“Here,” they said in disjointed chorus, “take more power. We have more to give, much more,
enough to split open your skin.”
Kamala fought the siren allure of their voices. She struggled against their promises, and recited a
Canticle of Purity. The silence was trying to worm its way into her brain through her ears and eyes,
nose and mouth. They shoved it into her mouth, that raw, moist thing that empowered her.
Energy flared within her breast, and she shattered the silence for a moment. The static of stars
washed through again, if only for a moment. The quiet rushed back in, the way blood fills the empty
heart. It was inevitable.
Kamala Noore sat straight up from sleep, her sheet soaking wet, the ghost fire of remnant
psychokinetic energy pulsing around the tent. Clothing and personal articles were strewn across the
room, scattered by her poltergeist mind. Kamala rose and dressed quickly. Something was terribly
45
wrong. She could feel the panic welling up inside the minds of everyone around her. They battered
her, and she stumbled. She pulled the psyker hood over her head, drowning out the fear.
A moment later, Kamala pushed past her tent flaps Everyone gathered around the fire pit stared
at the northeastern sky.
A grey moon of oddly spiralled craters hung in the heavens and neared the horizon at
astonishing speed. Its underbelly glowed with a near-incandescent white light.
4
Major Hussari led the two other Sentinels through the night-blessed desert. The Sentinel was an
ungainly vehicle with a cockpit box mounted over two reverse-joint legs, and was armed with a
single weapon. The squadron affectionately referred to them as “birds”, because they didn’t seem all
that graceful until they were in a full run, like now.
Their long, fast strides kicked up a dust storm and filled the air with the steady hiss-thump of
their gait. It was among the few times in recent months that they could bring their vehicles to full
sprint, and their fast run through the desert felt incredibly liberating. Still, while the wind that blew
through their canopy was deliciously refreshing, the men were eager to reach camp and partake of
the feast.
“Runner One, does Khadar have a moon?” the new Runner Three pilot asked.
“What?” Hussari asked into the micro-bead. “Negative.”
“Then what the hell is that over there?”
Hussari checked Runner Three’s co-ordinates before he turned to his left and slowed his bird to
a stop. The others followed suit and stared at the north-eastern sky, where the grey moon’s fast orbit
brought it to the horizon.
“Emperor’s Light,” Hussari muttered. “Runner Two, get on the vox and ask them to confirm.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, is that a meteor?” Runner Three asked.
“No, no… it was a moon,” Runner Two exclaimed, “and it was on fire.”
“It wasn’t on fire,” Hussari replied. “It was entering the atmosphere.”
“Oh, Emperor’s Love,” Runner Three said, whining. “It’s going to impact. It’s a meteor strike.”
“No it isn’t!” Hussari barked. He watched the moon dip below the horizon. He was almost
whispering into his micro-bead. “It was decelerating. Whatever it was, it just landed. Runner
Three.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mark its relative position. Dust Runners, back to base camp, full gait.”
The squadron of Sentinels lurched forward again, their movements almost ungainly until they
finally opened their strides into full-out runs.
5
The camp was in full motion. Guardsmen ran to their positions along the compound’s battlements,
and lined up at the quartermaster’s shed where Kortan and Sabaak worked through their injuries.
Over the vox, a priest offered one Canticle of Courage and another of Devotion. Three birds with
the Dust Runners squadron strode into the courtyard, through the main double gates. Soldiers
automatically moved clear of them, the ballet of warfare fully choreographed and in motion.
Nobody seemed to pay attention to one another, and yet they avoided each other with practice and
near-subconscious fluidity.
The Sentinels slowed their gait and stopped at the vehicle stable where Captain Abantu and
Armoured Support were getting the vehicles fuelled and ready. Tech-crews ran to Hussari’s Sentinel
46
as the legs folded beneath it and dropped the cabin close to the ground. Hussari leapt out and headed
for the command bunker.
“Full complement of fuel and ordinance on all my birds,” Hussari called back to the squadron
crew. “We’re not here long.”
“Yessir!” someone snapped back.
Soldiers ran past the major with a stack of ammunition crates between them. Hussari smiled; no
tribesmen or tribal politics here today. Only soldiers were invited to this party. He entered the
command bunker into the full-blown chaos of organising warfare, and offered Nisri a sharp salute.
“Report,” Nisri said as Hussari saluted him. “Did you see what crashed?”
“No sir,” Hussari responded, “only what you saw, and it didn’t crash. I swear it was decelerating
before it vanished.”
“Auspex,” Turk called out, “anything yet?”
“Negative,” the operator called out. “We picked up a slight impact tremor, but nothing even
close to a meteor or orbit strike. “Whatever it was, it made a controlled landing.”
“It was guided down, sir,” Turk told Nisri. “Anything on vox?”
“Negative,” a vox operator responded. “More background static than normal. Whatever fell or
landed disturbed the sand and generated an electrical field like the ones we’ve experienced. If
there’s a vox signal anywhere in there, they can’t hear or receive.”
“No contact,” Nisri instructed. “There’s no reason to alert them to our presence just yet.”
The command bunker was bursting with activity. All the operating stations, including vox and
auspex, were on active sweeps, not to mention the command staff waiting on intelligence, and the
platoon leaders waiting for their orders. “Options?” Nisri demanded. “Send scouts to uncover what
landed before the invaders can mobilise; if there is a ‘they’,” Turk said.
“Anyone else? Sergeant Noore?” Nisri said, talking to Kamala, who was standing in the
shadows, her hood covering her face. “Sergeant Noore?” Nisri repeated.
“Sorry, sir,” Kamala finally replied. “I was trying to pierce the silence.”
“Silence?” Nisri asked.
“It’s nothing. Whatever landed, it’s invisible to me. But, I can tell you this, the ghosts of those
who died here before are growing more restless.”
“The ghosts?” Nisri repeated. “I thought you found no evidence of an Imperial presence before.”
“Nothing… tangible,” Kamala said, her voice distant, “but their spider-web echoes linger.
Whatever killed them was powerful enough to wipe away everything around them, and while I can
hear nothing from whatever it was that landed, the echoes of the ghosts are growing stronger,
despite the silence.”
“You mean death?” Turk asked. “No,” Kamala said, “I mean silence.” Again, the room fell
quiet. A collective chill passed through the spines of everyone present, and a few Guardsmen spat
on the ground to ward away the evil spirits. Kamala turned back to the shadows. After a moment,
the noise seemed to return to the command bunker, much to everyone’s relief.
“Major Hussari,” Nisri said, “I want you to take your squadrons on reconnaissance. Find out
what landed.”
“How many, sir? I have twenty at full strength and one at half-strength.”
“Take six squadrons just in case. I want the remainder on picket duty until we know what we’re
dealing with.”
“We’ll be ready to leave in less than thirty minutes.”
“How long to get there?”
“I’ll have to check the terrain, but I’d say a few hours. Whatever landed did so two hundred
kilometres away, I’d estimate.”
“It was that big?” Turk asked.
47
“We could only triangulate between two points… our patrol’s position and base camp. Still, it
indicates something mammoth.”
“Find out what it is,” Nisri replied. “Meanwhile, the camp is on alert. I want scout snipers five
kilometres out, and I want regular vox contact. Nothing sneaks up on us. Nothing surprises us,
again.”
6
Major Hussari’s squadron of three Sentinels, the Dust Runners, took the lead. The other five
squadrons, each three birds apiece, assumed arrowhead formation behind the Dust Runners.
The blue sun was beginning to break over the horizon, throwing cobalt spears of light through
the distant cloud cover. It was a clean, crisp morning, a fine day for a run. The squadrons followed
the dry bed of an ancient river that measured kilometres across. It was a circumspect route, but it
allowed the birds to move faster than the dunes permitted, and it minimised their dust trail. Nobody
spoke. The pilots wore their kafiyas over their mouths and noses, and their oculars over their eyes.
At about two horizons out from the estimated landing zone, the squadrons left the river bed and
began threading the dunes at reduced speed. By midday, they could see the wall of dust, agitated by
whatever had landed. It was an orange clot on the horizon, masking all particulars of whatever had
newly arrived. Lightning sparked and flashed inside the cloud, briefly illuminating the silhouette of
a gigantic dome.
An hour later, the Guardsmen disembarked, and Major Hussari and his two best spotters
proceeded on foot. Private Harros Damask was a hawk of a man in features and attitude, while
Private Shanleel Qubak was short, squat and quick, both on his feet and with his tongue. Qubak was
one of the few Turenag Sentinel pilots in Hussari’s squadrons, but Hussari liked him just the same.
The Turenag carried the vox on his back.
The three men remained low to the ground as they threaded their way around the dunes. The two
scouts carried their lasrifles in swaddling cloth while Hussari kept a grip on his plasma pistol. The
sand was coarse of grain, and there was very little of the fine dust to mark their passage, not that
anyone inside the storm was likely to see out for the time being. At the crest of the first dune, they
could see more, if barely.
A mountain of rock had fallen to the planet, but it was too spherical to be natural. The storm of
sand shrouding it was highly localised and appeared to be in wild flight. No currents or direction
guided it. It seemed agitated and unsettled, yet never lifted from around the dome. Lightning sparks
manifested from thin air and arced in upon the enormous rock-like structure. The electricity was
keeping the sand in flight, sheathing the dome in a turbulent orange mist. The wash of heat watered
their eyes and prevented them from properly identifying the rock, although there seemed to be
strange patterns etched into its surface. Even through the oculars, heat shimmers and vapour clouds
masked its design, but it was huge, the size of a battle cruiser and easily a factorum tower in height.
The area was still heated from its entry into the atmosphere. The nearby dunes appeared as though
melted away.
“Whatever’s in there won’t be coming out yet,” Hussari whispered. “I bet you a week’s pay the
surrounding sand’s still molten.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Qubak said.
“It was a rhetorical bet,” Hussari whispered.
“Closer, then?” Damask asked.
“Closer,” Hussari agreed, “but not close enough to be struck by lightning.”
Four kilometres from the crash site, the three Guards men encountered their first black river of
molten glass The top of the dune had melted away and poured down the steep slope. It collected in
the trough between dunes, and bled a small river of glass. Sand insulated heat efficiently, and the
pool looked as if it was in no hurry to crystallise. It could well remain liquid for days.
48
As the three advanced, the heat soared and a foul smelling miasma penetrated the air with a
mixture of rotten eggs and spoiled meat. Hussari covered his fact and wet his kafiya with water from
his canteen to keep out the stench; the others followed suit. They continued closer into the furnacelike
heat of the landing zone and into the periphery of the storm. The dunes were smaller, their tops
melted down along their slopes Melted silicate collected in large pools and streams. The scouting
team couldn’t approach any closer; the ground was melted and the heat suffocating. Even the
particulates in the sand storm felt hot, a shower of heated glass spray. Still, in the distance, they
could hear a strange cracking thunder, like thinning ice. The men glanced at one another, and
Hussari pointed them up the nearest dune.
They clambered up the partially melted dune, its shallow side apparently free of molten glass.
The heat pummelled them and rose with each increment that they scaled the slope. Suddenly, a
section of sand slipped away under Damask’s feet and he fell forward to steady himself. Hussari
realised their folly in one sickening moment. The glass hadn’t slipped down the opposite slope… it
had collected into a small caldera atop the collapsed dune.
The shifting sand broke the lip of the crater and a deluge of melted glass broke free. Hussari and
Qubak barely leapt out of the way, but the avalanche swept across Damask, who was caught off
guard and off balance. His howling scream was lost against the dunes as the molten river covered
his arms and legs. His clothing combusted into flame, and in pulling his hands out of the glass, he
sloughed the flesh off his own muscles.
Hussari and Qubak could only stare horrified as Damask fell backwards into the glass and was
carried to the bottom screaming. He stopped crying when the glass poured over him at the bottom
and burned off his face and throat. He stopped jerking a moment later.
The two Guardsmen remained sitting where they had landed, lost to the shock of their friend’s
brutal death. Finally, Hussari pulled the vox from Qubak’s set and reported the tragedy, and their
findings. Nisri encouraged them to investigate further.
Hussari scaled the dune from another spot, alone this time, and tentative in his steps. When he
reached the top, he motioned Qubak to join him.
They could see more clearly now. The dust storm was thinner, the air melting the sand in flight
into a steady rain of glass. Ghost flickers of lightning sparked and snapped, but it was diminished.
The landscape around the ship had been flattened for a kilometre. Through the haze, it looked like a
giant snail shell, organic and glossy, sitting in a huge crater lake of obsidian glass. Tiny dune islands
slowly melted into the crater’s great cooking pot, while vent spumes along the ship’s spiral spine
