Sam Saulsbury The Hemingway, legendary flagship of the long lost 6th Exploratory Fleet, gleams faintly in the

twilight of the sun Cerberus. For a thousand years she has traversed the pinprick stars and veiled unknowns, adrift in the nightmarish warp. Majestic and terrible, the ancient ship has witnessed things too beautiful to comprehend and too monstrous to describe. It is in her death throes that she, against all lost hope, returns her crew to their world. She drifts like some great dying beast of yore, through the polluted space that cloaks Sepulcha like a shroud, to rest eternal above the smog ridden planet. The lifeless crew still stands, silent, behind glowing consoles. But the lights grow dim. They fade. Fade into the void. The Admiral awakes. Leaving his dank quarters, he still proudly marches in threadbare uniform through the darkening labyrinth of his ship. Above him the high gothic arches and chipped buttresses house tiny, malignant, beasts, chattering to themselves as he passes beneath. He strides past rusted bulkheads and faded stained-glass windows, where saints laugh at him in mockery. He reaches a sealed chamber. Decrepit, failing, circuitries open the cracked portal almost benevolently for their master. Inside, the ancient Navigator, having long ago breathed his last, hangs suspended like his charge, the great ship, in the gloom. The Admiral looks with pity at the tethered corpse, but pushes on through the tangled wires and metal scraps that litter the floor. The beasts have preceded him here. He catches flitting glimpses of shadowy nightmares in the darkest nooks and crevices, and above him something sniggers in contemptuous glee. These shades pursue him to edge of his domain, the sanctified bridge. He rushes through in short lived relief. There, slouched against their consoles, his crew still stands at their posts. Their desiccated remains testament to their fortitude, death could not hold them from their post, those brave young fools. They had been so bold, the upstarts, the recruits, each and every one. But the bodies are ancient, rotted. How long could he have slept? How long? And still the beasts laugh at him, his fear, and his anguish. In the darkest corners, he knows the nightmares are taking shape. He gropes through the twilight, through the bone yard, through a millennia worth of dust. All will be well if he can reach the chair, his chair. The beasts begin to laugh, a full bodied, raucous laughter. Their rustling wings carry them to the floor with dull thumps, but he must reach his chair. He will not shirk duty even in death. He trips over something, he doesnt look at it; if he does, he knows he will be sick, and he crawls forwards still. The laughter becomes an earsplitting shriek, but he can still hear the things come towards him. He moves more desperately now, hands rubbed raw and bloody as he struggles in the dark. Then something jumps on top of him, sharp fangs piercing his flesh. He twists onto his back, and the thing goes for his throat. He catches the blow with his right arm, and screams. But he is thankful that he can only see its eyes; evil fires burning with hatred. He tries to beat at the fires, but the thing begins to pull him by the arm towards the others. A second beast latches onto his leg, taking a hunk from his calve, and the Admiral kicks it with his free leg. He begins to panic. He starts wildly swinging his left fist at the thing on his arm, still kicking at the beast gnawing at his leg. On the third strike, as his fist recoils, it strikes the chair, his chair, and he becomes strangely calm. He will fall at his post. He has a sword, he remembers, but he cant swing it on the ground, and to stand he must free his

leg. He must stand up. His blows are more accurate, the beasts loosen their grip. He begins to break free, when his right arm breaks, He sees red for a moment as the bone slices through his tendons. He screams, and the thing eyes his throat. He screams again, losing control, and he stops fighting back. He goes limp and his left hand hits the floor. No, not just the floor, it strikes a broken metal pipe. The creature lunges, but his mind clear is once more. Through the pain he takes hold of the pipe, and aims for the eyes coming for his throat. The thing shrieks and is gone in a flash of crimson light. He hits the other, once, twice, three times, before it too is gone. Three more take its place and attempt to pin him down, but the Admiral cripples one and writhes away from the others. He uses his chair, despite protests from his leg, to get to his feet, drops the pipe, and, leaning heavily on the chair, draws his sword. He sees grim death before him, countless red fires watching, laughing, and waiting. They will come as a single wave, he tells himself, they will overwhelm me, but some mad, proud, defiant spark in him laughs. He flourishes his blade at the horde and cries, Back foul creatures! Return in shame to your depraved masters! Go back! Back to the abyss! And as one the beasts lunge for him. >>>> The ruinous spires of Ann Aretha loom imperiously as they have done for nearly twenty thousand years, their tarnished facades and crumbling buttresses, scored with the craters of some forgotten conflict, still testimony to glorious days long past. Amongst these towers, the affluent, the noble, the bureaucrat and the amoral congregate to do their underhanded business, their favored currency being human life, while, far, far below, in desolation and squalor, the fleeting lives of three billion serfs pass by with a blink of an eye, toiling ceaselessly until the last desperate gasp only to be trodden upon by ten million feet. But even lower still, below churning, smoke wreathed factories, never ceasing in their productions for distant wars, below bilge filled sewers, where outcast tribes of mutants and desperados eke out their meager sustenance, below the natural caverns still remarkably untouched by the pollutants of the surface, but prowled by creatures forever ravenous for the flesh of the living, below even the silent tombs of the malevolent Necrontyr, a morbid reminder that man is not the first among the stars, and that he will certainly not be the last, there is a door. Long ago, in the Dark Age of Technology it was sealed, and so it has remained year after innumerable year. Over its expansive surface, sixty meters of burnished metals, countless devices of archaic, and potent, modes of containment bar it in ways incomprehensible to the human mind, and resilient to any tampering or machinations of the mortal world. Within, a noise like overwound clockwork clacks ever on, a monotonous droning never wavering, until it too, becomes a mere facet of the silence. There is a sudden clank, the clash of metal and gears, echoing for what seems like days, and the door opens a crack. The Scientist rises from his slumber. >>>> The ethereal smoke from the dissipating corpses of the creatures and the desiccated remains of his crew are the Admirals only company. The last of the twinkling lights, subdued stars in the darkness, fade out one by one. The bridge of the Hemingway descends into night, and with this night, so too does the grim chill of death come. Alone, pierced a thousand times by poisoned fangs and raked by razor honed claws, the Admiral

is dying. His sword, stained black with the acidic blood of soulless monsters, yet still proud like its master, though shattered beyond repair. His sword, passed on to him by the ancient, golden armored Custodians of the Emperor, cleaved into a thousand glinting pieces, the tip buried in some foul creature forever more, the weapons blessed blade following the daemon even into its nightmare realm. The Admiral is dying, and the welcoming abyss awaits him on the other side. But, he will not yet pass quietly. The long dead, his honored crew, will have their overdue vengeance. He staggers to his feet, waves of pain nauseating him, before every finger, every bone, and every inch of flesh begins a monotonous ache. With a grunt of effort, he takes a step forward. Through a millennias worth of dust, through spilt blood both new and old, out of his realm, and into the twisted mausoleum of his ship he stumbles, each step an agony, his tortured form on the edge of release. Yes, they will have their vengeance, those who have for eons awaited it. >>>> The Admiral struggles onward, his blood leaving a speckled trail with every agonizing step. Ravenous beasts pursue him, tongues lolling, yet wary of this avenger until his strength fails. The Admiral can hear their mewling cries. Above him, the diminutive creatures that so plagued him before, laugh no longer, but pelt him with all manners of filth and detritus in their wild fury. But the blasphemed images of spacefaring saints jeer at him no longer, their desecrated alcoves are more shaded than before, as their daemonic inhabitants shield themselves from the Admirals desperate, vengeful eye. He approaches a blasted gateway, some stronghold of final resistance, a lone maintenance servitor, oddly untouched, attempting to clear the debris. The Admiral pushes it back towards his hunters, hoping to forestall their terrible advance. The lobotomized drones blood spatters across his back. He enters the hangar, countless decrepit fighters rusting where no moisture should find purchase, strange stalactites jutting from the floor. Glowing orbs drift by to mislead him, while gibbering beasts, once men perhaps, wander aimlessly about. Warped bulkheads pulsate eerily like nearly bursting egg-sacks from some ghastly arachnid, guttural moaning rising from within. Further past he shambles, his pain nearly overwhelming, until he falls upon his knees. The creatures behind pause, gurgling with delight, but disappointed that their sport has lasted so short a time. One reckless daemon charges forward, its ever changing form flashing red in its blood lust. It charges forward, and the Admirals shattered blade plunges through its skull. With a howl, it bursts into a thousand glowing bubbles drifting round his head. Many burst with noxious, sweet odors. The gathered daemons are silent; their giddy hunger gives way to unease, perhaps the blades potency underestimated. The bubbles sink down, forming two distinct piles which gradually begin to solidify. From them rise the smaller twins of the red beast, furious, appetite doubly pronounced. The daemons begin to snicker; their comrades consciousness reformed leading them as they chant, mockingly, of immortality. There will be none when I have finished, foul denizens of the warp. Only vengeance! the Admiral cries as he swings the blade a second time, decapitating the frolicking blue daemons at his feet, his voice rising in pitch, I will pursue you all across the depths of space and the expanse of time! There will be vengeance! There will be vengeance! The creatures laugh. >>>>

The Admiral stumbles and falls, his lifes blood almost drained away. Countless unspeakable monstrosities have fallen now, to his shattered blade, banished forevermore. Still, countless more follow close behind, cautiously, their scorn replaced with hatred. No, not mere hatred, but a dread abhorrence, intermingled with fear. And in their warped halls in their nightmare realm, they will whisper of this fearsome warrior, empowered in death with the strength of his Emperor, his god. And so they do not close in, they will wait, for this strength surely cannot sustain him forever. The Admiral begins to crawl. He wills himself onwards, clinging to life. Onwards to the heart of his ship, its source of power, the reactor core he hopes still burns faintly. He gingerly touches the grenade that he pried from the fingers of a dead marine. Yes, there will be vengeance. There can be no doubt. >>>> >>>> The Admiral forges onwards in solitude, his pursuers suddenly vanished. A mere hundred yards, though almost unrecognizable for the dust, the blood, the darkness, lies the reactor door. Barred. In despair, the Admiral throws his sword aside and weeps. >>>> >>>> He does not move as a scarlet robed humanoid charge past, his escorts long since dead. As the humanoid stumbles through the rubble, bleeding profusely from wounds more grievous than even the Admirals, a hulking machine comes up from behind, taking the wounded man up in its arms before continuing down the filthy corridor. There is the sound of rending metal, which revives the Admiral again, for a final effort. He stands, breathing heavily, and charges after. There is yet hope. >>>> Daemon, look at me. The Governor turns to see the Admirals dark eyes clear, hatred smoldering within. My vengeance is complete, the Admiral smiles, grimly, and pulls the pin from the grenade. Vengeance? Vengeance, you say? Look around you fool! I cannot see it. All around lay the dead, and awaiting my command, the Legion of hell gathers! This, this stupid tech-priest came in search of vengeance. Now hes dead! And he is dead, you see, because I ripped his bloody head off! There will be no vengea-I actually ripped his head off. Damn. There went two hundred years of careful planning. And the Hemingway, majestically, terribly, in a cataclysmic chain of reactions is wracked to apart in a spectacular explosion. Like a great dying beast of yore, she turns, blasts of an ethereal inferno superseding the lights of the distant stars. She turns and screams forward, silently in the airless void, her engines firing once, then never again. In a flash of swirling colors and incomprehensible horrors she re-enters the warp, vanishing, forevermore.