Thousands of years ago, the remnants of the CFDF buried the thousands of ships they had brought with them into exile underneath the surface of Hydra Volantis. Cavernous hangers of mind blowing magnitude riddled the subsurface around the Panopticon, each one cradling the hull of a single starship against the ravages of time. The size of these ships varied from small gunboats a few dozen meters in length to gargantuan supercapital ships dozens of kilometers long.

Throughout this subterranean network, increasing levels of activity could be observed. Federation Navy personnel worked quickly to bring their unrivaled armada back into service – and prepare to bring the fight into space.

But reactivating any ship took time, this was especially the case with larger ships. With that in mind only the frigates and destroyers were being tended to. Docking capillaries connected to the ships were taxed to the limit as personnel and equipment were rapidly loaded into their shiny light grey hulls. Power conduits were locked into exterior drive core ports to accelerate the process of getting the ships up to readiness.

Aboard the heavy destroyer USM Fafnir Admiral Tarson Kerensky breathed a sigh of relief as the deck plates hummed beneath his standard issue deck shoes, and then went still; the telltale signal that the antimatter enriched solar fusion core had powered up, followed by the activation of the ship's internal gravitic stabilizers.

Being back on a ship again had done wonders for his mood, the somberness of Rapture City's CIC being replaced by the tense excitement of being on the command deck of a warship about to enter combat. The USM Fafnir was vastly smaller than the USM Ultimatum, the 35 kilometer long supercarrier that had carried his flag during the latter half of the Iron War, and the hectic post-war insurrections.

Like most modern heavy destroyers, the Fafnir possessed a sharp, angular profile, a bow riddled with sensor clusters, and multitudes of torpedo tubes and particle projector cannons, and lengthed in at 1.6 kilometers. The Fafnir was a variable geometry design, meaning it could convert it's physical configuration to a limited extent to better adapt to changes in the field of void combat. It's neutron lance cannons were mounted upon wing shaped struts which could fold against the hull for broadside attacks, or extend out and cant downward for frontal attacks.

The Fafnir's bridge was buried deep inside the heavily armored primary hull, close to the sickbay and stasis chambers. In times past the command deck would be mounted on the dorsal structure of a ship, but the Eldar Empire and their annoyingly precise weaponry had changed that after enough command crews had been deftly vaporized by pulsar lances. So instead of windows, a curving holoscreen dominated the forward portion of the CIC, presenting a spectacularly sharp picture of the outside surroundings; which for the moment were limited to the immense stasis hangar the ship had been interred in for the last fifteen-thousand years

"Admiral, shakedown processes on all primary and secondary systems are complete," the smooth voice of Adeline trilled as her avatar coalesced above a nearby holotank. The Ultimatum's shipboard AI had been moved over to the Fafnir at his request; Kerensky had worked with uncountable AI throughout his long and discordant career, but Adeline ranked as one of his favorites. As a C3 AI, Adeline was responsible for disseminating fleet wide tactical, logistic, and strategic information to him through the Abacus.

"And the rest of the task force?" He inquired.

"Nearly finished Admiral," she replied, "All that is really left to do is begin the Abacus uplink process."

"Start the countdown, three minutes," Tarson ordered, "Send word to Missile Command to standby for TAS support."


Senior Astropath, Milenus Afgar meditated in his private chamber, his brow furrowed in deep concentration as lines of sweat ran down his temples to be absorbed into the blindfold he wore over the vacant pits which once held his eyes. But he had long ago ceased to rely on such a primitive form of sight, as his current eyes were far more perceptive. Milenus beheld the boundaries of the Immaterium, an ever shifting plane of eldritch energies and beings of unknowable purpose. Milenus had spent most of his life using this very realm as a medium to broadcast messages to distant bastions of humanity.

The message he was currently concentrating upon was of great importance, even greater than the one reporting the arrival of a space hulk filled with barbaric xenos several planetary cycles ago. An unknown force had appeared out of nowhere, wielding incredible examples of technosorcery and employing the largest titans ever seen on record. This was an event that could have implications on the Imperium as a whole, whoever these unknowns were, the proper authorities needed to be alerted. He and four of his brother astropaths were linked together, pooling their efforts to pave a way to the telepathic relay on Kar Duniash, so that word of this discovery would reach as many ears as possible.

=The shoals of souls divide. Redirecting priority Alpha.= they intoned as one, their minds reaching out to the warp.

=On oceans of probability. Reclaiming address... 5382=GD481. Rejoice in His name.=

Milenus' concentration deepened further as the most important part of the process turned it's head. It was at this point that whether a message took months or weeks to reach it's destination could be determined. As this was probably the most important message he would ever send in his service to the Emperor, Milenus was motivated by faith and pride to ensure that it was also the most expedient.

=Tides of fate flow forwards. Beginning transmission. Praise the Emperor.=

Just as they were about to recite the report, a disruption in their unity occurred, One of his brothers, Helan Gorin, was suddenly rendered silent. The link to the warp fell apart. Anger immediately swelled in Milenus' breast, and he began cursing out loud. He immediately suspected that some clumsy blunt had intruded on Helan's meditation, disrupting his concentration. He cast his mind out, searching for the intruder. He found nothing. He couldn't even find Helan.

The others were just as perplexed. It was as if Helan had disappeared off the face of the planet. Milenus heart grew cold as fear gripped it. Had some malevolent entity in the warp reached out and taken his brother? Could daemons be involved? The warp had grown eerily calm, almost as if something was pushing it back. It was completely unnatural.

Rihanda Ixpay's mind abruptly vanished from the astropathic commune, and Milenus' fears were suddenly confirmed. Something was hunting them. Milenus got to his feet shakily, ignoring the pains of agony his frayed nerves sent him – a price of the ritual that made him as he was – he lurched over to the large lecturn at the side of his chamber and mashed down the security alert button built into it's face. Rather than the blare of alarms, followed by the security detatchment rushing in to escort him to safety, Milenus was left with only silence. The alarm had been disabled.

=Everyone. Leave your chambers and get to safety!= Milenus called out. Only two had acknowledged, Jondar Willis was conspicuously absent from the reply. In fact, his presence had vanished from the warp altogether, just like Helan and Rihanda.

There was no more room for logical thought, Milenus only knew he had to get away. Wrongness filled the air, and a sense of palpable doom hung upon the warp. His near-sense guided him as he staggered out of his chamber and into the circular hall, he sensed the last two remaining astropaths, Mirali Dann and Bronn Ladel, making their way to him from opposite ends. Relief touched his heart, knowing that he will soon not be alone.

=What is happening, master? Where are the others?= Mirali's panicked thoughts came to him, her very core screaming of overwhelming anxiety. Milenus didn't trust himself to answer without betraying his own sheer terror. He could only pray fervently to the Emperor for protection from the evil that was stalking him and his brethren.

=Master, where is our security detachment? They should be-= Bronn's voice was suddently rendered mute, as his mind was consumed by shadows. The thing that was stalking them was just a dozen meters away!

Milenus tore off in the opposite direction as fast as his rapidly numbing legs could carry him. Breath hitched in his chest as he struggled to cease hyperventilating, he reached out to Mirali, hoping to find solace in their connection, instead he was given a glimpse of the fate that awaited him. Mirali was held in the grip of shadows, her essence screaming in agony and horror as tendrils of pure darkness constricted her very being. He was made to witness her final moments, when her mind was finally obliterated by the overwhelming pressure. Nothing of her was left to pass on to the Emperor's side.

He backed away, incapable of breathing after what he had just seen. He was stopped by a strong armored hand closing upon his shoulder. Milenus' heart seized up in his breast, and his throat knotted as a curtain of endless noire, fell over his witch sight, and then closed around him. He convulsed violently as his mind was squeezed in a metaphysical vice of anti-psionic intent. It squeezed him tighter, and tighter. Milenus had enough self possession left to unleash one last primal scream of terror before his soul finally imploded.


Milenus' destroyer dropped the emaciated body, and gazed down at it apathetically. She then accessed the comm-link in her helmet.

"Serina-N6747 to Keeper, mission accomplished. All aberrations neutralized."

The reply came in a terse, emotionless voice, "Acknowledged, exfiltrate and rendezvous at extraction point. Keeper out."

Serina was joined by her, brother Null Operative Slade-N1258, she regarded him with a nod of her head, before he bent down and jabbed a long needle into Milenus' corpse, the body moments after flared blue, and burned up. Within seconds all that remained of the deceased astropath was a thin patch of carbon dust.

Codex: Ancients

Psykers and the Federation: Psychic mutation was first documented in humans around 342 M17, but did not receive much notice until several centuries later after the conclusion of hostilities between the Federation of Man and the Eldar Empire. Humanity's encounter with the psychic alien race had left the general populace and government highly distrustful of psionic powers. On some worlds psykers were allowed to explore their strange abilities in peace, on others they were hunted down by angry mobs or imprisoned and experimented upon.

With the rise of the Federation Enclave during and after the Iron War, a general policy for psykers was finally adopted: zero tolerance.

With the Eldar Empire self-destructing at the time, the human race got a front row seat to the ultimate fate of a warp sensitive species, and the detrimental effect they have upon the fabric of the Universe. Mankind's leaders feared that humanity was evolving into a psychic race, and a fall similar to the Eldar's was waiting in the far future. The final decision was made all the more easier by the wide spread instability being inflicted upon human psykers across Federation space by the upheaval in the warp.

Psykers around Federation territory were systematically eliminated, and work was being done to find a way to destroy the psychic gene for good. This act of genocide incensed liberal groups all over human space, and contributed to the brewing unrest that eventually turned into the massed insurrections that forced the Federation government to launch a desperate mission to preserve mankind's future.

Null Operative: The closest thing the Federation has to an Imperial Assassin, Null operatives are psychic blanks that have been adopted by the state, and trained by the Office of Strategic Intelligence's Special Warfare Division. Typically recruited at a young age, or occasionally as infants, they are rigorously indoctrinated to be obsessively obedient, and utterly without pity. They then receive intensive cybernetic and biochemical augmentations that elevate them to near super-human levels of ability.

Null Operatives serve a vital role in the Federation, namely killing psykers. The Federation has long abhorred psychic mutation as a destructive evolutionary path that could potentially lead humanity to ruin, and psykers are therefore considered Public Enemy No. 1. The Pariah's sent out to destroy these hapless psykers are often lionized as superheroes cleaning the unwanted gunk out of the gene pool. And there are some who consider psychic blanks to be the true face of mankind's gradual evolution. And plans have long been on the table for the development of colonies made specifically for blanks, to further proliferate the psi-disrupting gene.

Glossary

TAS- Terrestrial Anti Shipping- an acronym most often applied to refer to a planet's large scale groundside orbital defense weaponry.

CIC- Combat Information Center- The central command center on every military ship in the Federation Navy, most often located in the most secure section of a ship.

Shraphead- Derogatory/affectionate phrase referring to Marine personnel.

Supercapital- A general term applied to any military vessel exceeding 20km in length.

A/N: I realize my chapters may be perceived as annoyingly short, I will be trying a different format onwards.