345 – Ave Imperator

Octavian Gaius, Brother of the Adeptus Custodes, one of the Emperor’s Ten Thousand. That was who he was. Once upon a time, the best of them were called the Emperor’s Companions. It had been more than ten thousand years since any of his brothers dared to name themselves by that ancient epithet. Not after they’d failed to save the Emperor from Horus’ blade. 

The Emperor’s Companions. Some fine companions they were, letting their liege lord be brought to the precipice of death. Every time they had to look upon his tortured, withered visage, they were reminded of their failure. Octavian wasn’t there, it wasn’t his personal failure, but he had inherited it along with the guilt and the shame. It was as much his own as his power armour and guardian spear.

But that message. That dreadful, torturously hope-inducing message.

If it proved to be false, a trick of some sort or something of the like, his wrath would be a terrible thing to behold. Amberley Veil would rue the day she thought to play with his heart, talking of a thing of such significance with less care than they deserved. 

All the same, he would have to see this for himself. If it turned out to be a trap, he would call himself a fool for falling for it; alas, he couldn’t not go. Not when there was the slightest chance that it was true. 

Inquisitor Veil had not led him astray yet, so she could also be allowed some measure of trust. She was turning out to be one of the better specimens of her order. 

Octavian got on the fastest courier ship he could find and commandeered it; he had enough borrowed authority to do that. Echidna would understand. 

The weeks spent travelling to his destination were torturous, and he spent most of his time in meditation, attempting to renew his focus and gather some measure of calm lest he make a fool of himself on the off chance that Veil turned out to be right.

Ancient words echoed in his mind, words he’d only read on withered pages carefully and meticulously maintained by his fellow Custodes.

‘These men are my bodyguards, their lives forfeit to the guarantee of my physical safety. Of their loyalty to me there shall be no question nor doubt. I, and I alone, shall have the authority to stand in judgement over them. No other commander shall they have in battle nor in service. None shall bar them from me, and none shall hamper or stall their mission. So it is decreed!’

If Veil was right, he would be meeting the man who made that declaration. He would be able to converse with the man who created his order, the man whose genius birthed the Custodes, the man who had trusted them to see to his safety.

The man they had failed.

This would be no nebulous dream that required dozens of wise Custodians to stick their heads together to decipher. No vague intent, no vision, no half-forgotten nightmares. 

It would be Him, hale and healthy, walking the world again in a mortal body of flesh and blood. Or at the very least, a part of him, if the Inquisitoriate’s foremost theories about this ‘Starchilde’ were true. 

An aspect of the Emperor reborn in the body of a mortal child to bring salvation to all.

He barely even paid attention when his vessel exited the Warp at the Vallia System’s Mandeville point, his prodigious will curling upon itself to keep him still and as calm as he reasonably could be under the circumstances. He only moved once, for the first time since he’d initially boarded the ship and settled down to meditate, and that was to board the landing craft. 

There were no windows, it was a shame, he would have liked to take the opportunity to see for himself what Echidna had done with the moon of Vallia Prime since he’d last been there in person. 

The thought fled as swiftly as it came, just a brief respite from the much heavier thoughts that’d been plaguing him for weeks now. 

He felt the shuttle rocking with the forces of atmospheric entry, then smooth out again. In an idle moment, he calculated his estimated time until arrival based on what he knew of this shuttle’s design, what he saw of its current state, where the landing pad he was heading for was, the courier ship's orbital trajectory and what he knew of Vallia Prime’s size and geography. 

Less than fifteen minutes more, but no less than fourteen. 

The calculations were barely enough to distract him for a moment or two. A shame. He was craving some manner of distraction, but there was none. He flew alone in the shuttle, an honour allowed to him since none would dare to sit on the same benches he was sitting on. He found himself annoyed by it; at least if there were others, he could analyse them, make a little game out of trying to figure out what manner of lives they lived, what allied their minds and bodies, that sort of thing.

Alas, there were downsides to being a ‘demigod’ clad in golden auramite. It made people rather wary of him, even in these parts of the Galaxy where the populace never knew, or long forgot, what a Custodian Guard of the Master of Mankind was. 

Octavian was supposed to feel no fear, to have will enough to build a fortress out of, a fortress that would allow in not a hint of doubt, anxiety, stress or any of the numerous other failings of the human psyche. 

And yet, he felt it. For the first time since he first donned his armour, Octavian Gaius identified the strange emotion brewing in his soul as nervousness. The last time he had felt anything even vaguely similar to it was when he awoke for the first time remembering a Dream. 

But that wasn’t anxiety, not nervousness; it was just a seed of excitement, matched with a kernel of pride at the realisation that he was one of the blessed few who could serve as a mouthpiece for his Lord. 

The shuttle slowed, then, with a final jolt, it landed, and the constant roar of its engines grew quiet. Octavian stood and waited at the door as the ramp extended and the pressurised gates slid apart with a creak of metal. A single step took him down the length of the ramp, the soles of his boots touching the soil upon which the Master of Mankind now stood in a new body, in a place he didn’t know yet.

If it’s true. Octavian repeated for himself. He had to be certain, absolutely certain, that this Starchilde was truly the Emperor. He would not suffer a pretender who thought to besmirch His name and trample all over his legacy by laying claim to it, and doing whatever he wished with it. He would make sure it was not a lie, and if it was, the pretender would meet his end at the tip of Octavia’s Guardian Spear.

His arulent wards were freshly reinforced, and he wore some temporary additions that would serve him well in a battle with a powerful psyker. Still, he did not think he would need to fight. If he’d gleaned the truth of Echidna’s character — and he liked to think he was swiftly becoming an excellent judge of character — then all he would need to do to ensure the pretender’s death was to prove that he was, in fact, a pretender. 

That woman was prideful, and being lied to and fooled would ruffle her feathers enough to put her in an especially murderous mood. 

Veil is leaning towards believing it, though she clings to doubt like it’s all that shields her sanity. Her judgement has proven solid and reliable so far, and her record is near spotless. I wouldn’t think her so easily fooled.

But he couldn’t trust anyone but himself to make the final judgement … and the same would go for the rest of his Brothers. They all would wait to make their own judgements about whether this Starchild was truly who he claimed he was. 

Still, just in case it was the truth, he had to be careful, go about seeing whether his suspicions had merit in a way that wouldn’t cause undue offence to the Lord Emperor. If the returned Emperor’s first experience with one of his trusted Companions was with a doubtful and confrontational Octavian Gaius, he would never be able to live it down. 

He will understand. I am merely seeking to safeguard his legacy. Octavian told himself, though that alien emotion he’d only so recently identified as nervousness reared its ugly head once more. 

He walked. He could have asked for transport; Echidna had granted him the right to commandeer public services for his own needs if they didn’t conflict with her own ends. And yet, he still chose to walk, perhaps to give himself some more time to think, or perhaps … was he afraid? No. That was preposterous. A Custodian could not feel fear. They were incapable of it. 

All the same, no matter how much he examined his own thoughts, he couldn’t find a single logical, rational reason as to why he’d chosen to walk to his destination. 

The Arcology loomed ahead of him as the sprawling Capital city spread out behind him. A split formed in the smooth white wall, just a head taller than Octavian, and then two sliding doors pulled apart to reveal the elevator entrance. He stepped inside, only twitching his finger once to affirm the ping asking whether he was going directly to his pre-appointed destination. 

The doors closed again, and the inertia dampeners engaged, making the ensuing near-instant gain in velocity feel almost smooth. The elevator was not what most in the Imperium would think of when hearing the term; it was a capsule travelling inside a tube, powered by anti-gravity and repulsor technology. Of course, it was only the inertia dampeners that ensured Octavian would not end up a scrambled pile of organic goo inside his armour by the time he reached the 455th floor hundreds of meters up from where he started and only ten seconds later.  

He felt the subtle shift as the repulsors slowed the capsule’s velocity, and he was ready when the time came. The doors hissed open, and he stepped through, looking as unruffled and stoic as ever as he strode down the empty hallway. 

He knew Echidna was planning ahead, perhaps in the timescale of centuries or millennia, but the accommodations she’d made for her current level of planetary population still seemed a bit excessive. There were so many empty buildings, floors, unused rooms and the like; it gave the entire Capital an eerie air, like something horrible had slaughtered the populace. 

Octavian distracted himself by plotting a dozen ways to assassinate his target, setting the starting point at the system’s mandeville point. He wasn’t aware of every defensive measure Echidna had taken, but they were either so unorthodox he had failed to notice them, or she had far too many gaps in her defences. 

Honestly, it was likely a mix of both. Her organic techno-sorcery was strange to say the least, and more concerningly immensely unpredictable. He was sure that the lack of data led him to make egregious errors across all his hypothetical scenarios. 

Then, because he still had long minutes till he reached the room from whence his auspex caught Veil’s signature, he began making a list of all gaps and loopholes he found. Maybe he would even give it to Echidna as a gesture of goodwill, although perhaps it would be better to wait and keep it until there was a greater need to earn a minor favour from her. Both approaches had merit.

The door to the spacious ‘conference room’ opened on its own and he stepped through, most of his mind still distracted by the decision of whether to add entries #198 through #221 to his list. Still, his eyes scanned the room in a long-practised sweep, matching it to the maps he’d seen, identifying possible threats, weapons and escape vectors. 

The large, panoramic, transparent wall on the opposite side of the room was both a concern and a possible avenue for swift escape if all else failed. A sniper could be waiting on a distant mountaintop, a striker aircraft could launch missiles through it, or assassins could easily crawl up the wall to break it. It wasn’t glass, but based on his auspex scans, it was only marginally tougher than voidship-grade transparent steel-alloy.  

It was only after that that he did a second sweep, taking in all the people inside the spacious room. Veil, Echidna and the Blank had all been noted on the initial sweep for sources of danger, though all three had been dismissed and marked as friendlies. Other than them, he only saw two new beings, the ex-Commissar Ciaphas Cain and … a child. 

The child was looking out the window, his back turned to the doorway and his face hidden from Octavian’s view, but as if sensing that the Custodian’s attention had finally landed on him, he turned.

A childish face, soft brown hair, slightly tanned skin, and brown eyes that were sad, happy, wistful and forlorn all at once. Instinctively, he knew those eyes weren’t seeing him, not truly, but the golden armour, and those who wore it long, long before him, which had passed into myth long ago. 

The eyes focused and narrowed, returning to the present with a renewed intensity. Octavian Gaius went still as a statue when those brown eyes met his own through the visor of his helmet. He saw the small smile on that childish face, but more than that, he saw it in those eyes. They saw him; they saw the truth of him beneath the auramite, the undersuit, the skin, the flesh and the bone. Those brown eyes were staring into his soul. In their depths, he saw a flash of gold and an unmistakable, familiar warmth filled his chest. 

Octavian’s knees hit the floor in a resounding crash, and he dropped his head in a deep bow, breaking his gaze away with an effort of monumental will. He didn’t deserve to look into those eyes. With hands he barely managed to keep from trembling, he reached up and unclasped his helm before speaking, unwilling to let his words be distorted by the vox. He had to keep the words simple and short, lest he make a fool of himself, but it would be enough. He knew how to say a lot with just a few words.

“Octavian Gaius of the Adeptus Custodes greets the Master of Mankind!”