A/N: Happy New Year's! It's still the same month, right? Before we proceed, in case I figure out the rest of what I'm going to write, I just want to say my headcanon version of what a bolter is. An Astartes Godwyn Mark Vb bolter (or boltgun) is a battle rifle that fires cased 0.75 caliber rounds of varying types from a thirty-round sickle magazine. The nasty recoil that comes from firing the average bolter comes from the charge that launches the bolt round out the barrel at the speed of a normal gun's muzzle velocity, and a booster rocket starts to burn after leaving the muzzle to accelerate the round until it smashes into some poor heretic's face, and then explodes after punching its way through armor. Heavy bolters do the same, but with a bigger 1.00 caliber round instead, and bolt pistols also do the same, but with more manageable recoil because of a shorter bolt round (less mass, smaller launch charge, less gibs, less 'ow my arm was just pulling the trigger where did it go'). Why did I put this (really long) explanation up here? I have no idea.

Areadbhair: Honestly, I was hesitant about writing out that chapter the way I did, because I wanted to make sure the Federation had at least a few elite mooks using generic elite mook equipment, who were capable of surviving a fair fight without looking like Mary Sues (the whole idea of traitor Space Marines is absolutely terrifying, and I tried to communicate that sense of unease through that chapter). Although I plan to make some small edits to that chapter, I would like to once again say thank you for your praise and your support, it's good to see that people approve of how I'm going about this.

I still don't own Warhammer 40K, it's all GW's stuff to raise prices on.

"GAK! Aaaaaaa..."

Bundled up in a fetal position, the voidsman shouted a string of curses that would be less than appropriate for inclusion in a non-erotic story meant for online viewing in a fanfiction repository. Not that they would appear in one. He took a breath, and managed to push his face and chest up from the floor.

"Emperor-damned machines..."

The tap of a metal foot against the side of his abdomen made the man's next words catch in his throat. His eyes widened, and he mouthed out a curse, trying and failing to curb his shivering.

"I-I meant no disrespect to - "

The rating looked up fearfully at the Techpriest, then let out the breath he'd been holding back.

"By the Golden Throne, you scared me. Was it too much trouble to give a warning first?"

"..."

The Mechanicus Adept offered a shiny mechadendrite to the human, who reached for it, but paused and took his hand away.

"What's with the quiet act today, Sokolov? You're not blabbing on and on about the Omnissiah like every other day. You all right?"

Sokolov tilted his metal skull, and his augmetic eyes seemed to glow with mirth as they peered at the navyman's face. The man scooted on the floor nervously, then shut his eyes, grabbed the hovering prosthetic, and yanked himself off the uncomfortably cold ground.

"Thanks."

Brushing off lint from his work pants, he noticed the dataslate in Sokolov's (mostly) flesh and blood hand was facing him, with large, bolded text on it.

++Huehuehue, seems like you got sp00ked. Check dis out m8, it'll get you praying to the 0mn1ss1ah in no time!++

"Uh huh. Sure."

The screen switched to what looked like a complete list of all the cargo their Overlord-class battlecruiser, Antithesis Of Faithlessness, was taking on at the docks. Plasma shells for the macrobatteries, food, fuel, spare replacement parts, and infantry wargear. Lots of infantry wargear. Sentinels, carapace armor, shotguns, Melta-weapons, and ammunition beyond what the crew could use. They didn't need that kind of firepower, unless -

++I c u've come to the same conclusion I have. Inqy camberlain is planning sometin big++

"Has anyone told you how bad your texting skills are, Sokolov? Because it's a disaster, and we both know that you're perfectly capable of speech. And how in the Warp did you get your hands on this? If the Inquisitor hasn't mentioned it yet, it probably wasn't just lying around for a menial like you to find."

'Menial' didn't get a rise out of Sokolov, but the insult to his writing style made his shoulders shake in a way that was suspiciously similar to laughter. He tapped away at the dataslate, then turned it back around.

++A priest never reveals his secrets. :)++

"I don't think that's how the saying goes."

With a flick of her wrist, a flaming sword almost decapitated him, and he grunted as it missed by a hair's length. His sword was held to the side, feeling no small amount of relief as it bounced off his broadsword with a clang. Feeling lucky enough to hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button on a Google (1), he threw a sharp riposte into her path, the best he could muster without his armor's strength boost. Damn woman was a hell of a lot faster than those Orks, and not predicting her movements seven steps ahead only got the crap beaten out of him. Like she wasn't already doing that. Halfway through his thrust she had switched her heading and was already running around his stretching arm, ready to absolutely ravage him from behind with her oversized weapon.

No wait, that sounded really bad – he spun on his back heel to make sure she didn't get behind him, the cooly glowing edges of his sword swinging at her midriff – but he really didn't have time to be watching for innuendos. He cursed as she ducked under the power sword, the red square on her head jumping down on his visor with it. He suddenly felt a crushing vice grip around his right hand, and suddenly he found himself looking up at her stern wrist twisted, but the Wosthuf-Templar series (2) blade only twirled in useless circles. Something said to use your skills to -

Conveniently, his blood had already frozen over like the surface of Europa, so his body didn't have to do it when he heard her sharp, angular face speak two words in that infuriatingly arrogant voice of hers.

"Too slow."

The burning sword met his suit's collar, which was designed to get in the way of shrapnel, stub rounds, and garrotes, and slipped straight past the ceramite strips with blinding speed. He felt it lightly jab his Adam's apple, and flinched, but succeeded in not faking a cough. More words were prominently displayed in the center of his visor, in light sky blue.

++Practice session aborted. Would you like to restart? Y/N++

++N++

++Closing++

As soon as he flipped up the virtual reality display from his visor, he felt the glowing plastic wand in her hand move away from his throat. He was also greeted with a very displeased scowl. What a surprise.

"Was that good enough for you, oh mighty Farseer?"

The scowl on her face grew even more, and he cheered over his small victory. Something whispered far away about how if you used your something to kill her you could something an even bigger vict -

"As I have stated previously, I am putting the least amount of my expertise into this simulation, mon-keigh Admiral, yet you have consistently failed to land a blow since the second round. Do you bear that toy of yours for display only, or what?"

Slowly rolling his eyes for most of her rant, he suddenly shifted around a little at the last statement. She had a way of bringing out insecurities he'd never known of.

"Uh - "

Fortunately she didn't seem to hear that mistake, as she continued her ranting. Killing her would end -

"I bless you with my presence and teaching, yet it appears that apprenticing you to Autarch Mellis would have been a better use of my limited time. We made a deal, and I expected even your graceless self to have the intelligence not to waste such an opportunity, mon-keigh Carson."

Wait, it seemed he had an opportunity here to score one for the Federation!

"Wow, you actually bothered to use my name instead of referring to me as a rank! It's a Christmas miracle! And in what kind of situation would I ever be fighting outside of my armor, Farseer?"

She shut him down immediately, a small smirk replacing her anger. Probably saying 'I told you humans are dumb.' somewhere in her head. Killing her would end the insults. You don't even need an actual weapon -

"There are plenty of methods by which you could be forced into the previous situation. Say, if an assassin attacked you in your sleep, or indeed any time you weren't wearing your armor, the context would be almost indistinguishable. And if the average mon-keigh Commissar can flail around with a pointy stick nearly as well as you do in your power armor, then you will be a very ineffective device for eliminating threats such as the fallen Losseainn."

Carson tamped down on his annoyance to ask the question that bugged him. Well, at least it was what Eva wanted, an interrogation.

"Fair point. But Los-sei-en? They're the 'Space Marines,' right? They're a threat to you people?"

For all her talk about being more 'cultured' and 'natural superiority,' the small growl that emanated from her was quite animalistic and rough. And that made her worthy of being kill -

"For once the mon-keigh is not completely wrong. I cannot teach you the definition of war, but one cycle, your childish little alliance will blunder its way into a meeting with their savage kind, and your ideas of superiority and invincibility will be shattered. For that is the way of this galaxy, endless war and endless loss. The idiot greenskins are the least of your problems, for while they can destroy, they cannot corrupt your weak wills from the inside like others can."

Well then. The sneer on her face had twitched, and he felt the arrogance drown under a wave of calmness. Carson broke the stare, checking out the racks of equipment in the training room. His muscles relaxed, as if a buzzing light in the room shut off, and he began to recollect his thoughts – had he seriously thought about killing her? Where the hell had that – her next words came out in a soft, almost maternal manner.

"And so we move on from this farce of swordplay to something you show slightly more potential in – what your counterparts in the galaxy have named 'witches' and 'psykers'."

The Navy commander returned his gaze to the woman above him, raising an eyebrow as she began to slowly glide back and forth in front of him.

"It is quite clear that you do not believe in the existence of possibilities beyond the rational, beyond what you can see with your eyes or augmetics. Therefore the irrational is only something to be studied, to be explained away in a sterile manner and forgotten from your short memories. But we both know what you fail to comprehend is precisely what occurred on that greenskin's ship, mon-keigh. Even with the strong barrier here, I could feel your disturbance of the Sha'eil thousands of kilometers away."

She could be a racist prick even without her emotions getting in the way. Yay, ingrained habits.

"What is the Sha'eil, your feeble mind asks? The Sha'eil is what the mon-keigh Imperium calls the Warp, a realm parallel to ours and filled with hostile... entities, for lack of a better term in this language you call Space English. And if I could see the exposure of your soul to that twisted hellscape, then the agents of the four gods must be drawn towards its fire like pilgrims to a shrine."

Carson leaned forward and raised his other eyebrow so that his disbelief was as clearly written on his face as it could be. The tattoo that flowed around her left eye twitched, breaking her mask of serenity.

"Oh, don't give me that look. Of all the things you took offense to, you question the existence of souls, the one Isha-damned thing you can see with your own eyes?"

Naval Security Officer Eva slid against the back of her chair and dropped one arm by her side as the other held up a clunky headset to her ear. She regretted being cheap and thinking that she wouldn't use the desk chair that often, because a few more credits would have bought her nice, cushy armrests in front of her security camera feeds -

Huh, level of corruption had spiked for a moment there. Below the threshold for Unreality activity, but just barely. Energy was fluctuating continuously, but not in any sort of a pattern. Still, it didn't do that before they got dumped here. She pulled up a keyboard and a third window on the holo-display, the title reading 'Top Secret Notes – DO NOT READ!1!'

++Reality being warped – eldar "farseer" subconscious unstable/undisciplined? External source; ie. 3rd party?++

Eva looked back at her camera feeds, unsure whether or not she should add their VR units' renders to her view, but moved her hand away from a pair of buttons. The Eldar would probably notice the milliseconds-long increase in latency even with the huge stick up her ass, and she was trying to keep the expensive Unity's Edge from ending up as a cloud of debris.

She cracked a smile when her 'boss' got beaten up again (for the fourth time in a row) by a woman skinnier than any under-dressed supermodels she'd ever seen in her life. Not that she looked at those sorts of online magazines and art repositories. That was for immature teenagers who worried too much about their body image, not her.

++Eldar are fast, extreme proficiency in melee, reliant on accurate strikes and movement speed equal to highly augmented humans to win. Actual combat likely 2 involve deployment of unreality energy, supplemented by ranged weaponry. Comparison below.++

It took a few seconds for the table to fill up with numbers, which expanded when she copy-pasted the stats for the average Army grunt next to it.

++Frequently takes time to insult human society, suspect god-complex; this may be a general eldar thing according to interviews with researchers recovered at the hybera incident.++

Hearing interesting things from her headset, her fingers began to type again.

++Appears extremely knowledgeable about what she is, alternatively may have extremely detailed delusions. Cannot confirm either of these hypothesis without more information. See attached vid recording for more detail.++

Grabbing the bottom of her seat and pulling it back to the desk, the covert operative steeled her body and mind to listen to the screeching voice of the Farseer for what could be a while. At multiple points, the Farseer seemed to stare at the cameras, like she knew she was being watched. Unlikely.

Several minutes later, Eva breathed a sigh of relief as she tapped the 'Stop' button and clicked 'Attach File' in the name of humanity.

++Uploading. . .++

"Watson, could you send off this message to my primary employer? No records, authorization 'Alpha-Oscar-Kilo'?"

She liked giving requests to Watson. It wasn't like it could deny human orders without some serious corruption. Not that she wasn't prepared for such a day.

"Yes ma'am, sending now."

She'd gathered lots of sensitive information about the major factions of the galaxy and its dangers without anyone getting killed or 'cleaned up' by a team from Control, and everyone was safe for the moment. It was all in a day's work.

"By the Dark Gods, and especially Tzeentch, no one gives me enough credit corrupting psykers from a dozen star systems away. Daemons think it's so easy to convince some unwitting Feudal World witch to turn away from the False Emperor, but do you ever hear them boasting about how they enlightened the well-educated, well-treated, non-degenerate psyker whom you hardly know anything about except that he was being protected by a pointy-ear?"

His assistant stood in the corner of the room, completely unconcerned by the sorcery surrounding him.

"No sir."

The man with Tzeentch's symbol proudly tattooed on his forehead made wild gestures with his arms, nearly knocking over the jar of souls on the altar. His assistant stayed calm.

"Exactly! All those idiots can do is gang up on the emo creeps hiding in the underhive of nowhere, not actually break reinforced mental barriers! They're useless when coerced, useless when offered a reward for their 'help', useless even when you bind them! Like, - "

A holo-pict flickered to life, showing the familiar face of a certain Slaaneshi sorcerer who was pushing back against something off-screen. Probably some slutty daemone – you can have one too if you join my master's sensational entourage – no miss, I'm not switching away from Tzeentch just because you offer the one thing he doesn't have.

" - Oh hello there, Xerxes. Everything all right?"

The cane in his hand felt warm, and the sorcerer prepared for a natural reaction to an incoming lie.

"I'm fine."

A burst of heat flared from his cane, which returned to its normal temperature afterwards. That was the lie? The things Tzeentch sent as Sanguinala gifts could vary in their usefulness.

"Listen, I need to ask you something. There's been rumblings of a new player in the Great Game, but as you know, the Gods have been less forthcoming about who they are than a Sister Of Battle told to let go of her flamer. I may have some information pertaining to the identity of this new faction, and your assistance with a plan could be very helpful. Your services will be paid for in souls of course, the number and qualities of which we can negotiate face to face."

Huh, this was interesting. On the one hand, Xerxes wasn't the type of Slaaneshi to backstab his allies without a really enticing reason, and he'd heard some stories that had him feeling the slightest edge of sympathy for his sometimes-rival sorcerer, but on the other hand Xerxes was a Slaaneshi. And around Slaaneshis, he'd go bankrupt from telling heretically adorably disgusting little Warp-scum 'no, I'm not going to swear allegiance to the Prince, but I'll buy some of your cookies.'

The mage ate into the last of his pintuple-chocolate-chip cookie, pushing around the plastek box as his hand searched through its innards for more of the snacks. He spent a few seconds frowning like he was deep in thought, frustration growing as he couldn't find where the last one was. He sighed, the assistant pulling up a possessed cogitator unit

"...Sure. What time would you like to schedule your appointment?"

Almost a hundred people sat under the towering ceiling of the semicircular meeting chamber, camera flashes going off intermittently and blanketing the room in light every so often. It all glittered off the perfectly unwrinkled navy blue dress pants and suit of one man sitting in the center of the room's rostrum, seven others beside him in various states of attention.

"Welcome to today's meeting of the Federation Delta Senate (3), ladies and gentlemen. Today, the Federation Delta Sector Council will lead a public discussion for the plan of action proposed by Governor Quizzly Abrams of Planet Emercia III, titled 'Semi-Active Isolationism'. He will present this plan in more detail, and the Ministry of Media would like to remind you all to save your questions until the presentation is over."

In the semi-circle of seats, a man with frazzled hair, a high forehead, and a dark gray suit stood up as the Senator pulled up a display into the air in front of him. Large broadcast cameras swiveled to meet his face.

"Thank you, Senator. Today I bring to you all the plan that our strategists across the entire sector came up with in case an event like this ever came to happen. We are in a situation where almost the entirety of the galaxy is in a continuous state of war and is xenophobic across the board. Contact with any local groups could result in an imminent and dire existential threat, which we may be unable to destroy even in our state of mobilization."

Silence. Good.

"Semi-Active Isolationism is a plan with three major points. One, we will not, for whatever reason, send any diplomatic entreaties to any locals which are not already aware of our existence. Considering the intelligence that our agencies have gathered in the course of their investigations, we may be able to stay off the radar of the major galactic powers here."

The Senator looked for and found a few encouraging nods and thoughtful faces, but the chamber was still quiet.

"Two, if any civilizations somehow make contact with us, as in sending a fleet into our space, our reaction will tailored on a case by case basis, with the worst case scenarios calling for complete destruction of the trespassing group. We will not accept any new member races from this galaxy, due to the inherent risks involved."

Murmurs ran through the journalists' section, the Senator hearing the words 'Eldar,' 'war hawks,' 'ruthless,' and more in the noise. A few of the representatives frowned, too. They still hadn't gotten over how their feelings had been hurt from the previous, private meeting. The Minuteman felt like shedding a tear for them, the pacifist from the Kamikaz system in particular.

"And three. We will actively fund and support the research and creation of a safe method for all our people to return home, and during the process will constantly check ourselves for any signs of infiltrators and diseases that don't belong in our homes. The end goal here is not to fix the world of all its troubles, because this isn't the Star Trek franchise, but to get home alive and intact."

++Engineer Remote Audio Recorder Device++

"All right, the room's clear of bugs."

"Confirmed. We are clear for business, Control."

"Thank you. Everyone heard the public announcement today from the Senate? The 'Semi-Active Isolationism' plan is the official course of action the Federation leadership will be taking?"

"Yes, we did. Seems Abrams forgot about the Eldar. Speaking of which, your assets are in contact with them everyday? And from their judgement, is that oracle of theirs shaping reality to what it wants the future to be, or is it calculating the odds of different outcomes and choosing the most likely one? Or, God forbid, is it actually capable of seeing the future?"

"Seeing the future."

"Well, that's good work, Agent, but can we get back on topic with the whole 'we are going to get home' thing? My opinion is, we can't go home. Even if the transport equipment that was lost was either salvageable or replicable, this galaxy has too many things which could contaminate the home plane."

"I second his opinion. Which begs the question, Commander. Who screwed up on overseeing Gateway Research's damned projects? I thought we owned half its shares, this should never have happened."

"Those who were responsible for letting such a massive disaster occur have been liquidated and put to better use, Agents. Let your Navy assets know that packing up and going home is not an option."

"The goods are all loaded on the ship now, Magos?"

The man and the half-man in his rust red garb looked around the bridge, both satisfied by the state of affairs on the brains of the mighty Antithesis Of Faithlessness, part-flesh servitors and humans in gold-embroidery and Imperial blue (4) rushing to and fro bathed in warm yellows the same intensity of candlelight.

"Yes, Inquisitor. Airlocks are sealed, the Machine Spirits are content. Our companion ships bear the same readiness-status as us."

The Inquisitor nodded.

"Enter the Warp."

Glossary Of Terms

(*1.) Google [goo-guh l]:

(Noun): The trademark of a galactic technology company specializing in Interweb communication software and hardware, as well as its original product, the Google Search Engine.

(Verb): To search the Interweb for information using the Google Search Engine.

(*2.) The Wusthof-Templar blade is a product line of military-grade power swords made by the Wusthof company. These models are double-sided, straight-blade weapons of varying lengths, with a power field generator hidden in the core of an mono-edged adamantium blade and a hilt with power supply and control switch. Expensive and difficult to create even in the Age Of Nanotech, its mileage has varied with the Federation Armed Forces, due to the training required to maintain and fight with a sword. In more recent years though, power swords like the Wusthof-Templar series have found use as badges of status and more practical uses against the increasing number of Swarm Fleets, where a weapon that doesn't require ammo and has further reach than a knife is extremely useful.

Vice Admiral Carson's preferred variant is the Templar-90, which has a ninety centimeter blade light enough to be held in a single hand, leaving the other hand free for a laspistol or plasma carbine. The majority of his training was with the assistance of a Navy-patterned HECSS suit.

(*3.) The Federation Delta Senate is a sector-level legislative unit composed of Delta Sector's System Representatives (or planetary governors if there is only a single inhabited planet in that system) and led by the FDSC. They usually meet at the capital world of Koruscant, with a list of other planets suitable for a Senate meeting as emergency options. Photography is allowed.

(*4.) Imperial blue appears to be navy blue.

A/N: Whew, sorry that took so long guys, I was not managing my much loved schoolwork very well, and I felt like I needed to slow down on this stuff. I hope I didn't leave anyone waiting for too long. If this chapter has pacing issues or is just not that well-written, leave a review and let me know, so I can purge the heresy.

I have put up a new, 40K related story called The War Will End, which will be a series of short stories focusing on an actual AU (not one where I'm making up some of the stuff as I go along, i.e this story) called The Nobledark Imperium, a project born out of the /tg/ board.

Will I be able to time-manage things properly, considering I basically left this story untouched for quite some time? I don't know, honestly, but I'm going to try my best.