Isha could feel the energy around the ship change, the ships faster than light had been activated, it was a strange thing really. By no means was it the warp but it had its own oddities, the feelings of depression ruled this realm and yet it was comfortable, almost welcoming, the few creatures living in this realm, felt the fragmented Emperors presence and as Isha let her nonexistent eyes see, she could swear they were way ing at him.
Yet the fragments simply ignored the creatures, she could see a distant golden star, the astronomican that the humans USD as a marker so as them to no become lost in the universe, it was strange considering that she wasn't able to see it before because of all of the warp storms.
Isha felt her eyes widen. "How many ships were missing?" She thought to herself, as she felt her connection to the flying snails who worked in repairing the fortress and immediately felt her blood run cold.
Over a hundred thousand ships varying in sizes had been given to the humans and each held the same kind of faster than light that the fortress was now using. Not only that but the machine spirit joyfully told her, that they had personally made sure that the humans had detailed explanation on how to both build and repair the gravely drives.
She had failed and now the Humans had the information she had wanted to give her children.
Slowly she began to realize something, there was whispering inside the ship and Isha found herself being forced to see with her lesser human senses, for her much more advanced ones rejected whatever power the whispers had.
Her mind began to drift into the main control bridge of the ship and she found the captain sleeping at the controls. No, he wasn't sleeping, he was forced into a trance, his mind forced to view and watch what was expected of him.
The human's mind was slowly shaping into what the fragmented Emperor wanted, yet at the same time the fragmented Emperor lacked the much-needed power to force his will onto the man, so he was forced to do it in this way.
Isha let her mind drift alongside the captains and she found herself standing within the man's dreams.
She witnessed a galaxy in war, as countless innocents called for salvation or at the very least help.
A golden star with countless smaller ones following it, a sword made of darkness and the captain himself standing before a giant who held a sword enveloped in warp fire.
Space marine's stood at both men's side, but where the giant held carriers that far surpassed basic Humans, the captain held nothing but mortals this side.
A wave of warp energy covered the dream and Isha found herself in an area she knew of all to well, the Webway, yet even this part of the dream scattered like if it had repositioned itself and the Humans, Emperor stood radiating his light overall human controlled worlds.
Isha felt herself wanting to scream as the black sword hid the aliens of the universe behind its shadow, keeping them safe from any hate of the humans or otherwise.
The dream shifted tone and Isha felt as if the dream had been changed simply to fit a different persons duty.
Men fought hellish wars against creatures that were all to familiar to her, their powerful suits of armor made them seem like giants to the men before them. Broken words with people who wept, were now rising to new glory.
Statues dedicated to great battles could be seen.
"One brights day on blacks night, no evil shall escape my sight." Isha heard the Emperor's voice as he spoke into the people mind.
The dream shifted to worlds swept in the madness of the warp and the people in the twisted, deformed and calling for anything to alleviate their pain or simply end it.
Them men holding swords made of light and shadows arrived hearing their calls for help, where they stood the land returned to its natural state and any deformity was undone. They charged at the tormenters of the crying people, before the dream shifted once again.
She watched, Humans in rooms so vast that they could easily be called cities, learn ways to bend the warp to their will, while at the same time cleansing it.
"There is no good thought evil, yet evil not be allowed to flourish. I am the wielder of the flame, protector of balance." Whispered the Emperor.
The dream clears to the many captains and people that had chosen to stay, simply because they had lost everything and had nowhere else to go, other than the fortress itself.
Isha watched entire families being formed and plenty of children being born. She watched as a smile crossed her face, only to have the dream shift once again.
"The night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death." The Emperor said.
Isha watched as entire fleets went to war desperately fighting to protect the fortress that held the crews love ones and the realm behind them. She watched as entire fleets were lost due to enemies so horrifying not even she could describe them.
Yet when all seemed lost the children left behind in the distant worlds had children of their own and took up their fallen fathers positions within the many ships.
Finally, the Emperor's eyes turned to her and Isha watched a star growing within the warp, one that waited patiently for something to happen. She watched as other fragments found one another and convinced growing their wisdom, power and knowledge as they did so.
A warning had clearly been given to her and unfortunately, she still wasn't strong enough to be able to do anything about it.
Right now her only real power was held within her womb, the hard shell within the fortress. Soon her children will be born and as they grew in number, they would worship her more and more growing her power in the process.
Unfortunately, she was reduced to finding and guiding her children souls to her and being forced to use seduction methods with the one man capable of doing any major change at the moment. A task far more difficult than she would have previously expected as more than one set of eyes were locked on him
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The blackness of space moved like being struck by a puddle, until blue energy formed a circle opening a gate for the fortress to pass thru. Immediately the shields of the fortress were impacted by the broken remnants of long dead space stations.
Immediately the many machines within the fortress began to work, they gathered whatever wreckage they could and began to quickly break down that which they deemed unsalvageable.
The many ships, machines and even whatever stations around them that were reachable began to be repaired and cleansed, unfortunately, the fortress found itself unable to move in any significant way, as in doing so would quickly drain the shields and leave the ship exposed to any enemy that might be hidden in this graveyard.
Jose slowly began to open his eyes, his head was spinning and it felt like if he had gotten incredibly drunk the night before. He noticed that the fortress had excited the gravity well, but had ended up in a type of junkyard.
He took a quick glance at the compass and found that the light he had been looking for was practically in front of the ship, the thing was it was still quite a distance from the fortress, it was the distance measure in space that the compass was using at the moment.
"They shall wear, the mightiest of armors. No illness will slow them. No injury will stop them.''
" These men that give themselves to me, in the uncaring darkness of space, I will form them and in the fires of war I will forge them."
"They will be strong in the face of fear, an impenetrable fortress against the madness of the universe. They will be my Space Marines." Jose said as he spoke in a trance, remembering every line, like if he had practiced it hundreds of times before.
Yet as he watched the many machines move the broken remnants of the ships that littered the space in front of the fortress, Jose couldn't help but see it all in a kind of strange beauty to it all. He went to one of the many monsters that really weren't showing much of anything and looked for a folder on it.
He stopped when he found it and pressed play, opera music began playing. Small specks of light moved large shadows from one side to another, every once in a while several lights light up annunciating the reawakening of a lost fortress or warship.
Slowly the specks of light began to grow and the ruins of whatever long lost kingdom that once was in this land banished, now reborn as his new servants. However, the great castles that floated in space only held the beauty that once was and nothing more, as they had only been made operational in the most basic of ways.
Any weaponry or surprise that the warships and the space stations might have, was largely lost and could only be replaced with the fortress own machinery.
Jose felt the fortress move like an infant that had just realized it knew how and began to do so in whatever way it could. Each move the fortress made seemed to resonate with the precise moment music struck a note, as if the fortress itself wanted to join its own song to the ones that already were and would be.
So as the fortress moved Jose came face to face with the spec of light he had been looking for, so without a sound or even a word the spec joined the two that were already connected with the fortress, it moved closer and closer its movements resembling someone that danced to the tune of the piano playing in the background, like if the sound of a piano playing seemed to guide it as it neared the fortress.
Yet Jose found it hard to care for any of this, as the fortress began to accelerate it needed to cool its engines fallible before it could enter the gravity well again, unfortunately, his arrival to this are of space didn't go completely unnoticed.
A fleet of hundreds of thousands of warships neared his location yet as they neared the fortress they simply parted before they rejoined in the formation they had, before the fortress had forced them to move out of its way.
Unbeknownst to Jose, however, a single scout was sent from the fleet to observe the fortresses actions and report to the fleet, if it was worth even trying contact with such a massive ship.
As Jose watched hoping that nothing else happened he found himself becoming bored, as the minutes became hours, silently he hoped for some kind of excitement and found himself cursing his luck, as his wish was granted.
The golden spheres of light began to envelop the fortress in their golden light, which spread into the shields of the fortress protecting both the space stations and the recently repaired spaceships.
Space itself seemed to be becoming or by the very least had some sort of goo floating around that seemed to stick to the fortress armor before it began to resolve it. Had it not bee .for the fragments golden light, the fortress would have been stuck in place.
"This was the reason, why they didn't fire and kept so close to each other. They were using each other a shields as help against, whatever this is." Jose said to himself, as he realized why the ships from earlier hadn't attacked him earlier