The Stars Were Once Filled

by CrySys

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Crossover, Hippogriffs, Death, Sad, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Equestria at War, Dark, Alternate Universe
Length: 5458

The year is 1038 [ALB] and the thirtieth anniversary of the North Zebrican Revolution has come, with the goal of uniting creaturekind for the first time with the distant stars, (that perhaps shouldn’t look as soothing).

The year is 1038 [ALB] and the thirtieth anniversary of the North Zebrican Workers' Revolution has come, with the desire to celebrate its founding principles and its founder’s goal of uniting all of creaturekind genuinely for the first time with distant stars, (that perhaps shouldn’t look as comforting as they are).

Submission for The Seventh Annual Equestria at War Writing Contest! "A Long Time Away"

Additional tags: should perhaps include Horror and Grimdark, and the [Redacted] tags are hidden until the above contest finishes for the sake of surprising the audience.
[Note: I don't hate MLP.]

Published 2024-09-02 09:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-09-02 09:50:01 UTC

…with Hope.

The small private bus finally halted with a loud noise and very soon it opened its sole door to a blinding light show of camera flashes following in its wake from almost every major newspaper on the planet, as I stepped out in during their ongoing efforts to immortalize this moment for all time to come in front of the launch pad’s elevator.

When I now stopped thinking about it at that moment, it suddenly felt completely surreal to be here, as the world began feeling a bit unreal briefly, while my body felt suddenly lot heavier. I still wasn't sure why she had picked me over all the other possible candidates within the program to choose from the ship's sole crewmember. Considering my father had recently and rather shockingly admitted to once trying to rob the current leader of North Zebrica slightly before he himself joined the party on the same day.

The explanation he had offered to me on that particular question had been for her supposedly to use me to prove the point, ‘¨that all creatures can be reformed to be better, no matter their past or lineage.¨’

It also now kind of explained why my last name was ‘Star’ after “Seaweed”, but I wasn’t so sure if that was truly the case (‘due it being kind of being absurd’), while the ceaseless flickering of the lights of camera flashes finally decreased to manageable levels, and I stepped off to the buss.

“It’s a big day today isn’t it!?” was the mission director Terrafin's opening words as he stepped in front of me and the crowd, while the reporters began to give us some space to get through to the elevator that would take me on board the cockpit on top.

“Yes, it is! By the way, how has it been!” was my question due to getting to know him rather well during these last few months.

“Lots of work to do, and plenty of new frontiers of science to break through,” was his reply, without any further comment.

“Oh, I see. Nothing else to add still!?” due to knowing about his rather blunt attitude on most things.

“No. Nothing to really add that you wouldn't already know, except good luck and may An be with you!” were his rather ¨covertly¨ excited words due to all the effort he had sunk onto this day to come with me, although I was not really sure if he now truly believed in that God part, he just said.

“I will be giving my short speech to the press then.”

“Did your homework well, I see. I guess my part in here is done then.” with him raising a salute of comradery and soon departing towards the nearby command center as the reporter finally started flooding over me like a ravenous tide of predatory fish.

‘I guess, I will then be giving my speech then,’ as I turned to look at the elevator briefly from the reporters, which I would be very soon entering.

Celestia’s sun was pleasantly midday cruising above the horizon of the Posada space center, as the technicians and other personnel worked furiously like bees to make sure all final system checks panned out as all within the facility felt a growing sense of trepidation and excitement about this truly historical event that was about to occur.

Except I had sat over three hours here with little to do outside, mindlessly repeating the launch check procedures due to the cockpit now being fully sealed now.

“Command here!” was Terrafins voice as I regained my focus.

“Yes!?”

“We now have all clear regarding equipment and weather and are ready to launch within a few minutes.”

My heartbeat rapidly increased in its tempo to those words as soon I would be the one piloting the first spacecraft to reach Faust’s orbit, ‘Well, not really pilot.' Due to the whole trip being virtually completely automated except feeding into the codes to the computer to initiate the ship's atmospheric re-entry phase of the flight after my time was up in orbit’, unless something else happened, which no one wished to occur due to potentially very likely lethal consequences.

- - -

The time flew by, and before I noticed it, the radio crackled to life: “We can launch within a half-minute now! Are you ready to make history!!!”

“Yes!!!” was almost an unprofessional yell from me about fulfilling the dream I had had so long.

…

“Okay then! Initiating the final launch sequence about twenty seconds!” with the accompanying sound of sirens going of outside to signal the final start of early launch sequence as few cords were heard ejecting off the craft.

…

“Now ready! Any regrets or doubts still!?”

“No.”

“Very well.”

“At zero, activating the ignition sequence.”, ‘This was it!!!’

“9!”

“8!”, "It's happening for real!"

“7!”

“6!”

“5!”

“4!”

“3!”, ‘So close!’

“2”

“1!!”, ‘Now All or Nothing it is!’

“Engine Ignition!”

The main rocket's own surface to middle atmosphere first stage's rocket muzzle ignited, and the rocket violently shook, with a loud clang of the support clamps from the rocket support tower ceasing to now support the might of the rocket bearing proudly the symbol of a hydrogen atom as I felt my body beginning to gain momentum upwards despite being strapped completely still within my seat.

“Boosters activating in:"

“3.”

“2.”

“1!” with a very violent thud rocking my body and the rocket as the ear-piercing new sound of two solid fuel booster rockets firing off with such volume it almost hurt my ears, despite the ear puff radio headset and being in a fully pressurized suit.

Over a minute felt like lasting a short eternity and flying by simultaneously, until the rocket's two boosters stopped producing the necessary weight to thrust ratio for the main rocket to effectively lift off, and in the span of one half seconds, I heard the explosive bolts activating to throw the now dead weight from the rest of the rocket while the would-be starship soared on across the sky with the ever-distancing ocean and clouds being visible within the cockpit.

“Booster decoupling was successful!” was my half-robotic announcement as I focused more on watching the ocean than I perhaps should have.

“Good! All going to plan! Also, the first main stage will run out of fuel in about forty seconds! Prepare soon for the mid atmosphere to orbit second stage!”

I felt rather strong trepidation about that particular line from Terrafin due to that stage being a rather unique one and revolutionary in nature regarding rocket engineering due to not being used outside a laboratory setting before, alongside the rather strong condemnation it had received from environmental and nuclear activists across the globe, despite repeated reassurances it only sped out only plain superheated hydrogen gas then anything harmful to living beings, with current orbital path designed to fly over the ocean almost exclusively far away from anything inhabited to calm the worst voices among them.

The thrust of the first main rocket stage suddenly cut off with the second sound of decoupling from the trip reaching the cockpit, while I was anxiously looking at the on-board reactor readings, while more than aware of what would happen next.

"Posada drive activating, Now!"

The solid core nuclear fission rocket's muzzle roared to life and the rocket momentarily shook violently from the rather strong G forces, due to this stage being expected to do most of the delta-V work to reach orbit.

‘I didn’t blow up, Yet!’

“All seems to be fine up here!” was my word's anxiety and relief.

“Readings down here are within the expected parameters.” was Terrafin's voice in a slightly less anxious state and soon the emergency escape system's rocket cone rocketed off a few seconds later.

The shaking began to almost completely disappear after 'An, knows how long', as the window view began to turn rather dim, until after a long moment I suddenly felt a ‘thug’ as the atomic thruster suddenly cut off with a rather strange ¨feeling¨ that came accompanying it.

It was a type of sensation I had only ever experienced during a free fall from the inside of a zero-g simulation airplane as my eyes began to move off from my control board, until I noticed a tiny water droplet within my visor, that had come from tears I had unknowingly released, which then began to… ‘Float.’

“Receiving new data! The current altitude is 389 kilometers and the ship's velocity of 7,746 meters per second compared to surface level.”

‘I was in... Space.’

“The orbital characteristic is within the expected margin of error, with an estimated orbital ellipticity of 0.07.”

…

“Congratulations! We did!” with thunderous cheers instantly erupting through the audio system as I looked on with wonder towards the distant and so, so small looking world now below me while being the first creature from Faust to truly experience the lone ¨touch¨ of true microgravity for the first time.

‘I wonder what she, the director and father would think, if they could see this!’ as I gazed outside, which nothing that could have honestly prepared for this sight, ‘or honestly any other creature, then perhaps Princess Luna.’

- - -

It was almost pleasant to chat with Terrafin after I had been done with robotically describing what I saw below with the quarter a day mark fast approaching with me close to halfway completing my fifth orbital cycle, until I noticed ¨something¨ from the corner of my vision within the (down) corner of the observation window.

“Uh, Ground command! I think I might see something possibly around the equatorial orbital region! Hear!?”

…

“Please specify!?” was voice confusion for such a major off-scrip statement.

“I can't fully see, but it seems to be... quickly... approaching from the daylight side and seemingly on medium earth orbit! I will try to take a better look!”

“Uh... Roger! Tell us what you see then.”

I tried to capitalize on my superior hippogrift vision, but the angle of sight wasn't simply working for me, and I chose to partially release my straps (unlawfully) to better eye on the strange discernible (and now somewhat bulky looking) visual anomaly while the sun began to ¨rise¨ rapidly within the horizon alongside its rays now impacting onto the object to brighten it up, until I could see…

'... What?!?'

...

“Command!!!”

"Yes! What do you see!?" was Terrafin's voice of worry.

"I think... I might be seeing an...

Alien Spaceship.”

“¨Think about it! All those other alien worlds and their post-scarcity communist societies are likely only awaiting us and the rest of Faust's proletariat to signal hello to them to join them in a workers' paradise behind the stars!¨”

I wasn’t sure what to think of that line now from her that I had received so, so long ago, as her dream of joining Faust’s creaturekind with ‘Aliens’ residing within those stars was actually in the process of becoming reality. While simultaneously, I looked at the radio operator within the above surface space mission makeshift secondary command center located within the capital of the nation.

“No replays or signals detected, yet.” were the professionally laced and almost imperceptibly trepidated and on edge words from the chief communication radiologist and partial radar technician, despite the ongoing ¨situation¨, which had been ‘rather shockingly conformed’ by Hippogriffia’s space tracking stations and several ICBM early warning radars for being undeniably true, by detecting and then conforming something truly ‘large and artificial’ residing in orbit despite the initial extreme incredulity with Seaweed’s strongly professed claim.

The supposed temperature located within the communication room of the command center was wildly mixed depending on the living subject due to failure in communication attempts at producing any results, and this feeding the ever-increasing excitement and anxiety among all the room's members was undeniably growing, until a random staff member spoke up:

“Hey, we could possibly attempt to speak to them using the international language of ¨friendship! ¨”

Others turned to him with incredulity until the chief radio operator commented, “I guess it would be worth the shot considering we have nothing to lose from it”, as current attempts to communicate in the arisian language and with a mathematical-language translation package (that had been developed earlier thanks to Posada) had disappointingly not yielded any results yet.

“I guess I could try.” was my reply, containing a bit of hesitance before I moved towards the podium containing the mic, while others looked on.

…

“Hello! ... If you hear me, then I wish to tell you that we hope to be friends with you, whoever you are, and we would wish to unite together in harmony and friendship with you in the distant stars you have come.”

I closed the mic with only simple background static following in its wake, with disappointment soon materializing in my face and among others due to lack of response.

I almost stated to move away after a while, until:

“We are receiving!!!” was the yell of shock from the radio operator.

“Affirmative! I can hear you.” was the unmistakable sound of Ponish in an ¨extremely¨ deep voice echoing from the speakers (although most present couldn't understand it).

Every creature’s heartbeat suddenly spiked and halted for a split second at that (supposed) alien creature's line, ‘It’s real! It’s Truly Real!!!’ with the newly fresh conformation over the existence of other intelligent alien life within the cosmos momentarily freezing everyone in place. 'And they can talk.'

…

I slowly turned to look at the radio operator, who gave a look of rather ¨extreme¨ trepidation and excitement back to me alongside a clearly audible gulp about what was to occur next, with me having a slightly more hopeful and stressed version of his reaction as I grabbed the microphone.

…

“Hello?”

…

"Receiving the transmission." was a flat reply underscoring the following formal protocol.

I was instantly overwhelmed like everybody else from that, and I struggled for what to even say next, before I started my reply a bit awkwardly, "W- We are the representatives of Revoluti-", I paused and realized I probably shouldn't introduce myself and the whole planet like that before I continued, "...of Faust for whoever your name might be?" with a finishing tune of hope.

A brief silence followed before the extremely deep voice continued, "I don't share my name with unknown strangers through the radio!" with a voice of rather ¨strong¨ irritation, "Although you may refer to me as ¨Lord, Vorpal.¨"

'That was... a bit concerning.' considering the world ¨Lord¨ was generally only used by the oppressors of the proletariat, with looks of rather strong unease beginning to arise among the observers in the room, with sifting looks.

The silence briefly reigned before I continued "Uh, why did you only reply to my message and speak to us using Ponish?" was my carefully worded effort to break the ice more pleasantly between us, alongside gleaming more information about the language aspects of this ¨conversation¨.

"I heard you talking and got curious about you and how your kind might know about the Imperium, considering the ¨Apparent¨ language being used, Xenos."

'Okay... That was rather... extremely concerning…' due to him saying an oppressive Imperialist alien civilization likely plagued space, while perhaps even more concerningly, he might even be a member of one.

After that, I was no longer sure what to possibly even say anymore and just defaulted to my basic modus operandi before I realized it, "Even if there might possibly be some ¨differences¨ between us... but I hope you could possibly... even visit us as... Friends..."

Long silence followed from both ends, before:

“Based on your ¨Offer¨, you are an ¨apparently a friendly¨ and non-warped Xenos civilization speaking Low Gothic on this planet. If I understand correctly?!?” being a strong voice echoing obvious tones of incredulity through the speakers.

“Uh, Yes…”

…

“Your… ¨ civilization¨ seems to be a … … rather strange case…

Considering this region of… ¨Space¨.”

…

“I'm just a- asking if you could possibly even come to visit us down here, if you wished, of course!?” were my efforts of reconciliation of a possible mistake I made.

A few pregnant seconds flew by before a reply sounded:

“¨Off course!¨

We do possess the capability to reach the planet's side from here.”

…

“Uh, Could you perhaps come... to visit us?”

…

“¨Yes!¨" ... "And we will send down a…

¨Gift.¨

To your kind.”

The radio transmission suddenly cut off, and hippogriffs and a few zebras looked at each other with various mixed emotions and feelings, until the radio operator turned on me, “Starry! I think that last part might not have happened to be… genuine...” with a look of very deep worry.

"I... know..." with the room immediately detonating into heated speculation about what was likely to soon happen next for a moment, until the same creature who had suggested me speaking in Ponish suddenly yelled:

“Hey!!! Look, they are coming down!

uh, rather fast too.”

The group of creatures noticed his words and turned to the windows to observe a streak of light being in the process of rapidly descending within the upper atmosphere towards the ground.

Everyone was shocked into a flurry of thoughts upon witnessing it:

"It's an attack!!!"

"It's their visiting emissary spaceship in descent!!!"

“It could be a gift of infinite energy for all of us!!!”

Such rapid-fire speculation was soon droned out of its intensity as the observers focused on the supposed ¨ship¨ beginning to reach the horizon line without showing any signs of slowing down, until:

‘Why is it so bright-’

Sometime later

Inquisitorial report:

Summary overview report about the conduct of Adeptus Astarte's Vorpal Swords Chapter's Penitent Crusade in the Ocularis Terribus (M37-38): Planet report 327.

(Note: that due to the Eye's actively defining known fundamentals reality, and the Vorpal Swords' exceptionally long stay within the eye has resulted in a number of time (and measurement) anomalies to the point that it’s been deemed a better method to catalog the passage of time by the number of worlds visited, then by standard imperial dating.)

Written by Inquisitor: Caspiel Melasmev

Inquisitorially issued personal note: This world located on the Ocularis Terribus was highly abnormal [If any worlds in the eye can be even called ¨normal¨] and deserves longer than usual short report compared to other Demon Worlds located within the eye of terror.

More detailed information available about this event can be found in inquisitorial archives, alongside the below addendum files.

-

Summary of the events:

Upon embarking from Demon World (326; [see previous short report]), which was a planet destroyed by the Vorpal Sword’s Anti-Demon/Penitence Crusade and having started transiting towards finding another Demon World [If such, warp travel could even be called transiting].

-

The events began when the ship's Navigator suddenly detected an unusual anomaly in midwarp transit and independently emergency dropped mobile-fortress-monastery Flagship Battle Barge (and sole ship due to impossibility of prolonged fleet coordination in the eye) named ¨Solemness Night¨ out of the warp.

Upon interrogation and further investigation upon this disturbance detected by Navigator, the ship's crew discovered an abnormality in the ¨normally¨ warp energy infused real space and immaterium, namely a strange bubble of warp energy seeming free of chaos corruption (Estimated diameter: About a Terran Astronomical unit), which was previously completely unknown.

Chapter Master Konvak Lann made the decision to use sub-light engines to approach the passive warp barrier. Upon more detailed investigation, it was discovered to be actively repelling and even destroying chaos energy despite being located within the Eye of Terror.

Further investigation also discovered that Chapter's Liberian Azrain Hectemman’s who is known for his pure heart, was able to open a hole in it for a brief moment and a quick scan through the hole revealed a majorly abnormal star system, which obviously defied known laws of physics:

-

The star in the system was only about the size of Jupiter's own moon of Titan and undergoing stellar fusion despite this being physically impossible for such a small celestial object.

The anomalous moon-sized star (named: ¨Helios¨, by locals) was orbiting (Note: Geocentricism) a fully habitable looking planet (named: ¨Faust¨ by the locals), which was conformed to be in optimal human range for atmospheric surface conditions and free of any detectable chaos corruption from orbit in middle of the anomalous geocentric planet-star system.

The Geocentric system also contained a moon (named: ¨Seline¨, by the locals), which was orbiting the ¨star¨ on the other side of the geocentric system in perfect synch with the orbits of each other.

-

Upon the discovery of this unnatural geocentric star system, Chapter Master Konvak Lann decided to investigate further into this abnormal ¨pocket of isolated real space¨ (which was also strangely free of the superimposing touch of the Immaterium in real space), and devised a way to use Liberian Azrain Hectemman's powers to be able to briefly open a large enough hole into the barrier to allow the Battle Barge to slip through into the pocket region of space, which unfortunately came nearly at the cost of the Chapter's Ship and Libarian Azrain Hectemman own life.

-

While mid-transit towards the planet. It was also noted that the ¨Dome¨ surrounding this anomalous pocket region of space was black from inside and was observed containing various white dots of different sizes, in illumination and location, that for unknowing local planetary observer might seem to be genuine stars despite the illusionary star formations not matching any known star maps.

-

After Solemnness Night completed approaching the habitable planet during its three and half hour transit and then settled upon an equatorial high orbit to conduct a detailed surface scan. Scans detected the undeniable signs of an early industrial era civilization upon the planet’s surface that was also rather very unusually Xenos in origin instead of (corrupted) human. In addition, Liberian Azrain Hectemman and the remaining junior psykers of the expedition didn’t detect the presence of any chaos corruption on the planet but detected multiple and sizable warp signatures that far surpassed regular human norms to the level of some approaching Delta Psyker levels of power.

Soon after the scan, the ship’s Chapter Master and his confidants decided in a fully unanimous vote to conduct the Edict of Exterminatus Extremis on the anomalous Xeno’s world without any further investigation.

Battle Barge Solemnness Night then began to receive half an hour later direct radar and radio transmissions directly directed towards the ship, which were spoken in an unknown local Xenos language alongside a sizable data package (of unknown contents) until the ship's mechanicus communication officer heard Low Gothic being spoken by the Xeno’s despite not seeming to poses any proper interstellar capabilities [If they weren’t just some extremely strange warp trickery in the first place] The communications officer informed Chapter Master Konvak Lann of this unexpected development, and he soon opened the audio recording of the alien transmission in Low Gothic to his command post, while the cyclonic torpedo was within final stages of being loaded into Solemnness Night's main firing tube for the incoming Exterminatus upon the world.

Upon hearing the alien transmission claiming to request: ¨Friendship and harmony with visitors beyond the distant stars¨, with this resulting, the Chapter Master Konvak Lann choosing to personally open a communications link with the transmission source out of personal curiosity about this unusual situation and the strange claim.

Chapter Master then briefly communicated with the unknown (Later discovered to be high ranking members of a terrestrial nation state) who would be representatives for the planet from the planet’s surface who requested friendship and that, the Chapter Master Konvak Lann possibly come cordially visit them on the surface [likely treacherously, (plus asking his name), which he obviously didn’t abide into, (due to them having power in the warp)] before he cut off communication after noting and commenting on several anomalous properties of the communiqué.

Chapter Master Konvak Lann spent a brief moment pondering this conversation and ¨Offer¨, and seventeen seconds later, he decided to initiate the at ready firing sequence for Exterminatus.

Solemnness Night's own internal ship clock recorded the Cyclonic (Atmospheric Incinerator) Torpedo (named: World’s Salvation; No. CCCLXXIX) hitting upon the planet’s surface (without issue/disturbance) after launch within 42 seconds after initiating the Exterminatus and successfully igniting the atmosphere, which consumed the planet's whole surface with a span of about a minute, with subjacent orbital and psychic scans conforming the end of all life occurring on the planet’s surface.

Nearly immediately upon the beginning of the atmospheric ignition, the barrier surrounding this anomalous pocket region of space became unstable and began to collapse/dissipate, with its complete disappearance occurring two minutes later when the whole planet’s surface had been consumed by the world ending fires. (Presumed to be the result of the death of the world) with immaterium quickly claiming the formerly warp clear region of space. [Authors comment: I think we might have made a mistake in destroying this planet due it being possibly be able to be used as an Imperial staging ground within the Eye, but the details of it being able to be used effectively are borderline impossible (due to inability to easily defend it and transit between it and the Cadian Gate), so it’s unlikely it was even a loss.]

The star in the geocentric system was also noted to immediately start to become increasingly unstable, (presumably due to the death of the local psychic Xenos Witch population and them being somehow responsible for the necessary gravitic forces to keep it together), as a few crew members had theorized, that a supernova event possibly occurring if planet was subjected to Exterminatus, and minute later the anonymous star ¨Helios¨ exploded in miniature supernova with the outward cone of the exploding star traveling 0.12% speed of light towards the planet and the ship. The ship captain had thankfully taken precautionary measures and the (now) dead star’s explosion impacted the planet's (former) daylight side, while the Battle Barge Solemness Night was located on the nightside of the planet with the Void Shield not showing any serious risk of overloading during the impacting event. After the anomalous miniature supernova event within the now former (geocentric) star system occurred, which effectively obliterated and striped most of the planet's atmosphere off the (now dead) world, with it becoming officially a (destroyed) rogue planet with a moon engulfed in a small nebula.

-

Due to persuasion from the ship Apothecary and the ship's Adeptus Mechanicus elements (including the Techmarine): Chapter Master Konvak Lann ordered Librarian Azrain Hectemman to use his psychic powers to pick up the primitive Xenos spacecraft vessel in orbit into the Battle Barge to further investigate and possibly even interrogate its lone habitant (due to Strong insistence of Magos Xenobiologis Nesen Gwane).

Liberian Azrain Hectemman used telekinesis to successfully alter the xenocraft's velocity and apoapsis for the other side of the planet for an interception course, with the xenocraft reaching the safety of Solemness Night's Void Shields just in time before the miniature supernova impact event hit it, with Liberian Azrain Hectemman conforming lack of any exceptional warp signature or alert mind to grab into within the ship, and thus unlikeliness of any real danger.

The retrieval party was successful at capturing the Xeno inside the shuttle bay within its sealed xenocraft cockpit and finding it in an unconscious/comatose state (determined to be due to shock), alongside on the verge of lethal heatstroke (from the sheer proximity of the now burning planet), and the new captive was fully confirmed to lack any clear psychic powers, or non-material warp entity signature, and brought further onboard Solemness Night with the retrieval team later commenting upon the Xeno waking up having been extremely terrified and distressed at seeing his new (fully armed) Adeptus Astartes captors and about the recent events.

The Xenos in question was extensively and intensively interrogated and studied by Magos Xenobiologis Nesen Gwane alongside Liberian Azrain Hectemman (without any notable security incident), and then later on executed with the remnants being incinerated and ejected into the warp midtransit after Solemness Night had left the system (towards planet: 328).

-

Exploratory afternotes:
(Note that most of the information has been obtained through the integration of the lone surviving Xenos’s captive/subject from the planet.)

The Xeno spacecraft was identified to be a primitive nuclear thermal rocket ship, which was also supposedly to be the planet's civilization’s first crewed venture into space. It has been theorized by the Techmarine and his subordinates, that the Xeno ship reaching the planet's orbit might have had something to do with Vorpal Swords' discovering the previously unknown Xeno's inhabited planet, based on the times of Solemness Night's and Xenoship's own clocks, and their flight schedule. [See: Mechanicus report on the xenocraft for more details.]

The captured Xeno’s translated name was ¨Seaweed Star¨, and his race name was ¨Hippogriffs¨, which was later conformed to be a semi-psychic species, by possessing the ability to fly despite their wings being insufficient to the task under normal biological-gravity conditions, and even supposedly being able to (psychically) transform into full on aquatic creatures (called: ¨Seaponies¨) by using something called (¨Magical¨ fragment from) a ¨Pearl of Transformation¨, with this being based on Librarian's psychic mind probing and Xeno’s own words [despite this sort of feat being supposed to be almost completely impossible for any complex biological creature.] It’s also completely unknown how the Xeno’s race shares the same name with ancient Terran mythological creatures of the same analogous description alongside other races of the planet. [See: Full report for Xenobiology aspects.]

The captured Xeno claimed to present a small terrestrial nation named: ¨Revolutionary Noth Zebrica¨, whose core region was an island (that was slightly west of the targeted Exterminatus area on the planet), with it being located to the north of the largest of three continents, alongside the Xenos surface communicator speaking conformed to be the previously mentioned nation’s leader, named ¨Starry Eyes¨. [See: Addendum No.1 for planet surface details.]

The Xeno’s claimed his world supposedly has/had at least two dozen different sapient species living together on it, [which obviously should be completely impossible, but the subject insisted it still be true], with Liberian Azrain Hectemman conforming the Xeno's genuinely believing it. [Personal Comment: I’m not sure what to make of this, but I and few others consider this event to be a bit of loss regarding the studying of cohabiting multispecies worlds and the insights they offer to Xenosociology, and by extension to non-lethal Human-Xenos interaction.] [See: Addendum No.2 for the species names and descriptions.]

The Xeno’s subject claimed to not possess any sort of knowledge of the Mankind or the human race despite him and the surface communicator speaking in Low Gothic/(Ponish). It's completely unknown what might have caused this human influence (within the planet and those influences being applied on to the system's Celestial object names matching other ancient human terms for the Celestial bodies of the Sol system) due to further probing of the subject failing to produce meaningful results or answers to this question about the further nature of this anomalous Xenos world. [See full report for: Index for human terms and terminology used by the Faustian's]

Liberian Azrain Hectemman commented feeling that Xeno’s and his government’s/civilization’s ¨Friendship¨ claims might have been genuine upon detailed probing of its mind. (He was quickly subjected to purity check for (chaos or ideological) corruption after this statement and passed fully positively despite his claim.)

The captured Xeno’s last words were reported to be: “I hope we meet again in a happier place [in the afterlife].” Librarian Azrain Hectemman refrained from telling the Xenos Half-Witch their most likely fate upon expiration, before executing the subject.

End of Report.

This overview report was about the activities and conduct of Adeptus Astarte’s chapter Vorpal Swords’ during The Abyssal Crusade to the Eye of Terror; Written by Inquisitor Caspiel Melasmev and revied by Ordo Malleus and Ordo Hereticus. Published in part as an Inquisitorial query about the Purity and Loyalty of the post-crusade surviving Vorpal Swords in (113.M38).

[THE EMPEROR PROTECTS]

Author's Note

Post-reading note:

This fanfic was inspired by the 2024 contest cover art with the left portion drawing back a memory of Dawnclaw Heresy, which 40k theme I combined with the right side of the contest picture to create this short story.
For those who don’t know previously mentioned EAW characters, here are their pictures for you (Plus: The Vorpals)

Terrafin:

Starry Eyes:

(All) Vorpal Sword (canon) art:

Thank you for reading!
[Further trivia reading available in the comments.]