Surrounded by the ruins of a hive city, Tracer ran.
She ran because she was pretty certain that if she stopped the demon that was chasing her would eat her.
What have you gotten yourself into now, she thought to herself, quickly followed by buggerbuggerbuggerbugger when she heard the monster roar close behind her.
Why the hell did she take the bet? She had been drunk at the time, it was true, but she sure as hell knew better than to see how far forward in time she could travel.
How much had she drunk, anyway?
She vaulted a fallen girder and slid under another. Her anchor couldn't take so much time traveling stress in one go and so needed to recharge if it were to serve its primary purpose, keeping her in one spot in time.
Of course, nobody could have predicted that she'd be chased by a demon. It didn't stop her from cursing them anyway.
She ran into a ruined building and slammed the door shut behind her. It was made of heavy metal, and its weight made her use more force than she anticipated. Maybe that could hold it?
Its sword sheared straight through the door.
Tracer ran away from it. Thankfully the walls behind her had been completely demolished, so it was relatively simple to leave.
As she ran down the street past a ruined tank she could feel the furnace heat of the demon behind her. It was close. Too close.
She turned the corner and nearly ran into a wall. She looked up at it and realised it was a person bigger than she had ever seen entirely clad in grey metal armour. Was it an Omnic?
It raised a gun bigger than her entire torso and pointed it directly at her head.
"Imperial citizen or heretic?", it demanded.
At that point the demon had rounded the corner, and the Omnic shoved past her.
"Daemon!"
It raised its gun and fired a salvo at the monster's chest and head. The demon screamed as the bullets exploded on it, tearing away huge chunks the size on Winston's fist of it's flesh, but it pressed forwards. The Omnic dropped its gun and drew a sword that it wielded like a dagger. A flurry of blows later its knife was embedded in the demon's throat, which loosed one final scream before disappearing in an eruption of brimstone.
In one smooth motion the Omnic picked up its gun and pointed right back at a stunned Tracer. From its body language it was clear that she need only put one toe out of line to get a bullet in her head. She knew better than to refuse when her battery was still recharging and raised her hands.
"Cheers love?"
Unamused, the giant smacked the side of her head with its armoured fist. The last words she heard before falling unconscious were from the giant itself.
"Brother Varneus to Command, inform the Inquisitor that this planet has been corrupted by Chaos. Emperor protect us."
Brother-Librarian Gorian regarded the sleeping mortal with curiosity and no small amount of puzzlement. This woman that Battle-Brother Varneus had recovered was not a Chaos worshipper, her skin and psychic aura unblemished by any stain of corruption. She certainly wasn't a native to this planet; she looked too healthy to have survived an Imperial Crusade. She wore no uniform he could recognise, so a deserter from one of the Imperial Guard regiments assigned to cleanse Freudor VI was unlikely. He turned to Captain Borealar.
"What do you think, Brother-Captain?"
Borealar gritted his teeth and held his silence. Gorian knew better than to rush him. Captain Borealar had earned much renown amongst the Relictors for his cool head, and his well-thought out decisions that had more than once saved Astarte lives. Finally, he spoke.
"She could be one of the Inquisitor's agents, sent to claim the relic before us."
Gorian mulled the implications of such an eventuality.
"It would absolve her from her promise of rehabilitating us."
His comrade snorted in derision at Gorian's mild tone.
"It would mean less witnesses, and a cleaner conscience. If an Inquisitor could fathom such a thing."
His Brother's hatred for the Ecclesiarchy and its various branches had not lessened over the years, and his distrust of the Inquisition had only grown since their Excommunication. If Gorian had been honest with himself he would have admitted an even greater hatred, but if he and his Brothers were to be welcomed back into the Imperium their antagonism would have to be put aside for the time being.
"Gorian, what can you glean from her?"
"It would be easier if she were awake. A conscious mind is less chaotic and possesses greater clarity than a sleeping one."
Borealar grunted. He motioned at Apothecary Dekvar who was ministering to her. Dekvar had saved many Astarte lives in his time, and had performed the Emperor's Peace too many times to count, but for all his expertise he was woefully underequipped to treat a mortal. Still, he tried his best.
"How long until she can wake?"
The Apothecary stood up, his white armour shining in the cold sunlight. Unlike most of his Battle-Brothers only his left shoulder plate bore his Chapters colours. The rest of his armour was painted white to mark him out as a healer as well as a warrior. Gorian bore a similar heraldry, but instead of white his armour bore the blue of a psyker.
"Although Brother Varneus was able to pierce the skin of her temple, he had managed to kept her skull intact, and in all other respects she seems healthy for a mortal. We can wait for her to wake naturally, or I can stimulate her senses now to bring her out of unconsciousness. If I do so however she will experience a notable pain in her head and may be less compliant."
Borealar grunted, whether in approval or in annoyance it was hard to tell.
"Wake her. We've lost enough time on this enigma, and the sooner we can return to our primary objective the better."
"Very well, Captain." Dekvar replied, before bending down to administer the Rite of Rousing.
Tracer could feel the pull of the abyss again. Ever since her first and final flight in the Slipstream she had always been in fear of it. Even when Winston had finally managed to keep her anchored in her present whenever she dashed forwards or backwards she could see it behind her, mocking her attempts to escape. It could penetrate her innermost thoughts, turning her dreams into nightmares. It was the emptiness of space, nothingness in its purest form, and she would taste her nanosecond in its cold embrace for the rest of her life.
Except this time, she heard whispers. She couldn't make out what they were saying, but even they were preferable to what was chasing her.
Silently she called out to them. I am here, she cried, and she felt the voices approach. They sounded inhuman, a chorus of chittering things that had never seen sunlight. Too late she realised her mistake. These things wouldn't help her; they wanted her. They rushed her, horrible deformed monstrosities of every stripe. They sported colours she had never seen, bent and changed into forms that hurt her eyes. Every time the horde of impossibilities screamed out it sent molten nails tearing through her sanity.
She felt their claws all across her body, and terrible pain coursed through her veins, trying to reach her brain. Before they could reach it a flame kindled there and began sweeping away the monsters from her. It burned, but she welcomed it as it purified her. Then it receded.
The monsters where still there, but they were cautious, and she had learnt what they were. She wouldn't be such easy prey next time. She felt herself hurtling away from her nightmare, and back into the waking world.
When she opened her eyes she feared that she hadn't left at all. Three huge behemoths glared at her with baleful red eyes, hands resting on various weapons. They were in a ruin of sorts, surrounded by tracks of dust that lead to more crumbling buildings. The blue one spoke first.
"We almost lost her, Captain. If I hadn't intervened when I did…"
The grey one silenced him with a wave.
"If she had died we'd have to ask the Inquisitor for the reason of this betrayal, not her lapdog. Now, do what you need to do."
He left the room they were in, accompanied by the white one. The blue one watched them go, before turning back to her. He removed his helmet, revealing an aquiline face framed by long black hair marred by a single scar that stretched from his bottom lip to his right cheek bone. Not an Omnic, then.
"I apologise for my Brother's behaviour. He has never learnt to forgive his enemies."
Panic filled her. What had she done to them to make her their enemy? She checked her anchor's battery; to her dismay it wasn't fully powered yet, so she couldn't rely on it to make an escape.
He had seen her eyes flicker and followed her gaze down to the anchor that was strapped to her front. Even at low power it glowed dully.
"I am no Techmarine, but I know non-Imperial technology when I see it. Tell me, what does it do, and from which Xenos did you steal it from?"
She was about to ask him what he was talking about when she felt a steely grip on her mind, forcing her to answer truthfully.
"It's an anchor that keeps me from going forward and backwards in time at random. It also allows me a limited control of my own time travelling capabilities. Winston made it for me."
She hadn't meant to say that. Who was this person? What could he do?
She remembered the fire in her dream. Quickly, before he could force her to answer another question, she blurted out;
"You were the fire, right?"
He didn't move for a second, then he nodded.
"That was a very foolish thing you did there, especially for an unsanctioned psyker. Did your master never tell you about the dangers of the Warp?"
Again the steel forced her to answer, while stifling any response from her.
"I don't have a master."
This surprised the man. Again he asked her a question;
"What is your name?"
"Lena Oxton. Tracer works too."
"Where are you from?"
"The United Kingdom. Earth."
Gorian could barely suppress a spasm of shock across his face. He had little idea what this United Kingdom was, but he understood the last part clearly enough.
Earth.
Holy Terra!
He had some awareness that Terra's name was once Earth, before the Age of Strife. Not even the Emperor had lived that long.
He looked down at the machine tied to this Tracer. Could it be…
"What is the year?"
She looked puzzled at such a banal question, but immediately responded.
"2076."
Now he couldn't disguise his shock. He had expected at least twenty thousand years of disparity, but he hadn't expected her to be from a time before Warp travel. If memory served humans hadn't even left Terra to form permanent colonies on other planets yet.
Forgoing any pretence of civility, he plunged straight into her head. He heard Tracer cry out, but he was already inside. He saw images, feelings, people. Piece by piece he dismantled her mind and examined each fragment carefully, slowly gaining an understanding of the time she lived in. It was only when he tried to penetrate her innermost thoughts that he met resistance. For an unsanctioned psyker she was powerful, but he had learned everything he had needed and as quickly as he had come in he left.
Except something was blocking him. Try as he might he couldn't leave from the way he had entered. Quickly he understood what was happening; in his arrogance he hadn't thought that she might pull the same trick on him. Her method was crude, barely as efficient as his had been, but inexorably she was forcing her way through his barriers, and that she was learning about his time too. He ran in circles, probing every wall her mind had erected, desperate for a way out. He found one, but only after she had gleaned as much information from him as he did from her. He had never faced such a challenge before. It had been… Exhilarating.
When his mortal eyes snapped open again, he saw a halo of warp energy surrounding Tracer, so bright he could almost touch it. It was a beacon.
As soon as it was there it began dying down, back down to the level he had first saw it at.
He considered her. In her time, she had an accident in an ancient form of air travel made to travel through time, which granted her it's powers.
What if it's not time, he thought. What if what I just witnessed was the earliest form of Warp travel?
If his belief was correct, then before his eyes was the first human psyker in history, excluding the Emperor of course, mutated by her brief entry into Warp space. He knew that at that time the Warp had been calmer than in recent history, so it wasn't inconceivable that she'd have escaped the notice of the daemons. She still needed discipline in order to fully master her powers, the 'anchor' was proof of that, but what power!
Gorian realised that the Relictors' mission on this planet had just gotten even more complicated, complicated beyond his wildest dreams. He dearly wished Inquisitor Valeria was here to answer some questions.
Thirty-eight thousand years?
No matter how many times she tried to turn it around in her head, she couldn't make the number seem any smaller. Had it really happened
Thirty-eight thousand years?
And the Warp… What was that? Was it Hell? Was it another dimension? Were the four gods she saw the cause of all this chaos? And what was a psyker? Was she one too?
Thirty-eight thousand years?
Although she couldn't get any specifics, she saw what was happening in this time. It had devolved into a bloody conflict that spanned the entire galaxy. Human fought alien, saint fought daemon, brother killed brother. Entire worlds had become factories to fuel conflicts in other solar systems, while their populations were thrown into meat grinders in hope that it would clog up with their bodies. All the while these Space Marines walked battled against all kinds of enemies, both within and without, in a hopeless struggle to keep the last light of human civilisation from guttering out.
There was only war.
Thirty-eight thousand years!