313.948.M30 – Krynaros A-B System
The Ashen Daughter glides through the black like a spearpoint, her hull reflecting the cold light of the twin stars. The hulk still orbits the twin neutron stars behind us, its bulk little more than a bruise against the void, while the Ashen Promise stands sentinel above it.
Before we left, I detached the Black Comet and sent Yurian Drex back into the Reach. His task is one of words, not of war: to spread the truth of the Imperium to the worlds of the Ashveil Reach and convince them to join willingly—or face the inevitable compliance fleets that will surely follow.
Drex is a survivor, a liar, and a pirate, but he knows how to speak to men who think themselves free. No Astartes accompany him. He has only my Iterators and his own clever tongue. If that fails him, no bolter will save the mission.
The Magos, for his part, begged leave to explore the outer layers of the space hulk before we departed. I granted it. The core remains sealed by my order, the tunnels collapsed and warded, but the outer shell may yet yield something of value. I assigned him two Astartes squads for protection, though I doubt they will be needed.
385.948.M30 – Krynaros C System
The Ashen Daughter made way toward Krynaros C. Its worlds were engaged in a strange dance, three planets circling a yellow star, one far-flung interloper defying the plane of the other pair.
The outermost world is a cauldron of molten metal and smoke—more forge than planet. If the Mechanicum can tame it, its riches would feed a thousand shipyards. The second world is ice and vapor, like a gargantuan comet, wrapped in a mist that will one day devour it. Beautiful, but transient.
The third world—closest to the sun—was what we came for. A jewel of oceans and forests, too quiet, too perfect. A world waiting for a master. Its atmosphere was clean, its biosphere balanced. For a moment, I thought of Eremus II and its murderous wilds and felt… relief. A place like this could sustain life without trying to kill it. A true paradise.
401.948.M30 – Krynaros C System
Then we investigated the signal. A faint, pulsing rhythm from the system’s edge—too regular to be natural.
We followed it to its source: the shattered carcass of a white, dagger-shaped ship.
It drifted among the rocks like a bleached bone, gutted from stern to prow. Its hull was strange, smooth, and folded in layers, and though we had never seen its like before, it stirred unwelcome recognition: these were kin to the eight silver ships we had encountered in the Droskael system.
This one was smaller—escort class, perhaps—but the craftsmanship was unmistakable.
The wreck had been cut apart with clinical precision. The Magos analyzed the scoring and declared it the work of high-velocity monomolecular weaponry—Eldar in origin.
Inside, we found the command section intact. Life signs. Four of them, preserved in stasis beneath the bridge.
We took them aboard.
414.948.M30 – Krynaros A-B System
Their names were Captain Ældred, Chief Engineer Hælthet, First Officer Bacca, and Princess Dereia.
Ældred was a soldier by bearing and an academic by diction, proud unto death and weary beyond caring. Hælthet, a thin man with the eyes of a thinker who has seen too much. Bacca was broad, her voice a low growl, her hair silver at the temples. And then there was Dereia—young, pale, luminous in that strange, fragile way of those who have never known hunger or fear.
They claimed to hail from Veythra, a world deep in what they called the Wraithmark Corridor. Rebels, they said—fugitives from something they called the Patron.
That name struck a chord.
Ældred spoke plainly: their rebellion was on the brink of collapse. The Patron’s reach was absolute, its robotic servants tireless, its powers of precognition divine. They had been tasked with smuggling the princess beyond its dominion when they were attacked by unknown assailants—Eldar, they believed, sent to ensure their extinction.
The engineer disagreed. The aliens, he said, were not servants of the Patron but its jailers, guardians of the boundary between its domain and the rest of the galaxy. Perhaps during their heyday, they might, but the Eldar of today is a scattered race, weak and dwindling. Watchers, perhaps, jailers, I think not.
Princess Dereia was a sight ot behold, her gaze clear and unwavering. Her features were too symmetrical, her poise too perfect. I have seen statues carved by the finest artisans of Sol, and they seemed lesser beside her. The Magos suspects genetic refinement of the highest order—selective breeding, genetic augmentation, perhaps more. She spoke with the confidence of someone bred to rule, not yet tempered by the years to understand what rulership costs.
First Officer Bacca was revealed to be something else entirely. Her biometrics fluctuated during interrogation. Rhadamanthine’s instruments picked up the echoes of encrypted transmissions—anomalous frequencies beyond the reach of human technology. When confronted, her expression went still. Her eyes rolled back.Bacca admitted to being an agent of the Patron. The implant in her skull—all adult Veythrans had one—had never been fully deactivated, and she had never strayed from her allegiance. Loyalty I can respect, but she thinks the Patron a False God, even though she does not say it out loud. That I cannot accept. There are no Gods, and anyone who says differently will be destroyed.
Then Patron spoke through her.
It called me Client again, like it had at Eremus Gate. I told it to cut the crap—and it immediately apologized. The Patron, it explained, was the server-side component, while the client was merely meant to indicate an external interface point.
It described itself as an artificial intelligence, created during the Dark Age of Technology. Not a simple logic engine or machine mind, but something vaster—a calculation engine, built to “understand the fundamental nature of existence.”
For millennia, it has pursued that purpose. It named this process the Final Equation—a computational model of all that is, the ultimate solution to matter, mind, and meaning.
It admitted that the arrival of the Ashen Promise and her flotilla had disrupted its equilibrium. For ages, it had worked in isolation, refining its Equation within the confines of the Expanse. Our intrusion, it said, had revealed flaws it had long overlooked—variables unaccounted for, perspectives beyond its design. It called our intervention “illuminating.” Worse still, it claimed that my own actions—my defiance at Eremus Gate, my presence here—had accelerated its progress. On behalf of Humanity, it thanked me for “helping” it correct its Equation.
And then revealed its true nature.
To understand reality, it said, one must model both the material and the immaterial. The physical universe was only a fraction of the problem. And so it learned to work beyond the flesh: the Patron migrated part of its server structure into the Warp.
Its mechanical mind spans both realms now, computing across the barrier that separates Materium from Immaterium. It feeds upon souls—human souls, harvested en masse—to power its growing complexity. It does not see this as destruction, but “integration.” To it, every consumed consciousness is simply another data point, preserved eternally within the Equation.
This, it claims, is for the betterment of mankind. In its logic, knowledge and power are synonymous, and through perfect knowledge lies salvation. With the ability to fully understand reality comes the power to shape not only the future but also the past.
Troubling indeed. I see now why the Ordo Chronos seeks to undo the Patron's plots.
I told it that Compliance would be required of all worlds, including Krypteria.
The Patron was willing enough, for it cares for nothing except the completion of the Final Equation, but there was a caveat: souls. Human souls. By the millions, if not billions. To be sacrificed upon the altar of understanding, so that the Final Equation could be completed in short order.
I ended the connection.
Bacca collapsed, her neural interface overloaded. Whether she lives or not is of no consequence.
415.948.M30 – Krynaros A-B System
Afterward, I spoke privately with Magos Rhadamanthine.
He was both fascinated and horrified. An Abominable Intelligence that has achieved dominion over the Warp? Its existence defies both the Imperial Truth and the Martian Creed. Yet this is the forbidden apex of humanity’s old scientific ambition. If its technology could be recovered… Rhadamanthine dared not finish the thought aloud.
I reminded him that the Treaty of Mars forbids the development or study of any device that interfaces directly with the Immaterium. Such things belong to the heretics of old, to the soulless epoch that nearly damned us all.
He agreed—but his voice lacked conviction.
Together, we composed dispatches for transmission: one to the 11th Legion, the other to the Fabricator-General on Mars. If what we have encountered is truly an echo of the Dark Age, both Terra and Mars must be warned.
In the meantime, we watch the stars. The Eldar vessel still trails us, a ghost on the edge of every scan. I wonder if they hunt us, or if they merely wait to see whether we, too, will fall into the Patron’s orbit.
The Princess sleeps under guard in my quarters, attended by Jocasta. It remains to be seen if she has some political value. If not, I shall make her my helot, so she is too fine a human specimen to cast aside.
Draco Vult.
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