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[Warhammer 40K: A Multiverse Saga]
[Warhammer 40K: They Said I Have No Soul]
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"Afka, what happened?"
Following the source of the voice, Eden spotted the Fallen Chapter Master's strange look—there was real heartache on the man's face.
He frowned, puzzled.
They were rectifying the Dark Angels' age-old bad habits right now. Why would a Fallen feel heartache over that? Shouldn't he be enjoying the show?
For ten thousand years, the Dark Angels had treated their so-called "secrets" as more precious than anything. The fallout had been… extensive.
One result was the explosion in the number of the Fallen.
Those who had once drawn blades on their own gene-sire, survived, and yet kept their loyalty numbered only in the thousands—and far fewer had survived to the present day.
Yet according to the latest records, counted among the executed and those at large, the Dark Angels had produced at least sixty to seventy thousand Fallen. The more they hunted, the more there seemed to be.
Beyond the original millennia-old veterans, many were Dark Angels who later grazed against forbidden truths, wavered in their faith, or refused to keep killing Fallen—
—and so they ran.
Human nature.
The more you repress and shackle a thing, the more curiosity you kindle.
Plenty of Dark Angels who inadvertently brushed against those ancient secrets or proscribed technologies found their beliefs shaken—or simply refused to keep participating in the purge.
So they bolted.
Over ten thousand years the numbers piled up to something frightening. That was one reason Eden valued the Fallen.
They were a vast reservoir of force.
What Eden was doing now was ripping out the rot with irresistible momentum.
So the Dark Angels would truly have no more secrets—ever again.
Take the tenderest, untouchable, terminal-slide secret: the tragedy of Caliban's fall back then?
Fine. Compile it into books, into an epic, and shelve it in the libraries. Any Imperial with high-grade clearance can read it.
And every Dark Angel must study it in depth and turn in a three-thousand-word reflection essay.
All the black-tech and forbidden tomes that had been moldering in vaults and panic rooms? Hand them over to the relevant research institutes and let the cogboys of the Imperium have their fun.
Facilities, equipment, finances—everything—would be opened to the Terran Court and the Empire's war departments. That's standard for Astartes Legions and Chapters anyway.
The watchwords of the Imperium now were "think with one heart, pull with one rope," and "unite to do great things," to make "the Imperium of Man renewed and great again!"
If the Dark Angels still wanted little secrets and little cliques—how pure was that? How loyal? Planning a Second Imperium, are we?
Especially since they literally had precedent trying to make a Second Imperium. All the more reason to feel guilty.
In the old Imperium, loyalty was the last line you never crossed. You could mutate, dabble in forbidden research, go bug-nuts with Exterminatus, even wrangle special treatment and skip your tithes.
But you could not be disloyal.
With Eden—the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium—laying down his doctrine of Imperial loyalty, the Dark Angels didn't dare make a peep.
They could only accept the reforms, weeping on the inside.
Besides, they had no other options and no power to resist.
This was a hall with the Primarch of Hope, more than a dozen legendary warriors, and a thousand of the Custodian Guard under arms. Try being disloyal.
So the Dark Angels pledged loyalty through gritted teeth, and watched as the reforms marched on.
Eden's question pulled more attention toward the Fallen Chapter Master Afka.
Everyone waited for his answer.
"Your Majesty the Savior, I was merely surprised at the majesty of that Imperial super-ship, nothing more."
Under all those stares, Afka hesitated, then pointed toward the void beyond the observation dome.
At some point, a Blackstone megaship more than twenty kilometers long had materialized, vast and bristling with menace.
The Plagueheart.
Ever since Eden learned of the Dissonance Engine's existence, he had been hunting the last piece of that engine-relic—the Plagueheart.
But even after Webby and the research teams tore apart all the proscribed relics and data linked to the demigod-daemon-artificer Vashtorr, they still couldn't pin down what the Plagueheart actually was.
Accounts were all mist and incense: a pulsing heart, a mobile plague, a world-reaping taboo…
When they finally cracked the riddle, they concluded it was a kind of warp-form energy source—not unique or irreplaceable.
In other words, the power core of an Ark of Omen.
Because at bottom, the so-called relic "Dissonance Engine" was still warp-tech. People only made it sound mystical because the species today didn't understand—and because they'd slipped into a liturgical kind of worship.
Just like how Imperial voidships passing some feral world would be taken for gods by the apes and lowly lives there.
During frontier development, Explorator teams had found Space Marines and boltguns carved into primitive stone reliefs on such planets.
A stranded Astartes became a god to them; the weapon he left behind became a relic.
Even a standard-issue Imperial lasgun could upend a lesser civilization. Anyone who gained such a "relic" was "chosen by the gods," crowned in worship, and would carve their way to become chieftain.
The Dissonance Engine left by the Ancient Saints—that warp shield-tunneler—was likewise an incomprehensible, untouchable relic to a galaxy drenched in credulity.
A mental brand that shackled research.
Fortunately, Eden insisted on scientific development, and worked to de-mystify tech for the teams.
Especially for the Tech-priests who had trained at the Heirs' Academy and steeped themselves in the Savior's doctrine—they were good at sidestepping those pieties and their chains.
Add to that the Savior-Domain's years of warp-tech research, the Machine-Goddess Webby's aid, and an Ork Big Mek's "assistance," and they finally pinned down the Plagueheart's reality.
It was nothing more (and nothing less) than a warp-energy technology left by the Ancient Saints—later seized and corrupted by Vashtorr.
Luckily, the Savior-Domain had inherited Vashtorr's workshop spoils, enough to reverse-engineer the thing.
They couldn't design one from scratch yet, but assembling one from existing modules? Doable.
Once they had a complete example in hand, there was no reason they couldn't research and build their own later. It would just take time.
If the Machine-Goddess could leverage the Dissonance Engine to magnify her divinity further, research would go even faster.
After Afka's explanation, Eden let it drop.
Try explaining any of that to these half-literate tech types. He barely understood it himself—so long as it worked, that was enough.
For now he held both faith and science in each hand—a paradox wrapped into one man. Perhaps once his position was absolute and the moment was ripe, he could use science to roll faith back.
To reduce how much that psychic belief-energy tugged on him.
From one angle, warp faith-energy still belonged to the realm of science—one only had to study how it was generated and how it flowed.
Bio-energies feeding back through the Warp, maybe? Or something in quantum mechanics?
Becoming a god scientifically wasn't impossible. Maybe then they could haul the Emperor, His Radiant Majesty, out of the ICU.
At the very least, the Ancient Saints had proven you could use the Warp with technology.
Let theologians and cogboys bang their heads on it—no need to torment the Savior with only a mid-tier diploma and an honorary Heirs' Academy deanship.
"Whew. Thank the Savior His Majesty didn't notice."
Seeing everyone's attention shift, Afka quietly let out a breath.
He kept his face in check, but his heart still ached.
One of the sacred trinkets on his armor was missing—masterwork, etched with holy sigils and a force-field lattice.
"Probably dropped on the battlefield. I should have caught it."
Afka blamed himself.
For Fallen long used to scraping by, that was real wealth.
And he couldn't exactly bring it up. The Fallen had just received the Savior's largesse. If he turned around and lost a gift already…
Mortifying.
A pity the Fallen Chapter Master didn't know that in a mass war-zone, there was a whole reimbursement process for Astartes gear damaged or lost in action.
He could have recouped at least part of it—then spared himself the heartache.
"Everyone, with me. Let's go look at the legendary engine-relic."
A new message pinged Eden. Smiling broadly, he addressed the gathered legendary warriors.
Guided by leads from the Dark Angels' Supreme Grand Master, the search teams had found the storied Tuchulcha Engine among the Rock's hundreds of thousands of secret chambers.
The missing artifact urgently needed for the coming war in the Haze-Cluster.
Afka, Azrael, Dante, and the other legends followed Eden toward the vault that held the Tuchulcha Engine.
"Hm. Where's Lord Gabriel?"
Afka sensed someone was absent from their ranks—the Blood Ravens Chapter Master, Gabriel.
That legendary hero had been quite warm toward the Fallen and had left an impression.
What he didn't know was that Eden had already expelled Gabriel—and barred him from the Rock.
For Blood Ravens, the Rock was paradise.
It would almost certainly trigger their professional instincts—and make a mess of all the audits and research.
…
Deep in the Rock, a metal hall.
Adamantine gates rumbled up, revealing a vast chamber within.
Eden led more than a dozen legendary warriors in. Like most of the fortress-dungeon, this church-like hall was lit by bare, yellow bulbs.
It was about the size of a football pitch, choked with machinery and monitors—everything powdered with ancient dust.
At least the systems still turned.
They had barely stepped in when everyone's eyes were dragged to the device at center: a huge spheroid. It seemed born to be looked at.
Nearly perfect, about ten meters in diameter, marble-black and deep gray.
Gold motes drifted slowly over its skin.
A forest of cable harnesses plugged into a protrusion at its back, linking it to the surrounding machinery.
More striking still was the servitor corpse dangling beneath it—black cables boring from the back of its skull into the sphere.
"At last… someone comes…"
Suddenly the shriveled servitor twitched. Arcs crawled over its meat, and the air filled with the reek of scorched flesh.
Plainly, the Tuchulcha Engine was speaking through the servitor.
"Daemon. Abomination!"
At the sphere's response—and the servitor's movement—Azrael twitched, a hair-trigger memory pressing at his throat.
"Steady. It's only a self-aware engine."
Eden soothed them.
Granted, a self-aware engine—or a full artificial intelligence—was heresy in the Imperium.
But when those words came from the Emperor of Mankind, they meant something else. Loyalty's definition sat in his palm.
Eden had read the files. The Tuchulcha Engine could cooperate with humanity—just… on its own terms.
Not very controllable.
He stepped before the withered servitor. "What are you?"
Bzzzz—
The servitor raised its head. Dull, yellowed eyes fixed on the Savior, utterly without awe.
"I am Tuchulcha, the all-in-all, everywhere. I was a thrall of the Sea of Death, a friend to the Mechanicus, and an ally to your human Primarch, the Lion.
All crave me. All would have me. Clearly, you are no different, human."
Eden curled a lip and let it pass.
He pressed on. "Who created you?"
The servitor's hands lifted, a faint rapture in its voice.
"The Ancient Saints—beings present at the birth of the galaxy. They stand from humanity at such a distance that they might as well be gods.
They used us to tame the Warp, but that taming was also destruction. I am foundation to past, present, and future, and the bridge that binds them."
Eden nodded, mildly pleased.
"In other words, you can still do the same—cut a road through the Warp, bind it to realspace."
"That is taming—creative destruction.
If I am given the other two elements—the rotting core of Caliban, and the living heart of pestilence—I can restore my former potency.
The trinity is indivisible. The material and the immaterial. The past of time and the time to come. Three ritual elements intertwined!"
"Can you travel through time?"
Eden considered, then asked something even more important.
Time in the Warp was twisted to begin with. If a complete Dissonance Engine could actively steer time travel—or transmit information across time—
—that was a bug-level power.
He could beam a message back ten thousand years, tell the Emperor who was about to sit on the Golden Throne that his most dutiful son, The Little Pony, was inbound to flip his webway gate like a cafeteria tray.
If the Emperor's webway project held, the Imperium's fate would be different. Countless lives would be spared.
Or warn His Majesty ahead of time that his other dutiful son, Horus, would be bringing birthday wishes to Holy Terra—with swords—so preparations could be made.
If time travel worked, Eden could even go back to Old Terra himself.
Then march into ancient Rome and, as a guide to the age, find the Emperor in his Roman she-wolf phase out plying the streets—and tell him to stop fooling around.
"Save humanity. Become Lord of Man. That's your mission, capisce?"
And while he was at it, he could give the Emperor a crash-course in the future. With His Majesty's strength, a lot of pitfalls could be avoided—and the Golden Throne never sat upon.
Humanity could blaze.
"Maybe I should just adopt the Emperor as my son?"
Eeden chuckled to himself. MVP by lying down. What a beautiful thing.
The withered servitor paused—then answered in a cold, faintly haughty tone:
"I told you—Tuchulcha is omnipotent, and can be a door back into the past… so long as fate permits it."
"So time travel is possible, but time travel is… kind of impossible?"
Eeden frowned, thinking out loud.
That nearly cooked the Tuchulcha Engine's CPU. It stuttered for a long moment before answering:
"More or less. Some destinies are set, rarely to be reversed. Even gods struggle to gainsay them."
"Got it."
Eden sighed, and much of his shine for the Dissonance Engine dimmed.
Time travel likely wasn't on the menu.
Even the Ancient Saints—creators of the Engine—had failed to stave off their own destruction. If time travel were truly theirs to wield, they wouldn't have lost so badly.
Still, even just the Engine's warp shield-tunneling was staggering.
The Imperium would reap unimaginable gains.
Drilling through the Chaos gods' home turf at will, punching tunnels through hell—and then throwing up a curtain-wall the Warp could barely invade?
Yes please.
Time mechanics weren't off the table forever. Humanity's Golden Age ships had used brief time reversions to dodge annihilation.
Let the bald cog-boys hash this one out.
Eden studied the Tuchulcha Engine—mystic, proud, and very full of itself—and cut to the point.
"I need your power. Submit to me."
A self-aware artifact that couldn't be brought to heel was a colossal risk.
Worse, it was central to grand strategy.
If this thing downed tools or played games mid-campaign, the consequences for the Imperium would be irrecoverable.
That was why the Imperium was so wary of machine minds—its history held blood-lettered lessons.
The shriveled servitor drifted closer.
It looked Eden over with a sneer.
"Human, you overestimate yourself.
Tuchulcha's only masters are the Ancient Saints—the makers of the sublime. Before them, mankind is an ant. By what right do you command their servant?
Even your Lion only ever begged me to cooperate.
So how will you command me—by pleading? By threat? By destruction?
But I doubt you have the nerve to annihilate an omnipotent creation—especially while your Imperium needs it.
Is that not so, human?"
The Engine had clearly modeled some things and aimed for Eden's jugular.
If it met a fanatic who hated aware-machines, it would worry.
Those lunatics would destroy it without a thought, value be damned.
But the man before it was rational—and needed the engine badly. It could feel his hunger.
Arms folded across its borrowed chest, the servitor looked down on the Savior while the legends bristled.
"Human, you will apologize to me—beg my forgiveness.
Perhaps then I might deign to grant you a scrap of aid."
"Abomination!"
Afka could not bear such an aware-machine to insult and profane the Savior. Steel rasped free in his hand.
"Easy."
Eden raised a hand to calm him.
He wasn't even angry. He just gave an order:
"Webby—tame it."
(End of Chapter)
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