A.N. I've got more of an idea where this is headed now.
El Historio - I actually read your Warhammer/Dragon Age crossover a few days before I thought of this. I think it was partly that which set me thinking of the consequences of Imperial time/dimension travel.
Chapter 1
The Lictor struggled franticly, letting loose a shrill roar. It was held in a high-gravity chamber, restrained by the oldest of forces. Its own mass acting against it, pressing it to the floor. The chamber was at the very tip of the ventral ridge, large adamantium bulkheads closed to space, also held down by the high gravity field, should the gravity generators loose power and the lector be unrestrained, the air pressure of the room was enough to draw open the bulkhead doors, venting all atmosphere. Through the armaglas window Inquisitor Tigurius Clavero watched, occasionally looking to the various holo-projectors, checking readings on the lictor's bodily functions.
The intraship com crackled to life and the ship's second in command, Commander Castor Mortimer announced; "All hands prepare for realspace translation."
As the inquisitor paused in his work he felt the slight pressure on his mind that signals warp travel diminish. He continued his work until he noticed something was lacking. Thinking further he realised that it was the dulled roars of the lictor, who up to then had been a rather vocal prisoner. Looking through the window once more he saw a surprising sight. The lictor was cowering on the floor and no longer trying to struggle. It made quiet whimpering noises, not unlike a wounded grox. While he was pondering this strange phenomena his personal commbead chirped in his ear, and the XO was heard again, this time sounding distinctly more worried.
"Inquisitor, please attend to the bridge immediately."
Sending a single click through his commbead to indicate he had received the message, Tigurius locked down the datafeeds from the lictor chamber and left the control room, followed as ever by his data-recorder cherub. Tilting his head in greeting to the Brother-Marine standing watch on the chamber he headed for one of the lift shafts running the height of the control tower.
The scene on the bridge moments earlier was far from the calm of the inquisitor's work area. As trusted crewmen and servitors moved around the grand theatre of the bridge, Ship Master Cissero Arnam issued the order to return to real space and Commander Mortimer leant over the vox-thief; "All hands prepare for realspace translation," as he turned back to his master Mortimer commented, "The warp currents have favoured us, we made excellent time."
"Indeed, we were not expected at Bakka for another week." was the reply from the Ship-Master, sitting wired into his command-throne. The bridge crew paused in their activities as the slight sensation of warp travel lessened.
As they should have been hailed the moment they translated into the system, and they hadn't, the ship-master sat up in his chair, saying, "Someone, confirm our location." There was a flurry of activity from one of the lower tiers of the bridge, and a sub-lieutenant reported back,
"My lord, the navigational logic engine is having trouble. It says some stars are not in the correct positions for where the majority of the stars say we should be."
"Navigator, what is your input?"
"The warp is… wrong. Calmer some how. Smooth. And I fear that I can no longer detect the Astronomican." Said the navigator, with a distinctly puzzled tone of voice.
Suddenly the communications officer interrupted the conversation, saying, "Sire, the astropathic choir are all experiencing massive brain haemorrhaging! We've lost eight of them already!"
"The inquisitor needs to be informed of this. Commander, bring this to his attention."
Once more Commander Mortimer leant over the vox-thief, "Inquisitor, please attend to the bridge immediately."
The Navigator's voice came over the vox again, "I would like the input of the brother-librarian, Ship-Master; perhaps he has knowledge that may aid my understanding of the strange nature of the Aether."
"Very well, commander, summon Codicier Raziel. Lieutenant, how are the last of the astropathic choir doing?"
The lieutenant responded immediately, "Sire, the last two have entered a deep comatose state." At this the Ship-master sighed, they were now in an unknown area of space, perhaps even beyond the halo stars, out of the reach of the Astronomican and without an astropathic choir to send a distress signal. The inquisitor was going to be far from pleased.
"So let me just get this clear in my mind. We're in unknown space, without astropaths, and our navigator can't navigate any more? Any one else have anything to contribute?" The inquisitor was taking it surprisingly well it seemed the Commander Mortimer. The senior officers and passengers were in the Ship-master parlour, a large nahlwood panelled room, beneath the bridge. Accessed by a lift behind the command throne, it was decorated in the high imperial style, with what looked like a large window on one wall. In actual fact it was a large pict-screen, which defaulted to a view of the Jovian shipyards where the Addo Perditio was first built, almost a millennium ago.
The large table in the centre of the room had carefully disguised holo-projectors built into the silver and gold filigree that twisted its way around the table, spiralling inwards to the large golden I in the centre of the table. In attendance was the Inquisitor himself, his cherub floating around behind him, to his left sat the ship-master, with Commander Mortimer standing at his shoulder, and opposite the inquisitor sat the head of the medicae deck, Sister Melitta Charmion, who was regarding the cherub with distaste. Cherubim are the most advanced of all servitors, a living body vat grown by the Adeptus Biologis, fitted with a small anti-grav unit and wings, cherubs are regarded as symbols of purity, however few know that the original cherubim were lobotomised children under the age of 6, and as such even the vat grown specimens are regarded with disgust by those that do know their origin. The cherub, noticing Sister Charmion responded as it's programming dictated, pouting at her and fluttering in a little circle. Cherubs are usually programmed to behave in a childlike manner, and are bound to their owners by a Mind Impulse Uplink device, allowing their owner to see what they see and issue orders over distances. The final filled seat was taken by Mortem Keth, representative of the Officio Assassinorum and skilled infocyte of Clade Vanus. Standing at one end of the table was Codicier Raziel, his power armour the dull black of the Deathwatch, save for the left arm, painted bright silver, and the right pauldron painted a light grey trim around a dark grey background, bearing the blue shield and white thunderbolt of the Storm Wardens, his psychic hood still the bright blue of a librarian, it's presence the only indicator of the other-worldly powers at his command.
The lift doors opened and everyone turned to acknowledge the arrivals, Brother-Sergeant Uller and Veteran Sergeant Ander Deniel, the brother-sergeant's armour much like the Cidicier's but for the lack of a psychic hood and the right pauldron being green trimmed with a metallic blue background and a white drake's head upon it, the heraldry of the Salamanders. Veteran Sergeant Deniel was a much less imposing figure in comparison to the 7 foot tall space marine, being just shy of 6 foot and wearing black fatigues with a red I on the left breast rather than the suit of servo-assisted power armour. At their arrival the last member of the meeting appeared on the pict-screen, the augmetic eyes of Tech-marine Lesnar glaring down at the table from the large screen, his tentacle like mechandrites repairing some form of power conduit. The Librarian cleared his throat, indicating his wish to speak first.
"Inquisitor, I can confirm the navigator's observation that the warp is indeed far calmer than I have ever seen it, and the presence of the dark gods seems greatly lessened. I must also say that the shadow of Hive Fleet Jormungandr is lacking. I attempted the Emperor's Tarot," The librarian paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, but he had always harboured a sense for the dramatic, "and they did not respond. As the cards are psyco-actively attuned to the Emperor, I can only guess that we are too far from Holy Terra for His Will to reach us. This phenomena has never before been known, ships have been reportedly lost in the halo stars and followed the Emperor's tarot back to the light of the astronomican. I was unsure what conclusion to draw from this."
As the librarian finished his report, Sister Charmion hummed in a thoughtful manner, "Perhaps here may lay the reason for the distress to our astropaths? They are soul-bound to Him on Earth, and if they are beyond even the slightest presence of Him, it could effectively cause sudden hypertension within their blood vessels, causing the cerebrovascular symptoms seen."
At this the inquisitor leaned forwards slightly, the cherub cocking its head to one side and putting on a thoughtful expression. After a short pause the inquisitor said; "That seems a valid explanation, though it does present us with another quandary, the logic engines say we are in all probability somewhere near the ghoul stars, though there is some uncertainty due to the spectrum of emissions of identifiable stars being slightly different from what the engine predicted. There are also several altogether new star systems, which is odd, considering they are the ones nearest supernova. I shall leave it to Tech-Marine Lesnar to explain his thoughts on the subject."
"Thank you Inquisitor. I believe the only logical explanation to be that we have travelled to an unknown time in the past. We must be careful, if this is during the Dark Age of Technology then though this is a huge opportunity to acquire lost STCs, we should not overly influence events. If we change things then for all we know, we may ultimately cause the destruction of humanity."
Though the several previous speakers had been using too arcane terms for him to fathom, the Tech-Marine was speaking sense to commander Mortimer. "I have heard certain theories on time-travel," said Mortimer, neglecting to mention they were all from century old holo-dramas he had used to watch while studying as an officer-cadet, "and if what the tech-marine says is true then the slightest of action can have huge consequences, killing a single hab-rodent may lead to any one of our grandfathers not being born."
"Very… aptly put Commander," Ship-Master Cissero Arnam was never quite sure about his XO, he was a brilliant leader of men and always scored very highly on the counter-boarder exercises, but sometimes Arnam had the sneaking feeling that the Commander was not taking things as seriously as the situation demanded. However, all this talk of time-travel had set the Ship-Master thinking,
"So in all likelihood, it's not that we're beyond the Astronomican, but that the Astronomican has yet to exist?"
At this the Librarian nodded. "Yes, hence the reason for the Emperor's tarot not working. The cards are attuned to the Emperor as he is or was, or perhaps will be, as of M41. At the moment, whenever now is, he may still be hiding his true identity. Guiding humanity from the shadows."
"Well, enough theories, in our time there was much experimenting with using the warp to travel through time, and if the greatest minds of the Adeptus Astropathica, Navis Nobilite and Adeptus Mechanicum cannot manage it, I do not think we have much chance." As the inquisitor paused to let his words sink in his cherub flew over to the control panel for the holo-projector arrays and brought up a display of the long range auspex results.
"These are the long range auspex results, I think the best bet of finding out when exactly we are is to contact humanity. Unless they have yet to leave Terra, in which case there isn't much we can do. Now then, the augurs show a system just over 7 light years away, which shows signs of technology used to create a human-breathable atmosphere; I think that is our nearest hope. The navigator has informed me it will take us just under 2 days to reach it, as though the warp is calm, he has to be more focused due to navigating without the astronomican. He described it as being "Like driving a ground-car at night with very little light"; the destination is the largest moon of the 4th planet, a gas giant. We may have to make planetfall outside of the artificial atmosphere, due to there being some sort of energy reading, not dissimilar to a very, very large refractor shield. Sergeant Deniel, I want you and the rest of the Tigers to do extra void training, we don't want our first contact to embarrass us. Tech-Marine, we shall be taking the Stormraven, please see that it is fuelled and supplied by the time we reach the system. I think that concludes this meeting." As he finished the inquisitor nodded to those assembled and strode for the lift. His cherub dropped down to the table, skipped across the surface, then leapt into flight again, flying lazily after its master.
P.S. Anyone have an inkling where they're headed? It's in the Mass Effect universe.