The Subsector Project

Caomer Subsector – Bemu – 741.M41

  There had always been a hunter at Voya Rock.

The hunter knew that, because the cottage which he’d made his home had already been waiting for him when he’d arrived, more years ago than he cared to count. He was but an implement of The Emperor, so it seemed natural for Him to provide His servant with lodging.

For all those years, the hunter had lived alone- seldom traversing further south than the trading post at which he sold his wares. His stock was in hide and bone, sinew and horn. The work was grueling, the pay sparing, but as in all things The Emperor protected him. A roof over his head, a durable pair of PDF surplus on his feet, such was his lot to be thankful for The Emperor’s gifts.

At Voya Rock, the hunter was alone, as was every hunter before him. There was simply no room for another, as The Emperor willed it, and which he accepted most of the time. Those few moments of insolence and longing, he spent staring down the mountains. Through a gap in the foothills, his position on Voya afforded him a view of the lights of a high plain city whose name he did not know. It had once been little more than a settlement, but the light had strengthened over the decades as Bemu increased production, sprouting towns far and near, building a hive as a testament to The Emperor’s grace. The pinpoints which rose and fell from the starport were larger, more numerous, ferrying their cargo to starships far above.

The Emperor protects. That was his prayer for each of them as they danced and pirouetted, glimmering and peaceful, so far away. It felt that he could reach out and touch them, but failing that, he settled for the prayer. Their goals lay at high anchor above Bemu’s fields and valleys, and the mountains he called home. Fleeting thoughts, dreams dancing in his brain as he slept, an escape from the monotony of the hunt.

Such things were banished by the light of day, the truth of The Emperor’s benediction. A station had been set, had been provided for him, to be the hunter of Voya Rock. It was not his place to presume otherwise, save for a sign from The Emperor himself.

  The hunter might have perished there, as undoubtedly many before him had, trapped in a fissure or infected by a disease of body or mind where and when The Emperor dictated. Yet perdition arrived for Bemu before it arrived for him.

He was roused from his slumber by the sound of an engine, or perhaps an avalanche. Both were belied in the sullen glow of a rising sun, casting heat on his face despite the dead of night still enveloping the world around him. It greeted him as he stumbled from the cottage, not a sun, but a massive, red-hot ball of rock and steel, breaking up as it crashed through the upper atmosphere.

With horror, the hunter watched through the gap in the hills as the firestorm consumed the city whose name he never learned. Tens of thousands undoubtedly perished in the impact, fragments of rock the size of hab blocks, metal raining like liquid from the ships encrusted together, now clearly visible from their uneven heating and energy dispersion.

A space hulk, five kilometers across, stoking flames and impacts across the surface of Bemu. It burned the fields which grew for The Emperor, the spaceport which ferried them skyward, the homes which housed His workers.

A wind of superheated air brought the hunter the shockwave, hard enough to pin his hair back, with a noise like The Emperor’s own scream of fury at His subjects’ destruction. The hunter fell to his knees, praying for those destroyed, pleading for The Emperor to comfort the souls as they arrived at His throne- loyal subjects all. He shook as he watched flames roll across the land, decimating the roads and towns, so lovingly crafted in His name.

What was this but a sign? He felt his tears dry as the heat of a desert washed over him, goading him to stand. Far be it from him to mourn while The Emperor still demanded his service, and servants Him may not kneel but for His entreaty.

The hunter made his preparations quickly- those who had survived were assuredly given His divine protection, but they would need more than protection to survive that which came next. The hab-dwellers would be unused to the coming winter, to living off the land, to trusting in The Emperor to guide their hands as well as their hearts.

After a moment of thought, he hefted his long-las onto his shoulder, a memento from a life lived in the depths of the past. The space hulks oft brought the enemies of The Emperor to His very doorstep, and if His scorched subjects were to survive, they would need to be defended.

In an instant before his hasty departure, the hunter looked around his cottage at Voya Rock. Long had it served him, given to him by the grace of The Emperor, a room’s worth of warmth and comfort for an old soldier. He had thought himself an implement, a tool waiting to expire in insignificance, some semblance of peace for a life fully lived. Yet every implement of The Emperor had its use, and the time of that use would not be delayed, as often or seldom as He dictated from his golden throne.

The hunter gave a silent prayer to The Emperor for protection, for the strength to bear His arms and save His subjects, for as long as He desired. Then the hunter turned, and began the long walk down from Voya Rock towards the flames playing across the surface of Bemu, a hundred meters high and all-consuming. The enemies of The Emperor had struck a blow against His subjects, but their vile indemnity would be found in blood.