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Cepheus

Braden Campbell

The chamber into which he walked was circular, high-ceilinged, and lit only by four immense candelabra – one that hung suspended over a small platform in the centre of the room, and three that cast down flickering orange on the watch captains. To his right, obscured within the shadows, was a scribe-servitor. It had quills for fingers and containers of ink mounted on its forearms. A seemingly infinite scroll of parchment protruded from its mouth and spilled across the floor, while its glowing red optics watched him unblinkingly.

Barefoot and dressed only in a heavy robe, he silently made his way to the platform.

The captains surveyed him coolly. It was a tradition that the petitioner neither wore his power armour nor carried a weapon. He was a Space Marine, just as they were, and as such, no longer experienced fear. Still, was it not written in the Codex, ‘Look to your wargear, brothers, and let it never leave your sight. Your armour is your lifeward, and your boltgun is the Emperor’s wrath incarnate.’ To be unarmed and unarmoured conflicted with his psycho-indoctrination.

He suspected that was exactly the point – for the applicant to rendered humble, to be made pliable and open to manipulation. Perhaps he might reveal some hidden truth or detail upon which they might pounce. Well, such tactics might provide fruitful results against a less experienced battle-brother, but there were very few who had lived a life as long and filled with war as he had. He had long since mastered every nuance of the nineteen implants that separated him from mortal men. He could not be manipulated or coerced.

He willed his body to quiet itself. His pulse slowed. His shoulder muscles relaxed. The memorised lines of the Codex Astartes that were calling for him to arm himself against the foe lowered their protestations to a whisper.

The watch captains were each seated in an elaborate throne ringed with a carved wooden desk. As he took his place in the centre of the chamber, thick servo-arms in the backs of their seats lifted them high above the floor where they could suitably lord over those called before them. The centremost of the three, a man with a short, grey beard, tapped a sheaf of parchment. The black surface of his armour was broken only by the bright green field on his right shoulder plate.

‘This council is now come to order,’ he said in the distinctive brogue of his home Chapter. Nearby, the servitor’s quills began scratching against the parchment. ‘State your name, rank, and Chapter of origin for the record.’

‘Ortan Cassius, Chaplain of the Ultramarines.’

‘Presiding are Watch Captain Bresnik, Watch Captain Seumas, and myself, Watch Captain Drusus.’

Cassius was familiar with Drusus and Bresnik, both of whom were stern but well-respected leaders. In their home Chapters, they each commanded a company of one hundred Space Marines, and both were adherents of the Codex. He fully trusted that they would find no fault in what he had done, for had they been in his place they would have done exactly the same.

He did not recall ever hearing Seumas’ name before, however. Nor did he recognise the heraldry of his home Chapter; a yellow field emblazoned with a black, winged lightning bolt.

Bresnik rubbed his cheek. ‘Chaplain Cassius, you have been called here today before a congress of your superiors in the Deathwatch because you have made a specific request. You are petitioning to assemble a kill team and travel to the Ghosarian System in order to locate certain members of your previous kill team, sent there on a mission of lethal investigation.’

‘Yes,’ Cassius said. ‘There has been no communication with them for some time.’

‘There are many possible explanations for why they have so far failed to report in,’ Captain Bresnik said. ‘The parameters of their mission might even forbid it.’

‘I am responsible,’ Cassius answered, ‘and so it falls to me to discover what that explanation is. Not only was I their original team leader, but I was also their Chaplain.’

‘Am I my battle-brother’s keeper?’ Seumas said quietly.

Cassius had never heard the Chaplain’s duty put so poetically before, but he found that he liked the turn of phrase. All loyal Space Marines, regardless of their doctrines, beliefs, or traditions, were ultimately brothers – sharing a genetic lineage that stretched back through ten millennia of unceasing duty to the Emperor. It was easy in these turbulent times for the various Chapters to remain at odds, to be insular and isolated from one another. Yet, the Deathwatch was composed of recruits from many different backgrounds. Friend and foe alike had to learn to work together against the common xenos threat, to eradicate the alien from the face of the galaxy. The duty of a Deathwatch chaplain was therefore compounded beyond such parochial boundaries; he had to guard the spiritual well-being of the whole of the Emperor’s family.

‘Yes, watch captain. I am my battle-brothers’ keeper.’

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