Lampy Pictures

xenos ships was inbound.

‘It was just the vanguard,’ he whispered. For a moment he could only stare out at the void, and in response he could feel their presence somehow, a vast alien intelligence questing out to find him. He shook himself and reopened the vox.

‘Huber, we’ve got more xenos incoming, can you confirm?’

There was a pause, then, in a shaky voice, ‘Confirmed, shipmaster.’

‘We have to warn command,’ Olson said. ‘They’re going to overrun the whole system.’

‘But how, sir?’ Huber asked. ‘We can’t signal them, we’re too far out. And the warp…’ He trailed off, his voice filled with horror.

‘We’ve got no choice. We’ll have to take our chances.’

‘Through the warp, shipmaster?’ Huber asked, incredulously. ‘But the shadow… the Cicatrix Maledictum… the Navigators…’ He muttered a prayer of warding. ‘There are too many dangers. We’ll never make it.’

‘We’ll die if we stay here, and so will every other living soul in the system. What could be worse?’

Huber offered no reply, for which Olson was grateful. A great many things could be worse, but there was no merit in dwelling on the fact.

‘Midshipman, prepare the Atlas for warp travel,’ Olson ordered, regimenting his voice into the most authoritative tone he could muster. Then, to his own Tech-Magus, ‘Rouse the Navigator. Calculate coordinates for the jump.’

The shipmaster took one last look at the devastation before him. He imagined it writ large across the system, entire fleets and planets brought to dust. He could feel a scratching at the back of his mind, a whisper without words, an unfathomable menace just beyond the edge of comprehension.

‘Emperor guide us,’ he said, as the ship’s klaxons wailed and lumens began to flicker. The wailing of the Navigator over the vox was an unholy sound, and Olson made a warding sign with his hands as he took in the pale faces of his crew. Whatever horrors they had faced today were nothing compared to those that lay in the dread realm they were about to enter. But enter it they must.

+++

Sergeant Copeland tapped his driver on the shoulder and the vehicle shuddered to a stop.

‘Over there,’ Copeland said, pointing at the auspex screen. ‘Something… I can’t make it out. We’ll change course to investigate.

The caravan of Tauroxes filed across the white sands towards the black hulk on the horizon. As they drew nearer, Copeland peered through the viewslots. It was an Imperial frigate, mostly buried in the sand, with just one portion of its slanted bulkhead protruding from the dune. It had taken a great deal of damage, and strange bone-white husks clung to its hull like ticks in skin.

The Tauroxes drew to a halt beside the wreckage and Copeland disembarked.

‘With me,’ he said to the squadron of Imperial Guardsmen that piled out after him. ‘Proceed with caution. Emperor watch over us.’

They fell into formation, lasguns raised, approaching the ship slowly. Behind them, the other squadrons got out of their vehicles to fo