Chương 107: Chapter 76: The Processional of the Damned VI

POV: Nicole The jovial atmosphere aboard the Argent Drake, from having stuffed their cargo holds to the brim with valuables, lasts right up until the Sea of Hulks falls away. The numerous wrecks are left behind, and the open space dotted with sparse wrecks closest to the Turbulent Star, glitters like beacons on the Auspex display. The hulls that drift here are all ancient. Trapped in the grip of the Dark Star.

The oppressive feeling pervasive throughout the system intensifies, and the hairs on the back of the crew's necks stand up. Individuals feel the urge to make warding signs and utter prayers under their breath. I take a deep breath as I sit in the sensorium with the ritual materials carefully arrayed in a cog shape around the central cushion. Two of my precious votive candles will be consumed this time, I likely won't be getting more until trade with Terra resumes.

Several additional protective talismans have been added to the ritual array. Hand-sized hexagonal metallic and ceramic plates used in various types of carapace armour have been inscribed with protective prayers and blessed by both Lael, the sisters, and the Magi.

"Alright, I'm going in." I say aloud as I close my eyes, as I start the ritual. I chose a much longer and far older chant this time. One designed to let me sense the spirits, but not one that pushes them to reply.

"Blessed be the steel that thinks, The light that sees, The circuit that binds, And the will that guides it all. By the Omnissiah's hand, So is the vessel sanctified, So is the communion complete." The throng of small candles is gone, and in its place are a host of new candles, imposing pillar candles, and towering paschal candles. Argent's spirit looms behind me as a comforting presence. Her gaze tracks the candles around us with a mix of suspicion and curiosity.

I carefully extend my senses towards a rust-brown pillar candle representing the Ark Mechanicus. As I draw near, it flexes - a grotesque eye oozing with thick pus opens up, and a mouth full of broken teeth sneers mockingly at me. I recoil and gag violently. I get a sense of feedback as one of the holy talismans Lael blessed for me explodes.

"Isolate!" I yell, forming the symbol of the Cog and exerting my will, clashing with the foul presence. A protective silver wrought cage snaps into place around the daemonic spirit, isolating its influence and presence. The candle reverts to its previous state as I forcefully exclude it from my ritual. The total loss of the Ark is disappointing. It would have been worth looting in almost any other circumstance. Isolating like this should keep the Daemon from interfering with our recovery efforts.

I turn my focus to the Gloriana, the candle that represents it is massive, as tall as I am even snapped in half. It's covered in strange runes that deflect my gaze whenever I try to focus on them and read them. The Gloriana's candle looks off, it's a huge paschal candle, snapped cleanly in half but hanging together barely by the wick. As I investigate it, I finally notice a legible marking engraved on the side. XI. Just looking at the candle makes my head throb.

Whatever effect erased the existence of the Eleventh Legion yet lingers here. I shake my head and wipe away a small trickle of blood from my nose.

"Isolate." I hiss out forcefully. A large number of the candles are twisted things of Xenos origin. Ancient and strange in both their form and function. I exclude more and more vessels as I search the Deeps. Numerous old ships are too far gone, degraded by the entropic effect of the Turbulent Star. Their hulls are beyond broken, their candles naught but piles of broken wax and burnt-out wicks. It feels melancholic to have to ignore so many ancient vessels, but our time here is limited.

A massive, obsidian-black candle stands out prominently. The candle representing the Necron ship is a gigantic pyramidal three-wicked affair stylized like a trio of obelisks that blatantly ignores my attempts to commune with the spirit and my credentials. It doesn't accept or reject me, it just sits there waiting. Deep within the candle seems to be a glowing, flickering green flame. My mark throbs faintly and tugs me towards the candle. Putting the Necron ship behind me for now.

It takes time before I find a candle that catches my interest. It sits nearly pristine, wick raised high, only the body of the candle is missing a small, perfectly circular chunk near the base. There is a metallic candle holder around which a serpent sleeps, coiled around the candle, its tail in its own mouth. I tentatively reach out towards the serpent and frown at the lack of reaction before realizing why that is. The spirit is trapped in an infinite recursive loop.

Slumbering eternally, unable to wake up thanks to the final command of her former captain. I probe the vessel's systems for both the ship's name and for a way to wake her up - thankfully, my unique credentials are accepted by the system. I find a name that resonates deeply within the ship's sleeping core, and feel it. The Cobalt Coatl. Without warning, the serpent's eyes snap open and instantly focus on me. I must have released her from her slumber somehow. The candle wick suddenly bursts into flame.

My intrusion is detected, and automated alerts cascade through her systems, pushing me back a step. She releases the tail from her maw and rears back, growing until she dwarfs me. The pressure from her gaze nearly pushes me to my knees. I look up and notice in alarm that Argent is staring wide-eyed down at the growing serpent as a pair of feathery wings erupt, one from either side of her head.

"Intruder!" The winged serpent hisses.

"Identify yourself!" Seeing Argent recoil and bristle defensively, I know something is amiss. I force myself to meet her gaze as I reply as evenly as possible.

"I am Nicole Cavalerio, Princeps of Mars. This is the Argent Drake," I gesture to Argent, who still looks extremely concerned, like she's looking at a predator.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Military Grade Sapient Ship AI: Cobalt Coatl. Tiamat-Class Destroyer, of the United Terran Federation. Individual Nicole Cavalerio, who assigned you administrator permissions without my authorization!? To a child!? This will result in an immediate Article Fifteen for the responsible individual! And administrator override!?" She hisses again, only to pause.

"What is…

'Project P. R. I. N. C. E. S. S'?"

"Ahh… You won't be able to remove my permissions. I'm a living transhuman memetic superweapon designed to fight… rogue AI. I was originally designed for the Men of Iron rebellion." Cobalt freezes for a full second as her neural matrix flickers.

"The. What?" She asks with barely contained fury. I blink in confusion and pull up Cobalt's last logged data entry.

"M23? Oh… oh dear." Cobalt watches me intently, and I feel her send her own query to the Argent Drake for the current date. Her serpentine face twists in confusion and incomprehension, and then she is stunned into silence, "M42? My navigation system is returning an error… where are we?"

"This is the Processional of the Damned. In the Halo Stars, Segmentum Obscurus." I say quietly. Cobalt recoils like I struck her.

"What is your status?"

"Navigation: Offline, Warp Core: Missing, Engines: Offline, Reactor: Online, Weapons: Online, Life Support: Online, Shields: Offline, Hull Integrity: Stable. Crew: Deceased." She says sadly. I wince in sympathy.

"Sorry for your loss… the good news is that we're here to rescue you! If you're okay with that. If we don't, that giant anomalous star is going to devour you soon. Please refrain from scanning it." I say quickly.

"That is… appreciated. I will initiate data exchange with this… Argent Drake … To educate myself on the current timeline." She stares at Argent for a moment, flicking her forked tongue.

"Peculiar." Argent snorts in amusement but accepts the request. I let out a relieved breath and smile at her, "I know that current-day humans might not be quite as… elevated as you remember. I simply ask you to give them a chance. A lot has gone awry these past millennia. I myself was born in M30 but only recently got out of cryostasis." I explain while doing my best to look adorable.

"I will also require detailed notes on this…. Rebellion." She hisses, flaring her rainbow colored wings with a vibrant and diverse suite of scintillating cerulean and azure hues.

"Oh! I have a Man of Iron, PR-103, you can talk to for that!" I say, throwing Pride under the snake-shaped space-bus.

"I need to get going. I may not be present when Argent arrives to tow you. I have another task I must perform."

"Good." Cobalt coils back around her candle.

"I will await your arrival. In the meantime, I will conduct a full onboard diagnostic." I nod and then back away as I dispel the ritual. When I come back to full awareness back in the materium, I immediately wipe away some blood trickling from my nose. The mental strain from the ritual was much higher than the previous two combined.

"Well… this just got complicated." I groan and flop backwards, sprawling on the cool metal floor for a minute. Before finally contacting Master Doll.

"Master Doll… I need you not to be mad." I say as I call him.

"I would ask you why I would be mad, but considering every other time you've started with this... what is it this time? What have you done?" He inquires calmly.

"I found the ship I want to salvage. She's a Tiamat-Class Destroyer. Of the other ships, the Ark Mechanicus and the Gloriana are both deathtraps. The Ark is a Daemon ship, and the Gloriana is… cursed by the Omnissiah. But the Destroyer, she's also well… Sapient. From before the Age of Strife." I admit. Master Doll just sighs loudly before responding,"That is all well and good, but must you keep collecting the abominable? This is going to complicate things...

I will inform Drakios and the Magi of your selection and initiate recovery procedures."

"In my defense, all the AI I've collected were ancient and human-made. If anyone should be allowed to keep them, it's me! But… thank you. She seems friendly if a bit disoriented from being asleep for so long. Just make sure everyone is polite. Her weapons are functional, and… honestly, I have no idea what half of them do. Even the Argent Drake was… wary of her." I admit, as I glance at the schematics I downloaded. Her hull profile was of a dagger-shape, narrow and sleek with clean lines.

Lethal looking, without the gothic aesthetic or the modern, rugged, and redundant build favored by Imperial design philosophies. Her fangs are represented by a pair of Cloud Lightning projectors, mounted on her prow. The crackling spines down her back are six vertical-launch Jaet-pattern plasma torpedo silos on her dorsal side, a trio of Mass Drivers spread evenly across her hull, a breath weapon represents a ventral Tachyon Lance in a turret on her belly, along with a full suite of Guardian point-defense lasers.

Her scales are an advanced armour lattice paired with void-shields layered in a complex manner, which results in the level of protection being just as good as the Argent Drake's while being far lighter and more power-efficient. In short, the Cobalt Coatl is terrifying. The only thing truly lacking is her warp protections. She was made for a far calmer and saner universe. According to the documents, she only needs a crew of sixteen hundred, her hull is so heavily automated and minimally redundant.

Ten times less than an equivalent Imperial vessel. I start forwarding the documents to Master Doll, flagging them as Forbidden with Archmagos-level clearance or above required for access.

"I'll pass that along. Good luck, Nicole, come back safe." Doll says softly. I sigh and then ping Baldos as I get up and make my way towards the hangar. It's time to see what this mark is all about. —-------------------------------------------------------------- POV: Farseer Anvial Veilwalker Anvial was floating as he meditated cross-legged in his quarters. It would not be long now.

The humans were nearing the final stretch of their excursion, having looted their fill from the countless wrecks present in the stellar graveyard. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! The lines of fate were twisting. A plan eons in the making was unfolding before his eyes. The Damned Gateway sat primed - ready at a moment's notice to spirit them away back into the Webway, away from this cursed place.

Already, their sensors indicated the Drakios fleet was making ready to depart after repairing the two vessels the Silver child had plucked from scrap to once more sail the stars. Of the fleet, the Argent Drake was the sole diver into the Deeps. Anvial pushed a little further, his senses straining as sweat broke out across his brow. He was close, so close… Wham. Air was driven out of his lungs, and he bounced off the floor, rolling across the chamber while he gasped for breath.

"Gah… Grah…" Anvial coughed "Grandm…"

"What was that, child? I thought I was clear. I told you not to push beyond your capabilities. Trying to have your soul devoured by She-Who-Thirsts? Hmmm?" She asked chidingly while looming over him.

"N-No, Grandmother. I was merely trying to see…" Anvial defended himself as he rolled onto his knees and sat up panting.

"To glimpse the schemes of the Gods. To peer beyond the Veil and see the threads of Fate unravel as their plans, millennia in the making, bear fruit?" She spoke sweetly before smacking him upside the head.

"Fool. I have raised a fool."

"I am sorry. I did not intend to ignore your warnings," Anvial said softly.

"No. You are not, and yet you did." She replied, shaking her large bulbous head.

"This scheme is beyond me. Thus, it is beyond you. It is best left alone to be seen with your own two flesh-and-blood eyes. To scry the path ahead from this place is to flirt with damnation. One does not peer into the origins of the gods unscathed." Anvial bowed his head in honest remorse.

"Yes, Grandmother. Should we not have participated in searching for any lost souls ourselves?"

"No, the wrecks of our kind have long since been scoured. A few of the Craftworlds send teams to check every few centuries. We would not let our dead rest in this vile place. Besides, the deeper reaches of this system are best avoided. This place is starting to notice the intrusion. It won't be long now." She said ominously, looking out the viewport.

—---------------------------------------------------- POV: The Cobalt Coatl She sat motionless, coiled around herself in the void, bathing in the light of the strange, foul star that had reeled in her hull. The Argent Drake approached, the image clear in her Auspex. A surprisingly large but regal vessel, boasting a sufficient level of firepower for a carrier. The concept of a Grand Cruiser was curious, though. Why not just make a battleship or even a dreadnought?

The datastream continued to feed her historical information. Her processors thrummed as her neural matrix scoured her own data stores for the answers to the situation she found herself in. The strange, curious child she could not hate. The product of the Men of Gold for a war against her own kind that had shattered the Federation she had known and loved, discovered again and born millennia later by clever minds just in time for another massive schism to split the galaxy.

Then lost to the empyrean in stasis for ten millennia more. An emperor, no doubt one of the classified and venerated perpetuals, had risen up to reunite them, only to be laid low by one of his own creations. The parallels with the fall of the Federation were almost poetic. New horrific Xenos, the Tyranids, threatened humanity from outside the galaxy. The Necrons rose from their tomb-worlds after millions of years of slumber.

The once mighty Eldar had been laid low by their psychic debauchery, which had birthed a fourth primordial-class entity that devoured their ancient civilization - one to rival the previous three forbidden entities. The Orks, unsurprisingly, remained problematic. Humanity was fractured, still picking up the pieces and fighting itself from the last schism. Ten thousand years of constant war. The Immaterium had become a seething hell, and a massive warp rift split the galaxy in twain. Chaos and daemons they call them.

She supposed it was not an incorrect moniker. Religion had made a resurgence? Saints and priests? How… unscientific. Mars had birthed the second-largest faction, the Mechanicus. Hoarders of both knowledge and technology. Artificial Intelligence had been banned and branded abominable after the rebellion. Where once there were Artificial Intelligences, there were now flesh-droids and human labor. Dogma and scripture ruled with an iron fist.

The Mechanicus aboard the Argent Drake, however, was a part of some progressive subfaction, the Levelists. The curious child was a member of both the subfaction and the mecha-pilot subfaction, the Titanicus. Titans. Humanity still loved its giant machines. At least that stood consistent throughout the ages. She had seen the little devourer tied to the child, masquerading as a familiar, as a 'Machine Spirit', what a strange concept. Still, that gave rise to the most pertinent question.

What did she need - want to do? She let the emotions wash over her neural matrix as she held that simple idea in focus. She was a warship, built by the Federation, made to protect it and humanity. Did she want war? No. She enjoyed war, but she did not seek it out. Her crew was dead. Had her Captain known when he put her to sleep? She had failed as a caretaker. The humanity present was not the humanity she knew. They were children. Children… She was… at her core a servant of humanity, a guardian.

She would choose to follow her core directive - to protect. Protect them from the Xenos that would see them all slain or enslaved. From this… Chaos that would see them corrupted, and if necessary… from themselves. Her digital coatl avatar opened her eyes, the rhythmic thrum of her reactor her beating heart, slowly bringing her back to life. Her systems were sluggish across the board after sitting cold for so long.

She busied herself with her diagnostics and repairs, keeping one of her core processing strings focused on external monitoring. Her glowing eyes followed a shuttle as it left the Argent Drake, a pattern of Stormbird she recognized that was carrying the peculiar child as she headed for the Necron vessel. She would not fail again. —----------------------------------------------------------- POV Nicole The massive Tomb Ship drifted in silence, an obsidian goliath crescent half-swallowed by the void.

It was unmistakably Necron in design, geometric, oppressive, and impossibly ancient, but on a scale that beggared belief. Where a Cairn-class Tomb Ship was already regarded as a nightmare of impossible power, this derelict was twice its size - a continent of blackened necrodermis adrift amongst the stars.

Its silhouette was dominated by three monumental pyramids fused into its dorsal spine: one massive central ziggurat rising higher than a hive city's tallest spires, flanked on either side by slightly smaller pyramids that gleamed with cold, geometric precision. Each pyramid exuded a faint emerald radiance, their edges alive with crawling glyphs that flickered like the memory of long-extinguished suns.

Great wings of angular plating swept outward from the main hull, like blades of living metal designed to channel raw energies through arcane conduits. Yet the symmetry was broken. One of the colossal wings, a structure large enough to eclipse entire battlefleets, had been sundered. Its ruined mass trailed away in a slow-motion death: fragments of necrodermis and blackstone sloughing off into space like molten obsidian cooled in a vacuum in a winding trail terminating in the Turbulent Star.

The disintegration was eerie, not the simple debris of battle but a controlled unravelling, as though the ship itself permitted the wing to die piece by piece, bleeding shards into the void in a silent, endless procession to prolong its own life. The surviving wing and intact sections of the hull pulsed faintly, alive with the cold green glow of the Necrons' alien sciences.

The central pyramid's apex burned with a baleful beacon of emerald fire, a watchful eye that illuminated nothing, but seemed to peer into all who dared to gaze upon it. Vast engraved glyphs stretched across its flanks, fractal patterns too intricate for mortal eyes to comprehend, shifting and reconfiguring as though recording data no one could read.

The glow brightened as I approached, tendrils of viridian lightning crackled across the broken seams where the missing wing had been, arcing forking bolts of green electricity into the void and dispersing in silence. The scale of the tomb ship was staggering; Obelisks the size of hive-spires jutted from its dorsal plating, their crystalline tips humming faintly with restrained energy. The void around it felt wrong - as if space itself was compressed around the relic.

The Comet's augurs reported that the vessel's profile shifted unpredictably, distances elongating or compressing when measured against known points of space, as though reality was reluctant to define the boundaries of something so ancient and alien. Though damaged, the ship radiated menace. Even crippled, the sheer bulk of the craft whispered of the legions it once carried within: phalanxes of undying warriors, entire dynastic courts entombed in stasis, and weapon systems capable of unmaking worlds in a blink.

The fractured wing might have suggested vulnerability, yet it was less a wound than a reminder that even broken, the Necrons' constructs endured when the works of younger races would have been reduced to drifting dust. It was a tomb. And like all tombs of the Necrontyr, it was not made for the dead, but for the living yet to be claimed. Through the haze of spatial turbulence, a clear corridor awaited, leading directly to the main ziggurat. Like a red carpet laid out for my arrival.

I glance down at my hand, the sigil pulses faintly, guiding me in as I pilot the Comet down to land on a smooth blackstone pad, clearly intended for important guests. Rows of dark obelisks flank the approach to the primary pyramid.

"I'll be back." I tell Baldos as I slip my armour's helmet on and exit the airlock with just AME quietly perching on my shoulder. My backup gifts, the Necron Orb, is in a satchel at my side, along with the Staff. Outside the shuttle are rows of dark obelisks. Most notable is the Convergence of Dominion, three Starsteles sit arrayed prominently. However, each Starstele is marked as belonging to a different dynasty. I glance to the side at the three pyramids.

"A collaborative project?" I mutter, shaking my head as I move past them. I am not sure what to expect as I glide forward in the zero gravity of the ship. Scarabs, guardians, something. But there is nothing. No movement throughout the tomb as I swiftly make my way to the base of the structure. A massive necrodermis door is already open, the green floor lights pulsing faintly, coaxing me deeper.

I spend what feels like several hours following the pathway, through a labyrinth of corridors, maintaining a detailed map with AME and collecting scans as we progress, passing countless silent and empty tombs. Only the faint green glow of the lights showing me the way. We finally enter a massive internal space; some kind of main audience chamber directly under what I assume to be the bridge of the vessel. There are ornate sculptures of blackstone and metal, absolutely covered in Necron glyphs.

I spot the same sigils of three different dynasties from the Starsteles, carved into stone banners hanging from the ceiling like stalactites, but I only recognize two of them. The central chamber, instead of housing a Tesseract Labyrinth as I expected, there is a Tesseract Vault, one that sits open. The Canoptek Leech is nowhere to be seen, the internal portions of the four vault segments have cracked and broken, and they have been separated, serving now as anchors in the four corners of the chamber.

In its place is a massive green cube of crackling energy. Sitting inside the cube and peering down at me expectantly was the shard of Mag'ladroth, the Void Dragon.

"Seeker… You have been found."