Ruins

The enormous drifting amalgam floating in space slipped in and out of the Warp without any pattern. The priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus considered tracking and locking onto a space hulk impossible.

The Imperium had a standard order for dealing with space hulks: investigate them and report their coordinates.

Space hulks contained ships and technology thousands of years old. The Adeptus Mechanicus would swarm over them like flies scenting blood, using locators to lock onto useful structures within the hulk before stripping it apart with surgical bombardments and cutting.

Some Imperial warships had been stripped from space hulks. The Adamantium keels of mighty battleships remained as good as new through the ages. Once dismantled, they were towed to forge worlds by other vessels, repaired and blessed for a century before returning to service for the Imperium.

But most of the time, the appearance of a space hulk meant that some kind of disaster was about to occur.

Some space hulks were quite infamous. They entered and exited the Warp at random, scattering seeds of filth throughout the galaxy.

But this hulk contained no such foul seeds. The xenos living within had already been thoroughly dealt with by Observer's friends, and this place would become a quiet venue for their conversation.

"By the Machine God!" a priest cried excitedly. He had not seen a single living being on the augur array.

"Truly incredible... but who could say this was impossible?" Delenya recorded what he had witnessed to enrich his knowledge.

The Space Wolves said nothing. They remained alert. Over their long years of battle, they had seen too many bizarre situations where the augurs showed everything was normal, yet their comrades died one after another.

If there was anything worthy of trust, it was only the weapon in one's hand and