Beautification of the Inner Sphere 3 (Patreon)

Commissioned

Beautification of the Inner Sphere

Chapter 3

-VB-

Tancredi System

Fulgrim/I realized very quickly that our situation was not good. 

One, this binding thing tying our minds together was going slower than we expected. 

Can you stop saying thing?

What?

Thing. It is not an elegant word. Use proper words, mortal. 

Are you seriously nitpicking me about word choice? 

Yes. If your lowborn language infects me, then I will appear like a fool in front of my sons and that is not acceptable. 

Well, fucking excuse me -.

We pushed the door open and found ourselves in the navigator’s throne room. It was, like the rest of my/our ship, decorated 

And to my surprise, we found the navigator not on the throne itself but almost sprawled out on the marble floor while being attended by her servants and menials alike. 

“You have asked for an audience, navigator,” Fulgrim spoke, and found himself surprised that the entity that had been forced into him had pulled back to let him take the center stage. Good. At the very least, it knew its place. Oi! “What do you have to report?”

“T-The warp…!” the navigator croaked out. “The warp is … wrong!” 

Fulgrim frowned.

This universe might not have a warp.

That made Fulgrim’s heart squeeze. ‘Explain yourself!’ 

But before the other entity could, the migraine was back and Fulgrim stumbled as the other entity and he became close to one once more. And through it, he saw what the entity meant. 

This place was … the past but not. 

Fulgrim saw humanity at war with one another on a scale so small but with such consequences that it baffled him. It was not that he himself couldn’t see such atrocities occuring; he had ordered at least one Exterminatus on a world that he could not save. It was that they did so over a throne that did not matter. Or that they were completely ignoring the rest of the galaxy. That each of the “Great Houses” currently fighting in their “Succession War” could have used all of that resource to expand outward and become bigger than their rivals but they hadn’t. It was … it was a barbaric era. 

And their FTL.

It explained what the navigator meant. 

There was no warp here. There was a dimension called hyperspace but hyperspace was not the warp. It was not hell made manifest through the suffering of uncounted trillions. It was simply… there. Dark, cold, and indifferent. 

The warp wasn’t here. 

And if the warp wasn’t here, even in its infancy, then … then …

He collapsed to his knees as he realized the same thing that the navigator had, and the shock of it caused the two halves of his mind to break apart once more. 

… Sorry.

‘Did you do this?’

No. I don’t even know why I am here. I am … I was a normal person. No special skills. No special abilities. No different than a bureaucrat or medical worker working with any skill and tools anyone could be taught to make and use. 

‘I cannot return home.’

The warp was what brought them here, but if there was no warp to take them back, then there was no way home. Back to Chemos. Back to the Emperor, his father. 

‘I am lost.’

“My lord!” 

He snapped out of it. He realized that Abdemon stood before him with a frown on his face. 

“... Abdemon,” he called out to his son. 

His son.

His sons. He still had them here with him. He could not afford to allow himself to wallow in grief. Not when supplies ran out and his sons looked up to him for guidance. 

‘Tell me about this universe,’ he demanded of the specter. 

… I must know when we are first.

That’s when Fulgrim remembered that his ship was being hailed by those on the planet in the system. 

With a grunt, he stood up. 

“Come, Abdemon. We must first understand where and when we are.”

“When, sire?”

“It seems that we are not in the time of the Imperium or even its long lost predecessor.”

His proclamation shook Abdemon to the point that his son froze before hurriedly, but elegantly, catching up to him. “Father, what do you mean when you say…?”

“The warp. According to the navigator, it is gone. Or it is so calm that it may as well be gone in the form that we understand it.” He was lying with the second half of his sentence, but it was one that would have to work with him for now. 

“I don’t understand. How could the warp become such a thing? The warp is never calm.”

“It isn’t. But it once was in the Dark Ages of Humanity.”

Abdemon understood immediately what he meant. 

“So it is confirmed…” he muttered out loud. “This is the time before the Emperor.”

“Precisely. It is even before the height of humanity,” Fulgrim continued. “Which means we now possess the highest level of technology among human polities that we are now surrounded by.”

Abdemon frowned and understood after a moment of thinking. “We are weak and rich.”

“Yes. We are weak and rich. We have just one ship. We have less than half of a regiment. We do not have enough supplies to last more than a year. We lack friendly ports to repair our ships. The techpriests are not in sufficient numbers to keep our arms and armor in repair. This is why I need information, and there is one very noisy potential source of it within this system. Get the radio ready.”

“Radio, sire?” 

Fulgrim nodded. “They might not even recognize what a Vox is.”

“I see…”

I/Fulgrim lightly fused again as we gained a common goal: the survival of the Emperor’s Children in this deep dark past of humanity’s folly. 

-VB-

Tancredi I, Federated Suns

“Sir, we have an incoming radio call from the warship.”

Marshal George Powell grunted. 

Finally, they were answering. 

“Give me.”

The comms officer gave him the radio speaker.

“This is Marshal George Powell of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns in charge of Tancredi I’s defenses. I demand identification and the purpose of your visit, over.”

Was he coming out strong? Maybe. Yes. But he had to. If he allowed this potential threat to believe that he was weak, then it would reflect upon the whole of the Federated Suns. And at that point, that warship might start threatening FedSun worlds. 

Because he looked too weak right here, right now. 

“Ah, you speak English. Good,” the man on the other side spoke through a heavily staticking radio call. “I am Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children Legion. I believe my sons and I have been stranded. A … misjump? Yes, a misjump.”

Say what?