Dark Side of Ultramar

[DogWelder]

Ultramar is a shining beacon of hope and prosperity on the Eastern Fringe of a dark, uncaring Galaxy. Free of the corruption and decay that chokes the rest of Imperial society, it is an example of a glorious human civilization that persisted even after the horror of the great Heresy. However, as the resplendent star empire faces a period of turmoil as it recovers from repeated invasions by the forces of chaos, Ensign Cassia of the Vigil Opertii faces the darkness that lies at the dregs of every human society.

 

+++M42.75+++

+++Sub-sector Ultramar+++

+++Veridian System+++

+++Ischara, Kastril City, Industrial Disctrict A-7+++

 

"Ultramar is civilized"

 

She believed it. Cassia believed every word of her superior officer. 

 

From space Ischara was a dull grey sphere ringed by a belt of glittering lights from the vast megacities that were built around the planet's equatorial belt. Vast starports were visible as bright spots among the lights, disgorging a massive but orderly procession of cargo lifters, passenger transports, mass conveyers and the occasional military shuttle like a horde of fireflies into the gaping maws of the immense orbital stations above the planets. Frequent but short-lived flares often lit up the skies of Ischara, void vessels lighting up their sub-light engines to accelerate away from the planet's gravitational pull.

 

This was not a beautiful world, but then it was not designed to be one. Instead its appeal lay in its utilitarianism; a concept that was borderline worshipped across Guilliman's realm. Its cities were organized into a flat, grid formation that was common among the worlds of Ultramar. Tall, angular blocks of glass, metal and stone rose up well above the clouds and gleamed in the vibrant, yellow mid-day light of the planet's sun, its upper flanks flocked by air cars belonging to the upper-class of planetary society. By contrast the bases of the structure were ringed by transport tubes carrying massive mag-lev trains that carried much of the citizenry from their Hab complexes to their places of work and visit.

 

Cassia was not ascending to the gleaming skyscrapers to marvel at the view of Ischara’s sunset. Nor was she traversing the city terrain to gape at its impressive infrastructure. Right now, she was in the bowels of the factory district on the outskirts of the mega-sprawl, ready to fulfill her duty to Ultramar and Guilliman.

 

She looked at the man who had said those words and nodded. She would have smiled but this wasn’t the place. “Is that an Ischaran custom, sir?” she asked.

 

“It is an affirmation of our purpose; to make that statement a reality” said Sergeant Crassus, motioning her into a wide storage space with a high ceiling along with the rest of the team. “Although you are an off-world recruit, you should learn our traditions quickly”. Looking back with an equally stony expression, he signalled for them to take their designated positions.

 

“Yes sir” she replied as she came up to his flank and pulled her military-grade laspistol out of its holster and hid it behind the folds of the hooded cowl she had worn over her regular blue and beige carapace armor for the mission. 

 

“Begin operation. Mark 0:12:35” stated the sergeant in a cold, dispassionate voice as disgruntled workers began to spill into the cavernous warehouse, the expressions on their faces ranging from irritation to outright hostility. 

 

As they approached the ten undercover officers of the Vigil Opertii, a tall, burly figure came forth from the mob. A shaven headed man who barely fit into his orange factory overall on account of his muscle mass and height came up to meet Crassus, a look of confusion on his face.

 

“Are you the plant manager’s representative?” he asked, the words causing a curiously hopeful murmur to arise from the crow behind him.

 

“We are here to resolve the…inefficiency” Crassus said, pulling down his hood and smiling at the worker. She knew that smile. It was just one of the false facial expressions all of the Opertii were trained to show in order to put a subject at ease. Though the sergeant’s patrician features, consisting of a finely cut jawline, close-cropped but vibrant blond hair and rich hazel eyes, did make the process much easier in her opinion.

 

“Then you’re here to stop them from working us to death” the man snarled, his face wrenching into a sneer. Cassia stiffened and tightened her grip on the laspistol as she heard the crowd start to grumble.

 

“The effect of the recent extensions in work hours has been accounted for by managerial staff and approved by the district council” Crassus replied, his voice agreeable but slowly gaining a sense of authority. “An appropriate increase in your monthly credit payments has been made to compensate-”

 

“Credits are not the problem!” snapped the man “Ever since the announcement from the Lord Governor, the work quotas are being increased weekly without an end in sight. What the feth is the point of credits if we’re going to be worked to death in the first place? If much of it is going to be worthless in a few years anyway?!”

 

Cassia frowned. She had heard similar complaints before on Calth too, though not to this extent. The restructuring of Ultramar back into the 500 Worlds as dictated by their reborn Primarch was stretching the resources of the star empire to their limit and decision to increase the supply of credits to account for this had led to moderate inflation across the entire sub-sector, wiping out the savings of much of the lower classes such as manufactorum workers and overall reducing the quality of life.

 

In addition, the rebuilding of many planets that had suffered the wages of war had sparked a minor sector-wide economic boom at first but as time dragged on, the increased need for more raw materials, machinery and commodities to speed up the reunification of Greater Ultramar had put a major strain on the general population as they witnessed their work hours increase while their payments slowly degraded in value.

 

The cause was, as she understood, the series of tumultuous events that had befallen Ultramar several decades before her birth. A series of sector-wide invasions by the Archenemy had pushed the star empire to the brink of defeat and ruin.

 

Then he returned. News of the miraculous resurrection of Roboute Guilliman had apparently spread like wildfire across his realm. Its amplifying effect on the fighting spirit of its defenders only eclipsed by the crushing military victories the Primarch achieved over the hordes of chaos, eventually driving them from Ultramar entirely. 

 

Retired members of the Ultramar Auxilia spoke with unabashed awe of how the Ultramarines annihilated the Archenemy invading Macragge in just under a month after the return of their Primarch. Wizened old captains of the Defense Fleet told tales of the myriad descendants of the Ultramarines, along with Chapters they had never even heard of before, sailing across the void to the aid of Ultramar with massive fleets whose guns turned entire armadas of the Archenemy to desiccated husks.  Ecclesiarchs preached of how the majestic light of the Saint Celestine ultimately caused the tendrils of Chaos reaching into their empire to wither and die, a permanent reminder that the Emperor protects.

 

Cassia was not born in such interesting times however. She was born a full half-century after the Lord of Macragge left for Terra. A time of grim rebuilding and fortification for the darkness that was sure to return. A time where the citizens of Ultramar needed to look inward for threats. A time where the Vigil Operatii were most needed.

 

Some said that the Opertii were no better than the paranoid wolves of the Inquisition. That the very idea of a secret police was antithetical to the idea of peace and civilization that Ultramar championed. Nothing could have been further from the truth in her mind. Where humanity existed, discord, dissatisfaction and inefficiency always sprung up like malignant tumors in a healthy body. 

 

However, the Inquisition would simply use whatever means they could to crush dissent, heedless of the damage it caused to the fabric of society or to overall efficiency. By contrast, the Vigil Opertii existed to smooth out the problems that arose in civil society, removing malcontents and returning misguided citizens to their proper role in the grand scheme of Ultramar. All done while maintaining the satisfaction and productivity of the populace. It were these thoughts that prompted Cassia to step forward and address this agitator.

 

“We all have a duty to the vision of Lord Guilliman” she said confidently striding up to the crowd and lowering her cowl. Cassia wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, though her short, raven black hair and slightly demure face with low cheekbones often attracted a certain amount of looks from men back at the academy. She put on a fake smile but was irritated by the mans lack of perspective. “You may be suffering now, but think of how many have suffered to save you from a fate beyond imagining. Think about your commitment to Greater Ultramar and how-”

 

“Don’t lecture me about duty you pompous bitch!” roared the man, stabbing an accusatory finger at her while motioning to the crowd. “Not a single man in this crowd ever neglected his duty. All of us gave decades of our lives to this single fething manufactorum! Some of are even ex-Auxilia. We served Ultramar and will continue to serve it till our dying breath. All we ever asked is that we are allowed to support our loved ones!”. The crowd was beginning to get agitated now, many shouting in support of the man.

 

Cassia blinked and took a step back, fingers tightening around her weapon and her mouth slightly agape. No one had ever talked to her that way. She had trained for hostile encounters at the academy but to have this happen before her eyes…was different. “You…you insolent-” she began, her face losing all measure of control and becoming a mask of wounded pride. 

 

“So you refuse to return to the production lines then?” interjected Crassus with a clinical tone. She turned to face him, expecting to see a disapproving look on his face. By contrast he gave her a satisfied nod, as if to congratulate her. 

 

“No, we shall not” the worker said defiantly, and a chorus of angry affirmations rose from the crowd. “We will not slave away for an uncaring governor who has forgotten the principles on which Ultramar was founded. What is the point of sacrificing ourselves if our loved ones will continue to suffer? What is the point of struggling if we will never see a better future for our children?! What-”

 

The ringleader never had a chance to finish his screen before the entirety of his head was turned into a fleshy, molten slag that underwent a temporary heat expansion before bursting apart and showering the crowd behind him in a spray of blood and brain matter.

 

Cassia’s eyes widened and a look of panic crossed her face as she saw the recently fired laspistol held by her sergeant. She opened her mouth to speak when a flurry of las shots sounded echoed through the cavernous room. Dozens of workers collapsed into steaming heaps and the rest scattered, panicked as the Vigil Operatii began to systematically gun them down.

 

She felt numb, her senses momentarily deserting her as she lurched backwards barely maintaining her balance. She weakly pulled out her own pistol but kept it lowered, unsure of what to do. Her brain refused to accept what her eyes told her. Refused to accept that the Operatii were carrying out a wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians. “W-what…” she began, her tone wavering as she simply stared at the ensuing horror.

 

One of the civilians, an older man that was surprisingly quick for his age and probably former Ultramar Auxilia, quickly identified her as the weak link in the group and rushed at her.

 

“Stop!” Cassia yelled, her voice lacking any sense of authority however as she half-heartedly tried to raise her weapon at him.

 

The man hit her at full sprint, knocking her to the floor and sending her laspistol scattering away as he took off into a service corridor. She hurriedly crawled over to her weapon, drawing up to full height and regaining a measure of her composure. The rest of the Opertii including her sergeant were busy finishing off the remaining workers and had apparently not noticed the man who had ran at her.

 

Perhaps they thought that she had killed him. 

 

Perhaps I should let them believe that

 

For a moment she considered it. Considered just letting the man go. Then her sense of duty got the better of her. Her duty to Guilliman and Greater Ultramar. The duty that had been bred into every citizen of the Star Empire and reinforced constantly since then. No matter what her orders were, she still had to follow them, damn whatever moral conflict it provoked in her. Clenching her jaw and steeling her resolve, she began to run after the man.

 

“The duty of the state is to best serve the citizenry. The duty of the citizenry is to best serve society. The duty of the enforcer is to protect the citizenry and serve the state” she repeated to herself, remembering the words of Guilliman that were drilled into the minds of every cadet of Ultramar’s military academies. As she repeated the mantra she felt her resolve hardening.

 

“Stop! Or I will open fire!” she shouted as she finally came to a halt to see the man making a final, exhausted sprint towards an automatic access door. She froze. She had studied the schematics of the lower levels before the operation. That access-way led to the central corridor of the communal halls where hundreds of workers would currently be congregating through during their sanctioned rest period. If they saw him…

 

“Please stop!” she was pleading now, her tone wavering and her fingers shaking even as she pointed the nose of laspistol at the fleeing figure. She couldn’t do it. This was against everything she believed about her home, her empire, her Ultramar. Were they really no better than the paranoid wolves of Inquisition after all?

 

“Take the shot! In Guilliman’s name take the shot!” her sergeant yelled at her as he sped towards her from the opposite walkway. The invocation of the Primarch’s name did it. It banished her doubts, if only for a moment, replacing them with the strength she needed to fulfill her duty.

 

The man went down, a smoking crater in the back of his head. A few more meters and the doors would have automatically opened, revealing to at least a hundred citizens of Ultramar the sight of a Vigil Opertii officer training her gun at a panicked worker.

 

She sank to her knees as her strength deserted her, dropping her weapon as scent of burning flesh made its way over to her. Her mouth was dry and her eyes wide open in a state of utter shock as implications of what she had felt like an icy grip slowly tightening around her chest. She was vaguely aware of wet drops sliding off her cheeks. Not tears of sadness she thought. That was her body reacting to the mental trauma of having everything she had believed in her entire life shattered in the space of an hour.

 

“You did your duty” said a reassuring voice behind her and a warm hand gently brushed the side of her face, wiping away the tears. She leaned into it, all her inhibitions dissolved as her mind desperately sought a source of comfort and stability. Looking up, she saw sergeant Crassus looking down with a genuinely warm smile on his face. He had taken off the glove of his right hand to touch her directly.

 

“Why” was all she managed to manage in a weak voice.

 

“I should thank you, Ensign. You helped expose their unwillingness to co-operate sooner.” His voice was kind and soft; he had never heard him to talk to anyone this way. Perhaps he was doing on purpose it to calm her down but she didn’t care, not now. He looked at her fallen laspistol. 

 

“We needed to make it look like they were killed by another work gang. They were killed by agitators and extremists who wished to prevent them from reaching a compromise with their overseers. Once this news spreads among the industrial districts, public support of these malcontents will plummet and the civil authorities will be able to make arrests of well-known dissidents” he explained.

 

“Oh…” Cassia mumbled pathetically. It made sense now. It was logical. With the deaths of a few dozen, peace would be restored. Order would be preserved without the use of extreme actions and the prosperity of Ischara would be unspoiled. They had eliminated the root of the problem without disturbing the fabric of society. They were nothing like the Inquisition or those corrupt tyrants of the Imperium. No, they were better. They were civilized.

 

“I realize the first time can be difficult, Cassia” he said, brushing strands of loose hair from her cheek with delicate care. “Soon though, you will become a fine officer of the Opertii. You did well today.”

 

His words steeled her resolve. They added stability and comfort to the whirlwind of thoughts racing around her head. The same stability she had just lost and needed again. She removed her own gloves and clasped his bare hand with hers, turning to look into his eyes as she felt her lips forming into a smile. Fresh tears began to spill down her face as a wash of relief overcame her.

 

“Ultramar is civilized” she said.

 

She believed it once more.

Edited January 4, 2018 by DogWelder

[Prot]

I like it. Just controversial enough for me to think... 'not my Ultramar'. But believable enough to think it plausible.

 

I hope her next week gets a little better!

[DogWelder]

I like it. Just controversial enough for me to think... 'not my Ultramar'. But believable enough to think it plausible.

 

I hope her next week gets a little better!

 

In the next chapter the planet she's on gets hit with the full force of a Death Guard invasion under Mortarion so....

Edited January 4, 2018 by DogWelder

[Wintermane]

I really enjoyed this first chapter. I'm nobody special, an average gamer and an OK painter but I've always loved the backstories of the 40K world. This story immediately pulled me in. I want to hear Ensign Cassia's whole story and see how she turns out. As a great fan this is the kind of book/story I want to see from the Black Library.