Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Seadelant===
‘…Port Huron is a beautiful city, and I wish you and your cousins could see it, though Nocturne sounds like a blast. I still aim to meet up with you all at the specified location at the end of our respective tours, and look forward to seeing you all then. Give my best wishes to Rem, Alex, Freya and especially Jake. Make sure you treat him well! I look forward to your next E-letter.’ Julius Pius paused, looked over his E-letter to Venus on his Dataslate, and frowned. The timestamp on his letter read 2 227 347 M34. It had been several months since scholam had finished and his time at Imperator High had come to an end, several months since the daughters scattered across the Imperium and he had joined them in their exodus. He was now already nearly halfway across the Imperium, and was now outbound to the thousand worlds of Ultramar. His birthplace.
He was sitting outside the Portside Café, a pretty little establishment looking over both the water port and the space port parts of Port Huron, the capital city of the planet Seadelant. On one side was the sparkling sea, on the other the vast shapes of Starships anchored at the Spaceport, like a chain of metal mountains looming over the inner city. The café was almost the mirror image of a certain café on Terra, where he and his friends had gone several times before school ended, and where, a few months ago…no, better not to think about it. He would have to live with his mistakes, but he didn’t want to be reminded of them every few minutes. 

He sipped on his Caf, checked his letter several times, smiling to himself at his more, ''interesting'' comments. ‘Treat him well’, Venus would smack him one with a comment like that if she was here to read it. He was never one to pry, but those ‘laid vibes’ always got to him, and anyway if any one couple in the ‘royals’ deserved happiness, it was those two, even above his own relationship. He was one of the few who had never judged Jake for his humble roots, as his roots were every bit as humble were his famous father not taken into account, and Jake in turn treated him as a friend. Satisfied with his letter, he finally hit the ‘send’ button. It would be forwarded to the nearby Astropath Guild HQ, where it would be beamed offworld within an hour or two. That was done, now he could finish his drink in peace. 
He only had another two days here before he would board a transport for Ultramar, and his long lost Mother. What would he do there, what would he think when he finally beheld her final resting place? He didn’t want to think about it, any more than he wanted to think about the circumstances which had led him from Terra, the events which saw him miss graduation and have to stand before a civilian tribunal.

His train of thought was cut short as the Vox in the corner crackled, something cutting over the classical music wafting through the café.

“An unidentified object has dropped out of the Warp approx 240,000,000 Miles from the Planet, twenty-seven minutes ago. Long ranged probes have been dispatched, and system ships have been mobilised to investigate. We do not, I repeat we do not, know if this is friendly or hostile, and as a precaution we are issuing a blue alert. All citizens should make preparations in the event of further alerts, but there is no need to panic. That is all.” 

The Vox returned to its normal music, but it was now drowned out by the murmur of voices. Julius continued to sip on his Caf, but now he didn’t feel up for it. He had a queasy feeling in his gut, that this was no mere accidental translation, something bad was coming, and was once again about to be thrust into something he’d rather avoid. News like that was an unwelcome distraction for him. He had had enough of bad events affecting him and those he considered family, he wanted it all to be over, that damn gunman would be the last time something like that would ever happen. Crushing the empty hardfoam cup in his hand, he left. Hopefully, all things willing, it would be nothing and he could continue his trip in peace.



The Great Ocean was always unnaturally calm around Seadelant, which not only made it into one of the most important waystations between Segmentum Solar and Ultima Segmentum, astride the largest and most stable warp route between the two Segmentums, but also made it into a perfect location to meditate, to drift through the great ocean and clear one’s head, the reason Ahzek Ahriman was there. It helped that it was close to Prospero, and had been brought into compliance by the XVth Legion during the Crusade shortly after Magnus had reclaimed his Legion. The locals, awed by the civility of the Thousand Sons after compliance was achieved and they were liberated from their tyrannical overlords, gladly accepted aid from Prospero in rebuilding their war damaged cities. The city reminded him greatly of Tizca,"The City of Light", perfectly designed, every building aesthetically pleasing and perfectly fitting into the urban environment. An inner wall separated the more ugly new construction from the remnants of the old city and the Spaceport, and an outer wall in turn separated that from the countryside. The clifflike edifices of docked starships loomed far above the city, though cleverly the city plan meant the vast shadows cast by them did not keep Port Huron permanently wreathed in shadow. Most of the starships were passenger or cargo ships, with a single pair of Sword class Frigates being the only Military ships currently docked there.

The locals were very happy to be hosting the Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons legion, and in the time he had been here, he had been invited to feasts and meetings, where his every word was treated as sacred gospel, irritating him. He was here to relax, to get away from Prospero and the duties of the head of the Corvidae. He’d already completely rearranged and catalogued the Corvidae Library, explored the hinterlands of Prospero and meditated in the Reflecting Caves beneath the Pyramid of Photep, and yet his mood hadn’t lightened. Finally he had accepted an invitation to travel with the Gladius-class Frigate Hapi to deliver some crystals to the Seadelant Astropathic guild, and when the Frigate had left he had stayed behind.

The big news currently filling the airwaves, and the minds of everyone in the city was this mystery object which only a few hours earlier had debarked from the Great Ocean. He had felt the ripples as it emerged into the material plane, waves of psychic energy gently washing over him, soaking him in excess power. He would have to shed that as soon as he could. Probes had been dispatched to find out what it was, but he could also find out, far more thoroughly and subtly than the devices of the Mechanicum ever could. He needed some sort of distraction, and a way of testing his aetheric connection.

He closed his eyes, recited the Enumerations and freed his body of light from his flesh. He could scout out the orbital intruder far better than the probes and ships, and without any potential inhabitants ever noticing him. Ahriman also hoped to catch a glimpse of things to come as well, even now after all this time he still hadn’t repaired his link to the future, and his powers of scrying were still at their lowest ebb since Aghoru. The lack of connection bothered him, was the Primordial Annihilator still haunting him, even now long after the shooting was done and its plan foiled?

Onwards and upwards he flew. His subtle body soared, effortlessly breaking free of the planet’s gravity and departing into the inky night of space, heading straight towards the distant space object slowly plummeting towards the planet.

The sun was a fading disc of light above him, and he flew ever upwards, spreading his arms like wings as he bathed in the warmth of the invisible currents of energy that permeated every corner of this world. The world below was a faint blue dot, a jewel set against the black curtain of space, at once so fragile and yet so precious.

The space object now loomed before him. As he had expected, it was a Space Hulk, the remnants of asteroids and ships sucked into the Great Ocean and fused together over millennia. There might be old tech from the dark age of technology on board that Hulk, objects the Adeptus Mechanicus would kill to obtain. Unusually, the Space Hulk was blazing with etheric Energy, far more than it normally should do, and it took a few seconds for it to hit Ahriman what that energy was. It was as crude and powerful as a flamethrower, and every bit as potent, setting the Hulk ablaze aetherically. He had seen that energy before, on many hundreds of battlefields, and as lingering traces on Ullanor. Only one race had that seemingly mindless potency. The Greenskins, the Orks. The galactic plague which could never be totally erased, not matter what the Emperor did. Millions of individual Orks infested the hulk, some manning semi-concealed weapons turrets studding the bow and flanks of the Hulk, others brawling with each other in cavern sized room or marching up and down the kilometres long network of tunnels worming their way through the Hulk. In what appeared to be the Hulk’s command centre, a bevy of massive Nobs and Warbosses poured around a crude screen, showing an image of Seadelant. Unseen, Ahriman looked on in Horror. This was a full on invasion force, the sort rarely seen in Imperial Space since the Crusade ended. The unmanned Navy probes speeding towards the Hulk were dead things, though the operators on the planet’s surface didn’t know it yet.

Before his aetheric eyes, the very moment the probes entered the range of the Hulk’s prow Gun batteries, those guns blazed, and one by one the probes were torn apart by the flurry of large calibre shells sent their way. If they didn’t know the hulk was hostile before, they certainly knew it now.

He returned to his physical body so hard several bruises blossomed upon his body. He groaned as his flesh ached with the stress of his body of light’s rushed reintegration. Ahriman used his heqa staff to push himself to his feet. The vox set on the windowsill of his hab crackled into life.

“This is an Urgent update. Our probes have scanned the target; however they were destroyed before the scan could be completed. Enough data was recovered before the probes were destroyed to ascertain the identity of the assailants, and we now regret to inform the identity of the unknown Object as an Ork Space Hulk, which will reach our orbit within a day and a half. Distress calls have been sent, and System Ships and Defence Monitors mobilised. We are upgrading our alert status to Amber, effective immediately.”

Ahriman could barely believe what he had just heard. They expected to take the monster out before it reached the planet! They hadn’t seen the monster with their own two eyes; they had no idea of the storm about to break upon them. The only way they could stop that hulk while it was still in space would be with an entire squadron of Battleships with a few Battle Barges in support, something that was very much absent from Seadelant’s orbit. The planetary defences would be swept aside within a few hours and the Orks would land, in the tens of millions. He had been taken on a tour of the cities defences, and while they were carefully laid out and capable of defending against a limited drop, they were woefully underequipped for dealing with an invasion of this magnitude. They would need him and his special gifts if they were to survive the onslaught until relief arrived. Ahriman stared at his armour, resting nearby. The last time he’d donned it, it was to hunt a supposed Chaos taint with the Night Haunter. And look where that got him! Was he about to make another such mistake? Even if so, without his insight this planet would fall, and a vital link in the chain holding the Imperium together would be severed. That would aid the Primordial Annihilator far more than anything he could do here. His mind made up, he began to don his battleplate. Once again, Ahzek Ahriman was going to war.