Chapter 320: Departure, Part 3
The Devourer-class transport left the surface and docked with the Great Ivan in low orbit.
The freighter had been parked in the Secundus-496b system for over a decade. Today it was finally done. Cargo hold packed with canned meat, it began its slow burn out of the gravity well, building velocity toward its home system, Primo-496a.
The largest cabin on the ship — the Captain's own — had been surrendered to Nor'n. Nothing else on the vessel was remotely adequate for an Astartes, and the Captain hadn't suggested otherwise.
Nor'n sat on an iron bunk and turned the safety case over in his hands.
He'd had a feeling about it from the moment Kian had held it up. Whatever was inside mattered. He took a moment to prepare himself, then opened it.
Inside, fixed in precisely cut foam slots: rows of green syringes. At least two hundred of them.
Beside them: a round tin, the kind that usually held balm or salve.
And the monomolecular combat knife — the same one Nor'n had forged himself and handed to Kian four months ago.
Under everything: two paper documents.
He unfolded the first one. An instruction sheet.
He read it carefully. Then read it again. His expression changed.
Recovery Bolts. Zero documented side effects. Full wound restoration within twenty minutes — provided the subject is not dead, even catastrophic brain trauma is reversible within the treatment window.
Important limitation: this compound has no effect on persistent damage-over-time conditions such as radiation poisoning. In those cases, treat the ongoing cause before administering.
Coolant Balm. Applied to the skin, the compound increases cognitive focus and provides resistance to hypnosis, psychic coercion, pain suppression, and related negative mental states.
Monomolecular Combat Knife — after consecration, wounds inflicted on daemonic entities by this blade cannot be regenerated. Direct hits to daemon vital structures result in permanent termination.
Nor'n picked up the knife. He'd made it himself. It had spent four months with Kian and come back. How, exactly, had it acquired the ability to permanently kill daemons?
He sat with the knife in his hand, turning it over, feeling genuinely uncertain for the first time in a very long while. If what the instructions said was accurate, this case contained objects of staggering value. His rational mind told him these claims couldn't be real. But Kian had built a particular kind of credit over four months, and that credit was doing something uncomfortable to his rational mind.
He needed to get back to the Chapter immediately. He needed to hand this over to the Apothecaries and the psyker cadre and get everything tested.
If it was real — he'd be making another trip to this agricultural backwater, and the conversation he had when he got there would be a very different kind of conversation.
He set down the instruction sheet and picked up the second document. A letter, handwritten.
He opened it. Read the first line.
Nor'n, by the time you read this, I'll still be alive.
Nor'n tilted his head back, inhaled slowly three times, and continued reading.
Everything in the instruction sheet is accurate. If your Chapter has a Librarium and a cadre of Apothecaries, have them verify the compounds — they'll confirm it.
If verification comes back positive, you'll understand the value of what you're holding. And you'll understand what I'm risking by letting you take it.
I've thought about this carefully. My trust in you, my trust in how Vulkan's sons conduct themselves, and my need to convert these things into something tangible — those three things together are why I'm doing this.
What I want is a long-term, stable working relationship with the Crimson Bite Chapter.
I supply you with these items on an ongoing basis. In return, your Chapter works toward getting me a warship. My own warship.
I know you're all busy. There are always more xenos to kill, more heretics to burn, more fronts opening up than closing. I understand that.
But I want to see effort in this direction. Even a small amount of effort. Some path toward an actual ship, one I can call mine.
Nor'n, handing you this case is a gamble.
Even if you and your Chapter can't deliver on the ship — even if it's simply not possible — please don't leave me exposed. Don't publicise these items. Don't make noise about them. I can't afford the Inquisition, the Ministorum, or any other group of fanatics deciding I'm something they need to investigate.
With that said: good fortune in battle.
Nor'n set the letter down. His eyes went still and stayed that way for a while.
Back on the planet, in the Sanctum, Kian was lying on his bed feeling purposeless.
The warship was out of reach. Nor'n was gone. He'd had goals driving every hour of the last four months, and now the immediate horizon was empty.
I need something to do.
He came off the bed in one motion, grabbed the Emperor's Shrine under one arm, and kicked open Silentium's door.
"Little Sil! Get your toolkit! We're going to the Workshop to summon some daemons and kill them for sport!"
Silentium, mid-meditation, opened his eyes. They lit up immediately.
"Oh, yes — I've actually just figured out a new technique. A summoning that doesn't need sacrificial material at all!"
No sacrifices needed. Kian filed that under "convenient."
Both of them gathered the relevant equipment and made their way down to the Workshop — the deep-crust monitoring station that had served as their impromptu daemonology laboratory. They started setting up.
Silentium was visibly excited, directing Kian to move things here and there.
"Okay, so — what I've worked out is a Warp technique that opens a stable portal. One that stays open for an extended duration.
If there are daemons on the other side, they'll sense the opening and start coming through. Continuously."
Kian felt an immediate flicker of concern.
"That's not going to get out of hand, is it? A portal that stays open could end up producing an endless stream — what if something genuinely large comes through? Something we can't handle?"
Silentium waved this off with total confidence.
"The daemons that come through will be limited by my own psychic reserves — they use my energy to construct their physical manifestation in realspace. So even if an extremely powerful daemon attempts to cross, it's constrained by how much power I have available. Once my reserves are drained, the portal closes automatically.
Think of it as a passage sized for insects. No megafauna gets through."
Kian thought about the geography and decided the containment was workable. They were underground. Solid rock on all sides. Outside the monitoring station: high-temperature, high-pressure magma in every direction.
Even if something came through that exceeded their expectations, it would be boxed in. Cut off from kills and souls, its physical form would start degrading almost immediately in that environment.
Within the hour they had a containment space assembled — a sealed chamber walled in centimetre-thick reinforced glass. A ritual circle occupied the floor inside. Silentium could feed psychic energy into the array from outside the glass, and the circle would open a stable channel into the Immaterium.
Kian positioned an autocannon turret so its barrel aimed directly at the exit point of the channel. The turret's fuel tank was loaded with Sanctified Spirits. Controller in hand — one button for the flamer, one button to advance the fuel feed — he settled in behind the glass wall, ready.
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