Preparing to Board

Charles Fettman almost ran onto the deck of his ship, the Pathfinder. The familiar smell of machine oil, recycled air, and faint sweat washed over him. Only then did his pounding heart ease a little, though the heat in his blood had not faded at all.

A Primarch had summoned him personally! A secret mission that could bring unimaginable glory and wealth! Excitement surged through his veins like a powerful stimulant.

Fettman did not pause. He strode toward the Bridge, his boots ringing against the metal deck.

As he walked, he spoke into the miniature communicator clipped to the collar of his old-fashioned captain's coat. He tried to keep his voice steady, but could not hide his excitement.

"Notify all senior crew to assemble in the Bridge conference room immediately! Level-one combat readiness! Cancel all leave and recall everyone aboard!"

His order rippled through the Pathfinder's vast metal hull like a stone dropped into still water.

The ship's relatively relaxed atmosphere tightened at once. Footsteps hurried through the corridors. Tech-Priests rushed toward the engine room and weapons arrays with Servo-skulls in tow. On the lower decks, cargo was secured again and nonessential items cleared away amid a rising clamor.

The Pathfinder was no standard Imperial Navy vessel. It was a heavily modified Fortune-class armed merchant ship.

It might have been older than the Fettman family itself, but its keel remained strong. Centuries of repairs, reinforcement, and modification had turned its enormous hull into the family's mobile fortress and home.

From the outside, it had both the bulk of a merchant ship and the menace of a Warship.

Its towering Bridge rose like an ancient castle, with sensor arrays and communications antennae covering its sides. The broad belly that had once carried vast quantities of cargo now bore thick armor belts and a substantial array of Macro-cannons.

At its bow sat a specially reinforced ram, while torpedo tubes were just visible along its flanks.

"All right, brothers! This mission comes from a Primarch! We have to do it right! Understood?"

"Chris! Get your armed personnel ready for battle!"

"Chief Engineer Ross! Bring the engines up to maximum power!"

"Everyone! Move! Move!"

At Charles's orders, the gunners carefully checked the chamber of every Macro-cannon and polished the massive shells.

The power conduits of the laser cannon arrays were tested one by one, and the torpedo tubes were loaded with new armor-piercing high-explosive rounds.

The security chief urged the mercenaries to check their Lasguns and armor. The low hum of energy weapons charging echoed through the ship from time to time.

Heat rolled through the Warship's engine room as Tech-Priests performed intricate rituals and adjustments around the enormous Plasma reactor, ensuring a reliable power supply for Warp travel and maneuvers in Realspace.

Vast quantities of supplies were purchased and carried into the holds by the crew.

"All personnel, attention! One minute until departure! Take your stations immediately!"

"Get to your assigned positions! Begin the countdown!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Start the engines! Set sail for the dark Stars!"

At Charles's excited command, the armed merchant ship sped toward the nearest Mandeville Point, then entered a Warp Route and raced through the Stars.

Three days later

The Pathfinder emerged from the Warp, its vast hull appearing in Realspace.

"We're out of the Warp jump. Coordinates confirmed... Recalibrating the star chart." An excited crewman's voice came over the Bridge comms.

At the report, Charles Fettman rose from his command chair and crossed to the huge Observation Window at the front of the Bridge.

Beyond it lay the eternal blackness of space, scattered with distant, indifferent starlight.

Yet at the heart of that darkness, an immense outline beyond comprehension silently swallowed the light of the Stars behind it.

"Activate all external lighting arrays. Maximum power."

"Scan the obstruction ahead."

At Charles's order, thick beams of light stabbed from the Pathfinder's bow and flanks like swords, cutting through the darkness.

Where the beams fell, the blurred outline snapped into sharp focus—and became far more terrifying.

"Emperor..."

Fettman's whisper was barely audible. He leaned forward without thinking and pressed a hand against the cold Observation Window.

The sight outside sent a chill through even this well-traveled Rogue Trader's soul.

Before them stood a wall among the Stars, built from the wrecks of countless Warships.

An endless barrier forged from death and destruction.

Vast and menacing, it lay silent across the route between that ancient structure and the nearest Stars, as though someone had placed it there deliberately.

It was a dense cloud of innumerable Warship wrecks and fragments of armed space stations from different ages and civilizations. Its sheer scale dwarfed anything an Imperial fleet could muster.

As the Searchlights swept across it, they revealed twisted metal skeletons, broken gun barrels, and torn armor plating.

Some hulls still bore traces of ancient Imperial design. Others had strange geometries utterly unfamiliar, conforming to no known principles of aerodynamics or space travel.

They had collided, locked together, and intertwined over millions of years of silent drifting, forming a Labyrinth of dizzying complexity.

There was not a single light or energy signal. Only absolute darkness and silence remained, as if all life and activity here had been erased in one distant instant.

Charles swallowed, his Adam's apple shifting with difficulty.

Cold fear crept up his spine. But the spirit of adventure passed down through centuries of Rogue Traders blazed within him, pushing fiercely against it.

Danger and opportunity often went hand in hand. The more fearsome the forbidden zone, the greater the secrets it might hide.

Was that not why the Primarch had sent them here—to explore an unknown beyond the ordinary?

He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, his gaze sharpening. "What do the scans show?" he asked the sensor operator.

"Captain, the structure is extremely unstable. It's filled with dense metal fragments and residual energy, but severe interference is blocking the scan beam. We can't determine how deep it goes. There are strange electrostatic echoes, too. They don't look natural," the operator replied.

Just then, someone moved up beside Fettman.

It was the ship's Tech-Priest, Anthony Voss.

The mechanical eye beneath his red robe glowed crimson as he stared at the vast field of wreckage. Binary whispers clicked beneath his metal mask like grinding gears before he switched to a low voice in High Gothic:

"A miracle... Truly, an oracular miracle... So many ancient creations, so many unknown technological specimens. Praise the Omnissiah."

"Captain, if time permits after our exploration, I strongly recommend sending teams to examine these sacred remains. Recovering even a small alloy sample might bring new insight to the glory of the Omnissiah."

Fettman nodded. Anthony's words only strengthened his resolve to press on.

"Accelerate!" He turned to the helmsman and gave a clear order.

"Stay on highest alert, but do not slow down! Use our size to get through this wreckage quickly! Remember, we are pathfinders, the vanguard of the Imperium. A few obstacles won't block our road to glory!"

The advantage of the smaller ships used by Rogue Traders was clear now. An Imperial Navy Battleship or heavy cruiser would have struggled to move through such dense, complex obstacles, like a giant trapped in mud.

But the Pathfinder's relatively small hull and agility gave it a chance to navigate this Labyrinth of death.

The engines growled again. The ship picked up speed and eased carefully into a gap in the wall of Silence and death.

The Warship slipped between enormous metal wrecks like a fish through water.

Fettman glanced out the window from time to time. Wrecks of vessels of unknown make and civilization drifted silently past, like ghosts frozen in time.

Some hulls bore enormous gashes, as though a still more terrible force had ripped them apart. Others remained relatively intact, with sections of their structure preserved.

To Fettman, this was a vast ship graveyard.

After several hours of weaving through the wreckage, the Pathfinder finally approached the Blackstone Fortress. Charles began to study the immense structure suspended among the Stars.

It was enormous, nearly the size of an Imperial Star Fortress, perhaps even larger.

Its exterior appeared to be made of some black substance, its surface carved with fine patterns. The linguist accompanying them could identify the markings only as Aeldari script. Beyond that, he knew nothing.

For now, it was enough to know that the structure before them might have come from an ancient Aeldari civilization. The Pathfinder drew closer and circled the Blackstone Fortress. Then Fettman ordered the crew to find a suitable docking point and told the armed personnel to prepare to board.