The Ghoul Stars. The frontier of the Imperium of Man.
Battle barge Nicor, flagship of the Carcharodons Astra.
In the ancient hall occupying the upper deck of the ship, the lighting was doing something it was not supposed to do. The strips of illumination running along the ceiling flickered and dropped in irregular patterns, recovering for a moment before dropping again, as if the ship's power systems were arguing with something external about which one had priority. The air had dropped in temperature noticeably. White frost was condensing in fine layers across the metal floor panels where it had not been before.
The Librarian conclave was already in position.
Pale Nomad Te Kahurangi led them, the Chief Librarian standing at the apex of a ceremonial formation arranged around an older Emperor statue near the hall's center. Each Librarian had both gauntleted hands raised, the ceramite surfaces of their armor beginning to gather the visible shimmer that preceded sustained psychic output. The combined effort of the conclave working in coordination produced results that individual effort could not, and the Warp rift that slowly tore open in the air before them had clean edges rather than the ragged ones that unguided Warp phenomena typically showed.
Tyberos stood back from the formation with his Terminator guard on either side. Every hand had come to a weapon when the rift began to open: vibranium power swords drawn, the massive lightning claws on Tyberos's own gauntlets spread and active. The Chapter enjoyed protections that most Imperial forces could not claim, the Emperor's attention a constant presence over the fleet that kept the worst of what lived in the Warp at a respectful distance. But the Warp was the Warp, and respectful distances were not guaranteed. Standing ready was simply correct procedure.
The sound of magnetic boots came first. Heavy, deliberate, the rhythm of Terminator plate rather than standard power armor.
They came through in a group: black and white ceramite, the half-and-half split scheme of the Lamenters, storm bolters held across chests in the carry position, chainswords and power swords crossing over power packs. Twenty-five of them, forming a natural perimeter around the figure at the center almost before they had fully crossed the threshold.
The vibranium armor at the center was a different category of presence. The Warscythe was in one hand, Frost Fang in the other, and behind the power pack a halo of diffuse purple light rose and fell in slow rotation. The gray-haired figure inside it looked around the hall once, taking in Tyberos and the conclave and the frosted floor and the lighting that was still making up its mind, and then said hello.
The Librarian conclave did not wait to be invited. They went to one knee in the same motion, a wave moving through the formation from Kahurangi outward.
"Welcome to the Shark, my Primarch!"
"On your feet." Nolan's tone was not unkind, but it was definite. "Our people do not need to do that."
He breathed in. The air in the Nicor had the particular quality of a ship that had traveled through the Void for a very long time: cold, faintly metallic, with the background salt note that the Carcharodons themselves never quite lost from their environment even in port. He found it comfortable in a way he had not expected.
He waved the kneeling Carcharodons up and turned to Tyberos.
Tyberos had not knelt. He had also not moved from his position during the transition, which was, Nolan reflected, entirely characteristic. The Chapter Master was tall enough that looking at Nolan in vibranium plate required only a slight adjustment, and the dark eyes that settled on him carried the quiet assessment of a commander who had spent centuries evaluating things at a glance and trusted those evaluations.
"Lord Primarch." The voice was careful with its bluntness in the way it always was: not hostile, simply without the social padding that most people installed between intent and delivery. "Would you prefer to rest first, or meet the Void Brothers directly?"
"In a moment." Nolan glanced back at the Terminator Guard behind him. "Captain Tyberos. These twenty-five are Lamenters battle-brothers. They are serving as my personal guard for this visit. Please arrange quarters and access for them. All materials consumed on this deployment will be reimbursed by us. Do not let the cost fall on your battle group."
The expression that moved across Tyberos's face was brief and not entirely decipherable.
"Lord Primarch. The Chapter's supply position has changed considerably since your initial support shipments began arriving." The shark teeth appeared briefly as the Chapter Master spoke. "We are no longer counting days between resupply. The fleet's overall logistics have moved from the situation you may remember to something that can be called stable. Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. Do not trouble yourself over provisions."
Nolan passed the Warscythe and Frost Fang to the nearest Lamenters and gave the rest of the guard a brief gesture: move freely, the barge is friendly. Then he reached up and put a vibranium palm flat against Tyberos's ceramite.
The walk through the metal corridor network of the Nicor took ten minutes. The corridors had the worn quality of spaces that had been used by the same organization for a very long time, the surfaces marked by the passage of power armor across generations: scuffs at shoulder height, indentations in the floor plates from decades of magnetic boots, sections of wall where emergency tools had been pulled from their mounts and replaced so many times that the mounts themselves had been replaced. Every few meters, a trophy: weapons recovered from enemies, fragments of xenos technology, pieces of hull plating from ships that had not survived their encounters with the Carcharodons.
The hall they arrived at was older than most of the corridors leading to it. The trophies here were larger and older still, the broken weapons and pieces of power armor displayed at intervals telling a history that stretched back further than most Imperial records. Tyberos moved to the metal throne at the hall's center without ceremony and stepped aside.
Nolan took it. It was not comfortable in the conventional sense. It was a throne built for a Chapter Master who wore Terminator plate, and the proportions were appropriate for that. He sat in it with the vibranium armor and found it fitted well enough.
Tyberos reported. Nolan listened.
The twenty Stormtroopers sent to the Chapter had been the first item on Nolan's mind before Tyberos had begun speaking. The Emperor's blood they carried had produced results during the Warp transit: the corruption indicators that typically emerged during extended Warp travel had been reduced significantly, the protections holding even under the particular pressures of the Ghoul Stars' Warp conditions. Nine had died during the gene-seed implantation and hypno-conditioning process. This was not unusual by the standards of an undertaking that carried inherent biological risk at every stage. The remaining eight had completed their transformation successfully and were currently deployed on a materiel recovery mission. They would return to the Nicor and present themselves to Nolan as soon as the mission was concluded.
The Chapter's overall development: Tyberos gave this portion of the report without omission. Nolan's supply shipments had moved the Carcharodons from precarious to functional in a period that would otherwise have taken considerably longer. Six companies were now fielded, a meaningful expansion from the previous state of the Chapter. The limiting factor going forward was not material and not power armor. It was gene-seed, specifically the Chapter's own.
Other Chapters' gene-seed could be used. This was technically straightforward. But the Carcharodons' approach to their own identity was specific, and Tyberos communicated it without defensiveness: the Chapter intended to maintain bloodline purity where possible, accepting the genetic defects that this approach produced, including the blindness that occasionally emerged in the line, because the alternative was a Chapter that was no longer quite itself. Combat effectiveness was not the only metric by which a Chapter measured itself.
Nolan had no objection to this. It was a position he understood and respected, even where he might have made a different choice.
Tyberos opened his mouth to continue.
Te Kahurangi walked into the hall.
The Chief Librarian's face carried the same expressionlessness that most Carcharodons maintained as a default, but he moved with the directness of someone who had decided that speed mattered more than ceremony. He inclined his head toward Tyberos briefly, then brought his dark eyes to Nolan and held them there.
"Lord Primarch. I apologize for interrupting. If the situation is allowed to continue developing on its current course, I expect significant bloodshed to result."
He let a fraction of a pause land.
"Your Terminator Guard have engaged the Void Brothers of the Nicor in combat."