Chapter 5
UNKNOWN, Guli IV, Sub-Sector Fu, Galvas Sector, Segmentum Solar 0 567.998.M41
The silence that carried the leadership was unnerving…and unending.
Archmagos Takilr and Skitarii Alek were probably the only ones with an actual 'mission clock' and could tell what the time was. Not that they cared, they were having the time of their lives.
But the golden leader of the Adeptus Custodes had the benefit of experience. The Captain-General knew that they have travelled downward over forty-three minutes and twelve seconds. They should be well within the planetary crust, which did make him concerned; beneath the crust is magma.
But that seemed counter intuitive, for as deep as they went, it was still cool like a mild breeze.
The Adminstratum delegates, Marc and Gerald were busy arguing about how the hell no one knew about this place.
Colonel Machik was congratulating the two Corporals Milton and Jensen on a job well done. Cardinal Conive was willing to name them Saints of the Imperium right then and there.
Dayan and Drekk merely stood next to each other, frowns of their face quiet and unassuming.
Koth on the other hand stood way off side with her psyker associate, far away from the two corporals anxious that her side arm has been taken. Her transceivers has been lost due to interference, she was completely alone.
Koth's thoughs were interrupted from a sudden groan from her psyker. "Ma'am I feel…"
"What is it, Balor?" Koth did not even bother to look at him, for if she did the Inquisitor would have noticed that the psyker did not look well at all.
The psyker called Balor responded as aptly as he could; he collapsed on the moving platform, vomiting all over the Inquisitor's boots.
That drew the attention of the delegation.
"What is wrong?" The Captain-General asked.
"I don't know he just-" The Inquisitor's train of thought was lost as she shook whatever Balor had for lunch off her footwear.
"The Warp, I can feel it fading….ripping away…." Balor clutched his head in pain. "Ugh….so quiet…."
"I take it you have cosmic sensitivity?" Louison asked, worry on his face.
"Ugh…what…" Balor struggled to keep his food down.
"Are you a psychic Mister Balor?" Louison clarified.
"Yes… I feel…" Balor trailed off with another dose of 'technicolor yawn'…again all over Inquistor Koth's boots.
"You will be fine." Louison tried to reassure with a warm smile. "We are accessing the final layer of the Planetary Plating; the Negation Field. All forms of transmission, even telepathic are negated. You are being cut off from Immaterium. It will hurt, but once we pass the Negation Field and your link has been fully severed you will recover."
"Negation Field and Planetary Plating…" Takilr whispered, even with her mechanical monotone her excitement is obvious; those sounded like juicy new STC's if there ever was one.
"Where are you taking us?" Koth's eyes narrowed, what she would give right now for a laspistol.
"To the Central Stage." Louison shrugged. "As I said, it is best that you relay your intentions and information to Theatre Marshall Marquis."
"Who or what is Theatre Marshall Marquis?" The Captain-General turned away from the still ill Balor.
"He," the spectre emphasised, "is my commanding officer and the one in charge of the Guli Installations."
"And is he human or is he like….?"
"Me?" Louison shook his head. "No he is 100% flesh and blood."
The Captain-General frowned under his helmet. That left more questions than answers, what kind of man can control a ghost?
"We are approaching the Central Stage." Louison spoke suddenly. "The Negation Field has been passed. How do you feel Mister Balor?"
"I feel…" The psyker looked surprised. "I feel good….no…better even. There is nothing…just….I can't feel a thing."
"You also will be unable to use any of your abilities while in the Central Stage." Louison explained. "Once you return to the surface your abilities and connection to the Immaterium will return."
Balor looked somewhere between overjoyed, confused and horrified. That being said he looked like he needed a doctor with the amount of vomit over his robes.
"Welcome to the Central Stage." Louison gestured as the walls of the descending tunnel finally ceased.
Void.
Endless void.
All was dark, and the air while breathable felt…old. Apart from the descending platform which seemed to just be suspended in the dark there was nothing else. The two Tech-Priests switched on several lights emanating from their eyes and other mechandrites, but all they saw was further blackness.
The platform finally stopped, a mere dot in the abyss. The grumbling generators finally silenced and now they were stuck suspended in the vast nothingness.
"Please wait while I bring you to Theatre Marshall Marquis." Louison bowed slightly before his ghostly form vanished like smoke.
"It's not like we can go anywhere..." Corporal Jensen grumbled, at least that was before he was nudged in the ribs by the Colonel.
"It almost seems as if they hollowed the entire planet out…." Alek 'squeed'. "What kind of grand machines could do this?"
"Beats me Alek." Jensen snarked before sucking in a deep breath. "HELLO!"
….
….
….
Nothing.
No echo. No sound.
"Jensen, you have just been labelled a hero of the Imperium and a Saint." Colonel Machik growled. "Don't make me shoot you."
"Sorry Colonel." Jensen flustered. "You can't blame a guy for trying."
"We can and we will." Dayan glared daggers. "Sainthood be dammed. No offence, Cardinal."
"Silence." The Captain-General ordered; no one dared disobey. "Something approaches."
In the void a small object began to approach. It was silver and cylindrical; a pod. It approached in silence suspended by Machine God knows what.
The spectral form of Louison reappeared in the same place he vanished. "Theatre Marshall Marquis approaches."
The silver pod finally stopped right on the edge of the floating platform. Upon closer inspection it looked like a form of cryogenics chamber only much smaller and more sophisticated.
It opened without a hiss or a guff of air and revealed a man in uniform. No ice. No cold mist. Just a man sitting in what looked like a very comfortable bed.
His tunic was khaki white with a large royal blue garter ribhand sash running across his chest. A series of medals including one with a prominent emerald placed along the left side of his chest. The man's pants were pure lack with a distinctive blue line flanked by two thin golden lines running down both side
The man's eyes snapped open and got out the pod. His movements were strange, it was like he did not just spend the past twenty millennia in suspension. Although he appeared 'elderly' in his late sixties, early seventies he seemed to move with a quickness of someone half that age.
Strangely enough the first thing he did was pull out something from his attire, a thin cylindrical item the length of a hand; it looked like a Lho-Leaf Tube. Sure enough he unclasped the top and put a large brown cigar in his mouth, it seemed to light up of its own free will.
After taking a very long puff of his cigar and exhaled he finally seemed to remember where he was. "D'accord, Louison." The man called spoke, his voice flint with annoyance. "Qu'est-ce qui est si important que vous deviez me réveiller? Qui sont ces bête curieuses? Et pourquoi sont-ils dans mes installations?"
0o0o0o
"Something is wrong." A 'lieutenant' whispered to one of the deck officers; a Lieutenant-Commander. "Balor's gone dark."
"Meaning…" The 'Lieutenant-Commander' kept his voice down, careful not to draw the attention of Admiral Hurk. The admiral was a good man with a solid reputation for knowing his men; if he paid too close attention Hurk would realise he never served with the 'Lieutenant-Commander' nor the 'lieutenant' he was whispering with.
"It means that I have lost contact." The 'lieutenant' frowned. "The last thing he said was that they were descending down a platform…something about a ghost."
"Interesting…"
"Should we pull the plug?" The 'lieutenant' pushed. "I think our special surprise in the reactor storage may be required."
"How so?"
"We are a stranded here doing who knows what." The 'lieutenant' busied himself with paperwork disguising the need to take 'his' next does of polymorphine. "If word of this mission gets out it will be a sign of weakness to our enemies and to our own citizens. We have to contain this otherwise we risk everything."
"Sounds like you have it all figured out." The Lieutenant-Commander attended to his terminal with precision. "Why do you need me?"
"You are Vanus. The operation was assigned to you." The 'lieutenant' almost pushed his superior. "You have to act…if not now then soon."
"All true…" The 'Lieutenant-Commander' nodded. "But here is my counter; do you really want to try something with two members of the Adeptus Custodes on board?"
They both glanced up to see the golden clad warrior on the bridge, his height imposing and his weaponry intimidating. He was a masters of war, combat, assassination, deception and diplomacy with more experience than the Lieutenant-Commander would dare to guess.
Adeptus Custodes training was a secret known to only a few, but there were rumours amongst those in the Vanus Temple: part of that training involved exemplary service in all six temples of Officio Assassinorum. It would make sense; to prevent assassinations you would have to be one.
If that were the case, then this noble Custodian who only identified as Galen would probably know that such a mission would attract a lot of attention. But he could not possibly know whom they were…could he?
Almost on cue, the golden warrior turned his head ever so slightly…and his piercing green eyes met the 'Lieutenant-Commander' and 'lieutenant'.
Not a word was spoken, but everything between them was made perfectly clear.
He knew.
"Perhaps…" The 'lieutenant' gulped, "…we should wait until they return."
"Perhaps that would be best." The 'Lieutenant-Commander' agreed shooing away his subordinate.
The golden Custodian, his point made, returned to viewing the planet of Guli IV below, waiting for his brother in arms to return.
0o0o0o
Any conversation was immediately ground to a halt.
It appears that whatever the man called Theatre Marshall Marquis was speaking was an ancient Terran language, long since forgotten. Marquis looked a cross between annoyed and severely confused. "Que dit-il? Cela ne ressemble pas à l'anglais."
Louison replied in the long lost language. "Non, monsieur, il semble que ce soit une sorte d'hybride latin. Je l'ai analysé et le fichier est prêt pour votre integration" Louison concluded his explanation by gesturing to the side of his head.
In turn, the man called Marquis reached for the side of his head to reveal a thin line of circuitry along his scalp. Alek and Takilr nearly freaked in excitement. Marquis played with a few buttons before rapidly blinking for about ten seconds. Afterward the old man sighed and looked the Captain-General straight in the eye.
"Do you understand me now?" He grumbled.
"Yes." The Captain-General blinked in surprise. A multi-lingual translator, but he did not speak it before. Did he just download High and Low Gothic into his brain?
"Good." The man straightened. "I'm Theatre Marshall Bernard Marquis. Who are you and why are you here?"
Straight to the point, the Captain-General concluded that he liked this man. "I am the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes on Terra. We are conducting an expedition. We were looking for something to help us."
"Help you?" Marquis repeated the words. "Why could you not just send a message?"
"We….didn't know you were here." The golden warrior conceded.
"Didn't know?" Marquis remained sceptical. "If you did not know then you are not part of the U.I.M. Louison, why did you bring them down here? This is classified military property; you know this."
"Sir," Louison bowed slightly, "these are extenuating circumstances. They have been are only contact with Earth."
"Only contact?" Marquis raised a brow. "Communications damage? Did the radiation cause more damage than we anticipate?"
"No sir." Louison sounded grave. "Communication was severed on Earth's end."
"WHAT?!" Marquis choked. "When did this happen?!"
Louison winced at the man's verbal assault. "We lost contact with Earth, 163 years, 7 months, 4 days and 5 hours, 16 minutes and 37 seconds into our service."
"How am I just hearing about this now?!" Marquis fumed. "Louison what have you done?!"
"…" The spectre clammed up, the Captain-General suspected that Marquis was about the have a really bad day. The Theatre Marshall seemed to suspect this.
"Louison…what year is it?" There was a dangerous tone in those words.
"The year is 40,998." Louison withered with each passing word. "The Theatre has been in stasis for 19,284 years, 8 months, 1 week, 4 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes and 44 seconds."
Theatre Marshall Marquis looked torn.
On one hand, Marquis was a military man and he had a duty to maintain civility, discipline and respect lest he disgrace his uniform and those that wore it before him.
On the other, the urge to murder the spectre Louison with his bare hands looked overwhelming. Marquis' hands were shaking and there were two separate moments where he actually reached out to choke Louison.
But being a translucent ghost seemed to have his advantages. So inevitably duty won out.
"…Louison." Marquis glared daggers; in another life, he would have made a fine Commissar. "I shall discuss your court-martial later."
Louison looked pretty worried for a spirit, scared even. "But sir, please try to understand. My orders were-"
"Not another word Louison." Marquis turned away from the ghost to face his guests. "Get out of my sight." The spectre seemed crestfallen, but he reluctantly complied, he vanished once more.
Marquis seemed eerily quiet, thinking about things known only to him. "Sorry you had to see that. It was meant to be my last tour, we were meant to change out every two hundred years." Marquis muttered to no one in particular. "Twenty thousand years…Christ…."
"I assure you it is fine." The Captain-General kept his distance. "I should apologise, we never meant to cause pain."
"...you say you need help." The Marshall changed the subject. "What's happened?"
The Captain-General paused, he never expected to get this far in the expedition. How precisely could he give a military man who is clearly dealing with something painful a prompt explanation of the past twenty millennia?
Where do I start? The golden warrior thought, and then a thought came to him. "In in the grim dark future, there is only war…"
0o0o0o