OCTAVIAN GAIUS
Octavian had no trouble keeping both his facial expression and posture stoic. He was a Custodes after all, if he didn’t have perfect control of his body, he would have retired already.
Still, he had to make sure he wasn’t glancing overly much into the corner of his vision where a small interface shoved the countdown till they could launch landing-craft onto the planet.
Fear was as alien a concept to a Custode as it was to an Astartes, but the prospect of having come so far, having travelled the stars along with the Regent, only to fail his mission had something similar souring his mood.
His internal sense of time had never been wrong up until then, so he had little reason to suspect it to be so now. Yet, he remained standing on the command deck, his gaze flicking from the slowly growing shape of Baal to his counter.
‘What if?’ he thought. What if his sense would be wrong just this once, maybe just by a single second? A single second was a long time for a Custode. It would mean the difference between reaching his charge just in time and watching it be destroyed by the Shadowkeeper.
His landing craft was already ready to go, filled with his weapons and some of his brothers who weren’t as ‘fussy’ as he was. He calculated that he had to leave the command deck exactly 23 minutes and 5 seconds before the ship reached orbit so he could leave with the landing craft as soon as it could be launched.
Up until then, he would remain where he was, watching, observing.
That was why he was there when it happened.
The first sign, in retrospect, was the minute frown on the Farseer’s face. That was nothing new, the Xeno was seeing many things at the same time, most of which were inconsequential and far away as far as Octavian knew, but this time it turned out to be different.
The alien strutted up to the seated form of the Reagent under the disproving glare of both his Custode brothers who would remain behind to ‘protect’ the man — as if he needed protecting — and his own Astartes sons.
Octavian easily picked up on the words that were said, with no sorcery masking the sound, it would have taken metres of concrete being between them for Octavian’s ears to miss the softly spoken words.
“Something infiltrated the ship.”
Octavian didn’t turn, he didn’t even move a single muscle, but his attention still turned towards the conversation happening behind him. If this infiltration somehow delayed their arrival, that would endanger his mission even more.
With the situation already being untenable, his charge’s survival depending solely on the whimsical mood of fate, he couldn’t let the odds grow even worse.
“By what?” came the gruff voice of the Regent, echoing Octavian’s own thoughts.
“That is hard to determine,” answered the Xeno in a drawling voice that managed to grate on Octavian’s nerves whenever he heard it. “I only know that it is nothing I came across over the centuries I’ve lived. Though it must be remembered that all I have to go off of is the faint trace of this being’s aura, it is challenging to even detect that.”
The tech priests and the tech-marines present threw themselves into a fervour. Octavian understood, that security and such was their responsibility and if there was any weight to the Xeno’s claims, they had failed spectacularly at that.
Next to them, an ultramarine captain sent for increased patrols and maximum vigilance.
Octavian had a premonition that both would be worthless, maybe not worthless, but far too late. He squinted as that strange thought settled in his mind. Yes, he was sure of it, the search parties would be too late because the infiltrator was much further in than they expected.
Curiously, he didn’t feel the usual urging to exterminate the filth that set foot on the Imperial ship. No, he … what?
He frowned, trying to place the sense of certainty and rightness that came bubbling up from his chest.
“How far in are they?” Lord Guilliman asked.
“Uncertain,” the Eldar said. “The last trace of them which I caught was on five floors from here.”
“Deploy the bulkheads on the upper two,” the Regent ordered and a tech-priest was already relaying the orders. “I want search parties to swarm the floors beyond that from third to tenth. Move only in squads and take heavy weaponry. Capture the target as intact as possible. I want to know what it is that penetrated our defences this deeply.”
The order barely left the Regent’s lips before Octavian whirled around, his guardian spear in hand, and aimed towards the bulkhead still open and leading out of the command deck. A part of his mind instantly noted that all of his Custode brothers mirrored him and the Regent had his sword in hand with a mighty frown aimed where the gold-clad warriors were looking.
For a moment, he let himself be slightly awed. He barely saw the man move. For a Custode like him, being in the presence of someone who outclassed him in both skill and raw physical capability was still a new experience.
His attention never wavered from the bulkhead though. There was nothing there. Not a single mote of floating dust. And yet he knew better than to discredit his instincts, especially when all his brothers seemed to have felt the same.
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There was something dangerous here, something hidden and deadly. No new scent touched his nostril, no strange sound reached his ear and his eyes saw only the dreary grey floor and walls.
Octavian fought Lictors before. Those were the closest experience he could compare this to, but even with that Xeno beast, he could hear it as it moved and notice the displaced air it left in its wake as it moved.
Those beasts were only moderately challenging to kill, they were fast and vicious, but they never managed to give Octavian that much of a fight and they seemed to have known better than to target a Custode, preferring to kill mortals or lone Astartes.
Now, though, he only felt a vague yet certain sense of danger. He knew he was in danger, that was certain. What was vague was why he was in danger or from what.
The Farseer was the first to act. His hand rose, palm aimed at the bulkhead with his fingers grasping an invisible orb which formed belatedly a moment later.
Before the blazing spell of fiery sorcery could do more than hiss, the Eldar’s arm twitched despite himself as if an invisible hand twisted his arm painfully. The flaming orb hissed and disappeared as the Xeno grimaced in pain.
“There is no need for that.”
The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, its tone and pitch ambiguous in a way that reminded him of the Eldar. Octavian didn’t waver for a moment. He knew the interloper was within his sight, even if he couldn’t see it clearly.
“Show yourself,” said the Regent, though it sounded more like an order than a request and Octavian suspected the man had held little hope for it to be obeyed. He was to be proven wrong.
“I will indulge you this once.”
The air rippled and bent like a mirage and suddenly the transparent form that stood before them was as clear to Octavian as any Lictor would have been. Illusion.
A moment later even that optical camouflage disappeared and before them stood something that wouldn’t have been out of place in the middle of a Tyranid swarm. It was taller than a Lictor and without the tentacle-like appendages decorating its head and with arms and armour that spoke of a distinctly higher quality than what he would have expected on a Lictor.
A talking Tyranid. The implications of it were monumental, but Octavian ignored them easily at the behest of the wrongness that idea induced in him.
He glanced at the Farseer and found him gawking at the alien, his mouth opening and closing before he spoke in a choked voice. “It is disconnected … there is not a trace of the Hive Mind in it.”
“And I rather like it that way,” the voice now came from the towering alien, though still made with some sorcery instead of flesh and blood organs.
“You infiltrate my ship,” the Regent spoke after a long second of silence, his grip still firmly around his sword that could rend dreadnaughts in half. “Alone. Why?”
Why, indeed, would anyone infiltrate the most heavily defended battleship of the fleet, only to walk up to the most dangerous man in the Imperium surrounded by half a dozen Custodes?
Not even a fallen primarch would be arrogant enough to do such a thing. Octavian understood why the brazen act gave the Regent pause and why the man wouldn’t just aim to dispose of the strange Xeno as fast as possible.
“You assume much, Lord of Ultramar.”
The creature knew of him, that was alarming.
“I am not here,” it said. “And I am never alone. But to answer your question, I came to ‘talk’.”
“Some sort of projection?” he heard the Farseer mumble. “There is a telepathic link going … into the void.”
The Regent didn’t talk for another long second. His eyes narrowed at the alien, measuring, judging. It was easy to see that it stood no chance of killing the Regent, though Octavian felt it would be able to contend with him if skill went along with its physical abilities, and his intuition told him that it did.
“Why would I be willing to talk with you?”
“I will make sure to make it worth your time,” it said and Octavian felt his eyes widen as the form of the alien … caved in. It collapsed upon itself like a fragile building during an earthquake, but what made his thoughts crash to a halt was what came next.
He sensed no danger, so he kept to staring.
The dark tint of the carapace faded and gave way to a thousand hair-thin tendrils that twisted upon themselves. The alien form slowly grew smaller and smaller under the vigilant glare of a dozen deadly warriors and took a more human shape.
The tendrils settled and once again gained colour with a ripple, healthy pink skin covered by a thin fabric in the form of a simple white shirt and trousers and above them a face far too perfect to be found on a human. Still, a regular human would easily mistake the ‘woman’ standing before them as a human.
White tendrils, shapeshifting. Octavian collected his astonished mind, reoriented it, and analysed it before coming to a conclusion in less than a fragment of a second. His charge was standing right in front of him. He was sure of it.
The sense of rightness redoubled as that thought settled in his mind. At the same time, he found a pair of emerald eyes staring at him with barely concealed curiosity.
“I believe this form would suit ‘talking’ better,” it — no, she — said. “It might reassure you that my combat capabilities are even more subdued in this body than the previous one.”
Octavian shelved the words for later and stepped forward, instantly drawing the Regent’s attention. He never once acted out or without orders during his stay in the fleet and he never did anything like this.
That was because he was waiting, waiting for the moment to come when he could finally begin his mission, his real mission.
“I have reason to believe we are talking to my charge, Lord Regent.”
That was a loaded sentence to be sure, it meant that not only was the strange shapeshifting alien much more important than the others had thought, but that Octavian and Flavius would die to protect her from danger, even if said danger was called Robute Guilliman.
The Emperor’s orders were absolute, and so were the arbiters of his will.
In a deep part of his mind though, embers of relief blossomed into a roaring flame. He didn’t fail, not yet. Whatever the Shadowkeeper was doing, he didn’t succeed just yet.
He still had a chance.
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This is a bit of a mess, but I should be able to salvage it. I thought as I smiled cordially at the dozen deadly weapons aimed at my head.
I was wondering how far I could get before being found out and it seems the answer was ‘quite far’. I was within hearing distance when Guilliman ordered the bulkhead shut so after a moment of hesitation I pushed the drone to the limit and dashed up to the command room.
I never doubted that I would be noticed, but the fact that it was the Farseer who caught my trail meant I was doing something wrong with my Illusions. I’d have to look into that, if a two-bit Eldar could detect me, I would have an abysmal chance at ever infiltrating a Craftworld or Commorragh — if I wanted to do so in the future that is.
So that was how I came to be standing before some of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. Then I felt it.
It was one of the custodes. For a brief moment, his aura expanded and shivered as he was connected to something vast and alien. To say I was a touch afraid would be an understatement. Whatever I felt there was like an immensely superior version of … me? No, not quite.
I squinted at him in interest. The alien aura was gone as fast as it came, with the Custodes seemingly none the wiser for it, aside from his slightly dilated pupils.
Okay, alright, I’m not stupid. Only a single otherworldly being would be able to touch a Custodes. Let me be in denial for a bit longer. The implications of the shattered, tortured psyche of the Emperor bothering to collect itself in my presence were concerning. Immensely concerning. Nuh-uh, I must have seen wrong, sensed wrong.
Back to why I am here. After changing into my human form for the sake of appearances and some back and forth with the blue bossman where I attempted to appear cool and mysterious, the Custodes who totally didn’t receive a divine email from the Emperor stepped forward to the collective surprise of everyone.
“I have reason to believe we are talking to my charge, Lord Regent.”
He spoke with certainty and I noticed that his guardian spear — which thankfully I could tell only shot bolter rounds instead of disintegrating beams — no longer aimed my way. A moment later, another gold-clad giant with royal purple robes draped over his armour stepped between me and the Primarch. An Aquilian Shield? I think they were called?
I blinked, wearing a neutral smile as I tried to work out what the hell was going on. My gaze flickering between the two golden giants and the slightly confused glare of the resident Primarch.
This is getting interesting.