EARTH, 2021 —
Two days had passed since the press conference held by the United States' press secretary. During that time, nations across the globe followed suit, each addressing the same impossible phenomenon: the looming structures in the sky and the envoy who had visited the Pentagon.
Their message was identical — all was well,negotiations were underway and humanity was safe.
All that followed was silence from them.
there were no further broadcasts, briefings nor updates.
within these two days,
the world's media spiraled into speculation. Conspiracies bloomed like wildfire — theories of these aliens taking over the governments, planetary harvests and even mind control became prevalent.
Hopeful voices argued that a new golden age of cooperation awaited.
Meanwhile,
Behind the chaos, the truth was clearer.
World leaders knew far more than they admitted. Intelligence agencies worked around the clock to uncover the visitors' true intentions. And the visitors — if they could even be called aliens — seemed all too willing to lend their "help."
Deep beneath a secure military installation in Miami, the future warriors of the year 2052 were being prepared to meet these beings face-to-face.
Lieutenant Hart stood silently with her crew, watching what could only be described as cyborgs moving about the massive chamber. They worked in eerie harmony around the Jumplink,
Normally, the sight would have filled her with anxiety — this machine was humanity's last hope. But the beings before her moved with a precision and confidence that made her feel… strangely calm.
Though she didn't understand them, she could tell — they knew what they were doing.
This was a place forbidden even to scientists. Allowing human engineers near the device risked imitation, and that was unacceptable. The fewer who understood its workings, the safer humanity's timeline would remain. but it appears this technology was nothing new to these extraterrestrials.
As she watched, the hooded figures — half-machine, half-flesh — ignited censers of burning incense, chanting in a language she could not understand. Their leader, draped in crimson robes laced with steel wiring, stood before the machine like a priest before a holy altar.
Weirdos, she thought.
She wasn't alone in her sentiment. High above, through the observation window, generals from across the world watched in stunned silence.
Beside them stood Lucan Varr. Around him, the Sisters of Silence remained motionless, their hoods concealing their faces.
Below, the Magos and his servitors continued their rituals — the air thick with smoke and static as the litanies to the machine spirit reached a climax.
HUUUUMMMMM.
The chamber shook as the machine roared to life, arcs of light dancing along its frame.
"As agreed," Varr said, his voice steady, "I and my militia will make the jump first to assess this future you speak of. Only then will our forces follow."
General Cadwell, standing beside him, nodded slowly. "Very well."
Varr turned away, descending the steps toward the glowing portal, the sisters following in perfect silence.
The generals watched, their reflections framed in the glass.
EARTH 2052
It was daytime.
Clouds of smoke rose from the devastated city below.
SHRIIIEEKK!
A loud, inhuman shriek tore through the chaotic silence as lights suddenly converged into a whirlpool of unstable, crackling energy. The vortex twisted violently, its colors churning like liquid fire, before collapsing inward into a yawning gap in reality.
From it, figures dropped a few feet above the ground and landed softly — forming up in perfect stance. Without waiting for the wormhole of the jump-link to close, they advanced forward, lasguns in hand, methodically sweeping their surroundings.
Within the enclosure of smoke and fractured stone, Lucan Varr walked alongside the Sisters. Lieutenant Hart moved Beside them , she had been assigned as their guide to this war torn future.
This was supposed to be the grim future — the age of humanity's extinction, the downfall of the people of ancient Terra.
Varr's eyes traced the shifting shadows in the distance. Dozens of figures gathered there, moving in restless patterns — feral silhouettes outlined in the distance. Yet they did not approach. They lingered, snarling and shrieking, as if something unseen restrained them.
"Foul creatures," Lucan Varr muttered beneath his breath. Even in this peaceful age, when humanity had yet to leave its cradle, xenos incursions still found a way to reach them.
With their presence here, even if the governors of ancient Terra had not asked for their intervention, they would have joined the battle regardless. No filthy xenos would be permitted to tread upon mankind's birth world.
Lieutenant Hart, beside them, kept her hand on her sidearm — ready to draw. The creatures in the distance shifted and screeched but still did not attack. Her pulse quickened. The adrenaline coursing through her veins refused to settle.
"What is happening?" she muttered, her voice tense.
"What do you mean?" Varr replied, turning his gaze towards her. "Is something supposed to happen?"
"They normally attack anything with biological traits — humans, animals, anything living," she said in confusion, eyes fixed on the snarling silhouettes.
"Halt," Varr commanded. The squad obeyed instantly, their formation freezing mid-step. There were about three dozen of them . They had come armed for war, but this was reconnaissance. They had advanced far enough.
Varr's thoughts were interrupted by a powerful hand settling on his shoulder. He turned slightly, careful not to meet the Sister's gaze. Every moment spent near them was like standing on the edge of an abyss; their null-auras gnawed at the psyche. Only the trained could endure it — fewer still could communicate with them.
"These creatures recoil from us,". "They hold strong aversion to the null. Perhaps they function as a hive-mind."
The Sister gestured with her hands — swift, precise motions of battle-sign language.
"Tyranids… here on Terra? Impossible," Varr muttered, narrowing his gaze at the shapes ahead. Their forms were crude, more primal than any hive strain he had seen before.
"Unlikely. Perhaps a different species, "the Sister signed.
"I have brought you here and shown you what the future of humanity holds. What is next?" Lieutenant Hart asked suddenly, interrupting their silent exchange.
Varr turned his gaze upon her, then back toward the swarm of distant beasts — pale, skeletal forms glistening in the smoke.
"Now," he said, clasping his hands behind his back, "we call upon the angels."
hearing his words ,
one of the Guardsmen — an Auxpex trooper — turned to look at him and received a silent nod.
quickly, he knelt , removing the mechanical backpack from his armor. The device bore the sigil of the fleet's sanctioned minoris Ordo Chronos — an hourglass dripping sand upon a skull.
Lieutenant Hart looked on in confusion as the soldier powered it on, runes glowing faintly across its surface.
ORBIT — EARTH, 2021
Within the sanctified halls of the Spear of Chronos, the air hummed with an electric hymn of power and machinery. Vast, cathedral-like corridors stretched outward in endless steel and light, their vaulted ceilings adorned with sigils of the Ordo Chronos — the Inquisition's wardens of time. Gilded cables and bronze conduits pulsed with auric light, carrying the lifeblood of the ship's mighty reactors through the veins of this temporal leviathan.
Every sound aboard the vessel was a ritual. Every motion, a prayer.
Crew members in dark crimson robes moved with mechanical precision, their steps echoing against the adamantine floors. They spoke in bursts of binharic cant — static-filled invocations whispered to the spirits of the machines they tended. Servo-skulls glided above their heads, emitting faint vox-bursts of data-chant, while cherubim-like servitors fluttered between pillars, carrying data-slates and censers that trailed blue-gray incense.
"Report transmission to Deck Theta complete."
"Temporal coil calibration at ninety-seven percent. Flux deviation—negligible."
"The spirit of the chronometer purrs in harmony, praise be to the Omnissiah."
From the vox-relays embedded within the walls came a soft chorus of murmured reports and mechanized affirmations. The voices blended with the rhythmic pulse of the reactor — a sound not unlike a distant heartbeat — until the entire vessel seemed alive with devotion.
On the main command deck, hundreds of temporal engineers stood by their workstations, their augmetic fingers gliding across rune-etched consoles. Their task was one of infinite precision — the synchronization of the ship's chronometric lattice, a matrix that could tear through time itself. Without their vigilance, the Spear of Chronos — this colossal vessel of temporal domination — would cease to function, its vast engines falling into silence and entropy.
Around them, the air shimmered faintly, warping in tiny eddies as pockets of displaced time coiled and uncoiled. The engineers did not flinch; they had long grown used to the way time distorted aboard their vessel. One moment a hand would move in real-time, the next it would flicker as though it had already performed its motion a heartbeat before.
In the shadowed galleries above the command deck, Tech-Priests of Mars stood. Their augmented limbs clicked and whirred as they supervised lines of servitors tending to the arteries of the ship — endless networks of pipes, cables, and chrono-gauges that monitored the integrity of the machine spirit and the ship's sacred temporal drives.
"Stabilize the third-phase conduit."
"Purge irregular resonance."
"Chant the Litany of Alignment."
The metallic voices rose and fell like a mechanical psalm, a ritual that bound faith and science into one indistinguishable act of worship.
They awaited one thing only: the signal for translation.
The Spear of Chronos belonged to an Ordo Minoris of the Inquisition — the hunters of time, Time Catchers.
Their sacred mission: to safeguard the flow of history from corruption, to ensure that the warp's trickery did not unmake the timeline of mankind. They were the unseen executioners of paradox, those who erased heretics before their birth and sealed rifts in causality with faith and fire.
But this voyage was different.
In this fleet, their function was not merely to capture, correct, or purge.
Their role was to become the weapon — to rend open the fabric of reality itself, to cut through the membrane of worlds.
By the will of Lord Maloris, Tribune of the Custodes and High Inquisitorial Consort of the Sigillite's design, the ship had joined this fleet.
they came looking for "Him".
He was not here.
Only war awaited them — and war they would bring.
On the bridge, silence fell like a shroud.
The engineers continued their work, their motion synchronized to the ticking of the ship's master chronometer. The faint whine of capacitors and plasma conduits filled the air, harmonizing into a mechanical hum that seemed almost like a heartbeat.
the ship waited in anticipation
they awaited the call.