The ship was quieter now, its dim corridors filled with the distant hum of machinery and the muffled voices of survivors going about their routines. Servius moved through the maze of twisted metal and patchwork repairs with a purpose, his sharp eyes scanning the environment for anything of use. The aftermath of the battle with the Beast still lingered in his muscles—a faint, burning ache—but he didn’t have the luxury of resting. Not yet.

  Jaren had mentioned a supply area near the ship’s aft section, a room the survivors used as a makeshift armory. It wasn’t much, they’d warned him, just a collection of scavenged weapons and equipment from the battlefield. But it was better than nothing. If he was going to continue pulling his weight here—and survive whatever came next—he needed to restock.

  The path to the armory wound through narrow corridors lined with warped bulkheads and rusting pipes. Occasionally, he passed groups of survivors huddled together, their whispered conversations stopping abruptly as he approached. Their eyes followed him, a mix of curiosity and wariness reflected in their gazes. Servius ignored it. He wasn’t here to make friends.

  The armory itself was more of a storeroom, a cramped space piled high with crates, weapons, and equipment in various states of disrepair. A pair of guards stood outside, their makeshift armor pieced together from scavenged plating. They stiffened as Servius approached, their hands hovering near their weapons, but neither challenged him.

  “Looking for something?” one of them asked, his voice gruff and cautious.

  “Supplies,” Servius said flatly, his green eyes narrowing slightly. “Jaren said this is where you keep them.”

  The guard hesitated, glancing at his companion before nodding toward the door. “Go ahead, but don’t take more than you need. We don’t have much to spare.”

  Servius nodded curtly and stepped inside.

  The room was cluttered, its shelves and crates filled with weapons, ammunition, and gear of varying quality. Lasgun power packs were stacked in neat rows alongside battered autoguns, while melee weapons ranging from combat knives to crude, improvised clubs lined one wall. A single heavy stubber sat in the corner, its barrel warped and useless, a relic of a fight long past.

  Servius’s gaze swept over the supplies, his sharp eyes scanning for anything that might be useful. He spotted a crate marked with faded symbols of the Adeptus Munitorum and pried it open, revealing a row of bolt pistol magazines nestled within. His ears flicked as he counted them—six in total. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give him some breathing room.

  He slid two of the magazines into his belt pouch, bringing his total up to four, and left the rest untouched. The survivors needed these more than he did, and he wasn’t about to hoard resources he couldn’t carry.

  Further along the shelves, he found a small cache of grenades. Most were standard frag grenades, but one caught his eye—a krak grenade, its sleek, armor-piercing design standing out among the more common explosives. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. It would be useful if he ran into anything with heavy armor—or something else too large to kill with a knife.

  He clipped the krak grenade to his belt next to the remaining frag grenade and moved on.

  In the corner of the room, buried beneath a pile of discarded equipment, he found something unexpected—a bundle of large ammunition, its cartridges marked with the telltale insignia of an autocannon’s round. His tail flicked sharply as he crouched down, inspecting the rounds closely. They weren’t a perfect match for his custom rifle, but they were close enough to be modified. He counted eight rounds in total and added them to his pack, making a mental note to adjust them later.

  Satisfied, Servius straightened and turned toward the exit, his sharp ears picking up the faint sound of footsteps behind him. He turned to see Adrasta leaning against the doorway, her scarred face unreadable as she watched him.

  “You’re not taking much,” she said, her tone neutral but laced with curiosity.

  “Just what I need,” Servius replied, his voice flat. “No point in weighing myself down.”

  Adrasta smirked faintly, the expression tugging at the edges of her scarred features. “Most people would take as much as they could carry, whether they needed it or not.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  Her gaze lingered on him for a moment before she pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room. “You’ve got the survivors talking, you know. They’re not sure what to make of you.”

  “Not my problem,” Servius said, his tone dismissive. “As long as they stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of theirs.”

  Adrasta chuckled softly, a dry, humorless sound. “Fair enough. But if you’re planning on sticking around, you might want to get used to them staring. You’re not exactly subtle.”

  Servius didn’t respond immediately, his green eyes narrowing as he adjusted the strap of his rifle. “What do you want, Adrasta?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d take,” she said, her tone turning serious. “And what you’d leave behind.”

  Her words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken meaning. Servius met her gaze, his expression unreadable. “And?”

  “You’re practical,” she said after a moment. “Efficient. I can respect that.” She gestured toward the shelves. “If there’s anything else you need, take it. Just don’t expect to get a second chance if you waste it.”

  Servius nodded once, a sharp, deliberate motion. “Noted.”

  Adrasta stepped aside, giving him a clear path to the exit. “Arkyn wants to see you when you’re done here,” she said over her shoulder as he passed. “He’s got something for you.”

  Servius paused, his tail flicking once behind him. “What kind of something?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The corridors outside the armory were as dim and stifling as ever, the air thick with the metallic tang of rust and the faint, acrid smell of burned-out machinery. Servius moved through the ship’s interior with steady, purposeful strides, his keen green eyes flicking from shadowed corner to shadowed corner. The weight of his pack was a subtle reassurance, though it did little to ease the tension knotting between his shoulders.

  The survivors he passed along the way were quieter now, their curiosity dulled by the fatigue of constant survival. Many avoided his gaze, their expressions wary but subdued, while a few dared to watch him with open fascination. One child—grimy-faced and clutching a battered tin cup—peeked out from behind a bulkhead, her wide eyes following him as he walked past. Servius ignored her.

  Adrasta’s words echoed faintly in his mind. "If you’re planning on sticking around, you might want to get used to them staring." He dismissed the thought with a flick of his tail. Let them stare. It didn’t matter what they thought of him. He wasn’t here to make friends.

  A faint vibration ran through the ship’s floor, the pulse of the failing Gellar field struggling to maintain its tenuous grip against the ever-pressing Warp. Servius’s ears twitched at the sound, barely audible but ever-present, like the faint hum of a distant engine. It was a sound he had quickly learned to associate with this place—a constant reminder of the fragile bubble that kept the raw chaos of the Immaterium at bay.

  But for how long?

  The thought lingered as he reached the end of the corridor, where a pair of makeshift doors—little more than salvaged plasteel bolted to a damaged frame—marked the entrance to Arkyn’s domain. One of the survivors standing guard, a wiry man with hollow cheeks and a laspistol holstered at his side, stepped forward as Servius approached.

  “Arkyn’s expecting you,” the guard said, his voice low but steady. He didn’t meet Servius’s gaze, his attention fixed on some indeterminate point beyond the feline warrior’s shoulder. “He’s inside.”

  Servius nodded and pushed the doors open.

  The room beyond was dimly lit, its walls lined with faded banners and torn scraps of parchment bearing Imperial prayers and symbols. The flickering glow of a single lumen globe cast long shadows across the cluttered space, where stacks of dataslates and battered cogitators fought for room among piles of salvaged equipment. At the center of it all, seated behind a crude desk cobbled together from scrap metal, was Arkyn.

  The man was old—older than most of the survivors Servius had seen so far—with a wiry frame wrapped in the patchwork remains of what had once been a Commissar’s uniform. His left arm, pale and withered, ended in a crude bionic hand that clicked faintly as he adjusted the dataslate in front of him. His right eye was a milky white, scarred and useless, while his remaining eye burned with sharp intelligence beneath a furrowed brow.

  “Servius,” Arkyn said, his voice gravelly and firm as his gaze lifted to meet the feline’s. “I hear you’ve been making yourself useful.”

  “Something like that,” Servius replied, his tone flat as he stepped closer. He stopped a few paces from the desk, his tail flicking sharply behind him. “Adrasta said you wanted to see me.”

  Arkyn nodded, his bionic fingers tapping idly against the edge of the dataslate. “That’s right. You’ve proven yourself out there, against that... thing. You didn’t just hold your ground—you killed it. That’s more than most of us could hope to manage.”

  Servius crossed his arms, his green eyes narrowing slightly. “I didn’t do it for you.”

  “No,” Arkyn said, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You did it because you didn’t have a choice. But it doesn’t matter why you did it—what matters is that you did.”

  The room fell silent for a moment, the distant hum of the Gellar field filling the void. Servius waited, his sharp gaze fixed on Arkyn as the older man leaned back in his chair, his expression turning thoughtful.

  “This ship,” Arkyn began, gesturing vaguely to the walls around them, “is dying. We’ve been trapped here longer than I care to admit—long enough that time’s lost its meaning. The Gellar field’s failing, piece by piece, and the Warp’s been clawing at us every step of the way. It’s only a matter of time before it breaks completely.”

  “Then why are you still here?” Servius asked, his tone cold but pointed. “If you know the ship’s doomed, why haven’t you left?”

  Arkyn’s good eye narrowed. “You think we haven’t tried? This place... this part of the Warp doesn’t let go so easily. Every attempt we’ve made to leave—on foot, by makeshift vehicle, even by shuttle—has ended the same way. We’re thrown back here, like a bad joke.”

  Servius’s tail flicked sharply. He’d heard of such phenomena before, though rarely on this scale. The Warp was nothing if not cruel, its labyrinthine currents capable of trapping entire ships and fleets in endless loops of despair.

  “So you’re stuck,” he said flatly. “What does that have to do with me?”

  Arkyn leaned forward, his gaze piercing. “Because you’re not like us. Whatever’s marked you—whatever you brought back from that place—it’s different. You cut through that Beast like it was nothing, and I’d wager you’ve got more tricks up your sleeve than you’re letting on.”

  Servius’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. He wasn’t about to explain the threads of the Nexus to a man like Arkyn, no matter how perceptive he was.

  “I’ve seen what happens to most people who stay in the Warp this long,” Arkyn continued, his voice lowering. “They break. Twist. Become... something else. But not us. And not you. There’s something keeping us here—holding us together just enough to survive. Maybe it’s the Gellar field. Maybe it’s something else entirely. But if we’re going to find a way out, we’re going to need someone like you.”

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  “Out?” Servius echoed, his tone sharp. “You said yourself the Warp doesn’t let go.”

  “It doesn’t,” Arkyn admitted. “But there’s a way. There’s always a way—you just have to know where to look. And I think we’ve found it.”

  He tapped a finger against the dataslate, the screen flickering faintly as it displayed a map of the surrounding region. “There’s a stronghold to the west. We’ve seen it in the distance—a fortress of black stone, wreathed in flame. It’s been there as long as we have, but we’ve never dared approach it. Too dangerous, too many unknowns. But recently... we’ve noticed something. A gate, opening and closing. Ships coming and going.”

  “A warp gate,” Servius said, his eyes narrowing.

  Arkyn nodded. “If we can get to that stronghold—if we can take control of that gate—it might be our way out of here. But we need someone to lead the way. Someone who can handle what’s out there.”

  “Let me guess,” Servius said dryly. “You’re volunteering me.”

  “You’re the best shot we’ve got,” Arkyn said bluntly. “And if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.”

  Servius’s judging gaze locked onto the flickering map displayed on the dataslate, studying the jagged lines and shifting terrain it outlined. The fortress loomed on the western edge, a stark black mark against the surreal expanse of the Warp. Even without Arkyn’s explanation, he could sense the importance of the location—it exuded a presence, like a gravitational pull that distorted the very air around it.

  He didn’t need to ask what kind of enemy might be holding the fortress. He already knew. The Warp wasn’t generous with its secrets, and anything with enough power to anchor a gate in this abyss would be steeped in madness and cruelty.

  “Who’s running the place?” he asked finally, his tone measured but cold.

  Arkyn’s expression darkened. “A warband. They call themselves the Ebon Claws. Heretics, mutants, and worse. Led by a man who goes by the name Kael Dravak. Some say he was once a Champion of Chaos—anointed by the Ruinous Powers themselves—but the years have warped him into something else. Something... less human.”

  Servius’s ears flicked forward, his brow furrowing. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Not personally,” Arkyn admitted, his tone grim. “But the patrols that got too close to the fortress didn’t come back whole. The ones who survived spoke of Dravak—a man who barely seems real. They say he’s part daemon now, bound to the Warp in ways that make him stronger than any mortal has a right to be.”

  Servius’s tail flicked sharply behind him, his mind racing as he processed the information. A Chaos warband was bad enough, but a warband led by someone like Dravak? That made the task ahead far more complicated. He wasn’t walking into some abandoned stronghold full of amateurs—he’d be facing a fortress packed with hardened killers, all serving a leader who likely thought himself invincible.

  And yet...

  He didn’t have much of a choice, did he?

  “This gate,” Servius said, his voice cutting through the silence. “It’s stable? Functional?”

  “As far as we can tell, yes,” Arkyn replied. “Ships come and go through it. Small craft, mostly—probably raiders or supply runs. But it’s active. If we can take control of the gate, we might be able to use it to escape this cursed place.”

  Servius didn’t respond immediately. His claws tapped absently against the edge of the desk, the faint scrape of metal on metal filling the room as he weighed his options. The survivors needed a way out of the Warp, and he needed a direction—a purpose. The Nexus’s threads had marked him for something, even if he didn’t yet fully understand what, and this might just be the first step toward unraveling that mystery.

  But this wasn’t a suicide mission. Not for him, anyway.

  “If I’m going to do this,” he said finally, his voice low but firm, “I’ll need more than just a map and a pat on the back. Supplies, intel, anything you’ve got on that warband and their defenses. If I’m walking into a fortress full of fanatics, I’m not doing it blind.”

  Arkyn nodded, his good eye narrowing as he studied Servius. “We can give you what we have—what little that is. Supplies are thin, but we’ll scrape together whatever we can spare. As for intel... we know the Ebon Claws patrol the area around the fortress regularly. They’re disciplined, but not infallible. You might be able to exploit their patrol routes to get closer undetected.”

  “Anything about their numbers?” Servius pressed.

  “Rough estimates,” Arkyn replied. “One-hundred to one-Fifty warriors in total, spread across the fortress and the surrounding area. Most of them are your standard fodder—Chaos cultists with more zeal than sense. But they’ve got elites, too. Traitor Astartes. We’ve seen them leading squads during patrols. If Dravak really is as powerful as the rumors suggest, he’ll likely have a few of them guarding him personally.”

  Servius’s jaw tightened. Chaos Marines. That complicated things even further. They weren’t invincible, but killing one of them required precision, timing, and no small amount of luck. Fighting an entire squad? That was suicide, plain and simple.

  “Anything else?” he asked, his tone edged with impatience.

  Arkyn hesitated, his bionic fingers tapping against the desk. “The fortress itself... it’s alive.”

  Servius’s ears flicked back, his gaze narrowing. “What do you mean, alive?”

  “The Warp’s twisted it,” Arkyn explained, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “The walls pulse with something that’s not stone or metal. It reacts to those who walk within it—shifts and changes, like it’s trying to trap intruders. The patrols that got too close said they could hear whispers, feel the walls breathing. It’s as much a part of the Ebon Claws as they are of it.”

  Servius exhaled sharply, his tail flicking behind him. Of course it wasn’t just a fortress. Nothing in the Warp was ever that simple.

  “Alright,” he said finally, his voice flat. “I’ll need time to prepare. Supplies, weapons, whatever you’ve got—get it ready. And I’ll need someone who knows the terrain around that fortress. Someone who can guide me close enough to do what I need to do.”

  Arkyn nodded, his expression grave. “Adrasta can handle that. She knows the patrol routes better than anyone—hell, she’s probably killed more Ebon Claws than the rest of us combined.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Servius said, turning toward the door. “Get your people ready. If this works, you’ll need to move fast. That gate won’t stay unguarded for long.”

  “Servius,” Arkyn called out, stopping him just before he stepped into the corridor. The feline warrior glanced back over his shoulder, his green eyes meeting Arkyn’s steady gaze. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Servius replied coldly. “Save it for when we’re out of this hellhole.”

  Servius left Arkyn’s makeshift office with his mind already churning through what lay ahead. The fortress. The Ebon Claws. Kael Dravak. A gate pulsing with Warp energy, promising either freedom or death. The weight of it all pressed against him, but he shoved it aside, focusing instead on immediate tasks. Survival was a matter of momentum. Stop moving, stop thinking ahead, and the Warp would devour you.

  The corridors of the ship felt narrower now, the oppressive hum of the failing Gellar field thrumming in his ears like a heartbeat gone wild. Survivors moved past him in tense, hurried motions, their voices subdued, their gazes downcast. They had seen too much, endured too much, to indulge in hope. Arkyn might have spoken of escape, but Servius saw the resignation in their movements. Most of them didn’t believe it.

  But that wasn’t his problem.

  He passed through the armory once more, making quick stops to double-check his gear. The two fresh bolt magazines he’d taken earlier sat snugly in his pouch, and the krak grenade hung securely at his belt. He scanned the room again, his sharp green eyes catching every detail—the worn edges of lasgun power packs, the dented plating of a battered combat shield, the piles of autogun rounds stacked haphazardly in a corner.

  A plasma cell rested on one of the cluttered shelves, faintly glowing with unstable energy. Servius plucked it up, inspecting the cartridge closely. It was fully charged, but a weapon to match was nowhere immediately in sight. His tail flicked sharply, a sign of irritation, as he turned to dig deeper into the disorganized piles of equipment.

  After sifting through a tangle of rusted lasgun barrels and bent power sword hilts, his claws brushed against something promising—a blocky, battered weapon buried beneath a pile of dented armor plates. He pulled it free, his sharp green eyes narrowing as he examined it.

  It was a plasma pistol, its frame scorched and worn but still intact. The muzzle was cracked slightly, and the grip’s plating had been partially melted, but the weapon was functional. He turned it over in his hands, testing the weight and balance. A few minor repairs and adjustments would be necessary, but it would do the job. Against Traitor Astartes, he’d need all the firepower he could muster, and this was a weapon that could punch through even their formidable armor.

  Servius loaded one of the plasma cells into the weapon, the faint hum of its activation bringing a faint, grim satisfaction to his ears. He adjusted the pistol’s settings, ensuring it was primed for rapid use, and slid it into a makeshift holster he found hanging nearby. The holster was torn and frayed but serviceable. He secured it across his chest, adjusting the straps until the weapon rested snugly against his side, ready for quick access.

  Satisfied, he turned back to the shelves and spotted a tattered leather sheath hanging on a wall hook. He grabbed it and slid his knife into its place, securing the sheath across his chest opposite the plasma pistol. The blade, though small compared to the weapons he carried, felt heavier with meaning—a symbol of survival, of what he was capable of when pushed to the brink. The memory of plunging it into the Beast’s writhing form was still fresh in his mind, the hollow ache in his soul a constant reminder of what the Warp demanded in return for survival.

  With his loadout checked and secured, Servius left the armory and made his way toward the central bulkhead, where Adrasta was waiting. He felt the weight of the survivors’ stares as he passed, their whispered conversations brushing against his ears like distant echoes. He ignored them, his tail flicking sharply as he focused on the path ahead.

  Adrasta stood near the ship’s main airlock, her arms crossed over her broad chest as she leaned against the wall. Her scarred face was set in a neutral expression, but her sharp gray eyes tracked Servius’s approach with an intensity that spoke of a predator sizing up its prey.

  “You took your time,” she said as he stepped into view.

  “Had things to do,” Servius replied, his tone flat. He stopped a few paces away, his green eyes meeting hers without hesitation. “Arkyn says you’re my guide.”

  Adrasta smirked faintly, the expression tugging at the edges of her scarred features. “Looks like it. Guess that means you’re stuck with me.”

  “Long as you know the terrain and keep up, we won’t have a problem,” Servius said, his voice sharp and deliberate. “I don’t have time to babysit.”

  Adrasta chuckled dryly, a low, gravelly sound. “Good. I wasn’t planning on needing it.” She pushed off the wall and gestured toward a crude map pinned to a nearby console. “We’ll take the westward route—fewer patrols, but more rough terrain. Easier to avoid detection, harder to move fast.”

  Servius stepped closer, his sharp eyes scanning the map. The terrain was as jagged and unpredictable as he’d expected, the fortress looming like a black wound on the western edge. The patrol routes were marked with crude symbols, each one indicating where the Ebon Claws were most active. Adrasta’s fingers traced a path through the chaos, her movements quick and confident.

  “We’ll have to cross two valleys,” she said, her tone all business now. “Both of them riddled with fissures. The first one’s shallow—mostly just molten rock and unstable ground. The second one’s the real problem. It’s deeper, and the Ebon Claws like to use it as a chokepoint. If we’re not careful, they’ll spot us long before we get close to the fortress.”

  “Any cover?” Servius asked, his ears flicking forward as he studied the map.

  “Some,” Adrasta replied. “Jagged ridges, outcroppings, the usual Warp nonsense. But if they’ve got a spotter up high, we’re screwed. They’ll see us coming a mile away.”

  Servius nodded, his tail flicking sharply behind him. “Then we don’t give them the chance. We move at night.”

  Adrasta raised an eyebrow, her smirk returning. “Night doesn’t mean much in the Warp, Cat. The sky’s always a mess.”

  “It’s darker,” Servius shot back. “Harder to spot movement, even for them.”

  Adrasta considered this for a moment before nodding. “Fair point. We’ll move at dusk—whatever passes for it around here. The fortress will still be active, but the patrols might be thinner.”

  “Anything else I need to know?” Servius asked, his tone clipped.

  Adrasta’s expression darkened slightly. “Yeah. If we get caught, don’t expect me to stick around. I’ll fight if I have to, but I’m not dying for your mission.”

  “Fair enough,” Servius replied. His voice was cold, almost indifferent, but there was a faint glint of approval in his green eyes. “Just don’t get in my way.”

  Adrasta chuckled again, the sound as dry as sandpaper. “You’ve got a real way with people, you know that?”

  Servius didn’t respond. He turned away from the map, his focus already shifting to the mission ahead. “We leave in an hour,” he said over his shoulder. “Be ready.”

  Adrasta watched him go, her smirk fading into a more serious expression. “One hour,” she muttered to herself, her fingers brushing the hilt of her knife. “Let’s see if you’re as good as Arkyn thinks you are.”

  Servius returned to the small corner of the ship he had claimed for himself, his steps measured and deliberate as he went through his mental checklist. His gear was ready—four full magazines for his pistols, fourteen usable sniper rounds, and eight he still needed to modify, and the plasma pistol with its two energy cells. The krak and frag grenades hung securely at his belt, and his knife sat in its sheath across his chest.

  He sat on the edge of a battered crate, his eyes narrowing as he considered the task ahead. The Ebon Claws. Kael Dravak. A fortress that breathed and whispered like a living thing. It was madness, all of it. But madness was the currency of the Warp, and Servius had learned to adapt.

  The hum of the failing Gellar field pressed against his ears, a constant reminder of the ship’s fragility. He exhaled slowly, his tail flicking once behind him as he closed his eyes. For a moment, the chaos of the Warp seemed distant, the weight of the Nexus’s threads muted. But only for a moment.

  When he opened his eyes, his resolve was sharp and cold as the knife across his chest.

  An hour. Then it would begin.