The Ghoul Stars sat in the middle of a held breath.
The Ghoul Stars were a group a supernova stars that were clustered together. Debris fields of different Marine Chapters lay destroyed in the gravity wells. Ships that had holes blown into the side of them slowly but surely getting sucked into those stars that acted more like black holes then normal stars. Light bent odd around the edges of those stars, the darkness from the lack of the Astromanica and the plain blackness of space seemed so such deeper, deader, dangerous, then anywhere else.
Those stars that were gateways to hells that even the Warp and Chaos was weary of sat there, floated there, hung like it held no secretes.
The Flagship of the Imperium came to a stop next to the Flagships of the different Chapters that had dedicated their existence to guarding the Imperium from what lays in those stars.
The Chapter Master of the Nova Marines, Bardan Dovaro, stared at his Hailing Screen.
Lord Valoris was standing tall with his helmet off. His eyes were stern and serious and his words were still echoing in the space between them.
"Pardon, but think I miss heard you." The Chapter Master of The Carcharodons, Tyberos, said. "I believe I heard you say, 'Abandon the Ghouls Stars'."
Lord Valoris nodded. "It is the will of the God Emperor." The words held a finality to it that Bardan didn't like.
"Sir," Tyberos started again, the word 'sir' dripping from his lips in distain and tainted with the effect of making one feel stupid for dare uttering what he just heard. "We have lost any contact with Terra," Bardan held back a snort.
'Lost contact with Terra,' as if they ever had clear contact in the first place. As if they weren't just cast to these stars and then left. Like they were supplied readily, like they had different chapters that could replace them, like they weren't just left here and expected to hold line with nothing more then a rock and broken ships.
"I understand your concern, Chapter Master. But it is the will of the God Emperor that what is in the Ghoul Stars leave it."
Bardan spoken up then. "Sir, do you know why the God Emperor want the Ghoul Stars –" He struggled for his words. "– to empty? Not to question His will but surely there is a reason?" He added the last part hurriedly. Part of him wanted to look over his shoulder for an Inquisitor.
Lord Valoris narrowed his eyes. Clearly the questioning from the Chapter Masters were getting tedious to answer.
"Brothers," The third and last of the Chapter Masters who guarded the Ghoul Stars spoke up. "Peace. Lord Valoris does the High Lords of Terra understand what will occur if we step away from the cluster?" The Chapter Master of the Death Scepters, Megir Mitra, was a quiet man. Bound as he was to his own type of throne, he never left Occludus. In fact, other then a quick meeting when he became Chapter Master of the Nova Marines, Bardan had never seen him in person, expect now. His Hailing Screen was just a helmet of the Death Scepters and it was up for question on if it was actually his helmet or just one one that had been hanging around.
They were brothers, the three of them, the three chapters that held the Ghoul Stars at bay. Tyberos and Mitra may have been gene-seed brothers of Raven Guard but they had taken the Nova as one of them and he had did the same. And here they stood, all three of them, in front of the Lord-Commander of the Custodies. Questioning the Will of the Imperium.
"The High lords of Terra have no effect on this decision. In fact, no word of their will have been weighed against my words." The voice that spoke was different then Lord Valoris.
The Hailing Screen changed and shifted. Where once it was a screen the focused on only the golden visual of Lord Valoris – his captain's seat was what took up the frame. At the seat that was empty and then within a blink it wasn't. The form of a man, the height of an Astartes, dressed in red and black robes. He lounged in the seat like it was his own throne. Like all sense propriety and properness was lost. Bare feet and robes that fell in a way that fell in such a way that Bardan did not want to gaze upon him.
Lord Valoris, barely seen from the side of the frame, turned fast to the man. "My Lord." He took the knee, "I did not know who had graced us with your visual."
The man waved his hand, "Raise Valoris." The attention of the man turned to the Bardan and his brothers. "I understand you fear. The Ghoul Stars houses many things and two of those I need to be released."
"And who are you? A Magister?"
"Tyberos!" Bardan growled out, his eyes not leaving the newcomer to the debate of the Ghoul Stars.
The man smiled and leaned back in the Captain's chair.
"I am sorry Sir," Bardan said. "But my fellow speaks the truth. Who are you?" And how do you sit so unbothered in the Captain's chair?
The man grinned, and it was then that canines, sharper and more prominent then in baselines and more fit in line with the Astartes, were seen. He did not answer and Lord Valoris did not speak either.
It was Mitra who broke the silence. "What do you want to leave the Ghoul Stars? Lord, if you are who I think you are, I must ask – what must you free?"
The man locked eyes with Mitra. "You," he said. "Are a smart one. You've been the one to keep these two alive for how long?" He waved a hand at Bardan and Tyberos. The last part, the question, was not meant to be answered but it hung like a statement that both true and not covering the whole story.
The trio had guarded the Ghoul Stars so long with no one but each other's chapters to be relied on that they had to be self sufficient and to be able to render aid to the others. Whether that aid called for medical, cover fire, or simple double checking the radar scan with their own radar to make sure the readings were well. It did not matter. Mitra had saved them many times, but they had also saved him as well.
"Over ten thousand years ago, I placed two beings in those stars. They could not be killed by normal means and they could not be allowed to roam around. But –" The man was no longer looking at the Hailing Screen and now out the large bay windows that was at the front of the bridge. His eyes were clearly on the Stars, though his eyes were closed, they had been closed the whole time. "– due to the crimes of the Imperium, I believe it was time that I bring them out."
"Ten thousand years." Tyberos whispered.
"The Ghouls Stars is a prison?" Bardan hands twitched as he turned his head to where the Ghoul Stars sat on his starboard side. Wait – ten thousand years?
"My Lord, I did not know you had left the throne." Mitra spoke.
'My Lord?', slowly Bardan's head turned back to the Hailing Screen.
The man's eyes were still closed but there was a brow raised.
"There has not been announcement to go around. In fact, I was waiting for my sons to return to me before making a type of announcement. Though –" He turned to Bardan and Bardan froze. Being under the gaze of the God Emperor, even with His eyes closed, after questioning His will was nerve racking. "I must bring you news of your father."
"Father?" Bardan had not spoken to his father. He knew he was awake, he knew that he was on the Flagship of the Ultramarines, he knew of him. He had not seen his father. He had not his father. His father had not called his sons to his side, the Chapter Masters of all the chapters. He knew there were reasons: not enough time to do so, the logistics were great and swaths of territory would be left unprotected. But for all of that, he loved his father like all Astartes with their Primarchs, and yearned for the day he would get a Hailing from him.
The face of the God Emperor changed, it relaxed and took on a look of grief. Grief was a look that he knew well, all Astartes knew that look, but those like the Nova Marines that had death written into the Codex of their Chapter knew the look better then most.
"A week ago, the High Lords of Terra ordered the unjustified assassination of Roboute Guilliman. The assassination was successful." Bardan couldn't breath. "Roboute is gone."
Gone before Bardan could meet his father. Gone before the weight of a Primarch returned could settle on the shoulders of the Imperium. Gone before — anything really.
Bardan stepped away from the screen and looked over to his side. His brothers, not born of the Raven Guard, but the ones who wore blue looked back at him. The bridge was silent. The sounds of servitors, servo skulls, and hum of the ship faded into white noise.
He looked at the brother at his side. Vortes; a captain. He was on the runt side of things, small for an Astartes, and was nimble and quick of thought. His hands shook as he went from staring at the screen and the view of the Raven-born brothers and the God Emperor in the flesh.
"Father?" He mouthed. "Why?"
The words had no voice, just lips, but it was enough. It was enough to break his brothers at their stations.
Some brothers gasped, some brothers turned to one another – hugs being tight, as tight as surviving the unsurvivable – many just in their chairs, fell to the ground, and let silent tears fall from from unseeing eyes.
They had not met their father but that did not matter.
Tears fell with no shame.
"My Lord," Mitra said again, always the spoke person. "The High Lords of Terra. They – they turned heretic? Turned traitor?"
"Was it Chaos? Which one of The Four?" That was Tyberos. Trying to rationalize something that could not be. Ready to fight, ready to gave out justice, like candy that some of the saner Sisters of Battle give children that visit their churches. He was ready to go. Ready to rage. To fight. All he needed was the order. Just give him a target.
The Emperor sighed. "It would have been easier if it was Chaos. If I could blame one of The Four and then go hunt them down. Make Them pay with blood and more with excess for my son. But it wasn't. Just a man's bruised pride and power being threatened."
That was what killed his father.
No Xeno of unbelievable power.
It was one thing, Bardan thought, if he was killed by one the Fallen Primarchs.
There was just something about that fate that was fitting. To die at the hands of brothers that had turned, that was something that he could see. A Primarch dying at the hands of a fellow Primarch was right. It had happened already and it was to be expected. Primarchs die only to other Primarchs.
Never to simple baseborn.
They died by the hands of brothers or by their own!
But that wasn't the truth was it?
His father – Roboute Guilliman, the Regent, the Last Son, the Breathing Primarch, the Hope of the Imperuim – was dead. Gone. Taken from his sons and the Imperuim that needed him.
Because of a man's bruised pride.
"The High Lords are no more." The God Emperor then turned to them. Sightless eyes gave a weight that it should not have, it gave him goose bumps across his arms and caused him to shiver. Cold air gently brushed against his cheeks as the tears dried. His skin was cold were the tears once were. "You are the first ones to know of this, baring the Thirteenth that were there when it happened. I am sorry to bring you this news."
"If I am to hear this news," Bardan clutched his chair. "I am glad that it could hear it from you."
"My Lord, what is going to be released?" Mitra asked. The only one of them that had any sense within them that the moment.
"The Commanders of the Second and Eleventh legions."
There was silence and it spoke louder then any words that could have uttered.
"The High Lords of Terra have committed a crime that had brought my rage. I have been wanting on my sons back under my care and this has just pushed up the timeline." There was a pause and the God Emperor settled differently in His Captain's Chair. And once again, Bardan averted his eyes from looking on Him. "My sons had turned to a Hive Mind. The Commanders were vital in the care and growth of the Hives –" He cut Himself off. "The Commanders will find their fathers and we will follow in their wake."
The God Emperor just nodded as He turned back to the Ghoul Stars. "Clear the area. The Commanders will come when there is no one to watch them."
As one, the three bowed their heads to their newly reawaken god.
What the God Emperor needed prisoners for was something only for Him to know.
And for everyone else to maybe find out if the God Emperor wills it.
They didn't leave the Ghoul Stars' system completely. They hung around on the edges, watching, waiting, wondering.
The Stars looked normal. Bright lights and the sense of dread that seem to fill the every space around them.
The Stars felt like the Warp if one were to travel through the Warp without any kind of barrier – a wall of power and strength that would not, could not fail – between you and the outside.
It was madness. It was whispers in your ear when all alone. It was stars that sat all alone in the emptiness of space.
Bardan watched. Tyberos watched. Mitra watched. They watched and waited and counted every second and every breath.
The Flagship of the Emperor did not leave the system. It pulled off to the side of the stars, ahead of them and their three ships, but close by.
The God Emperor had disappeared like the way He had appeared. There and then gone. Lord Valoris stayed behind and they waited.
Bardan was flipping through the long distance Vox lines that all ships had. His lines were Ultramarine made and were stronger when connecting to fellow Ultramarine ships. He was trying to get anything; broken up voices and words, maybe sounds of battle, screams of dead – Anything!
"Nothing?" Tyberos didn't need to ask the question for him to know the answer. It was written on Bardan's face.
Mitra was still on his Throne of Glass his mind and sight focused of the stars.
"Maybe we are too far?" The words left Bardan's lips but it was not something to believed. He did not live as long as he did, he did not become the Chapter Master, with beliefs like what he uttered. But he couldn't find it in himself to take the words back.
"Your brothers are smart." Tyberos said. "They'll be fine. The Emperor had already spoken on having punished the High Lords."
"Something is coming out." Mitra cut them off.
Bardan turned to the radar.
The radar showed nothing.
Vortes's breath had caught. "Brother – Brother, look out the bridge widow. Look out of it now."
Bardan was looking out the window before Vortes had finished the sentence.
There in front of them the Ghoul Stars glowed. The pale light that always graced the bridge and seeped into any window that faced it, that bask rooms in a glow that only a star could give. Pale and shining. Bright but not eye searing. Beautiful and if it wasn't the Ghoul stars that gave that light off, Bardan would spend his days and hours just sitting in it. But it was the Ghoul Stars and he had lost too many to look at that light with anything but hatred.
The light didn't brighten.
But a tiny little black speck appeared on the edges of it. It was slow moving and erratic in it's movements. Zig-zagging, darting forward before pulling back to the star, holding still then moving with great speed. Another dot, larger, and some kind ship started to follow the little one.
The engines of the Imperial Flagship that had been dormant and idle; soured to life. Bardan, Tyberos, and Mitra followed in suit.
His hand hovered over the ships inter-vox that would call everyone to man the guns.
The second ship was sailing right at the smaller one.
The best way it could be described was that the larger one seemed to be hunting the smaller one. The smaller one was dodging and moving and staying way from the larger one but the larger one was always on it's tail.
The smaller one slowed, engines either failing or it gave up the fight, and the larger one soon loomed over it.
For a moment, Bardan thought nothing would happen, but he was proven wrong.
The larger one came forward and the smaller one was being pulled into the gravity well of the larger. The fire came from the smaller one and there was a scream that was picked up by sensors.
A scream came from a ship.
Or what he thought was a ship.
The larger didn't stop what it was doing and Bardan and his men and his Raven Guard Brothers had to listen to the screams of a dying creature of some sort.
Larger then the larger one.
And most likely a friend of the smaller one seeing that the attacker was shot through multiple times as the smaller one made a clear get away. The Large One, now no longer the largest, fired back with engines flamed out and they fell back. The Newcomer turned it's attention to the first. The smaller didn't go to far, fire was still ravenaing it, the screams had died down to a whimper. There was an answering croon from the other ship and the Newcomer went to the smaller.
"I think – I think thats them." Tyberos stated.
"I believe so too." Mitra agreed.
The Newcomer was still and the Smaller one hid behind the larger haul.
There was no hailing and there was no more cries.
The Newcomer turned to the float wreck that was the Large One and went to it with great speed. The Larger fired all the guns that still worked and gave everything it had, but the Newcomer paid the gunfire no mind. It tanked the hits and just kept moving. When it came side-to-side? It opened. It opened like a cracked egg with jagged teeth and slime that was reflected the light of the Ghoul Stars dripped from teeth and into the void of space. A tongue, because what rolled out of that mouth had to be a tongue, wrapped around the ship that was still firing, still fighting, was eaten whole.
The mouth closed and it looked like it never opened in the first place. There was no wreckage to even say there was a ship there much less one that was eaten.
The Newcomer turned away from the Ghoul Stars and with bow turned away from them; it and the Smaller One started to move.
Bardan turned to one of his officers. "Can you get me a close up on that hull?"
There was a moment of fingers were over consuls and before a live vid-pict was brought up. The officer zoomed in and there clear as day was an ancient battle ship with the 'II' brand on the side clear as day. There was other words but it was hard to make out. Age, rust, getting the best of the letters.
"Right behind it!" Tyberos called out.
Another made of the same build that carried the same ancientness, came out of the Ghoul Stars. The First Ship soon ended up between the two massive, ancient, ships. The number second ship bore was 'IX'.
They had to be the Commanders.
Bardan answered the hailing from the Emperor's Flagship, his eyes never leaving the ships that were slowly leaving the glow of the Ghoul Stars.
"Follow them!" The God Emperor ordered.
Bardan blushing at the sight of the Dark King in his robes and flashing his knees like a Victorian with ankles
Volaris: My Lord, maybe you should put on pants
The Dark King lounging in His red and black robes with wine in hand: No
Fulgrim: aggressively sharpening sword
Horus: Why are you sharpening your sword
Fulgrim: because our father is too pretty
Fulgrim: I have dealt with Slaanesh, I know lust! They have turned thier eyes to our father! -Aggressively sharpening more swords, Ferrus handing him more swords-
Thoughts: So here is the next part. I think it turned out really well. After this I will be jumping around in the timeline. So Primarchs will be seen before we see them get found. Also, I will be changing somthing around with how the 2 and 11 Primarchs fell to the hive. Im also going to be leaning away from tyranids but still keeping the Hive Mind things. There is the Rangdans so I think I will lean into them. Yeah, there is a lot I can do with the Rangdan.
And I said we would see Beau and Shamlock woops.
I wasn't expecting the Bardan POV but I am here for it.
@gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan @sleepyfan-blog
