Nolan rested his cheek against a vibranium-plated fist and watched Tyberos the Red Wake grow smaller as the Chapter Master walked the full length of the ancient hall, rounded the far corridor, and was gone.
The quiet that followed had a particular texture. The metal throne pressed cold through his armor. Old void-salt and stone filled the air, the same scent that had soaked into every surface of the Nicor for centuries.
A small sound pressed through his teeth. Not quite a sigh.
Would the Carcharodons improve in how they treated their mortal complement, after tonight?
Probably. They were a practical Chapter at their foundation, and their Void Brothers had certain standards of pride to protect. As did every mortal Devourerr and servant who had lived and died aboard this ship since long before the current generation of Astartes had drawn their first breath in a hypno-conditioned dream.
And Nolan held the supply line. The Carcharodons understood that clearly enough. They were not the sort to cut their own logistics out of stubbornness.
They would adapt.
But the exchange had uncovered something that went deeper than one Chapter's habits aboard one ship. These were questions the Imperium had never settled cleanly. Questions the Emperor himself had not had time to leave clear answers for before the Golden Throne consumed him.
How should Astartes conduct themselves around the mortals they were built to protect? How should that relationship be taught, maintained, passed from one generation of gene-sons to the next?
A handful of Chapters navigated it well. The Salamanders came to mind first, treating their homeworld's people as something close to kin. The Ultramarines, whose disciplined virtue extended from battle into governance. The Blood Angels, before the thirst and the Black Rage had finished taking hold, their capacity for compassion not yet fully buried under grief.
Very few, measured against the full breadth of the Astartes. Very few, across the ten thousand years of the Imperium's existence.
Nolan let his head turn slightly. Gray hair caught the overhead light.
"Thinking about all of this right now is pointless," he said quietly. The walls absorbed his voice without returning it. "Even as a Primarch, I cannot easily contend with the weight of systems and traditions built across millennia. Focus on yourself first."
He straightened on the throne. Vibranium ceramite shifted against the metal seat with a brief, sharp sound.
Then he opened the simulator interface and reached into the compartment at his side. His fingers closed on the Throne Coin stored there: palm-sized, heavier than its diameter suggested. He drew it out and held it between two fingers.
"Let's see if a different universe changes anything." He turned the coin once, feeling its edge. "May the Emperor protect us."
He flicked it upward with his thumb.
The spin was crisp. The coin caught the light for one instant. Then his body went perfectly still in the throne, hands resting on the armrests, the figure of a man who had simply stopped. His presence was already elsewhere.
[Simulating startup...]
[Current Identities Available:]
[Space Wolf: Thirteenth Company Commander. Death World: Fenris.]
[Lord Cypher. Net Path: Gomor.]
[Please select your identity. Refusal will result in random assignment.]
[Identity selection declined.]
[Simulating startup...]
[You are now entering the Warhammer universe. Arrival time and location: random.]
[Time: ???]
[Location: Tombworld, Solemnace.]
[You have landed at an unknown position. The metal floor beneath your feet is shaking.]
[You open your eyes. Orientation catches up with arrival in the span of two seconds. The vibration rises through your boots first. Then the weight of vibranium power armor across your frame, familiar and certain. Then the Blood Scythe in your right hand, its blade trailing green light through the disturbed air.]
[Then you see what is standing in front of you.]
[A Necron Cryptek stands less than ten meters away. Its skeletal frame radiates a faint chill. Its eye lenses burn steady, dull green. It has gone completely still, the stillness of a machine running threat assessments rather than the stillness of surprise.]
["Where did you come from?" it asks. The voice carries no warmth and no alarm. Only calculation. "Out of some static field?"]
[Its gaze moves across you in a single slow pass. Then it looks down and begins turning the pages of a thick catalog resting across its metal forearm, searching through categories and records for something that matches you. It finds nothing.]
[Its gaze settles on the Blood Scythe.]
["Wait. That weapon is..."]
[You take three strides forward and remove its head from its shoulders in a single unhurried sweep.]
[The Cryptek's head strikes the metal floor with a hollow ring and spins twice before stopping. Before the echo fades, something else begins: a bell toll, deep and slow, its resonance pressing through the chamber in every direction. The sound carries an accumulated weight, as though it has been waiting to ring for a very long time.]
["A bell," you say, and turn.]
[Across the hall, static containment fields are failing in sequence. Each one collapses with a soft pop of discharged energy, and the air around the failing fields shimmers briefly before going flat. Behind the fields, shapes are beginning to move. Shapes that have not moved in a long time.]
[The recognition lands with considerable force. "I'm in serious trouble. This is Trazyn's museum. Solemnace."]
[The creatures pulling themselves free of the failing stasis fields are not a single species. They come in every configuration: limbs in wrong numbers, proportions built for environments this chamber does not provide, bodies making the first slow movements of things relearning that they exist. Some are already reaching full alertness. Most have been imprisoned long enough that nothing resembling rational thought has survived the wait.]
[You take one steadying breath and tighten your grip on the Blood Scythe.]
[Knock knock knock...]
[You drive yourself into the nearest cluster without hesitation. Waiting accomplishes nothing here. The Blood Scythe moves in tight, efficient arcs, the green-lit blade cutting through bodies and chitin in sequence. You find the rhythm of it quickly.]
[Then your free hand swings forward by instinct, fingers spreading, the motion completely automatic. Nothing answers the motion. No metal rings, no familiar weight rising to meet your hand.]
[You stop for exactly one second.]
["Your Majesty," you say. "At least give me my full equipment."]
[You close the hand and get back to work.]
[Bang...]
[A Thalesian creature sweeps toward your shoulder, insectoid wings spread wide, its squid-like body trailing reaching limbs. You drive your vibranium fist into it and it tumbles backward through the two behind it, taking all three down in a single exchange.]
[Something fast registers above and behind you. Your animal senses fire half a second before the blow lands, and you are already dropping into a roll when eight limbs strike the metal floor exactly where your head was. A Lakhor alien, three meters tall, its fist leaving a crater in the plating. You come out of the roll still moving.]
[The Blood Scythe sweeps upward through the cluster of Tyranid bone worms that have launched from the far wall. They come apart before they land, their remains scattering across the floor.]
[You push deeper into the hall, armor pressing through the crowd, carving forward meter by meter toward open ground that keeps retreating.]
[Then, through a gap in the bodies, at the edge of your vision, two shapes pull themselves upright from their containment alcoves. The first is enormous. Its crown reorients toward you with the measured patience of a Hive Tyrant, a creature built to direct a battlefield and survive everything sent to stop it. Beside it, a cluster of Slothaians writhe slowly to life, their bodies already turning, already tracking you.]
[You let out a breath. It carries a great deal of feeling.]
[Your hand reaches back and closes around the molten bomb stored beneath your power pack.]
["After all this time," you say, mostly to yourself, "the molten bomb is still the most reliable thing in any loadout."]