. Kalev had never seen this look on his lieutenant's face before, but he knew he didn't care for it at all. He could sense someone waiting in the shadows beyond the commander's desk.
Peering hard into the darkness beyond Lieutenant Kemp, he could make out an evil leering face, one that he was horrifyingly familiar with, a cold disciplined hatred radiating from the very spot where the figure stood. Kalev could just make out the carved skulls on his shoulder boards, the complex workings of the figure's ornate jacket, and the double-headed eagle on his hat.
"Commissar," Lieutenant Kemp announced, gesturing to the shadowed figure with his hand. "Please say your piece."
Commissar DeVitz stepped from the shadows quickly, removed his hat and placed it on Lieutenant Kemp's desk. His eyes never wavered; DeVitz's glare piercing Kalev as though the sergeant were as good as dead.
Kalev knew it was well within DeVitz's authority and power to unsheathe the lava gun at his side and shoot him on the spot. He strongly suspected that, had he told anybody what had occurred in his dream that would be DeVitz's specific purpose. But he had told no one, not even Nero, who had asked him repeatedly about it.
"It has more than likely slipped your notice," began DeVitz, looking down his gnarled nose at the sergeant, "that as a Commissar I have never invoked my right to have an equerry. Previously I have always felt equerries were for leaders of action, which for the past three and a quarter decades I have not been party to."
An almost sinister smile crept across DeVitz's ancient features as he watched Kalev visibly sag with relief.
"It seems to me that status will abruptly change in the near future," continued DeVitz. "You are being hand-picked, Sergeant. I did not ask your Lieutenant to select one of his finest soldiers; I did not even follow protocol by picking an Officer, an educated man. I picked you because I know your character. And, more importantly, the strength of your loyalty."
"Thank you, Commissar," Kalev answered. He was in a state of relieved shock - while he wasn't in trouble, he was now working directly under a Commissar, something he had no experience doing at all.
"Pack up your belongings, you will be moving into a room nearer mine on the Aurumdeck," said DeVitz, collecting up his hat from the Lieutenant's desk. He looked down to the junior officer. "Do you have anything for him, Lieutenant Kemp?"
The Lieutenant looked up at the new equerry out of the corner of his one good eye. Normally a Lieutenant would have formed a deep friendship with his Sergeants after countless battlefield encounters, but Kalev and Kemp had no such relationship. Their dealings had been largely formal, Kemp keeping his company to other officers and Kalev to his troopers. For a moment, Kalev thought he saw words forming on his Lieutenant's lips, but Kemp merely shrugged and waved Kalev off. DeVitz moved around Kalev to the doorway, letting the door hiss open in front of him. He glanced back over his shoulder to say, "Come, my new equerry. There is much to be done."
The Aurum deck was the naval officers' deck, filled with large stately rooms and dining halls. Unlike the Spartan quarters Kalev had called home for the past ten years, his new quarters featured a single bed and his own wash station, as well as a large armoire designed to house the various issued equipment he had never used before.
"I will return at 2300 hours to inspect your billets," announced the Commissar as Kalev was dropped off at his new room. "Do not dissatisfy me on your first day, or I will fire you. And you won't be going back to your old company, either."
With his threats in place, DeVitz turned and stalked off down the corridor, shouting at a pair of officers who were chatting by their rooms.
Kalev, weighed down with a duffle full of issued equipment, a small olive drab sack containing what few possessions he had managed to acquire over his dreary career, and the weight of his new job title, shuffled into the room.
Kalev was confused by the strange turn his life had taken, completely without precedent. Just last week he had been Sergeant Kalev, line Sergeant amongst hundreds of other men in his company, and now he was Sergeant Kalev, Grand Equerry of Commissar DeVitz. Okay, so maybe he made the title a little more grandiose in his head, but he never in his wildest dreams imagined himself as any kind of equerry.
He began absently loading up his armoire while he contemplated the previous week. He supposed his life might have started really changing on that evening when he had had his encounter with the drunken commissar. However, other than the fact that DeVitz was inebriated, he had not found anything extraordinary about that evening. And even if that event had been the trigger of weird events in his life, he couldn't fathom how seeing a drunken commissar had led to his dream or the subsequent sickness he had experienced. The sergeant sighed, figuring that perhaps it was better to simply give over to the changing times rather than question them. As long as his thoughts were free from any thoughts that were too heretical he felt relatively safe, if rather uncomfortable, in his new position.
The Golden Shield drifted closer to the roiling nebula, the dark glow from the moving gasses bathing the ship in crimson light. All along the ship windows were unattended, the men and women hard at work inside, and seemingly unaware they would soon enter the nebula.
Red tongues of flame licked the vacuum from the fusion engines as the ship accelerated, it's bladed prow slicing into an outcropping of gas and exiting the other side, trails of crimson gas streaming from the ornate cathedral-like architecture on the outside of the craft. Without a soul noticing the difference, the Shield made its final dive into the nebula, bringing itself about so that it could aim into the heart of the gaseous cloud.
Nero crept up the gantry, stealing into an alcove beneath an elegant buttress featuring an eagle cast from blue steel and polished to brilliant shine. Footsteps echoed down the dark hallway, and Nero leaned out ever so slightly to catch only a glimpse of long violet robes as they flowed about the walker's feet.
As the footsteps drew closer he could smell a heady perfume, and he fell instantly in love with whoever it was approaching. It was definitely female; the perfume and the sound of her light boot steps gave her fairer gender away. Nero yearned to leap out into the gantry and collect the woman in his arms and make love to her.
Still yet though, the red-haired corporal held himself deep in the shadow of his niche. With every step Nero could feel the woman's presence upon him, and he couldn't help thinking she was holding him from behind, caressing his chest with firm sensual strokes. Refusing to let himself give in to this feeling, Nero pushed back deeper into the shadow, his back pressed flat against the steel interior wall of the gantry. He knew that he could not risk getting captured, lest he be flogged for sneaking into an unauthorized area on the ship.
As the woman approached the niche and came to be only a meter away, it took all of Nero's willpower to not throw himself at her feet, becoming her willing slave in the hopeful exchange for sexual favor. She stopped in front of the alcove and turned slowly to face him. Her hair was long and so white it seemed to glow the lightest shade of blue. Her skin was pale and flawless, and where her eyes should have been was a gorgeous amethyst glow beneath her long ebony eyelashes.
Nero could not help but quiver now, and a warm kind smile spreading across her pale pink lips. She held out her hand to Nero, and she spoke to him in a beautiful sopranic tone, tickling his ears with her words.
"Sweet Astor Nero," she said sweetly. "Why do you wander these sacred decks by your lonesome?"
Nero could not resist temptation any longer. He threw himself out of the shadows and onto his knees, ungraciously yanking the woman's hand in his and smothering it with kisses.
The woman's face turned stormy and her tone dropped. "Answer me, Corporal. Why are you here?"
Nero released her hand and forced himself to look at the plated floor beneath him. He could still see her purple robes at the top of his vision and began to fiddle with it absently before answering.
"I came in search of the Commissar's equerry, Great Mistress," Nero said. In Nero's mind his voice seemed far away, as though he were in another room listening to himself from behind a door. "He was my friend and I've not seen him for a week. I have... News for him."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Well I am Mistress Xizo, the ship's Astropath. You may tell me and I shall see to it that the Commissar's equerry gets the message. I was just on my way to see him myself."
Nero's eyes glazed over, and he muttered, "Ok."
And Xizo stood by and listened as Nero told her the mundane details of his squad's recent activity, and that he had been selected as an honor guard for some ceremony that was to take place soon. When he was done spilling his guts, the corporal doubled over on himself, breathing heavily. His thoughts became his own and suddenly he felt wrong and perverted.
"Thank you, Corporal Nero," intoned Xizo above him. "I will make sure the equerry gets your report. I will grant you a parting gift as thanks for your honesty."
The astropath knelt next to him, placing a small pale hand on his shoulder. He wanted to baulk at the gesture, but found he could not move. The air became thick and greasy, Nero's skin crawling on his bones. Nero choked, the bile rising in his gullet.
"My gift to you is the touch of the warp," Xizo whispered in his ear.
And at that moment, Nero's mind collapsed into madness.
A week into his new job, Kalev was amazed at the sheer amount of paperwork that had come to him because of his new occupation. He had always figured that nothing ever went on, but now he was seeing all kinds of statements and claims and full dossiers of troopers on board who had committed minor acts of insubordination.
He sat in his small office, a dim chamber with steel pipes that ran through the floor and along the wall until they met with the ceiling. The room was utilitarian, one of few rooms on the Aurum deck that wasn't decorated in fine ornamentation. His furniture was largely plain iron frames, uncomfortable to use for any period of time, dragged up from the back of the cargo hold five decks below.
Kalev pushed aside the small stack of dataslates that had accumulated on his desk and pulled his flask out of his fatigues. He had started drinking earlier in the day, a difficult feat sometimes as amasec was harder to come by. They had not touched port in two years, and supply was running out of the oft-imbibed alcoholic beverage. He took a small swig and then slipped the silver-plated flask back into his fatigues.
He picked up the top dataslate, and began to take in its contents. As soon as he read the headings he was taken with a bored sleepiness, and he sagged in his uncomfortable chair. At the edges of his conciousness, he could hear a woman, softly calling to him.
Where is your astropath? Your adept fails to respond. The voice was calm and quiet, almost a whisper.
"Fails to respond?" asked Kalev aloud. "How is that possible? Mistress Xizo reports frequently of the Imperium's orders."
Suddenly there was something else in his mind, something ulgy and furious.
What business is it of yours, equerry? The new voice said, scathing and evil in his mind. Tend to your duties, lest your heretical thoughts be reported to your Commissar!
Immediately Kalev sat up straight in his chair, dropped the dataslate on his desk and stood up. Again his head throbbed, and he tried to stand up. A wave of dizziness washed over him and the vertigo of it brought back his nausea.
His ears burned and he clenched his eyes shut, images of great blue and white flames playing across the inside of his eyelids.
He could not see it or hear it but he was somehow aware that the two voices were warring against each other in his head.
"Kalev!" the Commissar's scaly voice bellowed above the cacophony of his mind and the madness dissipated. Kalev opened his eyes slowly.
Without realizing it, he had shrunk back into re corner of the room, huddled into a ball. He looked up at the Commissar in his great coat, lava gun drawn and aimed steadily at Kalev's head. Kalev stood up, his joints feeling tight and his head feeling as though it weighed a ton.
"I am giving you an extremely rare chance to explain yourself," said DeVitz, never lowering the lava gun. "I trust it is not your duties that cause you so much stress, son?"
"No, Commissar," said Kalev, his voice raw. He realized he must have been screaming at the top of his lungs because his throat ached and his mouth was dry.
Kalev told DeVitz exactly what he had seen, and what the voices had said. DeVitz listened carefully, not lowering the lava gun until Kalev had finished his story. Seemingly reluctantly, DeVitz holstered the pistol.
"What a relief," DeVitz said. "I didn't want to lose another guardsman to the warp this afternoon."
Kalev's jaw dropped. "Another guardsman?"
DeVitz moved into the room fully and tried to make himself comfortable but couldn't.
"I'm not used to being candid with anyone," admitted DeVitz before continuing. "Your roommate, Astor Nero, was found on the Aurum deck, his mind rent apart by the touch of the immaterium."
"Nero?" Kalev gaped. "Why was Nero wandering around up here?"
"Emperor knows," said DeVitz. "But our Astropath, Mistress Xizo, said she felt the taint of the warp on board and rushed to the source. When she arrived, there was Nero, screaming his red head off. Our Navigator, Dolun, said we are at a weak point in the galaxy, where the warp comes close to reality, and as such there is a great deal of psychic turbulence. Your strength has proven itself again, Kalev. The warp tried to claim you and you did not let it. I might think about recommending you to the Commissariat, should you survive the next few weeks."
"Thank you, Commissar," Kalev said. "The Emperor protects."
"Indeed he does," said DeVitz. "Now come with me, there is something I require your help with."
Within the crimson nebula, arcs of blue lightning struck at the intruding spacecraft, dealing a minimal amount of superficial damage to the steel and ceramite hull.
Deep within the ship's core, millennia-old machinery dating from the second Age of Technology slowly churned to life. The Golden Shield's Gellar field activated, and a large bay built specially into the bottom of the cruiser began to fold open.
On the deck above the opening bay, Commissar DeVitz strode purposefully with Kalev behind him. Kalev had put on his combat uniform, his las gun strapped across his back and his red armor plating his torso.
They came down a thin gantry to a heavy door that DeVitz opened with the signet ring on his finger. The door opened into a vast chamber filled with enormous machines the likes of which Kalev had never seen. Some were shaped like pyramids with large spiked collars circling their middles. They were connected to suspended glass spheres that hung from the ceiling above closely spaced heat sinks. Silos of coolant were connected to a man-sized cube in the center of the chamber, and this was tended to meticulously by adepts from the Mechanicum that Kalev never even knew were on board. The entire complex device churned and hummed with ancient energy, the likes of which mankind was not intended to posses.
Standing on a dais overlooking the progress was Captain Gostlin. When he heard the Commissar coming, he turned to greet him. With the turn he reached into his coat and time seemed to slow down for Kalev.
DeVitz wasn't slow on the draw, and he pulled his lava gun out just as Gostlin brought his las pistol to bear on the Commissar. Before anything could be said or done, however, there was the loud report of the las pistol and DeVitz's body rocked with the force of being hit.
"Treachery!" cried the Commissar, raising his lava gun to fire.
The exchange was rapid as three more las pistol shots rang out across the deck and the lava gun fired, the shot going wild into the roof.
Kalev was on his weapon, too, now, firing on the ship's captain without remorse. Shot after shot tore through Gostlin's body, setting his coat and hair on fire. Rather than scream in agony, however, Gostlin merely laughed maniacally. His chest was largely dissipated, burnt flesh hanging loose beneath what was left of his clothing. His shooting arm was broken but still hanging on by singed sinewy muscle tissue.
"He has been marked by the taint of Chaos!" cried Kalev as Gostlin grabbed his hanging limb and held it back in place.
Snaking black veins emerged from his destroyed tissue to reform the obliterated arm. The fingers on Gostlin's hand became elongated and sharp, the inside of each finger becoming a serrated edge around the las pistol that he still gripped. Greasy pink tentacles ruptured out of the exposed wounds on his torso, whipping wildly as a wicked grin spread across Gostlin's cruel mouth.
With apparent effort, DeVitz stood to begin firing on the beast once more, and Kalev joined him.
In an adjacent chamber the ship's deck master was leading a ceremony to commemorate the re-activation of the ancient device in front of a squad-sized honor guard, led by Lieutenant Kemp, and the senior flight staff, making an eloquent and grandiose statement about this milestone in Imperial history.
Much to his disappointment, however, his excessive speech was interrupted by the ships never before heard battle klaxons. A sudden panic struck the room and no one quite remembered what to do. In the confusion, Kemp called the honor guard to arms and moved them into position to support the ship's captain they knew was inside the machine room.
Gostlin's torso seemed to grow in size so that his back hunched under his own muscle and his aberrant black arm was now so long that it touched the ground like a primate's. The captain's face had become twisted and ugly as well; his eyes wild and his teeth long and sharp.
DeVitz and Kalev had taken cover behind some toxic waste barrels, uncaring servitors regularly adding to their barricade with new barrels generated by the machine.
"X301 Device fully charged and operational," came the monotone announcement from the Mechanicum adepts.
"Activate!" bellowed Gostlin, his voice now deep and daemonic.
Without seeming to care whom the order had come from, the adepts initiated the device's start up systems.
"Belay that order!" shouted DeVitz, but the adepts ignored him.
Kalev came up over the top of the barrels to shoot, but couldn't see Gostlin anywhere. Across the deck, large blast doors opened and a squad of Imperial Guard poured in. At their head, Kalev recognized Lieutenant Kemp's augmetic eye.
"Sir," Kalev called across the chamber, "The captain's been turned into some Eye-blasted monster!"
Beside him, DeVitz struggled to his feet.
"Find and destroy the heretic!" he cried, and the honor guard cheered.
From out of nowhere, the warped form of Gostlin fell into the middle of the honor guard and began grabbing troopers to tear limb from limb.
Kalev and DeVitz instantly began to open fire on the monster, lava gun and las fire tearing his charred skin off in large gouges.
In the open bay beneath the Shield green balls of energy began to form in shining clusters. Light seemed to displace for an instant, causing a ghostly copy of the cruiser to exist briefly before vanishing back into the warp. The nebula began to twist and storm into a fiery tempest, previously inert molecules now slamming together in massive chain explosions.
In the dead silence of space, reality tore asunder, and the vile chaos of the warp feeding on the violent energies from the nebula.
Kemp was one of few veterans on board. Before being assigned to The Golden Shield he had served with the 734th Cadians on Anton Prime fighting the monstrous and vile greenskins. It was where he had lost his eye, and also where he earned his commission aboard the Shield.
The beast before him was a thousand times more terrifying than the greenskins that had decimated his friends on Anton Prime, yet he viewed it only as a foe he had long been waiting to battle.
Some part of him knew that with the klaxons blaring it would only be a matter of moments until reinforcements arrived, but as far as he was concerned it was just him, his heretical captain, and his trusty las rifle. From somewhere across the room supporting fire was laying into Gostlin's diseased form, but Gostlin didn't much seem to care.
The veteran lieutenant raised his rifle and took aim. With pinpoint accuracy he shot off every twisting pink tentacle, the greasy appendages flopping to the ground in sloppy pools of black blood.
Releasing his rifle on its sling, Kemp drew his chainsword and activated it, charging on the beast in front of him. He could feel the ceramite teeth of his chainsword hunger for the mutant's flesh, and the hunger carried over into his battle lust. Kemp roared and Gostlin met his roar as the lieutenant brought the chainsword down in a sweeping arc.
Kalev maintained his fire on the captain, watching as Lieutenant Kemp expertly removed the monster's myriad tentacles. He vented the las charge, reloading a fresh cell into the breech and held his fire as Kemp drew his chainsword. The loud roar of the chainsword echoed across the chamber, and Kemp bellowed as he charged Gostlin. Gostlin roared back at Kemp and caught the Lieutenant up in his massive claw, smashing him against the deck and then turning to fling Kemp against the wall behind Kalev.
As though he had forgotten Kalev existed, the monster smiled with fiendish delight and began to advance toward Kalev's hiding spot.
Outside the ship, a red flaming sphere formed, eschewing great fireballs into it's own orbit, each one solidifying into iron cores and collecting dirt to form planets. The nebula dissipated as the planets formed. The warp reached out and began to infest the infant worlds, turning them pestilent and diseased. Great torrential storms raged on the fledgling atmospheres, and the immaterium forced the first painful vestiges of life amid the tempest.
DeVitz, bleeding quite badly now, made a move to shoot at the oncoming monstrosity but his wound was too grievous and he growled in anger at the weakness of his ancient body.
"Kalev!" DeVitz called, but Kalev was attending to Kemp's broken and bloodied corpse. "What in the Blasted Eye are you doing? Come kill this thing!"
When Kalev stood and turned around, he was accompanied by the roar of Kemp's chainsword. Kalev locked eyes with the abomination and it lunged at him, knocking over barrels and rolling DeVitz off to the side. Kalev leapt towards the beast as well, grasping it's charcoal skin with his free hand and swinging the chainsword into Gostlin's chest. It caught on now iron-strong bones, and Kalev grasped the chainsword with both hands, his feet finding a stable platform on Gostlin's wide breast. Lightning quick, Gostlin grasped at the guardsman on his chest, but Kalev pulled the chainsword with all his might through Gostlin's sternum. The chainsword sent gore and gray matter everywhere as it split the creature's head in two, black slime ejaculating from the jagged wound in excessive gushes.
The monster that was once Captain Gostlin didn't even get a chance to scream as it's life force returned to the warp, it's evil soul separating from its mortal coil, dragging Gostlin's screaming soul with it was it went. Kalev fell backward as the beast fell onto it's back, a malodorous stench already possessing Gostlin's monstrous corpse.
Kalev stood and turned off the chainsword, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He heard a small clapping sound beside him. It was DeVitz.
"Well done, Sergeant," DeVitz said. "I couldn't have done it better myself."
"There is still a problem, Commissar," Kalev said, lifting DeVitz's lava gun in his free hand.
"The ship's Astropath, mistress Xizo, and her pet, the Navigator Dolun. My dream suggests she is the architect of this madness. With your permission, Commissar?"
DeVitz smiled. "Do what you have to do."
The ship fell easily into a planet's orbit, the nebula now entirely gone, become the star system that had formed. The sun at the center of the system was a red dwarf, burning a deep red orange flame, but it expanded every time the warp breathed, becoming a greater and more real star. Great spires of molten gasses exploded around the circumference of the star, which would have appeared to anyone looking on to give it eight flaming points.
Kalev entered the navigation room where he saw the Astropath concentrating hard on keeping the rift with the warp open. The air was thick and hard to breathe, smoke from the censers filling the chamber with heady perfumes.
Xizo turned her head as much as she could without disconnecting herself from the ship, and the glowing sockets where her eyes should have been opened wide as her mind's eye saw the bright bolt of energy careening straight into her cranium. In the next moment, her head erupted into a thick wash of bright red slop, splattering against the adept passing by and dousing his censer. Her body went limp but stayed upright, still attached to her throne at the base of her neck.
One by one, Kalev eliminated the adepts, rather unnecessarily as the psychic surge from Xizo's death fried their neural pathways.
Kalev turned around as Dolun entered on cue, having sensed his master's death, and found his face imploding with molten energy before he even got all the way in the room.
The warp groaned, a bass echoing moan heard through the vast turbulent seas of the empyrean, it's charnel influence being forcefully removed from the infant worlds surrounding The Golden Shield. The rip in reality resealed and all evidence that the warp had touched the star system with it.
The fledgling star shone bright white over eight new worlds that orbited it, and the small Imperial cruiser remained in orbit around the system's fifth planet.
Over the next few days, Commissar DeVitz took control of the ship, the deckmaster was executed for being party to heresy, and short range vox distress signals were sent out. It didn't take long for the frigate that had been searching for the Shield to find them by tracking the massive warp anomaly that had just occurred.
Kalev stood on the landing deck to greet their emissaries, among whom was a tall dark woman with short hair wearing the violet robes of an astropath.
"I am Mistress Yara Yin, Astropath of the Immortal Vengeance," she said to him, extending her hand. "I believe we have already met, so to speak."
"Well met," Kalev said, shaking her hand. "This time."
The crews exchanged stories of what had come to pass, and the Immortal Vengeance led The Golden Shield into the warp to dock at the nearest Imperial system.
Right before the crew was to take planet leave, Kalev was called into DeVitz's office.
Kalev stood before the desk at parade rest, locked up tight in respect for his venerable commissar.
"Sergeant Kalev," DeVitz began. "Your exemplary display of leadership in the recent crisis is everything we've come to expect from a non-commissioned officer of His Holy Imperial Guard. I could have recommended you for half a dozen medals or more and you'd have gotten them."
Kalev shifted uncomfortably. He had expected medals and perhaps Kemp's old position.
"What I did do for you," continued DeVitz, "is recommend you for the Commissariat. You have been accepted, and you will become a pillar of Imperial Truth through study at the Schola Progenium. That's all I have for you, Kalev. I'll see you on the battlefield as a comrade next we meet."
Kalev snapped to attention and made the sign of the Aquila. "Thank you, Commissar."