Stationmaster Thompson, lord and sovereign of Station Dis by the will of the God-Emperor, the writ of the Administratum, and the fact nobody else was stupid enough to want the job, stood in one of his domain's many landing bays. He tried to keep his exhaustion and mounting dread from showing on his face, which had been prematurely aged by the rigours of duty. The last few years had been hard, and the last few weeks harder still.

As Stationmaster, he was responsible for the running of Station Dis, the only human installation in the eponymous system, apart from a handful of small mining installations in the asteroid belt. If not for the fact that the Dis system was the last star of the Torredon Subsector before the tumultuous Warp journey leading to Adumbria, it wouldn't exist, but it had served as a stopover port for tens of thousands of ships since its creation, providing repairs and resupply to the flow of merchantmen making the trip, along with the other services which always popped up in those kinds of places.

Unfortunately, that flow had completely dried up when Adumbria had been declared Perditia, leaving the Wayfarer-class space station's entire population (a little under ninety thousands strong according to the latest census) stranded there. Thankfully, the station's systems were still working as well as they ever did, and the mining installations provided them with the fuel needed to keep them on, so water, air and power were still running.

Food, on the other hand, was starting to get dangerously scarce. If they weren't resupplied, then sooner or later the hydroponic gardens wouldn't be enough to feed everybody. Thompson would much prefer not to think about what would happen then, but unfortunately thinking about the worst-case scenarios was part of his Emperor-damned job.

Things had gotten even worse since the Laughing Fiend had paid them a visit some weeks ago. Thompson had been forced to let the bastard and his crew board the station, to do and take whatever they wanted : the station's defences simply couldn't stand up to the pirate lord's fleet. They were still counting the bodies and listing all the damage the vandals had done during their stop.

Then a couple of the pirate ships had returned, damaged and fleeing straight for the Mandeville Point as if all the devils of the Warp were on their heels. Thompson had been happy to see them humbled like that, but had worried about who might be responsible. And now, after several days of the astropaths going crazy and ranting about how 'he comes, bringing fire and judgment, the finder of the lost, the liberator of the forsaken, the beloved of the dark princess', a new fleet had appeared, led by the Worldwounder. Thompson had thought the Rogue Trader vessel destroyed by the pirates which chased it to Adumbria, but it seemed that wasn't what had happened. Instead, the Rogue Trader had contacted Thompson, and politely asked if she and her employer could come to the station to discuss certain matters of interest.

Of course, her politeness hadn't taken away the fact that she had a lot of guns at her disposal, so Thompson had done the smart thing and sent his agreement, phrased as politely as he could manage. He was curious to know who Van Yastobaal's employer could be : in his admittedly limited experience with Rogue Traders, they didn't surrender their independence lightly.

The gunship landed, its landing ramp came down, and Thompson heard several gasps from the security guards he'd brought with him. He couldn't blame them : none of them had ever seen a Space Marine, let alone two at once. But there was no doubt in his mind that the two giants in power armor were Space Marines.

Standing between two beautiful women, with a fellow in a crispy-clean suit and a tall, feminine figure wearing a suit of armor that clung tightly to her body, was a tall man wearing a uniform of black, gold and red, who smiled as he strode forward and shook Thompson's hand.

"Greetings, Stationmaster," the man declared. "I am Ciaphas Cain, Warmaster of the Protectorate. Thank you for welcoming us."

As if they had a choice, Thompson thought bitterly. Still, at least he was being polite about it, which was more than he'd expected, even if he couldn't help but wait for the other boot to drop.

Then, suddenly, he recognized the man's name, and his mind froze with terror as he realized the boot had already come down, he just hadn't seen it until it was about to squash him.

"I know who you are," he heard his own voice say. "Even here, we have heard about you. You are the Black Commissar, the one who led the rebellion on Slawkenberg."

"Black Commissar ?" Cain sighed, while the two women smiled, amused. "Really ? Is that the best the Munitorum's propaganda scribes could come up with ? It doesn't even mean anything : every Commissar wears black. It's part of the uniform."

That wasn't the response Thompson had expected, though to be fair it wasn't as if he'd met any arch-heretics before today.

"Anyway, let us finish the introductions before getting to business," Cain continued, pointing to each of his companions in turn. "This is Lady Krystabel, and this is Lady Areelu Van Yastobaal. Our tall friends over here are Hektor and Suture, and this is my aide Jurgen and my bodyguard Malicia."

"Charmed, I'm sure," said Thompson, who had managed to recover his wits, at least in part. The rest of him was still terrified by the thought of being face-to-face with a man who had led an entire world to rebellion and heresy, killed an Inquisitor in single combat, and – apparently – turned a Rogue Trader to his service. "I'm Stationmaster Thompson."

"Yes, Areelu told us about you and the great work you've been doing here." If Cain was being sarcastic, Thompson couldn't find any trace of it on his face. "Now, Stationmaster, I have a gift for you. During our engagement with the Bloodied Crown's fleet, we gained custody of a certain … individual. From what he told us when we interrogated him, I understand that he was responsible for a number of crimes against your people during his last visit to your station."

Cain snapped his fingers, and a pale figure, gagged and with his hands tied behind his back, was roughly pushed out of the transport by a soldier in crimson armor, before being made to stand in front of Thompson.

The Stationmaster recognized the bastard immediately, though his flamboyant clothing had been replaced by a simple prisoner's uniform. How could he not ? He remembered the feeling of powerlessness as that monster in human form did whatever he wanted on his station, murdering and torturing people while Thompson was forced to stay back, knowing the Murderous Jest could kill them all if its master so decided. He remembered what the sick whoreson had done to his daughter, once he'd tracked down where Thompson had hidden her while he did his best to mitigate the damage caused by Smile and his crew.

Before he even realized what he was doing, Thompson drew his gun – a simple, run-of-the-mill slug gun which had nonetheless served him faithfully since the start of his career – and shot the Laughing Fiend in the head. The bullet went through the pale skin, then the bone and brain underneath, before pinging against the crimson armor of the soldier standing behind Smile.

There was a moment of tense silence, as everyone's hands moved closer to their own weapons while those who had already been holding them raised them up, unsure where to point them. For a few seconds the sheer relief Thompson felt at the sight of Jeremiah's corpse slumping bonelessly to the floor was mixed with horror that he might just have doomed himself and everyone on Station Dis. Then Cain suddenly started clapping, catching everyone off-guard and defusing the tension.

"A decisive move to be sure, Stationmaster !" declared the arch-heretic, a smile on his face. When Thompson simply stared at him, he added : "I did say this wretch was a gift for you, didn't I ?"

Of course, Thompson realized. The man had been a Commissar, after all : obviously he wouldn't be fazed by a summary execution. And if there was one person in the entire galaxy who had deserved one, it had undoubtedly been Jeremiah Smile – or, at least, Thompson couldn't think of anyone else.

"I … Yes. You did. Sorry about the mess on your man's armor," Thompson replied lamely.

"Think nothing of it," Cain waved off his apology without concern. "Now, Stationmaster, I believe that the two of us can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. You have access to all manners of records from this station's operations as a spaceport; and we need all the information we can get on the situation in the Subsector. And we have holds full of supplies and technology you can scarcely imagine; while you, if my guess is correct, are in desperate need of some way to avoid mass starvation in the near future."

Thompson blinked.


Some time after the meeting aboard Station Dis, Areelu was back on Worldwounder, playing with her daughter in her room. By now, Lucia had completely recovered – at least physically. She still would need some time to process what had happened to her, but Areelu had faith in her daughter's strength, and she would be here for her every step of the way.

As the two of them sat among the toys the Rogue Trader had brought with her from their distant home, part of Areelu's mind couldn't help but consider what had happened earlier today. After Jeremiah Smile's well-deserved demise, they had moved to the office of Stationmaster Thompson to discuss Cain's proposal in more details.

Cain had offered the schematics for a device which could turn nearly any material into a paste containing all the nutrients the human body needed. The paste in question wasn't just tasteless like most Imperial rations : it was truly, appallingly vile (not that Areelu had tasted it herself, but Cain apparently had, and he had made no secret of it). The STC template from which it was constructed had incomplete : the borgs believed that the missing parts contained something supposed to turn the paste into something more fitting for the human palate.

Cain had actually apologized for that, nevermind that even a STC fragment was a prize the Mechanicus would go to war for. He'd promised that the Protectorate would bring more supplies to Dis as they made use of the Warp route and the station's facilities, not once saying out loud that this would effectively mean they'd taken over from the Imperium.

When Thompson had let it slip that his own daughter had gotten badly hurt during Smile's spree across the station, Cain had immediately offered him the use of the fleet's Panacea stores, both for his daughter and for anyone injured or sick. Of course, the stores could be replenished in a matter of days thanks to the Panacea production facilities on board the Protectorate ships.

The offer of getting his daughter back on her feet within a few days, without the need for extensive augmetic surgery which would otherwise be required given the description of her injuries, had been something no parent could possibly refuse. Cain'd known about the whole thing already from Smile's confession, of course, and had masterfully guided the conversation in order to use that nugget of information to completely crush any opposition Thompson might have had to his offer.

Areelu would have called it a masterful manipulation, except was it really manipulation when everything he'd said was the truth ? 'Illumination' was probably a better term.

Such generosity made sense when you thought about it. Cain lost nothing by ensuring the people of Station Dis didn't eventually starve to death : the technology he'd shared was useless to him as anything but an emergency back-up plan, and he still had it if things came to that. But to Stationmaster Thompson, it was priceless. The man, already in Cain's debt for giving him Jeremiah Smile, had been completely won over by the Warmaster's offer, regardless of what he'd heard about him before. He had given complete access to the station's cogitators to the borgs, and instructed his people to assist them in any way they could.

It was typical of Cain, really. He'd offer something you hadn't even dared to dream could exist as if it was the simplest thing in the galaxy, and ask for so little in return that the chains of debt forged by the exchange would strangle you forever … except they wouldn't, because from what she'd seen so far, Cain didn't care to pull on them. In a galaxy full of slaves and enslavers, the Liberator truly lived up to the name bestowed upon him by the first people he'd freed from bondage.

Now that her century-old promise had been fulfilled, Areelu had found herself adrift, unsure of what exactly she wanted to do now. Be there for her daughter, yes, obviously, and assist Cain in whatever way she could to pay back what she owed him, of course.

But how exactly could she best repay the Liberator ? She had wealth, even in the Van Yastobaal Dynasty's current diminished state, but Cain was the ruler of two worlds already, and was poised to add an entire Subsector to his Protectorate. She certainly wouldn't object to indulging in the pleasures of the flesh with him, but such a thing paled compared to what he'd already given her.

What, then ? Her knowledge, perhaps. In her quest for Lucia's salvation, Areelu had pursued all manner of forbidden knowledge. She had studied the Immaterium, and hadn't come to Torredon just in pursuit of profit fighting pirates : the Warp Storms wracking the Subsector had been a subject of interest to her as well. The daemons she'd summoned had been curiously cagey about their origins – she'd have called them fearful had they been mortal and not figments of the Empyrean.

Well, she had time. She was sure she'd find some way to pay the Warmaster back eventually. For now, she had more immediate things to take care of – like applauding her dear daughter's efforts to brew her tea using her play set.

Several hours later, when Lucia was asleep in her bed once more and Areelu was watching her daughter with a smile on her face she didn't bother hiding, there was a soft knock on the door.

"My Lady," whispered Suture when she opened it. Looking at him, no one would have thought him capable of making such little noise, and even Areelu was surprised at how quiet her bodyguard could be when he needed to. "Cain is calling for you. The scribes have gone through the records from the station; the strategy meeting is starting soon."

"Thank you, Suture. Let's not keep him waiting, then."


The war council of our little expedition met once more aboard the Fist of the Liberator. I would need to return to the Worldwounder before we returned to the Warp, but having this meeting aboard Areelu's ship would be undiplomatic. I didn't want the USA to have any reason to be angry at me, not when we were about to plunge into war.

The hololithic projection at the center of the table around which we all sat showed a slowly rotating map of the Torredon Subsector, edited by the borgs to include the latest intelligence we had acquired from the station's records. At the moment, we were in the Dis system, on the border between Torredon and Adumbria.

Deeper into the cluster of stars that made up the Gap was Torredon itself, the Subsector's capital, which housed a hive-world, several smaller agri-moons, and three gas giants crowned by numerous mining stations. As far as Areelu's and Thompson's information went, the capital had endured the departure of the Imperial Navy better than most of the Subsector's inhabited worlds, though its economy had plummeted with the collapse of the Subsector's trade network.

From Dis, there were two Warp routes we could take leading deeper into the Subsector. One led to the Sanguia system, which according to what Malicia had convinced Smile to share with us before Thompson had executed him, was currently the site of an ongoing conflict between the locals and another of the Bloodied Crown's directors, Wisent Balor, who held the delightful nickname of the Ripper General. The Sanguians were holding firm against the pirates – apparently, their world had been the target of xenos raids for generations, which had bred tough men and women from the survivors, as well as instilled a defiant mentality that the pirates were struggling to break.

Apart from Smile and Balor, there were four other directors in the Bloodied Crown. Valusios the Serpent was trying to start an uprising on the Subsector capital; Mitslav Sertanov was besieging an agri-world responsible for feeding several systems; Magos (not that any of us used that title out loud, as Tesilon-Kappa was in attendance) Negando was harrying the other cartels' fleets. As for Jereb Auric, who had sold the psykers Smile had used in his ill-fated attempt to stop Hektor's boarding action, nobody had any idea where his base of operation was located.

And then there was Tutha Jabbus, the Chairman of the shadow cartel. Smile had only guesses as to what the Bloodied Crown's corpulent leader was up to these days, and given that he was no doubt responding to the battle of Adumbria, these were useless anyway.

Sanguia was the obvious next step for a force ostensibly out to crush the Bloodied Crown and the other shadow cartels, a fact that the rest of the war council didn't miss. They were all suggesting we go there next, but I wasn't convinced. For one thing, I had no desire to face off against another pirate fleet. Especially one which must surely have been forewarned of the tactics used to defeat Smile by the survivors of the battle of Adumbria, and whose leader was of a more military mindset, compared to the Laughing Fiend's rule of terror.

For another, the second route led to the Cassandron system, named after its sole inhabited planet – a hive-world with a thriving population, which depended on food imports from an agri-world two systems over to survive; imports which had all but ceased with the Navy's departure and the cartels being given free reign over the shipping lanes.

Having been born and spent my early years in the underhive, I knew all too well how things would play out. Civilization would soon collapse, if it hadn't already, as hunger drove the masses to riot, cannibalism, and all manner of horrors. The spireborn nobles would try to hold up in the upper sections of the hives with their stores and private armies, but those would be overwhelmed by the billion-strong hungry hordes sooner or later. Within a year, there would be nothing left of Cassandron but empty mountains of iron and rockrete, haunted by vermin and isolated pockets of maddened survivors.

It had happened before, more times than anyone cared to count. Hive-worlds were always dependant on food imports, whether by sheer necessity or by design. The High Lords were wary of any Governor having as much power as control of a hive-world granted, and used this reliance on imports from nearby agri-worlds as a tool to prevent rebellion.

Although, given my own memories of pollution clouds blocking the skies and what I'd learned about agriculture on Slawkenberg, it was possible the High Lords were merely taking advantage of something made inevitable by the very nature of hive-worlds. Even the borgs would've been hard-pressed to develop food production on a hive-world.

Regardless, this whole thing had given me an idea.

"The people of Sanguia could certainly use our help," I admitted out loud, causing the discussion to stop as every eye in the room turned to me. "But they have been holding the line against the cartels for years. Meanwhile, the people of Cassandron are doomed to starvation if we do not go to their help. I know it isn't as glamorous or glorious a course of action as sailing to Sanguia to crush this so-called General, but we must look at the greater picture. Billions of lives are at stake here."

I could read the room well enough to know that, even if none were challenging me yet, they weren't completely convinced. Racking my brain for something, anything which would ensure I didn't end up facing a mutiny, I continued :

"In addition, starvation leads to despair, especially for those who watch their family die before their eyes, helpless to do anything to help them. And despair is one of the tools of Nurgle. We cannot allow an entire hive-world to fall to the Rotten One, not when we already need to deal with the shadow cartels, and not when preventing it is as easy as sharing our resources with them."

And just like that, I had them. My efforts to turn Slawkenberg's hatred away from the Emperor and unto the God of Decay were paying off : if there was one thing the Liberation Council enjoyed more than fighting the Imperium's tyranny, it was purging the taint of Nurgle from the galaxy.

As the discussion turned to how to handle the logistics of providing relief to an entire hive-world, I felt quietly happy with myself. Barring a miracle, we would still end up having to face Balor's forces sooner or later, but I was content to push back that confrontation as long as I could.

Besides, with any luck, the pirates would gather their forces in mass to respond to their defeat at Adumbria. There was a small chance that, if we faced the other directors one by one, we would crush them all as easily as Smile, but if they gathered their strength, then I might have an excuse to 'reluctantly' abandon this whole expedition in order to 'focus on the defence of the Protectorate', or something like that.

Hell, maybe the Protectorate fleet would even get its wings clipped in the process, diminishing the threat it posed to an Imperium that really seemed not to be doing too good in the greater Sector. It was unlikely, but by now so many of my attempts at weakening the rebellion had backfired that I was willing to gamble on it anyway. And so long as I was on Worldwounder, I was pretty sure I could survive any engagement : Areelu wouldn't let her ship be lost in battle, not when her newly returned daughter was still on board. If retreat became necessary, I could shift the responsibility squarely on her shoulders, preserving my own unearned reputation for suicidal bravery.

First, though, Cassandron, where we could help prevent the death by starvation of billions of the Emperor's subjects, which could only help my case once I ended up before the Golden Throne after my death and had to explain myself to its occupant. And if things turned hairy for one reason or another (by now, I was familiar enough with my own luck to know not to let my guard down), a hive-world was ground I was familiar with : if need be, I could 'get lost' in the maze that made up any respectable hive-city and only re-emerge once the shooting had stopped. Sure, I doubted I'd be able to lose Jurgen or Malicia, but neither of them were gossips anyway.

Of course, I had no idea of the perils that awaited me at Cassandron. Which was for the best, as otherwise I'd have charged into Sanguia even if it meant I had to duel the Ripper General myself with only a sharpened stick, the consequences of which for Torredon, the Damocles Gulf, and possibly the entire Segmentum, would have been dire indeed.


In the Realms of Chaos, the Daemon Princess known to mortals as Emeli watched her beloved as he ventured forth into the unknown with a smile on her lips and the song of their fallen enemies' agonized screams in her ears. It had taken a lot of work to adjust Karamazov's and Vileheart's voices to her liking, but she had managed it eventually, and their screams provided a nice background to relax to while she watched Ciaphas' latest adventures.

Dear Krystabel's jealousy of this Areelu he had found was adorable, but misplaced. Nothing and no one could come between Emeli and Ciaphas : their love was far too strong for that. Of course, if that Tzeentchian hussy dared to try, she would still need to be punished, but not too harshly. Ciaphas still needed her help, after all, and much to her displeasure, there was only so much Emeli could do to assist him in his current endeavours.

The Warp storms that wracked Torredon made it nigh-impossible for her kin to manifest fully, something which had intrigued her (as typically, such disturbances of the Immaterium made crossing the veil easier, not harder) until she had discovered the origins of the storms. Then, it had all made sense.

On the other clawed hand, the shadows which shrouded her beloved's destiny had only become harder to pierce in the years since they had first appeared – or, more accurately, since she had first noticed them. Emeli's ties to the Materium meant that she couldn't indulge in the true timelessness of the Empyrean, not without risking the severance of those ties, which was unacceptable. But even the likes of Gurug'ath couldn't see through the obfuscation : wherever her beloved walked, the future was obscured.

She liked to think that this was due to the radiance of his greatness, but was afraid that it might be something else, something which threatened the one she cherished above all else. There were many other powers in the Warp which may be envious of Ciaphas' glory, or seek to manipulate him to their own ends. Which was unacceptable. Nothing and no one could be allowed to interfere in her beloved's ascension, that he might join her in the Immaterium as her equal in eternity.

With direct intervention and scrying the future impossible, Emeli reluctantly turned her gaze away from Ciaphas' dashing figure, focusing away from the spiritual link which let her see through Krystabel's eyes whenever she so pleased. Instead, she looked upon Torredon's psychic landscape, searching for any piece of knowledge which might be worth passing on to her beloved through her Handmaidens.

Even through the storms, she could see the strings of so many intrigues, so many plots and factions, all mingling together. Torredon had been on a course for bloodshed and mayhem long before the rise of the Silent Ones had forced the Imperium to all but abandon it.

Though hidden behind walls and wards, a lightless radiance shone, transforming all those brought before it. In the shadows of Imperial glory, the enslaved and the forsaken suffered under the leash of cruel tyrants, whispering prayers for their own Liberation. In the cold void, the darkling souls of reavers – most of them mortal, but a handful, steeped in blood and terror, not – shone with joy and hunger as they plotted and schemed to take advantage of the situation.

And on Cassandron, where Ciaphas had so cleverly seen the threat of Nurglite resurgence, ancient covens made their own moves in response to the Subsector's upheaval.


AN : Go ahead and look up the Covens of Cassandron on the Lexicanum wiki. I will wait.

Did you find it ? Good.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH !

I regret nothing. This is going to be fun. So many opportunities for misunderstandings, so many different ways to make Cain suffer for comedic effect. I have so many ideas, I think Cassandron might turn out to be its own mini-arc. I have four pages of new lore and story beats.

To be clear, I've had that idea for a long time before I posted the crossover concept that's in the Apocrypha threadmark on SB.

Bit of a shorter chapter this time, on account of being mostly set-up. Oh, and Jeremiah Smile got shot, but he'd outlived his narrative usefulness, and did just spend several weeks in the care of a Drukhari Succubus, so he probably was hoping for death at this point in any case.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to your thoughts and suggestions. Check out the SB thread for more Omakes (and don't hesitate to try your hand at writing one, I always enjoy reading them) and the TVTropes page for this fic. I am especially fond of the "If the Emperor and Sons Watched Ciaphas Cain: WARMASTER OF CHAOS" series, which at the time of writing covers this fic's first eight chapters.

Next might be the return of A Young Girl's Weaponization of the Mythos, as the Muse seems to be growing impatient for more Eldritch Horror in the "found documents" format.

Zahariel out.