TFS: Chapter 47 — The Grim Darkness (Patreon)

The room felt smaller once Hathor and Aurelia had left. It was interesting the effect a primarch had on reality. We seemed to make wherever we were… matter more to the universe. Even if just a little bit.

It was barely noticeable until it was gone. And it made me wonder about the process of our creation. Primarchs were more than their incredible genetic enhancements.

Of course, the change was barely felt, and it was all the fault of the woman sitting in front of me with a little smile.

I could feel the power of the Empress from my seat. I resisted all of it, even now, but the moment she had gotten serious, I started to feel the pressure on the edges of my consciousness.

Is it her natural presence or was it a carefully constructed aura?

She caught my stare, and a smile curled at the edge of her lips.

Did she know what I was thinking?

“I do not need to read your mind,” she said suddenly. “I can read your face like an open book, Alexander. Learn to control your micro-expressions. Most humans could never perceive them, but your siblings and I… we will.”

I let out a soft snort. “Fair enough,” I said. “And where would you like to begin, Your Majesty? Perhaps your spying on my every action?”

Her gaze sharpened, but the warmth remained. “I could see much of what you have done,” she admitted, her voice calm but threaded with a subtle intensity. “Not everything, of course. But you have channeled vast amounts of power, and I can feel the ripples. It is difficult to hide from me entirely.” Her eyes softened ever so slightly. “You are a psyker, Alexander. I made two of the Primarchs such, and it required a piece of my own essence. That is why we share this… connection. I can sense when your mind stretches into the Warp, and even when it does not.”

I leaned back slightly. A connection, born of unimaginable power.

I could feel it too, a subtle thread, fragile yet unbreakable, stretching between us.

Then she asked the question I had been expecting since the moment I began speaking. “How do you know where the other Primarchs are? How did you know you would find Aurelia in Colchis? How do you know we will find one in Inwit?”

I did not answer immediately. Instead, I tilted my head slightly, studying her in turn, measuring how much she truly knew, how far her awareness of me extended beyond what she had created. “Did you know what I was when you made me?” I asked.

Her golden eyes flickered with recollection. For a moment, I thought she might deflect, or simply refuse. Then she nodded. “I took a soul from the Warp,” she said, her tone softening just a fraction. “One that was uncorrupted, untouched by the parasites that infest that realm. It was overlooked, ignored… yet strong enough to endure without dissolving.” A faint pause. “It was… fascinating.”

She did not know. That was the only explanation of everything. She had no idea that she had taken a soul with memories of another universe.

Or perhaps she was that good at pretending otherwise and manipulating me. That would always be a possibility. But I had already decided to give the Empress the benefit of doubt. And she had not disappointed me yet.

I decided to go with the truth.

“I hold memories,” I said, “memories of a life that is not this one. From before you reforged me into what I am now.” I drew a slow breath. “Among them are recollections of another universe, another path… one that resembles this, yet unfolded differently. In that universe, I saw where we fell. How we scattered, and what choices led to our fates.”

She tilted her head slightly, and I could feel the pressure of her attention increase. Her presence pressed against my thoughts.

It was like a predator looming over me.

She hummed thoughtfully. “I have known that other universes exist,” she said, her voice distant for a moment, as though she were reaching back through time. “The leading minds of the Terran Federation theorized them millennia ago… and some even proved aspects of the multiverse before the Cybernetic Rebellion.” Her gaze returned to me. “But I did not know there were divergent paths, or souls who traveled them.”

“I have no idea how my soul got where you found it. My first memories of this life begin in a pod, with you watching over me and my siblings.” I said.

She gave a little smile at that, but I could feel it in the air, boundless curiosity, and something shaper beneath it, perhaps doubt or distrust.

I would not judge her for it. For all she knew this was a gambit of the parasite of change.

“Tell me… how did this other path develop?”

I considered answering her plainly. I could have spoken of Horus, of betrayal, of parasites in the Warp and the long decay that followed. I could have reduced it to a sequence of events, a timeline, a list of causes and consequences.

But that would have been a lie in its own way.

To explain it in words would be to flatten it, to strip away the weight of it, the lives lived and lost, the moments where everything could have changed and did not. It was not a story of events, but of choices, of flaws, of inevitabilities that only seemed clear in hindsight.

I would not do it a disservice by condensing it into an explanation.

“It is better to show you than to explain,” I said at last.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Then show me.”

I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, then opened my mind.

This time, I did not hold back.

The vision did not begin with me. It expanded outward, unfolding like a great tapestry being cast into the void, threads of memory and possibility intertwining. I felt her presence at once, brushing against my thoughts, testing the edges, probing for resistance.

I did not resist.

I let her in.

Through that link, I opened everything to her.

The Primarchs, all male in that path, scattered across distant worlds, each shaped by their environment, their struggles, their triumphs. I let her see them not as names, but as beings, as forces of nature barely contained in flesh. The noble and the monstrous, the brilliant and the broken.

I let her feel it.

The Great Crusade surged forward, unstoppable, a tide of conquest that swept across the galaxy. Civilizations fell, some in defiance, others in awe, as the Imperium expanded. I showed her the pride of it, the belief in unity, in progress, in a future forged by will alone… and beneath it, the cost, the burning worlds, the billions who vanished into ash so that something greater could rise.

Then the shift.

The Emperor turning away, withdrawing from the Crusade, leaving Horus in command. I showed her Horus as he was then, not yet fallen, carrying the weight of expectation, the hope of an empire, the love of his brothers… and the cracks beneath it all.

Doubt. Pride. Isolation.

I let her feel the moment it broke.

Half the Primarchs turning, the galaxy igniting in civil war, brother against brother, legion against legion. The screams of thousands of worlds caught in the crossfire, the madness of it, the sheer scale of destruction. Terra itself under siege, the walls trembling under the weight of betrayal.

I showed her their deaths.

Vulkan, broken again and again. Ferrus, cut down by his friend. Sanguinius, radiant and doomed, falling before the end. Horus, shattered at last.

… The Emperor, wounded beyond mortal reckoning.

And behind it all… the parasites. Taking the traitors one by one as their prizes. Laughing as the golden dream of the Imperium shattered into a million pieces.

Then the vision surged forward, accelerating beyond control, beyond the war, beyond victory or defeat.

Ten thousand years.

The Imperium endured.

But it was not the Imperium she had intended.

I showed her the decay. The excesses. The stagnation. The crushing weight of dogma replacing reason, of blind faith choking progress. Worlds trapped in endless cycles of ignorance and obedience, the machinery of empire grinding on without purpose beyond its own continuation

I showed her that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

I showed her herself. Or her counterpart.

Not as she was.

A god.

Untouchable. Eternal. Worshipped.

Imprisoned.

The galaxy drowned in her shadow.

When the vision finally receded, it did so slowly, like a tide pulling back, leaving silence in its wake.

I opened my eyes.

Three halberds hovered within a breath of my throat. Two spears had joined them, their tips leveled at my chest, aimed at the exact points where a single thrust would end me before I could so much as inhale.

The Custodes had moved without hesitation.

I did nothing.

Not because I could not react, I was certain I could push the Custodes away with my powers and fight them all at the same time.

But because I understood why they had reacted like this.

She had slumped slightly in her chair, a rare, human imperfection betraying itself in the moment. Her hands rested on the table, fingers curled slightly. Her long black hair fell forward, shadowing her eyes.

For a heartbeat, she looked small, almost defeated.

Vulnerable. Fragile, in a way that no one would expect from the Master of Humanity.

For a fleeting moment, I thought I glimpsed doubt, or perhaps grief, in the depths of her eyes.

But then she looked up at me, and the shift was immediate. Her posture straightened, her expression hardened into something that could move mountains.

A wave of power radiated outward from her. Pressing a message into the subconscious: indomitable will, unbreakable determination.

After all, the Empress was still the woman that would have spent ten thousand years trying to guide humanity while enduring the pain of the throne.

No vision of a possible future could break her.

The Custodes relaxed only slightly.

“I see,” she said, before sighting deeply. She spoke almost to herself at first, then louder, addressing me directly. “Leave me… please.”

A Custodes grabbed me by my shoulder an instant later.

I looked deeply at the Empress. She seemed… different as she looked at me. Most of the warmth was gone, and behind it were the eyes of something old and vast…

I nodded. If she needed time to think things over. I would give it to her.

As I left I heard her mutter.

“… I understand… I am blind… a blind fool…”

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Aurelia could admit, at least to herself, that she admired her sister Hathor quite a bit.

Hathor was everything Aurelia wished to be. A woman who walked into a room as if it already belonged to her. She carried command the way others carried a cloak, effortlessly, as if it had always been meant to rest on her shoulders.

Aurelia had only recently begun to find that kind of confidence within herself.

The past few years had changed her completely. From student to envoy, from observer to participant. She was now a rising member of the Federation’s Diplomacy Ministry, and soon enough she would be the one convincing worlds to join their banner by the dozen.

Hathor had been doing that for over a decade.

“The Julanians were a hard people,” Hathor said as they stood before the wide viewport of the Vengeful Spirit after the Empress had asked them for some alone time with Alexander. “Their planet is dangerous. Predatory megafauna, unstable climate bands, lethal oceans. They built a warrior culture, but not against other humans. Against their world.”

Aurelia glanced at her sister. “And when you arrived?”

“They were distrustful,” Hathor replied calmly. “As they should have been.”

“What level of technology did they possess?”

Hathor’s lips curved faintly. “Surprisingly advanced, considering they developed it alone. Laser weaponry. Primitive orbital infrastructure. A handful of stations in low orbit. Enough to make an invasion costly.”

“And yet,” Aurelia said, studying her sister’s expression, “they joined your Imperium.”

“Of course they did,” Hathor answered with a smirk. “The Imperium has much to offer them. Just as we have much to offer your Federation, Aurelia.”

Aurelia frowned slightly at that.

She understood where this conversation was leading. The implication was clear. The Federation would join the Imperium eventually. It was only a matter of time and negotiation.

But submission without advantage did not sit well with her.

Hathor had told her about a dozen worlds her Legion had brought to what they called Imperial Compliance, all by diplomacy. Aurelia believed she understood how they achieved it so often without firing a single shot.

The Imperium offered protection backed by overwhelming military power. In a galaxy filled with hostile xenos, that promise alone was enough to sway most planetary governments.

But the Federation did not need protection.

They were expanding. They were secure. Their fleets were not yet equal to the Imperium’s vast armadas, especially with the new classes still under construction, but they were formidable. The reserve fleet alone, stationed here in quiet orbit, was proof enough of that.

The Imperium offered technological uplift to compliant worlds.

Tempting, certainly.

Yet the Federation possessed technologies the Imperium did not. Cheap, easily reproducible hovercraft platforms that could transform planetary logistics. Iridium alloy armors lighter and stronger than any standard Imperial armors. Efficient industrial replicators that allowed rapid colonial development.

She had seen it in this ship too. The Federations ships had computers all around, better communication and transportation in-ship, it seemed as the most mundane uses of technology were missed by the Imperium. She had seen no personnel with datapads or holos attached to their wrists. They were superior in their mundane uses too.

They were not beggars seeking scraps.

And finally, the Imperium allowed local elites to remain in power. Nobles kept their titles. Governors retained authority. In divided systems, the Imperium simply selected the most cooperative faction and elevated it over the rest.

That method would not translate easily to the Federation.

The Federation had no nobles. No hereditary aristocracy. Leadership was earned through merit, service, and public trust. There were no planetary dynasties to co-opt.

If they joined the Imperium, it would not be as a conquered world or a compliant client state.

It would have to be as a partner.

That was why the reserve fleet was here, its hulls gleaming in formation, matching the Imperial fleet hull by hull. Not including their super-ships.

It was a statement.

They might not yet match the Imperium ship for ship, not until their new warship classes left the docks in full numbers, but they possessed enough strength to demand respect from them.

Aurelia folded her hands behind her back and looked at the stars.

If the Federation were to align with the Imperium, it would be from a position of power.

Not submission.

“You are deep in thought, Aurelia.”

Hathor’s voice carried faint amusement as she turned from the viewport to study her sister.

Aurelia did not answer immediately. Instead, she drew on everything she had learned these past years, every lesson in composure and redirection, and allowed her expression to shift just slightly.

“I was thinking of the Empress.”

Hathor’s amusement faded into something more measured. She gave a slow nod. “She makes quite the impression on you.”

Aurelia exhaled softly. “When she arrived, I felt as if I could not breathe for a few seconds.”

“The same happened to me,” Hathor admitted. “It was… enlightening. I felt quite the presence from our brother as well.”

Aurelia allowed herself a small smirk.

Alexander had always seemed powerful. Commanding. Unshakable. When he spoke of the Empress in reverent tones, Aurelia had once assumed it was loyalty, perhaps even exaggeration. Back then, it had felt impossible that anything could surpass Alexander.

Now she had met the woman that had created them.

Now she understood.

The Empress had not raised her voice. She had not moved with visible force. And yet her presence alone had pressed down on the room like gravity intensified a hundredfold.

Aurelia had known, in that instant, that if the Empress wished it, she could simply unmake her.

She might be able to erase their entire fleet with a thought.

She might glass the planet below and leave nothing but ash.

“Alexander is a psyker,” Aurelia said quietly. “A good one. I have seen him perform feats I could never replicate. Things that defy reason. But as he once said, we are all psykers, Hathor.”

Hathor shook her head. “I have never found I possess any abilities like that.”

“Neither did I,” Aurelia replied. “Not until Alexander made me open my eyes. Perhaps you will learn to do the same.”

Hathor regarded her thoughtfully, as if weighing that possibility.

And then it happened.

Aurelia felt it before she could name it.

An overwhelming will flooded through the ship.

It was simply there, pressing down on every mind within range. Aurelia’s breath caught in her throat. Her knees nearly buckled as the weight of it bore down on her consciousness.

For a heartbeat, she felt very small.

Then, just as suddenly, it receded.

Hathor frowned and turned to one of her Astartes standing guard nearby. “Go find what happened.”

The warrior bowed and moved at once.

But there was no need.

Less than a minute later, Alexander himself strode down the corridor toward them, moving quickly, his expression set in a way Aurelia rarely saw.

“We are returning to the Athena,” he said without preamble. “The Empress will summon us when she requires us.”

Hathor opened her mouth, clearly ready to question him, then paused. Whatever she saw in Alexander’s face made her reconsider. She gave a single nod instead.

Aurelia studied her brother carefully.

“What happened?” she asked.            

For a moment, Alexander said nothing.

Then, quietly, “I showed her what I know.”

Aurelia’s eyes widened. She knew Alexander knew more than he should, that he had information no one else had. He had known about the Empress before ever seeing her, he had known about her and Colchis before ever stepping there.

He had knowledge that was impossible to have. And Aurelia had wondered what else he knew, of the present, of the past, of the… future. It had not been hard to piece together.

And if that had been the Empress reaction to that knowledge…

The future did not bode well for them.

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She was a god.

A god worshipped across millions of worlds. A god entombed upon her throne for eons. A god in constant agony, holding back damnation, holding back humanity’s worst impulses and the endless hunger of Chaos.

She opened her eyes once more leaving the memories of the vision her Alexander had shown her.

And she felt very tired.

The Empress remained seated long after Alexander had left the chamber, her posture rigid, her expression composed for as long as anyone had been watching. Only when the doors sealed and the room belonged solely to her and her Custodes did she allow herself to lean forward.

She lifted a hand to her brow.

For a few seconds, she permitted herself weakness.

She had slipped with Alexander too.

Only for a moment. Only a fraction of her control faltering after what she had been shown. But Alexander had seen it.

That troubled her more than she would ever admit aloud.

The knowledge he possessed was a blade balanced on its edge. Visions of futures that had failed. Of plans undone. Of catastrophes she had not foreseen. It could be an advantage beyond measure.

Or it could be their ruin.

For a fleeting instant, she wondered whether this was the work of the parasites. Whether, when they had stolen her son from her long ago, they had seeded Alexander with false revelation. A carefully crafted deception from the parasite of trickery. A lie wrapped in truth.

A trap meant for her.

She closed her eyes.

It did not matter.

For all its boasts of eternity and inevitability, she knew the parasite could fail. She had seen it falter before. She had broken its designs once.

And she was one of the few humans old enough to remember a time where the parasites were three, not four. If they could be born, then they could die. Then they were not inevitable and eternal as they had claimed to her long ago.

And if this was a trick, then she would turn it back upon its maker.

The Empress lowered her hand and straightened.

Her gaze fell upon her Custodes.

They stood as they always did, golden and immovable, but there was something else in their eyes now. Concern.

Constantine most of all.

She waved a hand dismissively. “I am fine,” she said, her voice steady once more. “But we will return to the Bucephalus.”

Constantine did not question her. He inclined his head and gestured sharply. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

The Custodes moved at once, forming around her with flawless precision, a living wall of auramite and absolute loyalty.

She rose from the chair.

With a simple motion of her hand, reality folded.

The air distorted. Space bent inward.

In a heartbeat, they were no longer within the halls of the Vengeful Spirit. The steel and shadow of that warship vanished, replaced by the vast, luminous corridors of the Bucephalus.

Teleportation.

She did not pause.

The Empress walked through her personal sanctum toward one of the massive machines integrated into the chamber’s far wall. Conduits as thick as a man’s torso pulsed faintly with restrained power. She placed her hand upon the primary interface.

The machine awakened.

A moment later, a familiar face formed within the shimmering field of one of the last Ansible projections. One of the last to work anyway, there were be thousands in the depths of Mars.

Malcador.

Though he stood light-years away upon Terra, the connection rendered him as if he stood within arm’s reach.

“Well,” he said dryly, studying her through the feed, “it is not often you use the Ansible to call me directly. What is the occasion? And how fares our wayward primarch?”

For the second time that day, she allowed herself honesty.

She exhaled, the sound faint but unmistakable.

“We have much to discuss, Malcador.”

Her golden eyes held his steadily.

“And very little time.”

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Hathor was feeling frustrated.

The Empress had disappeared from her ship without warning, and two days had passed without contact. No summons. No command. No explanation.

The only thing she knew was that Alexander had something to do with it. She had though they would enter negotiations as the heads of state of both their respective polities.

But instead a few minutes after Aurelia and she had left the room the Empress had disappeared into the Bucephalus. Taking her Custodes with her.

So Hathor stood upon the command deck, staring at the tactical projection of the system as the Federation fleet grew larger by the hour.

New warp signatures bloomed at the edge of the display. Fresh vessels translated into realspace in disciplined formations, sliding into position around the original fleet.

It seemed the arrival of the Bucephalus and her escorts had terrified them.

And rightly so.

The Bucephalus was a monster, even among the Imperium’s greatest warships. Its mass alone eclipsed most fortresses. Its weapon arrays could gut a fleet. Its presence in orbit was a statement of absolute dominance.

The Federation had answered that statement by calling for reinforcements.

“What have you found?” Hathor asked.

One of her Astartes officers turned from his station. His name was Captain Lucian Varro, a veteran of void warfare and a commander known for precision.

“My lady,” Varro said, bowing his head slightly, “we have been monitoring the new ships exiting the warp. They are of different classes from the previous ships.”

“I can see that with my own two eyes, and Alexander had several of there with him too.” Hathor replied. “Tell me why you called me.”

Varro did not react to the edge in her voice.

“We managed to get deeper scans of their ships with the new arrivals, my Lady. All of the newly arrived vessels are destroyers, corvettes, or frigates. No larger hulls have joined them. However, they appear more advanced than the earlier ships in the system.”

He gestured to the hololithic display.

The feed shifted to recorded sensor footage.

A line of black shapes tore their way into reality as warp space collapsed around them. One hundred destroyers emerged. A dozen frigates followed. The timestamps scrolled along the bottom of the projection.

“The last translation occurred only one hour after the first,” Varro said. “Their navigators are highly competent to achieve that degree of precision.”

The feed changed again.

A comparison appeared between the Federation’s earlier destroyers and these new arrivals.

The difference was striking.

The new ships were larger and more elongated. Their hulls were still black, but sleeker, almost predatory in shape. A pronounced spinal structure ran down the center of each vessel, clearly housing a primary weapon. Their armor reflected light in a strange, dark sheen.

“Our scans indicate their armor is not plasteel or adamantium,” Varro continued. “It is composed of an unknown material. Additionally, their maneuvering patterns during formation were exceptional. They moved faster and with greater agility than our own destroyer-class ships are capable of, my lady.”

Hathor watched the replay. The vessels slid into position with unnatural smoothness, their vector shifts sharp and controlled. They were an order of magnitude better than her own, at least in that capacity.

She hummed softly.

She turned slightly. “Did we detect void shields?”

Varro shook his head. “No, my lady. We detected multiple layers of projected shielding, much like the other ships, but no void shield signatures. Their energy signatures is much, much higher, that leads to believe that while they use the same shields, they are stronger in these new class.”

Layered shields.

Unknown armor. Unknown weapons.

Superior maneuverability and speed.

Higher energy signatures than even experimental Mechanicum ships.

It was concerning.

If the Federation could produce ships on par with the Imperium’s own, or perhaps even better, why had they not deployed them from the beginning? Hathor had encountered many types of Federation vessels in this system. Some were clearly new designs. Smaller ships, but also cruisers and carriers both.

It made sense that ships would get progressively better. The Imperium was doing the same, designing new classes as their learnt from previous campaigns.

But this was not incremental progress.

This was a leap.

In the span of only a few years, they appeared to have advanced centuries, perhaps even a full millennium in technological capability. They only had smaller vessels with this technology because of the time it took to create capital ships.

That pointed to one conclusion.

An STC.

Abaddon, standing beside her like a silent executioner, spoke at last.

“Show her the next part.”

Varro nodded. The display dissolved into a cascade of sensor readings and auspex data.

“My lady, our auspex arrays detected something else among their formation,” he said. “A faint presence. At least before it disappeared completely.”

Hathor stepped closer, scanning the information.

Subtle distortions. Gaps in the expected mass distribution. Energy signatures that flickered at the edge of detection.

“They have stealth ships,” she said quietly.

Varro inclined his head. “That is our belief, my lady.”

Silence settled over the command deck.

Advanced destroyers. Unknown materials. Layered shields. And stealth vessels hidden within their formation.

Hathor’s frustration cooled into something far more dangerous.

If the Federation had truly uncovered an STC… and one with such vast information as it appeared in their advancements…

Then in a decade or two they might become a threat to the Imperium.

A chime broke Hathor’s concentration on the data. She turned and she saw it.

A message from the Empress, finnaly.

And it seemed she wanted her to get Alexander to the negotiation table once more.