The Ghost Ship

[Wargamer]

"Please tell me we didn't answer a distress call from the Inquisition!" Mytal snapped as First Squad readied themselves to board the derelict.

Sergeant Olit smiled at Mytal and replied, "technically, it came from the ship, not the Inquisition." It was the kind of smile that existed purely to provoke other people. It certainly provoked Mytal.

"Positions," Captain Xeran said, flexing his limbs as he strode across the deck to the access hatch. Supernovans, for all their bad habits, usually did what they were told by their direct superior. The Champion and Sergeant but their life-long feud on hold for a moment and readied themselves for a hostile entrance.

 

Mytal and Mohr, as ever, were first to board. They swept the deck with bolt pistols, tracking for anything that moved. The ship beyond was cold and dead. Icicles drifted weightlessly through the air, swirling away into the darkness as the Astartes stomped forward.

"Hold the access point, Olit," Xeran said as he passed into the gloom.

"You're not taking the whole squad?"

"Fewer eyes on this the better," the Captain answered. "I'm only taking Mytal because protocol demands it."

"What about Mohr?"

Xeran cocked his head. With his black Corvus helm, the gesture made him look like a puzzled bird. "Honestly? I'm too scared to order him to stay."

Olit grunted in reply, and Xeran knew the entire squad was smirking in the privacy of their helms. "Just hold the door. If things turn ugly, you have my permission to storm the ship with the whole Company."

"Aye sir."

 

By the time Xeran caught up with his men they had already found the first corpse.

 

The body was up in the ceiling pipes, snagged by a frozen boot on a thick copper pipe. The man had been dead for some time, killed by a lasbolt through the forehead. As Mytal and Mohr swept the corridor they found row upon row of cells, each of which were full of starved, filthy bodies that had all been killed by brutal, desperate means. Two hundred men and women had killed each other with nothing but teeth and fingernails.

"They were all killed this way?" Xeran asked.

"Looks like it," Mytal replied.

"Then who killed the survivors? The doors are still locked."

"I want to know. Get them open."

A second guard's body provided them with a key - an old fashioned thing of black iron - and the three Marines began the grim task of removing and examining the corpses from one of the cells. Twenty women had been locked in a space meant for twelve at most. All of them died the same way; arteries tore open in mad, feral rage.

"They all died this way... which means the last one killed herself."

"Or they all killed themselves," Mohr said.

Mytal swore under her breath. "I've heard the Inquisiton are tough on prisoners, but I've never seen this. Captain, what in Terra's name did that distress signal say?"

"No more questions!" Xeran answered curtly. "Head to the Navigator's Sanctum, and keep your eyes open."

 

Halfway to their destination, Xeran called a halt. He pulled his escort down a side corridor toward one of the private chambers, presumably meant for a visiting Inquisitorial agent. It was a self-contained system, the only part of the ship so far that had any power to it. Xeran span the airlock wheel and hauled the door open, grunting with effort as the dead hydraulics fought against him.

"Mytal, you're first," he said, and the Champion obeyed with a nod.

 

The airlock cycled, the inner systems seemingly drawing power from the chamber beyond. The door opened and she stepped forward into a warm, bright space. A thick crimson carpet muffled her heavy footfalls; tapestries, banners and portraits reflected her helmet light; and in the middle of the room, sat in a crystal bowl atop a red oak table, were five fresh apples.

"Mytal?"

"Air, heat, light, gravity," Mytal ran down the list of essentials. She removed her helm and sampled the air - it smelled of old cloth, burnt wood and expensive cologne. She tracked her pistol along the walls, ceiling and down to the greening leather chairs by the table. On a whim, she mag-clamped her helm to her leg and took an apple. It looked, smell and, ultimately, tasted fresh.

"You're a hell of a thing," she said to the apple, tossing it up in the air to see if it would come down. It did, so she took another bite.

Then a little girl said, "that's stealing."

 

The bolt shell blew apart one of the leather chairs, throwing stuffing, wood and tanned grox-hide flying in all directions. Xeran began shouting in her ear, but she wasn't listening anymore; her attention was fixed entirely on the little girl peeking up at her from behind what little remained of the chair. She had red hair, sharp, brown eyes and skin like the winter snow. 

"Stand where I can see you!" Mytal barked, keeping her pistol locked onto the child's face.

"You stole someone else's food," the child accused as she emerged from hiding. The youth was about ten years old, dressed in a tan tunic with blue trim and wrapped in white furs. There was snow on her seal-skin boots. Snow of the Icelands.

"What are you?" Mytal asked her ten-year-old self.

The apparition grinned, "Food always did taste better when stolen."

Mytal, the adult Mytal, replied by firing until the bolt pistol ran dry.

 

In the broken ruin of the Inquisitorial office, Xeran and Mohr listened carefully to the Champion's account of what happened. There was no sign of any child in the room, just a cratered, blackened wall that Mytal had destroyed in an effort to exorcise her personal Daemon.

"Captain, I think we should raise the Company," Mohr suggested.

"I'm not stupid. I've been trying since Mytal opened fire. Nothing's getting through."

"I know what I-"

"I believe you," Xeran cut in, "don't waste time apologising or second-guessing. Now check the room for anything that might explain what you saw."

"Aye sir," Mytal replied, and strode away toward the far bookshelf.

Xeran glanced down at the table. It was a read oak reading table with a small pile of old books in the middle. There was no sign of any fruit, but pointing that out might do more harm than good.

 

Xeran bent down to read one of the titles when a fist smashed into the side of his helm and threw him to the ground. Before he could react the attacker was on him, pinning him down. He was a giant, the size of a Primaris and dressed in the colours of the Supernovas First Company. He wore no helm, so the Captain could see his face.

"You going to cry, little baby?" the Primaris mocked. "Gonna cry for papa to save you again?"

The voice, though deeper than in his memory, sent Xeran's mind spiralling back to childhood. It was Dalith, his older brother, reborn as a Primaris.

Xeran desperately raised a hand to block the coming punch and felt a bolt of pain flare down his arm. He cried out as a child would, knowing for certain the blow had dislocated a finger. He knew it because he remembered it happening so long ago, the night before the Trials.

 

A second blow came down, and Xeran let it land, trusting his helm to bear the brunt. As his brother pulled back for a third Xeran howled in rage and swung up his power sword, only to meet resistance. He turned and found himself staring into Mohr's Heresy-pattern helm.

"Captain! Get a hold of yourself!"

The world came back into focus. There was no Dalith, Primaris or otherwise. There was only Mohr and Mytal and the table, devoid of books.

"We... we have to go..." Xeran stammered, catching the fear in his own voice. He was terrified; for the first time in his life since becoming an Astartes, he was truly, mind-numbingly fearful of death.

A faint voice whispered in his ear, "-ing me? Cap- -s happening?"

"Quarantine the ship!" Xeran cried into the vox. "Nobody in or out! Olit, seal this damned ship now!"

After an eternity, the broken voice replied, "-opy th-", and went silent once more.

"We have to get back to the airlock," the Captain said, willing himself to be calm again. "Whatever is aboard this ship, we have to block it out. Move! Quickly!"

 

It was a long trek for all three of the Marines, mostly because their party had grown to at least six by the time they back into the airless, lifeless vessel.

"It's really cold here," said Mytal's child self, apparently untroubled by the lack of gravity or oxygen.

"To the Warp with you!" Astartes Mytal spat back.

"I bet if Loxn were still alive he'd have kept you warm."

Mytal turned toward the apparition, paused, and resumed the march back for the airlock. The corridor was much longer than she remembered.

"You alright?" Xeran asked behind her.

"She's fine, runt!" Dalith said, giving Xeran a punch to the shoulder. "She's just moping about the fact you murdered the closest thing she ever had to a father."

"Loxn died in battle, as all Astartes should," Xeran answered, for his own sake as much as the ghost's.

Dalith snorted, "yeah? Well our father didn't. Died in his bed. Still, he lived long enough to see his remaining children gunned down by the Ravien Clan. How's that make you feel, eh? Xeran Ovvel, last of the Ovvels! And it's not like you can extend the family line!"

"I swear on His Throne I will find a way to shut you up," Xeran growled, but that only made his brother laugh all the harder.

 

The armour's internal auspex said that the next right would be the corridor leading to the airlock. Mytal turned at the bulkhead and walked straight into a blizzard. The sudden cold knifed through her, stealing away her breath so no cry of alarm could reach the others. The child-ghost was with her, clutching her hand, dragging her onward.

"Come on! It's not far!"

"Release me!" Mytal snapped, but it was impossible to pull free of the child.

"You're almost home now!" the ghost insisted, pulling her incessantly.

Then, suddenly, she was home. Every squat, wooden hut was as she remembered it. The shoreline had a skin of frost to it - in a few days the men of the village would hopefully return with holds of food and supplies to see the tribe through the long winter to come. As Mytal strode through the calf-deep snow she saw one vessel being dragged ashore, men and women alike helping in the work. Some of the women were dressed for war, and with a glance Mytal could tell they had been raiding the tribes beyond the hills in case the men's ships did not return. Mytal had always enjoyed that; food tasted better when stolen.

 

She came to a halt by a fisherman's hut and watched as the leader of the tribe came forth. She was a tall, muscular woman with red hair and sharp, brown eyes. One of the men saw her and ran out, bellowing wordlessly. Mytal knew his name would be Keryn, a boy she had dreamed of marrying long ago.

"A tribal queen, with child no less," the ghost said in a wistful voice.

Mytal gave a half-hearted "piss off," as she watched her alternate self embrace Keryn. The two whispered together, and Mytal knew it was an invitation to rut there and then on the snow, onlookers be damned.

"This could be yours, you know?"

"This is Warp trickery!" Mytal roared, reaching for her pistol and aiming at her child-spectre. "I don't know what you hope to achieve, but I won't succumb to your tricks!"

"No tricks," the child answered. "I only offer the truth. I offer you the life you lost - a husband, children, the home you always wanted. It can be yours, Mytal. It is yours, you just have to wake up..."

The child-ghost smiled, and gently pushed Mytal's bolt pistol upward toward her own face. "You just have to kill the false-form. Pull the trigger, Mytal, and you'll be back in your husband's arms."

 

The deck came rushing up to meet her. Mytal felt someone plant her feet back on the floor, and Mohr's helm swam into focus. "Stay with me," he ordered.

"Throne! I nearly blew my own damn head off!"

"You tried, but I stopped you."

Mytal glanced toward Xeran, who had been disarmed already. "Wait, are you not seeing ghosts as well?"

"I saw them," Mohr answered, "but they cannot tempt me. I am everything I ever wished to be."

"I kept seeing the Ovvel Bastion, and family long gone," Xeran confessed. "I know they're all dead. I've known for centuries. Yet all of a sudden it's worth killing myself over..."

"You are both being assailed by Warp Magick. I suggest you remember you are supposed to be Space Marines."

 

"Hey brother? Care to stop a minute?"

"No!" Xeran replied, staring coldly ahead. The airlock was close now; if he concentrated, he could will away the false visions and see the access hatch, and Olit's face peering through at him.

"I just wanted to congratulate you on getting Mohr and Mytal killed," Dalith continued, "I mean, you managed to kill off so many of the old crew back on Celadon, but you've never been able to thin the heard properly since then! And now look at you!"

The corridor began to melt beneath his feet. Xeran's boots sloshed through water and suddenly he was on Celadon, trudging through the mud and grime of the city's aqueduct. Somewhere, miles behind, an Ork army had blocked the waterway so their land invasion could use it as a route into the city. Ork corpses lay all around him, turning the water red and filling the air with their fetid stench. Ahead, silhouetted by a burning trukk, was Loxn.

"Xeran! My old friend! How are you?" the jovial Marine called out. He was clad in Corvus plate and armed with an Umbra bolter as he had been in life. He even bore the officer's power sword he'd salvaged during the battle for Celdaon City, and carried with him to the grave.

Loxn glanced from Xeran to Mytal and back. "What's wrong? You look unhappy. You should be happy! We haven't seen each other since... well, here!"

 

Xeran stumbled forward toward the apparition. "Loxn? No, I didn't kill you. I was lost by then, suspended and near-dead myself. They didn't find me until after you broke the Orks. I couldn't have saved you."

"Keep telling youself that," the Primaris Dalith added from behind Xeran.

"My friends, my dear friends, what was my life's ambition? Do you remember? Before I became a Marine?"

"To bed every woman you met between fifteen and fifty," Mytal answered automatically.

Loxn punched the air, "oh yes! And that simple, humble and entirely achievable boyhood fantasy was taken away! Taken by you, Xeran!"

And somehow, Xeran found himself staring down the barrel of a bolter. "you know what has to happen, right?" Loxn asked. "You wronged me. You both did. You left me to die and my own Novitae, a girl I loved like a daughter, stood and watched it happen. You both know what has to happen, right?"

"I do..." Xeran sighed. "I do, Loxn. You were my brother and I failed you..."

Loxn grinned, "good. Let's end this." And then he pulled the trigger.

 

The bolt shell slammed into a cell door sixty yards away. The blast echoed down the corridor far longer than it should have. For a long moment Xeran's mind was filled with the image of Loxn, a friend and brother long lost, pulling a round through Dalith's face. He turned around toward Mytral and Mohr to find the former stood in stunned silence, and the latter struggling back to his feet.

"Are you alright?" he asked Mohr. "What happened?"

"You overpowered me, somehow," Mohr conceded. "Then you shot at something only you could see. I rather suspected you'd shoot me instead."

Xeran cautiously handed back the pistol, expecting some form of retaliation. None came. "I still don't understand how you are immune to this."

Mohr nodded toward the door, "Move, Captain." was all he would offer as an answer.

 

 

It took two days for the Inquisitorial vessel to be tethered for hauling. Normally, Xeran would have simply blasted the ship apart, but he needed to be sure nothing survived. That meant dragging the ship onto a collision course with the system's star. The Astartes lingered for three days more, until the ship was consumed by the red star and lost forever.

"Do you ever think about what it was?" Mytal asked Xeran in the safety of the ship's Chapel, days after the purging of the ghost ship.

"I try not to," he replied. "It could have been a Daemon, or some alien artefact, or perhaps some lost technology best left forgotten. I don't know."

"It made me question things I'd never thought to question. Childhood dreams and frivolous fantasies were suddenly all that mattered, and I would die to make them real..."

Xeran placed a fatherly hand upon Mytal's. "I think, deep down, we all have things we wish could have been different. I struggled with loss for a long time, but losing people is part of being in command. Perhaps I still haven't learned that lesson as thoroughly as I should."

Mytal sighed and glanced toward the icon of the Emperor, "I can't believe that, deep down, I long for a man and three children. The happiest day of my life was the first time I smashed an Eldar's head open with a thunder hammer."

"But you regret losing Loxn?"

"I... yes, I suppose I do. Komdai was a fine teacher, but that's all he was. I loved Loxn like a father, I suppose a part of me is still seeking his approval."

"Yes, I suppose we are," Xeran chuckled. "Still, he's far too busy to be watching us. He is with the Emperor now, standing vigil over the Golden Throne-"

"-having sex with Seraphim and other heavenly women?"

Xeran laughed aloud, "Oh yes! Most certainly! Every woman between fifteen-"

"-and fifty!" Mytal finished, savouring the blasphemous idea uttered aloud within the Chapel. 

 

The doors of the Chapel opened, and Olit strode purposely toward his Captain. "Sir, we've received a message from Master Dyus himself. There's a muster called, a grand Crusade against an army of Chaos. Dyus wants us to attend."

Xeran shivered, a sudden chill running up his spine. Somehow, he knew where his Company was headed, even before Olit spoke.

"The Chaos army is at Celadon."

[Brother Lunkhead]

I love a good ghost story! Nicely done. Spare, but effective style, good dialogue, and a dash of humor. What's not to like?