Prologue:
++ All mortal life is folly that which does not feed the spirit ++
It is a strange and dark place out in the Koronus Expanse.
Habitable worlds are few and far between, often orbiting dying stars past their prime, their fading energies no more than candle-flames against the unyielding eternal night. Out here, the iron rule of the Imperium of Man is a faint, fragile and only sometime thing. Beyond the light of the beacon of the Astronomicon, the fixed point of the God-Emperor of Mankind's immortal soul, it's rather all too easy for ships to get lost in the void.
The Expanse sits hidden beyond the edge of the Calixis Sector of Segmentum Obscurus, out in the far reaches of the Galactic North of Holy Terra, the seat of Humanity's power and authority over the galaxy as a whole, in the fringes of the outer spiral, the area of space know colloquially as the Halo Stars, a region steeped in superstition and myth.
Imperial forces patrol out here, on occasion, but the ships are few in number, with the majority of the fleets dealing with more pressing concerns closer to the Imperial core and the Eye of Terror. The navy is simply spread too thin, with it's enemies too many to watch over the vast distances that make up most of this unplumed region of space.
It's dark out there, on the farthest edge of the galactic spiral and ships disappear far more often than the Imperial authorities would like to admit. Most of these ships are never seen of or heard from again and no-one knows why, mostly because they don't ask.
What few colonized worlds there are do their best to be self-sufficient, but it is a bitter and often fruitless struggle, and even as they wait for imperial assistance and what few supplies that can be spared, they avert their gaze from the almost starless night sky and hope that their efforts remain unnoticed, though by what, they can never say.
Out here on the edge, crime flourishes and blossoms like Spring growth after heavy rains, far from the strict and unyielding imperial laws. Transgressions are commited that are as old as humanity itself and other more terrible atrocities, newly birthed by heretical sciences and beliefs take roots in dark, unseen places.
For a moment, it would seem that the Imperium's vast will has things under control.
Imperial forces drop unannounced out of the warp to enforce the God-Emperor's will with brutal, heavy-handed efficiency, scouring out-of-control worlds of all life with barrages of devastating weaponry, diving through space to throw back assailants and storming across corpse-littered battlefields to die in the millions in the name of victory.
They can't be everywhere at once, however.
With enemies pressing in on all fronts, every ship is called on, every man and woman is brought to battle, but every ship lost, every man or woman who dies, or Emperor protect us, turns to heresy, is one less to shoulder the ever-increasing burden of humanity's survival.
Out here where dying stars hold sway over scattered worlds and warp storms tear at the long night with dread energies, strange forces are at work in the Expanse, powerful, terrible, and immeasurably ancient.
It seems such a small thing now, but all it took to set the wheels of fate in motion was a chance and unfortunate meeting in the immense void between worlds, between two ships far beyond the reach of safe port, or support, between and old man and a child.