[@Sophrus][@Wraithblade6][@Necroes][@BCTheEntity][@DepressedSoviet][@Hank][@Bright_Ops]



Like leeches they came...so many leeches...latching on to the warplogged flesh of the amalgamated carcass, intent on sucking from within it something that they knew not the identity of but knew they had to have; in many forms they came – mercenaries attuned to the Immaterium, a ship of rogues and xenos, and once loyal servants of the Emperor now intent on their own gains in their nearly immortal lives.

Although some vermin already scurried about within the bowels of the filthy wreckage, as new lives set foot upon decks not trod for centuries on end things began to awaken within. Foul alien life-signs down in the belly of the beast, heretical and flesh-eating cults that had been kept alive only by the queer flow of time within the daemon-infested Warp, and other older things that flitted in the shadows and had no name to call them.

From the floor of a deck aboard the once noble [i]Aquila[/i] a lone figure began to shudder, their Catalepsean Node and Sus-an Membrane causing the entire transhuman structure to lash out in spasms not of their own making. The figure did not realise what they did, huge fists hammering at the decking, the lit eyes of their helmet far different from the eyes beneath the ceramite which rolled back into the skull of the unfortunate one.

[i]What was happening? Where am I? How long have I slept?![/i]

These unspoken questions came out as grunts and moans from between clenched teeth, everything at once tense and locked up, only for the entire armoured behemoth to go as limp as a fish the next.

[i]The Seventeenth Legion cannot get their hands on them...they must not be allowed to succeed![/i]

Slowly but inexorably the figure lifted itself from the deck, somewhat dazed and curious as to why it's boltgun was no longer present at its side, sweeping its helmet in one direction and them looking to the other – what it saw made the blood within it boil, for all around lay fallen warriors, tens of them, clad in both perfect purple and gold or rusty crimson and gunmetal.

[i]No...no...no.[/i]

With a superhuman effort, his legs still ceased up and the power armour doing little to solve that internal problem, Decurion Vedius Celer of the Emperor's Children limped off into the darkness to find both the tools of his trade [b]and[/b] that which he had sworn to protect.



[hr]



It could smell them, and it could hear them, and that was enough for it to wish for their demise.

Unfurling itself from where it had been resting, conserving what strength it had for any interlopers, it now allowed a psychic pulse to probe for both its fellows and for threats – and a threat there was, something odd about the psychic field it produced but also something powerful, a non-Human entity that must be torn asunder along with the others.

It was most fortunate that his broods were not ill-fed nor weakened by millennia of travel, the millions of serfs and prisoners from the Human vessels having fed them well, and when those ran out the foolish creatures that believed they could board the drifting wreck and take what they wished without consequence.

No, this it could not allow.

With a hiss of something serpentine and another mental shudder of command, mere moments passing before an unheard 'alarm' was triggered, the Tyranid inhabitants of the vessel – Genestealers off all generations – began to rouse themselves and once more serve their apex overlord.



[hr]



Celalyth watched the Hulk as her fleet took up position around her own ship, the Void Dragon vessel known in the Mon-Keigh tongue as [i]Pride of Mymeara[/i], their solar sails catching what little sunlight could be found in this region of space and their sleek hulls of teal and blue glinting in wan light of stars all around.

For several months they had been tracking the Hulk through the Warp, using their Warlocks to divine the next location where it would burst into realspace, only to come upon it now. They had already intercepted barbarous communications between a Mon-Keigh outpost and a force of their warrior caste known at the 'Storm Hawks', a force that would be here sooner rather than later – and by that time she intended for them to be gone.

Craftworld Mymeara had been able to provide but a small flotilla, big enough to scatter most opposing ships and take what they had come for, but too small to mount a true threat to any Imperial force or otherwise.

Two cruisers, three light cruisers and a number of assorted escorts now sat silently outside of detection range – at least for any primitive Mon-Keigh vessel – and awaited the command from their Admiral to engage.