Warhammer 40k: Ours Journey

Chapter 13: Imperium Secundus? Nah, the Fourth Reich!

After a while, Ramesses managed to pull himself together.

At the end of the day, he was an adult. A bit of venting was enough. Good friends will listen to your pain, but the current problem was that they were all in this prison together. No one was doing any better than anyone else. If he couldn't get his own act together and ended up dragging the other three down with him, they'd be truly screwed.

The top priority was to figure out how to survive in this universe.

"Ahem. Then this meeting of the 'Imperium Secundus' will now commence, with our friendly allied Chapters as witness," Romulus said, clearing his throat to break the heavy atmosphere.

"Why not just call it the Fourth Reich? Otherwise, it makes Ramesses sound like an outsider," Arthur couldn't help but quip.

"That could work."

"I think that's a great—chew, chew—idea! Maybe our future—chew, chew—Chapter should be called that!" Karna mumbled through a mouthful of chicken.

"I think you want to eat a bolter shell," Arthur shot back.

None of the four present held any reverence for the Imperium. As far as they were concerned, it was just a sustainably collapsing corpse with a batshit insane political system, besieged from without by Chaos and xenos hordes. If it weren't for the countless heroes fighting and dying for humanity's future, and the guy sitting on the Golden Throne, the Imperium's coffin could have been nailed shut long ago.

If they had to describe the Imperium and this galaxy in one sentence—

"The Imperium is a festering pile of fermented crap kneaded together from countless atrocities," Arthur said, offering his sharp critique. "The Warp is the toilet, and it can only survive by feeding on that crap."

Putting aside the machinations of Chaos, the Imperium itself was a fundamentally rotten political entity, something forcibly cobbled together by the Emperor for one last, desperate gamble for humanity's future. Now that the gamble had failed and He Himself was trapped on the toilet, being refined by the Imperial Cult into the ultimate divine weapon, the headless corpse He left behind had naturally started to stink more and more over time.

"As for the shining moments of heroism within it, a cup of clean water poured into a sea of filth doesn't actually change anything. And that process itself is nothing short of a complete tragedy."

"Then there are the xenos," Karna added. "Let's not even talk about how we, as humans, could never integrate. The Orks are a race of pure memelords, the Eldar are constantly being stalked by Slaanesh, and even with all their tech, the Necrons are just a slave empire."

"And finally, the T'au Empire," Ramesses continued. "Hmm, I'll reserve judgment until I see them myself. I'm a human, not an Ethereal. After all, their very existence just proves that many of the Imperium's so-called 'necessary evils' are not necessary at all."

"Well said!" the others applauded.

"So, none of you hold any illusions about this universe," Ramesses said with a heartfelt sigh of relief. "I'm very glad to hear that."

"Since we've abandoned all illusions, all that's left is the struggle," Romulus said, seizing the opportunity as the mood lightened to lay out his plan.

"Right now, we need to confirm three things: what era and region we're in, what exactly we are, and what we're going to do next." He tossed a data-slate onto the table.

"I found this in the ship's logs. This vessel entered the Warp in 740.M41, July by the Terran calendar. Its location was the Pierdra Sector, in the galactic north of Ultima Segmentum. The name might be unfamiliar, but you'll definitely know the Ghoul Stars right next to it."

"The galactic boonies," Ramesses remarked. He raised a hand and, with a pulse of psychic power, pulled the Sanctum's cogitator unit over. He began inputting the data from Romulus's slate, and a star-chart materialized before them.

"The Pierdra Sector, named after the Rogue Trader Pierdra from the Great Crusade era. Twelve civilized Imperial worlds. Only the capital, Pierdra, is of any real value—it's a semi-Forge World. Let's see..."

"We should still be within this sector," Romulus said. "I'm still broadcasting an astropathic message. It might take a while for the Imperium to respond."

Everyone knew how efficient the Imperium was. Even though this ship was using a Deathwatch identification code, given their technical limitations, they would likely be drifting in space for some time. The ship's bridge had been completely sheared off by the Ork Rok, after all. Getting it to move on its own was probably a lost cause.

"This ship was responding to a distress call from Pierdra Prime. A heretic cult uprising. It's almost certainly Chaos; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to call in the Deathwatch and the Cadians," Romulus added.

The others nodded in understanding.

"Then on to the second question," Romulus said, looking at the other three. "What exactly are we now?"

"Primaris Space Marines?" Arthur guessed. Knowing the era, his own suit of Mark X armor felt completely out of place. There were still almost three hundred years until Abaddon, the 'Ever-victorious Warmaster of Chaos,' blew up Cadia. If some Adeptus Mechanicus Magos saw a few Primaris Marines like them wandering around now, he'd probably start screaming in binary.

"Physically, maybe. No, not even that. At least, not entirely," Ramesses said, taking a bite of a chicken leg. "Otherwise, I would have been turned to dust by the Rubricae long ago." He noticed Arthur still hadn't taken off his helmet. "Why aren't you eating? It's just us here. No need to be so reserved."

"Arthur is still skeptical about our abilities. He even taught himself Low Gothic," Romulus explained, which made Ramesses stare in astonishment.

"...Damn."

When Ramesses had first discovered his own abilities, he had just started using them without a second thought. His reasoning was that since he'd already been thrown into the Warhammer universe, he was at rock bottom; any change was a step up. Even if Tzeentch was just messing with him, he'd accept it. But the more he used his powers, the more he felt something was off. The Chaos Gods didn't seem to be this capable.

"That's a good thing. I admire Arthur's restraint in a time like this," Romulus said. "Unlike Karna, who shot me twice the moment we met."

"I was in a funk! The Black Rage was on autopilot—okay, my bad, I'm sorry." Romulus glared resentfully at Karna, who was busy stuffing his face like he hadn't eaten in centuries while the others were trying to analyze their situation.

"..." Arthur, meanwhile, looked awkward, not knowing how to respond.

Romulus immediately sensed something was wrong. "You didn't think about stabbing me a few times too, did you?"

"Er..." Arthur remained silent, trying to formulate a response.

He actually had considered putting a few holes in his best friend. At first, he suspected Romulus was just a Tzeentchian daemon sent to deceive him. It was only when he pulled a squad of Astartes out of thin air that his suspicions lessened slightly. If it weren't for the Emperor's little miracle, which gave him some confidence that he wasn't tainted by Chaos, he had been thinking about trapping the ship in the Warp until he could figure out the truth, just in case it was all a Chaos plot he might accidentally unleash on the real world. And if it really was a plot, he would have had to act.

"..." Romulus looked at the silent Arthur, and he could basically piece together his friend's train of thought. The resentment that had been fading now returned, stronger than ever.