The Musing of R. L. Frymire

STOMP, STOMP, SLAP!

A thin branch smacked Aimor Riztah across the face with stinging force. Stunned, he stumbled but managed to keep his feet, and, more importantly, kept running. All around him was a dizzying array of different shades of greens and browns interspersed with vibrant hues of exotic flowers.

Another ear-splitting shriek sounded behind him. Too close!

Knees to chest, Aimor ran, arms and legs pumping. Not fast enough! Unlike his pulse. His heart throbbed, pounding against the cage of his chest with bruising force. Too fast. Lightheaded, he couldn’t catch his breath. His was panting, sobbing.

I don’t want to die!

His father couldn’t save him. Aimor had already abandoned him to the wilds of the forest—along with the others. No hesitation, self-preservation having taken over. His shame at his cowardice was overshadowed by an all-consuming terror. Then the unthinkable happened.

He tripped.

Chest slamming into the unforgiving ground, the air in his lungs exploded out of him a second before his face bounced painfully off the dirt. Grit in his eyes, leaves in his mouth. The forest sought to smother him! He clawed at the ground and moved to rise, but it wasn’t his twisted ankle that kept him in the muck. Thick, hairy legs barred his path, and Aimor didn’t need to look further up to the creature’s face to know the chase was over.

They’d caught him.

A leathery foot lifted and came at his face.

Aimor’s brain locked. Everything seemed to come to a standstill. How had he come to be here, in this strange forest, trapping small and bizarre looking animals, foraging for plants he didn’t know the name of, while struggling to survive on a foreign planet far from his own?

IMPERIAL DATE 999.M41.

Vostroya.

An Imperial Industrial World, their main purpose was to supply the Imperium of Man with arms and ammunitions. To meet the Imperium’s extraordinarily high production demands, the planet’s surface was left disfigured by the countless manufactories that spread across the globe, along with their over-populated cityscapes that were necessary to house the hundreds of millions of laborers required to work the factories. Such over industrialization came at a great cost, choking out much of the planet’s flora and fauna. With few natural resources remaining to them, the populace would have died out long ago if not for imported supplies.

Supplies that came with a high tax and not nearly enough return to satisfy the avarice of the wealthy elite.

Utilizing their deep ties to the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Vostroyan government not only devised a scheme to mitigate the cost that could, instead, fill the pockets of the ruling Techtriarchy, but to finally obtain their due. Indulgence. Extravagance.

Across the vastness of the stars, innumerable worlds were left undiscovered. Resources unexploited. Worlds the Mechanicus Explorators were constantly in search of—to study from, to take from. Could not the Vostroyan’s do the same? Seizing opportunity, the Techtriarchy made a confidential arrangement with the Mechanicus that would see them benefiting alongside the tech-priests.

The wait was long while numerous Exploratory vessels scoured the galaxy, traversing unknown stars, until the Mechanicus’ persistence, and the Vostroyan’s patience, bore fruit.

Planetary discovery.

After preliminary scans of the world’s surface and atmosphere were completed, Explorator Vladius Rufouz’s, along with his underling tech-priests and guards, made planetfall, where he began his initial examination, collecting samples from the soil, water, and plant-life, as well as harvesting specimens from various animal species. His findings were promising. He concluded that the planet’s atmosphere was compatible with sustaining human life, while possessing an overabundance of vegetation and wildlife ideal for man’s dietary—and consumptive—needs.

Among their findings, they discovered the natives. Human inhabitants. Primitive and superstitious. Wary of the tech-priests advanced technologies, the native’s kept their distance; though, not all proved to be so prudent. Those foolish enough to raise spear and arrows against them were neutralized.

Then, seeing no reason for further delay, Vladius sent word back to the Mechanicus of his findings. As expected, Vladius was tasked with the continuation of his mission upon the planet. To explore the unknown, locate hidden treasures, and obtain precious knowledge. Vaguely, the Mechanicus remembered the Vostroyans, and after careful deliberation, they allowed this information to be passed along.

The Techtriarchy were quick to commission further aid from the Mechanicus, who permitted the Vostroyans the use of one of their acquired Rogue Trader ships, a decommissioned Imperial Tempest-class Strike Frigate named the Pertinacia, for the purpose of shuttling goods.

In their eagerness, the ruling government disregarded the known danger of the unknown expanse of space, for their promised bounty lie at the very fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, and beyond, into the mysterious stellar cluster of the Halo Stars.

Little was known of the region. Imperial exploration minimal.

Explorator Vladius Rufouz’s discovery heralded deeper still, within the Koronas Expanse. But to reach the planet, the Pertinacia had to first brave the Koronas Passage—the Maw.

With a crew of 30,418—not including the additional ‘passengers’ of soldiers and menial laborers, the Rogue Trader vessel disembarked from Vostroya. With their destination sequestered between the Heathen Stars and the Accursed Demesne, the frigate prepared to enter the Maw, but nothing could truly prepare for a passage through the Great Warp Storm. A tempestuous mass of interdimensional vortices that continuously crushed against each other, the cluster of warp storms that made up the Maw was not a journey for the inexperienced. Few ever entered, fewer ever survived.

Never before had Aimor Riztah experienced void travel. The prospect was both daunting and thrilling, only to became the most terrifying period of his monotonous existence. All his life, he’d worked in one of the many manufactories on Vostroya, until his transfer to join the expedition aboard the Pertinacia. No warning. No choices given.

And yet, the change—any change—was welcome.

To leave Vostroya, to escape the tedium of working fourteen-hour shifts on the assembly—Every. Single. Day.—for the rest of his miserable life, was a godsend from the Emperor himself. With his father and mother working the same line, they were shipped off together. And for the first time ever, he thought everything was true. That the Emperor was all-seeing. That he cared for everyone, even insignificant little Aimor. And above all, that the Emperor had a grand destiny planned for Aimor.

Together, he and his parents left their old, wretched lives to embark on something new and wonderous.

The journey across the stars was their first—and his mother’s last.

Their passage through the Maw was harrowing as many of the passengers fell prey to nightmares that would transcend into their waking hours, causing horrendous hallucinations. Fear and unrest plagued the ship’s inhabitants, manifesting in widespread panic. Many of those suffering such hellish delusions turned aggressive.

Self-mutilation was rampant.

Many swore they’d become infected by parasites. Too many attempted to dig them out of their own flesh. Cutting too deep, tendons were severed, crippling many, while others dug through their own entrails to remove invisible worms, or they simply bled out.

Some sights were so distressing that others sought escape by gouging out their own eyes. Still more turned on their fellow man, convinced their neighbor,spouse, or child was a monstrous beast in disguise. Husbands strangled wives, and mothers smothered children.

Death ravaged the Pertinacia.

Simple laborers and soldiers were afflicted alike; though, much of the flight crew remained unaffected, as they were not quite human. Not anymore. Heavily augmented, the tech priests of the Mechanicus were saved from ‘fleshy weaknesses’, while their mindwiped minions, the servitors, had no mind to afflict.

Amongst those stricken by madness, Aimor’s mother succumbed, but unlike the violent offenders and self-mutilators, she fell mute and became listless. She refused to eat or drink and had to be forcefully spoon fed. Despite all Aimor’s efforts and desperate pleas, she soon passed away, taking Aimor’s heart with her.

To add salt to the wound, just days later, the Pertinacia arrived at their destination. While Aimor shared in the other passengers’ relief to finally remerged from the warp into realspace, he’d lost all enthusiasm to have escaped the desolate existence back home. In truth, he wished he and his parents had never left. Better a life working the assembly if it meant living life with his mother in it than to live in a world without her.

He was shown no compassion for his loss, given no time to grieve. There was much work to be done.

Their first task upon arrival was for the laborers to construct a makeshift settlement on the surface. With the help of servitors that had been provided by the Mechanicus, they began building a safe place to shelter, before turning to foraging and trapping, tasks the factory workers lacked the skillset to perform, but they learned. Through much trial and error, but mostly, by the data stored in the Pertinacia.

The soldiers who took the voyage with them did not help. Not in the camps construction, nor in the search for edible vegetation and the catching of wild game. Instead, they kept the camp safe and secure, patrolling the surrounding area for any possible danger, while keeping the peace within the settlement, but the laborers of Vostroya knew better than to cause even a hint of a disruption, having long been conditioned under the harsh whip of their overseers within the manufactories.

Months passed. When the Pertinacia was finally filled to overflowing, with the goods carefully preserved in storage for the long return journey within a stasis field, the ship made ready to depart—without the laborers.

Despite the rough conditions and hard work, most were content to remain. Back on Vostroya, they rarely saw the light of day, their long shifts consigning them to an existence indoors. When they weren’t working, they were crammed within miniscule livings quarters to await their next shift. The few moments they had to be out of doors was an experience many tried to avoid. The air was tainted by a thick smog constantly belching from the manufactories, obscuring the sun from sight, and filling their lungs with toxins. Few made it to old age. Even fewer wanted to.

But here, the air was clean and the sun was bright and warm. Though their living arrangements were primitive and cramped, they were used to far worse conditions, and in fact, believed they’d found a life of comfort.

The laborers were prepared to stay and for most of the soldiers to remain behind to provide continual protection. They were prepared to grow the camp as a permanent community for themselves and to develop the land for farming and raising livestock. They were prepared for the Pertinacia’s eventual return—or another such vessel sent from Vostroya—and have crops ready to be loaded and hauled home, but what they were not prepared for was ‘the blackness’.

Before the Pertinacia could exit realspace to start the treacherous journey home through the malignant warp, the inconceivable occurred. The Astronomican went dark.

Without the light of the Astronomican, the navigator of the Pertinacia was unable to guide their way back to Vostroya—or anywhere. Blind, they didn’t dare make an attempt, not when there were warp storms to traverse. And, it was whispered, that there were…things in the warp. Dark entities waiting to devour the unwary, and the lost.

The Pertinacia was stranded.

Worse, they were cut off from any communication or aid from the Imperium. Not even the great Vladius Rufouz of the Mechanicus Explorators could bring aid or enlightenment. He was just as in the dark as the rest of them, but unlike everyone else, he didn’t seem to mind or care. He was too busy exploring the planet. Soon after, he and his tech-priests left the Vostroya’s settlement.

Days turned into weeks, weeks to months. Vladius and his party did not return, nor their beacon of light. They were truly on their own.

An entire year eclipsed with no change.

Many of the laborers simply… forgot and moved on. Life on Vostroya was far away, and they were here. This was their life now, their home, and they were far too busy struggling to survive and carving out a new existence for themselves to contemplate the mysteries of life.

Aimor and his father—Ernesh—were in a small group of men, hiking through the forest, checking their previously set traps, when bone shilling shrieks rent the air, shattering the silence. The men shouted in alarm, and Aimor froze, nearly wetting his pants as those blood curdling screams continued.

Eyes darting around, he saw nothing but gnarled trees. Shadows shifted menacingly. Something scampered across the forest floor, scattering dry leaves, causing Aimor’s heart to leap into his throat. Another howling shriek took his wits and he ran. He vaguely heard his father shouting behind him, but lost in the madness of sheer terror, Aimor continued to run as fast as his gangly legs would carry him.

Behind him he heard pursuit, fueling his panic to new heights. Heart pounding, lungs billowing, he was nearly sobbing when he felt a hand grab his shoulder, spinning him around. Wild eyed, he took in the angry, fear glazed eyes of his father’s, before Aimor tripped, taking his old man down with him. The air whooshed out of him as he landed under his father’s greater weight. While he lay stunned, Ernesh rolled away, but the pain in Aimor’s left hip remained, which had taken the brunt of his fall. Beneath him, rocks and sticks dug into his back painfully.

Was it safe to move, Aimor thought, dazed, or had he really hurt himself?

Panting, he stared up at the canopy of trees above, trying to calm down, to think. Between the leafy branches, he saw the Rifts of Hecaton, its orange tendrils stretching across the sky, where the maroon hued ends curled inwards, as if reaching for him. The sight was both beautiful and disturbing, when a shadow eclipsed the awesome view.

Unnaturally large, yellow eyes stared down at him, with a mouth gaping wide, with fangs bared, and he pictured those razor-sharp teeth descending towards his jugular. With a shrill cry, Aimor rolled, crawling away frantically on hands and knees. Unmanly tears cascaded down his cheeks as he heard his father scream. Da! he thought in renewed panic, but rather than turn and help, Aimor stumbled to his feet, and like the coward he was, he ran. Again.

Until he tripped. Again. Twisting his ankle.

Another creature from the abyss stood before him. This time, Aimor knew there was no escape, and that he was about to reap the rewards of deserting his only kin.