Calculating time to impact…
Calculating time to impact…
The cogitator delights in tormenting Lev Ermak.
…time to impact…
Finally, it answers in uncaring block gothic lettering: Unknown.
Impact is assured, though it could be in a thousand years, or it could be tomorrow.
Lev has grown to resent gravity, its absence, and even more so its dreaded return. He knows everything, from a lofted ploin to his research station and the beautiful power it holds, all will eventually be subject to gravity’s intractable decree: that which rises, must fall.
He floats to the terminal, preparing the message he has sent so many times, hoping today he will not need to send it.
+Distress Call #267 Delta-Garmon- Station Purgatio Sporarum+
Station has suffered a critical accident.
Primary power and grav systems offline for 206 days.
Orbit in slow decay.
Catastrophic planetfall imminent.
Immediate assistance required from any servants of the Imperium…
…Servants of the Imperium…
Lev had seen two void battles in his life. He witnessed the eradication of Waaagh Gamma Draconis from the battle barge Fervent Wanderer. The ship, along with two sister barges, all of them the size of mountains, confronted an ork hulk the size of a continent.
He had read later that two hundred and nineteen million gigatonnes of munitions had been launched into the hulk.
Before the monstrosity could make planetfall, it was defeated, but all too late. As it finally cracked apart, it blanketed the atmosphere with orkite spores. When they hatched, the war on the ground cost the lives of four-fifths of the world’s population.
The second void engagement was merely a twinkling of stars. This far from the system core, that’s how the fleet battles around Beta-Garmon had appeared.
…Servants of the Imperium…
What future did those twinkling stars augur? Surely, the Warmaster couldn’t have made it to Terra…
The terminal’s window flickers on reserve battery. Without the station’s power core, he cannot adjust the telecoms array. He must wait for gravity to bring the station into an orbit where the stars align for him.
Correct position finally reached, the terminal activates. The signal is thready, but strong enough to show…
Nothing.
No responses.
One more day for gravity to exact its judgment.
He deletes the last sentence of his message.
I request immediate assistance from any human forces. This station holds vital information for humankind’s survival.
The signal ebbs, gravity closing its door again. He transmits.
When the power first failed, he slept at the very rim of the station. Hopeful that any moment, a gleaming dream of a starship would come drifting into view, to save him and his fragile, perfect creation. Now, he sleeps deep in the laboratory core. It’s comforting there, like the industrial womb that it is: the soft, hazy light of the grow-tubes, the constant pulse of trickling hydro-veins, the warm, pungent smell of multiplying life.
He sleeps fitfully for the next eight night cycles. For the first time, he swears he can hear the groan of the superstructure even deep in the core. Gravity draws near.
The next time he communicates, what greets him brings tears to his eyes. A face, a transhuman face, stares back at him from the terminal.
‘This is Master Hortion, Seventh Legion, Battlegroup Reprisal Dawn. Identify.’
Thankfulness and relief gush from his heart, and his words flood out far too fast.
‘Lev Ermak, Administratum Biologisticas. I require immediate assistance.’
‘State your emergency.’
Through the terminal, Lev feels frost hanging on the words.
‘The station’s lost power and is in an unstable orbit.’
‘You require extraction?’
‘No, the station must be saved, I need a grav restoration–’
The Astartes silences him with a raised gauntlet.
‘Aid will not come.’
‘But-‘
The Lord of the Fleet speaks again, a parent past concern attending to the petty grievance of a child. ‘We pursue the fleeing traitor. Every ship is vital, none can be spared.’
At this moment, Lev pines for gravity. He needs it so he can crawl into the cave of hopelessness opening beneath him. ‘My lord, this station has a vermillion level code.’
‘All codes are suspect. Twice I have sent ships to aid loyal calls only for them to be butchered by the oathbreakers.’
‘Lord, I hold knowledge vital to the success of the Imperium.’ He stresses the words assured now that the galaxy has selected for survival.
‘A reconnaissance in force would strip me of blades for the fight ahead.’
‘You must listen to me!’ Again, Lev begs for gravity to return, to give him a firm place to stand to confront this warrior king.
‘This station was charged to pursue knowledge by the Emperor himself.’
Even after this invocation of the Master of Mankind’s name, the Astartes’ face remains a locked fortress of uninterest.
‘My lord, this station contains a spore, a weapon that will end the Orks. A gene-fabricated parasite, it infects and re-hosts the Orkite spore during gestation. A single parasite could depopulate a world of Orks in mere weeks.’
Lev watches the grim visage of the incarnated battlement, searching for a crack to form, a sliver of hope to emerge. ‘My lord, it will end them. End them, forever.’
The Astartes seems to be cogitating his answer. ‘Perhaps you speak the truth, perhaps not, but I know this: the Imperium can no longer mould the stars. Now all it can do is lacquer them with the blood of its enemies.’
Gravity has abandoned Lev, and now sense and reason too have deserted him.
‘I will file your station’s coordinates for post-action assessment. The Emperor protects.’
The connection dies, terminated not by gravity, but by this servant of the Imperium.
Calculating time to impact…
The station rattles and wails, supplications to the cosmic god of gravity. Lev longs for the deity’s return, eager that all will eventually face its judgement—the station, the stars, the Imperium of Man, all of them in slow decay.
Time to Impact…
Time to Impact…
Time to Impact…
