<<<Equatorial Jungle, six months later, Armageddon liberated>>>

"I tell you Eddie, there has been no recoverings of Berzerker corpses!" McKenzie said, as he and his companions looked out at what seemed like a huge field, and in the middle a totem pole. "This confirms my theories of that Kharn has dabbled with Necromancy!"

McGranth turned to his friend and gave him a stern look. He was more worried about the five hundred metres tall obelisk in the middle of the Equatorial Jungle, than of McKenzie's idea of zombie-Marines. "You've spent too much time in that Library, y'know! Even Ed here wouldn't come with such a ridiculous idea."

"Still," Sebastian shot in, scratching his head, "You can't deny the fact that there has been no reports of bodies from Berzerkers whatsoever. Only Orks. And that, my friend, scares me!"

"Eddie, we know that Magus Grimjaw is helping out Kharn," Charleston said, lowering the magnoculars he'd been looking through. The big obelisk out in the field gave him the creeps. "And he's a master-mind on gene-splicing, so why not Necromancy? I mean, he's psyker."

"Not as powerful and trained as me!" McKenzie exclaimed.

"No, but he has the Hive Mind to back him up, doesn't he?" Charleston said with a sly look. A low "True..." was McKenzie's reply.

"My dear brothers," McGranth tried break the smaller fight up. "Let's focus on the problem at hand, shall we?"

The others nodded in reply. McGranth looked pleased and turned his bulky frame towards the field again. His Terminator armour had behaved oddly lately, but he guessed it was because of the new left leg he'd gotten a few years earlier. The obelisk bothered him. No man, and that included Space Marines, could get any closer than a kilometre to that thing, without being engrossed in what McKenzie so colourfully called it; a Berzerker's Bloodlust. They would have to destroy it from afar, with plasma bombs. Problem was that there was no chance of getting a Basilisk mobile gun battery able to fire plasma grenades. The things would have to be dropped from orbit, but that meant that the jungle could get damaged, and according to Sebastian, damaging the Jungle was taboo. It was what made Armageddon hospitable. Silently, he pulled off a long, and very harsh line of curses.

"The taint must be exterminated, Grand Commander!" McKenzie suddenly said at his side.

"Words brother, but how?" McGranth snapped back. If McKenzie had better ideas of how to do it, he was welcome to tell.

"Long range shelling with ordinary explosives, has that ever entered your mind?"

"It has but Sebastian said there was no way that would harm it, if he knew Kharn rightly..." McGranth fell silent. "Speaking of which, where is the fella? And where's Ed?"

"I have no idea Eddie, they were here a minute ago!" McKenzie said and looked around. He made a sweep of the surroundings to feel where they were. "Eddie, they're walking towards that pyramid we discovered not far away from here."

"Oh, then don't mind. Whatever can that do for harm?" McGranth realized that cliché in his sentence too late. "Oh no, I didn't say that did I?"

"Famous last words..." McKenzie replied. "But don't bother, we can only do it worse, if my predictions are right."

"Will you stop looking into the future and focus at the present, Edward?" Eddie snapped and made a gesture towards the monolith.

Sebastian found Charleston walking around the foot of the huge, black pyramid. He seemed to looking for something. If it was the entrance, Seb hoped Ed wouldn't find one. The old commissar hoped he could relax when he saw that the walls seemed to be made of solid stone.

"Ed, tell me, why are you so interested in this thing?" Sebastian asked and walked up to the Marine.

"It holds a secret, I know it. And I don't need to be psyker for that!" Charleston said and pressed at a place on the solid wall at random. Nothing.

"Well, your instincts are telling you wrong..." Sebastian said and leaned against the wall with his left arm. The wall went in slightly and behind Seb a huge hole opened itself. The two men looked at it stunned for a second, before Charleston took command and went inside. Sebastian hurried after.

The huge shutter-door closed with a bang behind them.

"Y'know Ed, this just isn't happening. This pyramid has stood here for five millennia, without anyone finding out how to get inside." Sebastian said in the pitch-darkness. "Gee, what are the odds!" Charleston said and clapped his hands together for emphasis. Torches along the wall of the corridor they were in lit up. But the flames weren't natural. They threw a blue, synthetic light instead of the warm, orange of usual flames. The torches weren't alone on the walls. Strange hieroglyphs lined them as well.

"How come there are droids on them? And what are those things with crests?" Charleston asked, as he looked one wall. He turned on the lights in his battle suit, cause the torches in some way scared him.

"I have no idea..." Sebastian's voice trailed off. Something on the floor had caught his eye. "Ed, the dust has been recently moved. We're not alone in this great big pyramid. Auspex on!"

Charleston did as he was told and pulled out the life-sign/motion tracker combine tool. He turned it on and the two antennas at the top of it extended themselves and the machine went online. The screen lit up with a greenish light and the buttons on it, for magnifying and various other things, lit up as well. With a low 'dut-dut-dut' the auspex scanned the nearest 100 metres. Then he put the auspex on the back of his lower left arm, as his lights were mounted on the back of the lower right arm, and this also left his hands free for his weapons. Sebastian used his bionic eye for seeing, he didn't need any flashlight. The heat and night vision in his eye did their job well. The only thing was that the darkness for his natural eye made it a bit strange in seeing one eye and not the other.

Sebastian took the lead now. This smelled fishy to him. Fugu-fishy! He had left his storm bolter at the camp, but his las pistol was still at his side, and he held it high in his left hand. His right hand was no more, and he stubbornly refused to use McKenzie's implant. He only used it when he absolutely had to, not other ways. Right now, his lower right arm was the hefty battle-claw he'd taken as a trophy from Ugulhard. He went round a corner and scanned the room with both bionic eye and las pistol. This room wasn't lit up as the last one. The heat scanner took the room on the sweep to the right and the night vision on the back sweep to the left. Nothing. The room was empty, except for the entrance on the far side of it. It was maybe a good two hundred metres away from them. The walls were clean. Too clean for Yarrick's taste. He took up the scrap of metal he'd had inside of his coat since the whole darned war began, and threw it into the room. It hit something invisible and was incinerated in a flash. Sebastian smiled to himself. A nice trap indeed.

"Ed, put on your helmet and switch the infra-reds on. Laser." Sebastian said curtly and switched mode in his bionic eye. Now he saw the crosshatch of laser beams, each one capable of crippling a foot and sending him crashing down on the floor, thus being perforated by a dozen other laser shots.

"Tricky," Charleston said, his voice distorted by the helmet. "Hey, Seb, your coat is quite long. I'll carry you over." Before Sebastian could protest, Charleston had lifted him up in his arms and was carrying him over the laser-trap. Charleston missed a few times and got a blast at his feet, but his ceramite steel uniform protected him. As he reached the other end of the room, he put Sebastian safely down. Unwittingly, Sebastian gave Ed a

"Thank you." as he looked at the floor. The prints in the dust were still here. Whoever had passed the trap, knew the trap had been there, all right.

"Let's keep on moving Ed." Sebastian said and walked into the doorway...

...And stepped into a vast chamber, lined by huge marble pillars. He guessed the roof had to be at least a hundred meters above him. This chamber was also lit up by the strange torches. He made a scan of the room, but found naught. He stepped into the chamber and looked around, awed by the sheer enormity of the place. Each and every pillar was marked with the same strange hieroglyphs as the walls from the first corridor. Seb turned round to Charleston. "Any readings?"

"Nothing." Charleston replied, taking a look at the auspex. He flicked it over to motion tracker. "Still nothing." Charleston pulled of the helmet.

"What exactly are we looking for Seb?"

"I don't know. You wanted to go inside." Sebastian snapped back.

"Yeah, I did, but how do you know where to go to?"

"The prints in the dust, of course. And we'll follow them till this creeping feeling of mine goes away."

Charleston gave a shrug and the twosome covered the room sprinting. The lieutenant commander threw regular glances at his auspex, but the only thing that stirred was he and Sebastian.

The next room was a crossroad. The way split up in five new corridors from here. They spread out like a star around them. Sebastian once again looked down onto the floor. Charleston followed his eyes and saw the steps in the dust still were here. They went to the northwest corridor. Without a word between themselves, Charleston and Yarrick walked towards that corridor. Here, the torches were also already lit. They walked through the corridor and got into a new room, unlit. Sebastian looked around with his night vision while Charleston made a scan with the motion tracker. Sebastian saw the big Marine shake his head in disbelief. He also heard the click from behind. Ears trained by years of fighting in the Imperial Guard had taught him what the safety-lock of a bolt pistol sounded like. Yarrick spun round, coat flying out around his waist as a ballerina's dress when doing a pirouette, but Sebastian's reason was not aesthetic. The bionic eye flashed and so did his laspistol, which he'd aimed at the only thing in the darkness that didn't show up on his heat vision. The bionic eye's shot, however, hit flesh, and a man's scream was heard. There also was a clatter from when the bolt pistol hit the ground. Luckily though, the shot didn't go off. It took Sebastian half a second to be upon the man. He struck once, twice at him with his good hand. The human seemed to have gone unconscious by the second blow and Sebastian stopped. He felt the sticky blood coming out from the man's right triceps. Now Charleston was beside him. The big Marine aimed his flashlight at the face of the attacker.

"By the Throne, Seb!" Charleston gasped.

"I know," Sebastian replied calmly. "Herman von Strab, in person."

Von Strab slowly opened his eyes. He could remember a flash, no two flashes of light, almost simultaneously, and he remembered that he'd felt a pain in his right arm. The pain was still there, throbbing. Von Strab grunted as he pulled himself upright into a sitting position.

"As the ex-lord governor is now awake, I believe we can go on with our trial," a slightly strident, tenor voice said close to him. Herman knew the voice. And he wasn't happy to hear it. Although he'd been on the run for months now without meeting a living man, though a whole lot of dead ones, he knew what awaited him if he got caught. The Imperium of Mankind would consider his acts as high treason, and the man before him would consider it a matter of honour. The latter was far worse. Sebastian Yarrick, Imperial Commissar and veteran of many wars, held honour over anything, von Strab knew full well, and he had dishonoured Yarrick somewhat gravely. The old man wouldn't take him before a war criminal tribunal; Yarrick would carry out the sentence summarily.

"Herman von Strab, you are charged for high treason, bribery, murder and genocide." Sebastian began and aimed a flashlight into the face of von Strab, making the powerful man wince slightly. Herman was still powerful, though the months out in the free had made him a bit famined.

"Bribery?" Herman asked.

"Of Commissar Holt, who else?" Sebastian replied softly.

"He blackmailed me! He said that if I didn't pay him a certain amount of money each month, he'd tell the Imperium's leaders that..." Herman suddenly fell silent.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave," Sebastian said mockingly. "I already know why he blackmailed you, Herman. That's why I have murder on the list of accusations."

"I see..."

"Now, the others might need some explanation; you ignored my warnings, frekk, you even ignored the warnings made by the Emperor himself! Treason, not only towards the Imperium, but also towards the people you are meant to protect! Which leads to the accusation of genocide; many billions of civilians and soldiers have died because of you! We've had a Titan Legion wiped out and half a Space Marine company wiped out because of you! And it doesn't stop there; the final accusation, murder!" Sebastian got a dark look on his face now, as if the last hadn't been enough.

"You murdered your father and brothers, just so you could seize power over Armageddon. Only two creatures come to mind that can do something as underhanded as that: Humans and Deamons. Are you a heretic, Herman von Strab, or just a traitor?"

"Just go on with it old man!" Herman spat at Yarrick. If he was going to die, he didn't want it prolonged.

No one of the two men paid attention to Ed any more. He wandered off to the far end of the chamber. There was something horrid with this place. Inhuman, alien in all its ways. The hieroglyphs, the traps. No human was supposed to be able to get through those. For that you'd to have a skin of metal. Charleston stopped. He looked around and was startled at the many alcoves around here, built into the walls. Each alcove was the resting place of a man-sized robot. They made no sign, their mechanical eyes dead. Some of them had cobwebs on them. None were rusty, none were without a weapon. They all held in strangely designed guns, an emerald crystal seeming to be the emitter of whatever unholy beam the weapons fired. 'Cause they seemed to be beam-weapons, most likely. Charleston let his wrist-mounted flashlights travel over the inanimate metal warriors. He noticed some were more heavily built than the others and carried bigger guns. After a few minutes, his ray of light fell upon a robot that didn't carry a gun. Instead, it held in a nearly three metres tall staff, lavishly decorated with gold and platinum, finished off at the top by a ruby. The leader robot, because it obviously was a leader robot, also wore a headdress, made out of gold, strange symbols etched into it's ancient surface. As Ed walked closer to have a better look at the leader robot, he aimed his flashlight at the ruby set into the robot's forehead. A high-pitched whine was heard from inside of the mechanical thing and it threw open it's eyes. A green, inhuman light came from the eyes.

Charleston started backwards as the thing stepped out of its alcove. Ed looked worriedly over his shoulder as he heard the same whining sound from around him as the other droids went online. Twenty pairs of green, robotic eyes glared at him from the darkness, the light from their neighbour highlighting their metal hides. Charleston looked back at the leader.

"We are the Necrontyr." it said in a distorted voice. It had no moving jaw or vocal cords, so it had to be synthetic, Ed guessed. "We were created by the C'tan to inherit this world when our time came. Thou has risen us, thou shall feel the wrath of C'tan!"

Acting on instinct, Ed raised his plasma pistol and blew the head of the leader robot. The thing toppled and fell to the ground with a metallic thud. Turning, Charleston saw that the other Necrons were raising their guns, power crystals glowing. He also heard a strange sound. It was a low, shuffling, scraping sound, like the sound made of hundreds of centipedes or beetles. Throwing a quick glance upwards, Charleston stared at what seemed like hundreds of green eyes. Not wanting to stay to find out what the things up in the roof were, Charleston ran back towards Sebastian and Herman.

Behind him, four, five, six of the little, insecticide droids fell down from the roof and scuttled after on their mechanical insect's legs. After them came more of the beetles and the Necron warriors moved out of their alcoves and marched after the running Charleston.

Sebastian raised his laspistol and put the muzzle to Herman's forehead. "And thus, as the Emperor dictates, I condemn you to..." His voice trailed off. Sebastian heard a heavy, but even thumping behind him. He hadn't turned but saw Herman's surprised gaze as the ex-governor looked over his shoulder. Then they heard Charleston's deep voice shout.

"The robots are coming, the robots are coming!" For being a two metres fifty tall man, Charleston was incredibly fast. He ran past the commissar and the Armageddon noble with an almost impossible speed for his bulk. What whooshed past the two men was a red blur it appeared.

"What the frekk did the Marine mean with that?" von Strab asked with a puzzled look on his face. Sebastian, having forgotten about the summary execution, saw what Ed had meant. The hundreds of green eyes that glared out of the dark. Inhuman, unfeeling and utterly mechanical. Robots!

"I suggest we make a run for it as well, von Strab. Ed meant those!" Sebastian said, indicating the eyes with his one good hand. Seconds later, von Strab and Yarrick were running as well, and indeed catching in on Charleston. The Marine was handicapped by his armour, but neither von Strab or Yarrick were. Sebastian maybe because of his age, but that hadn't occurred to him, it seemed. He ran nimbly past Charleston and took the lead. This made Charleston a bit confounded.

"I thought commissars led from the front?" he asked.

Sebastian shot the big Marine a quick glance and then replied: "I am leading from the front right now, am I not?"

"Yeah but I thought..." Charleston was cut off by a crackling beam of energy that whipped past him. Apparently, the robots had gotten within firing range. This was not good.

"ED! We can't get past the laser-room!" Sebastian came to a hideous conclusion. He'd forgotten all about it. That was not good.

"I know another way!" von Strab shouted suddenly. He was running alongside Charleston, no trouble in keeping up with the other two. It startled Seb that Herman wanted to help, despite what Sebastian had been about to do with him.

"Then show us, Herman von Strab!" Sebastian shouted. More shots were hissing towards them, but at the great range, they went wide. They were now back in the big chamber with the huge marble pillars. But, instead of running out the way they'd come from, Herman took to the right and ran behind one of the pillars. Yarrick and Charleston followed. The ex-governor pressed something on the wall and a secret door swung open. As they got inside, Herman closed the door behind them.

"You owe me one now, Commissar Yarrick." the bulky man panted forth and gave the commissar a sly look.

"Believe I do..." Sebastian mumbled quietly to himself. Now he understood how Holt had succumbed. Herman might not be a genius in tactics, but he possessed a low cunning that would make a deamon jealous, Sebastian concluded. He looked around the room they now were in. It looked odd, the far end of the chamber was round, as if it was supposed to let through something very big and round. He looked behind him and saw that the corridor they'd come out from was just a hole between two ramps. All was made out of stone blocks, and covered in hieroglyphs. He threw a new look towards the far end of the chamber. His augmented vision on his left eye zoomed in a bit and what he'd thought was confirmed. The long, tubular chamber ended in daylight, and an exit that was opening. He made a gesture for the others to follow.

"Let's get out of here, don't you agree?" he said and walked out of the corridor between the ramps. Charleston and von Strab followed. As they walked, Sebastian heard a tiny click. Instinctively, he looked down at his boots. He removed his left foot from were he'd put it down. The tiny button he'd pressed down with his weight, clicked up again, and a huge rumbling noise was heard. The threesome turned to see a massive stone ball coming loose from its holdings up in the roof far above them and start rolling towards them with constantly accelerating speed. Seb judged the thing to weigh at least a couple of tonnes. He was so shocked by the huge thing, that he didn't even hear himself scream to the others to run.

Sebastian Yarrick realized this time that he was an old man, and couldn't run as fast as Charleston and von Strab. His knees gave away and he fell to the ground. Shocked, he looked at the onrushing stone ball. It was going to crush his old body. Turn it into watery mush. He closed his single eye...

Sebastian suddenly got the feeling of flying. Opening his eye, he saw that he was once again in the comfort of Charleston's powerful arms. The Space Marine had turned round and, unbelievably deftly, flown with his jump pack and caught Sebastian from the ground seconds before he would've been crushed. Now they were rushing ahead of the stone with an incredible speed. Sebastian saw von Strab running before them and held out his battle-claw. He could catch von Strab with it, without cutting the man in half, he hoped. After all, it was so deadly because of the pneumatics, not the sharp edges of the blades. Two seconds later, Sebastian had caught Herman around the waist and told Ed to give all he got. Slowly, Sebastian closed the claw blades around von Strab so he wouldn't fall out of his grip. Seb also urged back the feeling of wanting to close the claw blades entirely. He felt the punch from the thrusters of the jump pack as Ed put it on full blast. Too long on this gear, and the reactor overheated, Seb knew it full well. But Charleston would have to have it in that gear till they were clear of the stone. 'Not much further now,' Seb thought. 'Hang in there Ed, you can do it!'

With the ear-splitting sound of the molested engines of the jump pack coming to him finally, the bundle of men flew out of the hole in the wall of the pyramid. Sebastian sighed in relief as he saw the stone ball get stuck in the hole, which was too narrow for it. Sebastian heard Ed sigh as well. The stress he'd put on the engines could have killed him. But it hadn't. Charleston settled down and was immediately surrounded by troops: Guardsmen as well as Marines. Charleston let go of Seb, but Sebastian didn't let go of Herman. The man struggled of course.

"You owe me one, Yarrick!" Herman hissed at the old man. Sebastian looked softly back at the man in his pneumatic grip.

"I beg to differ, my dear gentleman. By catching you and saving your arse in there," Sebastian gestured at the pyramid. "I made us even. We're quits. Just you be happy that a war criminal tribune will take car of you now." Sebastian looked around and raised his voice:

"Commissar McLaren!!" A tall, wiry man in his thirties came running towards them, dressed in the black uniform of the Imperial Commissariat. He saluted Yarrick. When he saw von Strab, he was about to spit on him, but the older commissar stopped him.

"There will be plenty of time for that later, my comrade," Sebastian said and let go of von Strab. As if on cue, the unlocking click of security locks of a dozen bolters and lasguns was heard. Von Strab finally gave up and held up his arms in the air. He was led away by a squad of Guardsmen. Before McLaren disappeared with the Guard, Sebastian grabbed the young man by the arm.

"Make sure he gets the punishment he deserves," Sebastian said to the tall man.

"Of course, Commissar Yarrick." McLaren replied and smiled savagely.

"He's a war criminal..." Sebastian said thoughtfully. He dismissed the thought he'd had been concerning. "Life okay with you otherwise, John?"

"Yes sir! It was an honour to be trained by a man such as you. You're a living legend now. The Saviour of Hades Hive." McLaren replied happily.

"That warmed an old man's heart, boy. Now, take care of the ex-governor."

Sebastian looked at young man as he ran after the Guardsmen watching von Strab. McLaren had been one of Sebastian's best cadets that he'd trained over the years. Though, since McLaren, Sebastian hadn't trained any more cadets. Sebastian had been sixty-four when McLaren was fully fledged as a commissar, and the Commissariat had considered him too old for such any more.

"What a rush!" Charleston said at his side, suddenly. Sebastian looked up at the man.

"Indeed. Ed, concern this war now officially over!" Sebastian said with a sweeping gesture.

"Not quite." a voice said behind them. They turned and saw McKenzie standing there, arms crossed over his chest. "How the frekk do we deal with that monolith, commissar?"

"You haven't thought up a way in all these many hours?" Sebastian asked surprised and raised an eyebrow.

"No, cause I've been worried sick because of you two."

"McKenzie, stop complaining. You sound as if you were my mother."

"How should you know how a mother sounds?" McKenzie said caustically, without thinking on what he was doing. Charleston stopped Sebastian from ramming his battle-claw into McKenzie's chest and gave his fellow Marine a dark look. They both knew how a sensitive subject Sebastian's family was. McKenzie, agitated, as he'd become, had used it as a provocative against Sebastian, and it had worked.

"Edward is right," McGranth said as he approached, Terminator armour humming. "We still haven't figured out a way to get rid of the monolith."

"Well, at least we know why it took the Dark One such time to reach Armageddon Secondus." Sebastian said with a shrug. "He was constructing this, and gives us another conclusion." The others looked quizzically on the old man. "No Berzerker could have erected that; Khorne shuns the use of psychic witchery, excuse me Edward, so he must have had the use of psykers. There's no other explanation to it all."

The Marines looked at each other. It made sense, it frekking made sense! Sebastian's knack of seeing order in chaos had helped yet again.

"So what do we do with the monolith then?" McGranth asked cautiously.

"Nuke it." Sebastian said simply. "The pyramid is a nest of alien creatures as well. That's the only way." He looked at the huge black pyramid towering behind McGranth's shoulder.

"There were robots in it." Charleston shot in. "They said they'd been created by the C'tan and that they were going to inherit this world. I don't like it..."

"But what about the forest, the jungle? It will be made inhospitable by the atomics!" McKenzie protested. "There must be some other way! And the robots then? They might hold the answer to why even the Emperor was created! C'tan is a by-word for Paladin in the ancient tongues!"

"That might well be McKenzie, but they were in no way friendly." Sebastian said and looked the wiry Marine in the eye. "But yes, we can use something else than atomics."

"What might that be? It's the most powerful weapon known to mankind." McGranth queried.

"Ever heard of anti-matter?" Sebastian asked softly. "I heard recently that the Adeptus Mechanicus has developed a way of using anti-matter as a bomb. Not much is needed, and it leaves no radiation of what I know."

"How come I haven't found out about it?" McKenzie looked stumped.

"In a way, it makes planetary assaults by Space Marine obsolete. You're still needed of course, but when an 'unimportant' planet is taken, we can send in a fleet armed with anti-matter bombs instead of a Space Marine Legion. Armageddon is such an important planet, that anti-matter bombing was out of the question. That's why you were summoned, mainly."

"How did you know then Seb?" McKenzie asked curiously.

"A Mechanicus adept told me so when I got my battle-claw repaired after the meeting with Kharn. Didn't think of it until now...though."

"You're incredible Seb..." McKenzie murmured silently to himself. He turned to the others: "As said, the taint must be exterminated!" With that, he strode off.

"McGranth," Sebastian asked. "Have you ever heard of the Codex: Terra?"

"Yeah. It's that book about that planet far away which was left monitored but not controlled by the Emperor, right?"

"Sort of. Have you read it?"

"McKenzie has." McGranth thumbed towards his comrade who was now talking with some men clad in the dark red robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Charleston had disappeared, probably to tend his poor jump pack. McGranth waited till McKenzie had finished talking with the adepts and whistled him to come over.

"What is it, Commander?" he asked as he came over.

"The commissar wants to ask you something." With that, McGranth left McKenzie and Yarrick alone.

"Edward, you've read the Codex: Terra, right?"

"Many times, Sebastian, many times. I find it...entrancing."

"Right, have you read that appendix named the Bible?"

"Yes...I think so, though it's claiming to be the Book of Books, which is in my eyes heretical."

"Mine too. Now, I've conducted some simple maths, and I find it highly peculiar that this here war lasted for exactly 666 days, counting this as the last day." An uneasy silence followed Sebastian's words.

"You can't be serious Sebastian..." McKenzie mumbled. Sebastian just gave him a look that said he was serious. "I mean, the number of the Beast?"

"You've read the Book of Revelations at least." Sebastian chuckled.

"I find its prophecies intriguing." Another pause of silence. "That means that, the Book of Revelations meant here, not the Project!"

"Exactly!" Sebastian exclaimed. "I quote: 'And they gathered in the place named in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.' End quote."

"It's a strange world we live in..."

"Yes it is my friend, yes it is..."

<<<Volcanus Hive, nearly two years after the Space Hulk landed and started the Battle for Armageddon>>>

Sebastian was standing in the plaza were the statue of his grandfather stood. It had incredibly enough managed unscathed through the war. The tall Callidussian Commissar General still stood in his victorious pose, sword raised high, pointing towards the north and the ruins of the Tower of Doom. At the foot of the statue the cracked helmets of Berzerkers lay stacked. Despite the hundreds of years it had stood here, it wasn't eroded. The features of the famous hero were still as clear as the day the statue had been erected. Sebastian knew he had his grandfather's high-cheeked face and the green eyes. Sebastian walked closer to the huge marble statue, Cerberus following at his heels. The last time the big wolfhound had been here, his master had been young, and so had he. Now both he and his master were old. Cerberus remembered what had happened last time. It hadn't been funny. Now, however, his master had confidence in his steps. He'd just won a war.

Sebastian stopped a metre from the statue and looked up at the face of his grandfather. It took a while for the words to form for Sebastian, but after a minute, he started to talk with the statue.

"Y'know gramps, I've always been feeling inferior to you. You were the great war-hero. My father had also given his life in the Emperor's service, so had my uncle. I had so much to live up to. I really wanted to prove myself. Things sort of went out of hand when I was fifteen, didn't they? I mean, it wasn't so that I was afraid of the Chaos beasts; I just had this horrible premotion. McKenzie has thought it's psychic. I don't. You had that knack too didn't you? To be able to see order in chaos? But not that day.

"I've cursed myself ever since. I kicked myself through the Schola Progenum, IG helping me to keep going. Now he's also gone. Just like you. He was all I could ask for, and more. Then I have Cerberus, the puppy that was a gift. A faithful companion indeed, but he's old, just as me. You were different there, weren't you, gramps? You didn't age as normal men. Okay, you were grey-haired, but not old, in the word's true meaning. Hell, you even had a nickname. I mean, you weren't only regarded as any Commissar General. People considered you an incarnation of the Wolf, Hrodwulf Le’man, didn't they? But to the entire of the Imperium, you were known as the Liberator of Armageddon.

"Now, I've also made me a nickname. Grandfather, I am your grandson; Sebastian Yarrick, Imperial Commissar and Saviour of Hades Hive!"

With that, Sebastian closed his eyes and smiled. He'd made peace with his past ghosts at last...

<<<Earth, present time. McKenzie and Charleston talking in the bar>>>

"And that, brother, is the story of the Battle for Armageddon." Charleston said as he ended the story. He looked at McKenzie at his right.

"Good to know what happened." McKenzie said and returned to his beer. There was a long pause of silence.

"Edd, what was the Project: Terra actually?" Charleston said after a moment.

"What it was? It was a test in seeing if humanity could make do without the influence of the Emperor. If it worked, the Imperium would have been able to expand throughout the entire galaxy. Sadly though, the coming of Deamon Lord Juijaeg, the 12th deamon lord, interrupted the project. He also caused the Great Merge between the two legions of which ours were formed." McKenzie had been on the verge of saying 'is', but reminded himself of the destruction of the Imperium and his beloved legion.

"And after that, there was no time for such an experiment again. But we do know that Terra, or Earth has managed fine."

"Urth?" Charleston asked confounded.

"Earth, Ed. E-a-r-t-h. Earth. That's what native humans call it."

"What about the Codex: Terra?" Charleston asked.

"It's actually a twenty volumes collection of books containing material from 10.000 BC to 1200 AD, Terra standard time. But, I believe the Imperium in some way knew of Juijeag's coming. See, they stored away information about travelling the stars here on Terra." McKenzie's voice dropped to a whisper. "See, when humanity here is ready, they'll find the information on how to make contact with the Imperium again."

"How? Do tell."

"STC's. Standard Template Constructs. They contain all the data needed to create what the humans of Terra need to travel the stars."

"Do you know where they are?" Charleston asked and looked concerned.

"Yes, I do in fact." McKenzie took a look around to see if no one was listening on them. "There are four in this system, named Sol 1 by these humans; one on Terra itself, in a pyramid called the Cheops pyramid. It contains data for how to terraform a planet to make it habitable. One on the moon of this planet, which tells how to build a warp-engine. It on the far side of it, so it's secure for now. There are two on Mars; one for how to build one of the Galaxy class cruisers. Y'know, the big ones. The other is how to make a Warlord Titan."

"Okay." Charleston didn't know that McKenzie had left out two things for him. That Saturn's moon Triton held the STC's on how to alter the genes of a human to make him Space Marine. All info for Space Marine creation was on Triton; gene coding, implants, armour and even the trusty bolt guns used by the Adeptus Astartes. It was best to keep that away from him.

McKenzie got up and walked towards the door. The bartender stopped him.

"Buddy, you haven't paid!" the bartender, a stocky man in his forties called him from the counter. He received Ed's money as he talked.

"I've already paid." McKenzie said and made a lithe move with his right hand.

"Never mind," the bartender said suddenly. "Forgot you've already had paid."

As Charleston joined McKenzie he gave his friend a very dark look indeed.

"Got that from a movie." McKenzie simply replied. Charleston decided not to argue.

"Hey Edward, do you think there are Yarricks in Terra?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, Terra was probably uninhabited when man came here, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and it was populated with humans from the Imperial worlds."

"Thought so. That means there must be psykers here, and Yarricks." Charleston remembered the boy from the cul-de-sac that had been so much alike Rolf Yarrick. Even name ways.

"Could be, Ed, could be..."

The two Marines left the street were the bar lay. They didn't pay attention to the old man sitting by the window, talking with an old friend. The old man's hair was steely grey, with a shade of blue in it. Just like the Yarrick family's legacy.

The ED!