Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Eleven (section)

==6-075-001-M42==
“My Lord Forgefather, the transition has gone well. We are en route,” Ir’Shan’s said. The Master of Ships turned from his console to address his target directly.<br>
Vulkan nodded from the center of the bridge, eyes darting over the displays before him. The tiny Navy Cobra had been transferred to his command only recently, and he wasn’t familiar with its layout yet. “Acknowledged. Enginarium?”<br>
“Transition clean, sir,” an awestruck voice responded. Vulkan let his eyes slide shut for a moment in irritation, then spoke as if nothing was amiss.<br>
“Excellent. Navigator, ETA?”<br>
“Seven days, Lord Vulkan,” the unbelievably dry voice of the Navigator replied, echoing over the bridge speakers from her quarters overhead. Vulkan nodded.<br>
“Excellent. Captain, you have the bridge.”<br>
“Aye, sir,” the ship’s former commander said, moving to fill the spot Vulkan had just vacated. The Primarch stepped aside and turned to look at the set of bright red eyes that had been boring into him since they had left Terra.<br>
“He’Stan, may I speak to you outside for a moment?” Vulkan said, ignoring the death glare the shorter man was giving him.

“Of course, my Lord,” the former Forgefather said, as if he hadn’t been standing behind his Primarch seething the entire time. Fortunately, the Navy crew had never even seen Space Marines before, so they hadn’t visibly picked up on the tension.<br>
Vulkan walked out of the bridge and into the antechamber beyond, where Chapter Regent Tu’Shan stood waiting. He bowed his head respectfully when the two other men emerged. “My Lord Vulkan. We are en route?”<br>
“We are,” He’Stan answered, then winced slightly as Vulkan’s shoulders lifted in a strained sigh. Tu’Shan did not display his Primarch’s restraint.<br>
“Something to add, old friend?” he asked, his voice frigid.<br>
“Only something I have said already, my Lord,” He’Stan said, clearly unwilling to retread old ground.<br>
Tu’Shan persisted. “That being?”<br>
“That this is not something we should be doing yet!” He’Stan said, rising to the bait. “With the greatest of respect, my Lords, Terra is still in the middle of a civil war and we’re at half-strength back home. I, more than any other member of the Chapter, want to see the Artefacts brought home, but this…this is just poor timing.”<br>
Vulkan stared at He’Stan just long enough to see him deflate a bit. “When would you have us go, then, brother? And why were you so willing to stare me down about in front of the crew?”<br>
“For that I apologize, my Lord,” He’Stan said, good grace restored. “I should not have done that. I must reiterate my protest, however.”

The three men broke off their discussion as a techpriest from the ship’s crew walked in, spotted them, and froze solid. The spindly fellow looked from one to another and backpedaled out, mumbling apologies. He’Stan barely even seemed to register it, though, pressing his point like an attack dog. “Lord Vulkan, if you would, what were the Emperor’s specific instructions?”<br>
“To return to our respective homeworlds and rebuild,” Vulkan said, recalling the meeting with the Emperor several days prior.<br>
“Precisely, sir, thank you. We need to rebuild from the losses we suffered at Armageddon, sir. The Artefacts can wait,” He’Stan said.<br>
“The retrieval of the Engine of Woes and the Unbound Flame can wait,” Vulkan replied. He turned to face the shorter man evenly. “The Obsidian Chariot is on our course there.”<br>
He’Stan’s jaw dropped. He took a moment to reclaim his composure, and when he did, his voice was far more respectful. “My Lord, I…did not realize. May I ask as to its location, then?”<br>
Vulkan smiled faintly, his sense of humor peeking around the edge of his bad mood. “Are you sure you want to?”<br>
“I suppose not,” He’Stan said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Several decks below, a small group of techpriests was huddled around a table. “I’m telling you, he’s HERE! The Lord Primarch Vulkan is HERE!” one of them squeaked in binary.<br>
“Whaaaat? No way, man, you’re pulling my mechadendrite,” another replied. “It’s probably one of the Salamanders that was recalled to Terra on the Emperor’s orders last month.”<br>
“Damn it, I’m telling you, it was HIM! He was three meters tall and his eyes glowed through the lids!” the first one beeped indignantly.<br>
“Suuuure he did,” the second replied, eliciting a few laughs. “Did he shoot lightning out of his ass? Oh, wait, that’s the White Scars.”<br>
“Hah hah hah, very funny,” the first one beeped back, managing to put a tone of huffiness in his twitterings. “But when you see him, you’ll be sorry.”<br>
“Yep,” the second replied, “that’ll happen.”<br>
Back above, the three Salamanders broke up their conversation, He’Stan and Tu’Shan re-entering the bridge and Vulkan making his way down to the quarters he had been assigned. The ship’s Captain had offered him the Commanding Officer’s quarters, but Vulkan had declined, selecting a room in the Enginseer’s quarters instead. He had had his few possessions sent up, save his armor, of course, which was resting in the same armory as the other Salamanders. As he headed down, he found the reassuringly familiar corridors of the ship curiously empty of crew. His chronometer insisted it was mid-day, ship time.

As he passed the ship’s Astropathy temple, however, he found his answer. A trio of Naval Provosts stood at attention outside, escorting out a very nervous telepath. The Telepath halted when he saw the Primarch and bowed. “See? We didn’t need a lockdown,” he muttered sidelong at the guards, apparently forgetting that Astartes and their Primarchs alike have superhuman hearing. “My Lord Vulkan, it is an honor,” he said, louder.<br>
Vulkan nodded politely. “Sieur. I was expected, I gather?”<br>
“You were, my Lord,” the Astropath said, still bent at the waist. Vulkan gestured to him, and one of the provosts eased him back up. “I have a message from the Imperial Palace for you. I was to deliver it the moment we were safely in the Warp.”<br>
“Oh?” Vulkan asked, his curiosity piqued. He stuck a hand out for the message, but the Astropath continued.<br>
“I have delivered it to your quarters, Lord Vulkan. The message was not marked urgent, but it was marked ‘your eyes only.’”<br>
“Thank you, then,” Vulkan said, nodding again and turning to leave.<br>
Arriving at his cabin, he pulled open the door and paused, taking it in. The room was as spartan as he would have hoped – and frankly, preferred – from a Techpriest’s quarters. Aside from a table and a few chairs, the only amenities were a private latrine and a small bed, which he suspected wouldn’t hold his weight too well anyway.<br>
A dataslate waited on the table. Vulkan walked over and tapped it, and a transcribed message appeared.<br>

“VULKAN, I WILL BE BRIEF. I KNOW THAT YOU NEED TO RETURN TO NOCTURNE AND YOU’RE INTERESTED IN RETRIEVING THAT ARTEFACT AS WELL. THAT SAID, THERE’S A GROWING SITUATION YOU MAY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT. THE ASTRONOMICAN DIMMED BEFORE I AROSE IN MY NEW FORM, AND CONTACT WAS LOST WITH SEVERAL HUNDRED WORLDS. THEY WERE NOT DESTROYED OR ANYTHING, BUT THEY WENT OFF THE GRID, AND SOME WERE TOO FAR OUTSIDE THE NAVIGATOR’S CAPABILITIES TO ACTUALLY REACH. UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, HUGE NUMBERS OF MINOR THREATS AROSE, SOME OF WHICH AGGREGATED TO THREATEN THE CUT-OFF WORLDS. I SUSPECT THAT THE SALAMANDERS WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO DEAL WITH THEM BY THE MUNITORUM HAD I NOT CHANGED THE PLAYING FIELD. THE ORDER MAY STILL COME THROUGH. FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD IT IF IT DOES.<br>
The Right Emperor of Terra.”

“Alien threats, eh…” Vulkan said to himself as he switched off the tablet. “Well, so be it.” He wandered over to the tiny porthole of the cabin and stared out, seeing nothing but the reflective gold interior of the Gellar projection.<br>
The door chimed. Vulkan turned to face it. “Enter.”<br>
The door slid into the ceiling with a hiss. A member of the ship’s crew entered, and immediately bowed. “Lord Vulkan. Are these accommodations to your liking? The Captain wishes to respectfully remind you that his own suite is available.”<br>
“It’s fine, thank you,”Vulkan replied, glancing around. “If I could trouble you to direct me to the training chapel, I would appreciate it.”<br>
The crewwoman’s back stiffened. “M…My Lord Vulkan, this is not an Astartes vessel. We have only a gymnarium.”<br>
“Of course,” Vulkan sighed. “That will do.”<br>
“As you command, sir,” she said, straightening up. “Please follow me.”

Back on Terra, things were somewhat more tumultuous. Even as a pair of Administratum functionaries addressed the High Lords about the costs of rebuilding the damaged Hives, Raven Guard Primarch Corax was glaring daggers at anyone he could see from his bed. “If it’s not fallen off by now, it’s not going to,” he growled at the chirugeon at his side.<br>
“We have to take precautions where poisons of the Warp are concerned, Lord Corax,” the nervous man said, glancing furtively at the man’s bandaged wrist. “I do apologize, but we must do this.”<br>
“Fine,” Corax sighed, pulling himself up into a sitting position with his good arm and waving the far smaller doctor away. “Just lock the door on the way out. I need some time to think.”<br>
“Of course, my Lord,” the chirugeon said, bowing out. Before he could close the door, however, a scuffle in the hallway caught Corax’s attention. Corax squinted to see who it was, then sighed. Not again…<br>
“Hey, tall, pale, and brooding, how’s the wrist?” his guest asked brightly, pushing past the furiously bowing chirugeon with ease.<br>
Corax ground his palm into his eyes. “Agonizing, Russ, how do you think?”<br>
“Yeah, that’s great,” the Space Wolf said over his brother’s reply. “Hey, did you know Vulkan left already?”<br>
“Yeah,” Corax said, hoping succinct answers would displace his brother.<br>
No such luck. “He was rarin’ to go, he was,” Russ said, nodding with mock thoughtfulness. “Hey, it must be boring in here. Want to thumb wrestle? Oh wait,” he said, making a show of realizing his faux pas.<br>
“Get. Out. Russ,” Corax ground out between clenched teeth. Russ’s shoulders drooped, as if he was so gravely hurt by his brother’s words.<br>
“Fine. Jerk. See if I come to help you get over manglings again.” He walked back out, flashing the chirugeon a grin as he did so.<br>
Corax settled back into the bed with a faint grin. “Asshole.”

The Cobra destroyer, the Swift, was appointed for its usual complement, and thus not to Vulkan’s tastes. More accurately, not to his size. The machines were almost all too small for him, and the collection of free weights were designed for far smaller men. Nonetheless, the sparring simulators and open practice areas felt enough like home that he managed to settle in well enough, pointedly ignoring the stares and quiet prayers o the few crewmen who were sharing the room. After a brief circuit on the weight machines (in which he had concluded that lifting the machines themselves would have been a better workout), he was making for the boxing ring, to the terror of the men in it, when his comm-bead crackled to life.<br>
“My Lord, please report to the bridge IMMEDIATELY,” Ir’Shan’s voice said, with an unmistakable undertone of urgency. Vulkan tapped the bead.
“Acknowledged. What’s the situation?”<br>
“It’s the Navigator. Something’s-” Ir’Shan’s voice cut off in a dusty rattle of static. Vulkan tapped the bead again.<br>
“Brother, report. What’s going on?” Vulkan turned back to the door of the gym and walked out as fast as he could without appearing to run. <br>“Bridge, this is Vulkan. Respond.” Only static answered.<br>
As he crossed the threshold of the gymnarium, the automatic pressure doors of the room started to close behind him. He doubletimed it across the gap and watched in confusion and mounting alarm as the door slid shut, cutting off the baffled looks of the men inside.

Vulkan stared at the blank metal sheet for a moment, then sprinted for the bridge lift, beating the pressure doors by inches. He rolled to his feet in the lift and hit the button for the bridge deck, stilling the impulse to page the bridge again.<br>
Suddenly, the entire ship lurched, and he felt his insides empty out, as if he had been dropped into a blender. Recognizing the first signs of an unprotected Warp transition, he squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears. Seconds later the feeling returned, like a hammer blow to the stomach. He fell to his knees and tried to block it out, but it was too much: the pressure of a thousand trillion screaming souls, near and far, and the laughter of monsters.<br>
The lift reached the right deck and Vulkan tumbled out, scrambling for purchase on the walls. Several crewmen were writhing on the deck ahead, a few visibly bleeding from the eyes and ears.<br>
Just as suddenly as it had started, it faded away to a tolerable level. Vulkan had spent enough time in the Warp to know it wouldn’t last. Ignoring the writhing men on the deck, he stumbled to his feet and ran for the bridge, hoping he could make it before the next assault on his soul.<br>
He burst through the bridge doors to find his worst fears confirmed: the room was in complete chaos. The Captain was down, both legs missing, and several other crewmen were scattered around the room in pieces. Ir’Shan was fighting for his life against a hideous monstrosity of a daemon, which seemed to be made entirely of tangled flesh and hammers.

Vulkan set his teeth and charged across the deck plates, hurtling the downed crewmen, and hefted a chair he passed en route. He hauled off and threw the metal seat as hard as he could into the daemon’s side. The disgusting creature slapped the chair aside and slammed its metal fists at the Salamander, but it was too late. The distraction was al Ir’Shan needed to reach into the tangled mess and discharge his bolt pistol into the creature’s core. The glob of meat and metal flew apart with an unhappy groan, and Vulkan skidded to a halt at Ir’Shan’s side.
“Brother, what happened?” he demanded, searching the bridge for another target.<br>
“The Navigator is dead, Lord Vulkan,” Ir’Shan said shortly, running over to the Captain’s station and shoving the man’s torso unceremoniously aside. “We hit something MASSIVE in the Warp, it shorted the Gellar Field and killed the Navigator. A Space Hulk, a Void Whale, a Craftworld, something. It’s uncharted and moving, whatever it is. We’re past it.”<br>
“Probably a Soul Vortex or something like it, a proto-Warp Storm,” Vulkan said, remembering the chorus of tortured screams he had heard.
“Maybe,” Ir’Shan said distractedly, grabbing an intercom microvox. “Enginarium, stabilize and cast the Warp shields. We have to drop out, now.”
“IT’S FULL OF EYES! WHY DOES IT HAVE SO MANY EYES?!” a screaming voice came back, before ending in a tortured gurgle. Ir’Shan’s helmet dipped for a moment before snapping back up.<br>
“Master Vulkan, may I respectfully request you don your armor and get down there?” he asked, turning to face his Primarch.
“Way ahead of you, brother,” Vulkan said, already halfway to the exit.<br>

Vulkan arrived at the armory in what was probably record time. A full platoon of Naval Provosts were huddled around the entrance, with several crewmen scrambling at the controls, trying to override the pressure door and get in. A single Techpriest from the Naval contingent was hovering beside them, trying to force the door open with his metal limbs.<br>
“Open, damn your circuits, OPEN!” he growled, straining against the metal seal. It opened a fraction, and one of the provosts slid his shock maul into the gap, trying to lever against it.<br>
“Allow me,” Vulkan said loudly, and elbowed the provost aside. The enormous Primarch braced his boots against the decking and threw himself against the weapon. It creaked, bent at the middle, and snapped, but before the door could slam shut, Vulkan managed to drive himself sideways into the gap, preventing it from closing. He locked his legs and hands against the door and the frame, forcing them apart.<br>
“Any time,” he managed, glaring at the gaping crowd. One of the provosts was as good as his initiative, sliding between the larger man’s legs into the room. The Techpriest planted himself next to the door and added his own strength to Vulkan’s, prying the door open another several centimeters.<br>
The provost managed to hit the right runes, and the door slid open fully. Vulkan sagged against the frame, his knees and elbows screaming. <br>“Ugh. Don’t want to have to do that again,” he muttered.

One of the crewmen approached him in awe as the others ran in, scrambling to outfit themselves. “My eternal thanks, Lord Vulkan,” he started, making the sign of the Aquila. “Are you hurt?”<br>
“No,” Vulkan lied, looking around for his armor and spotting it quickly, towering over the other Salamander suits as it was. He walked over and eased himself it, assisted by the Techpriest, who, alone among the others in the room, seemed to realize the gravity of the situation. After a few torturous minutes, the suit hummed to life, and Vulkan bolted for the door, desperately trying to remember where the cargo lift was. He dredged it up from his memory a few moments later, and ran down the corridor, hoping he could make it in time.<br>
The Enginarium was faring no better than the bridge had been. The surviving crew members were running across the spacious Mechanicum temple as fast as they could, dodging the shambling monstrosity that had erupted from a shipmate’s torso. The daemon was slinging its own eyes about like flails, impaled as they were on lengths of chain. The techpriests had tried to fight back long enough to drop the ship from the Warp, but the horrible creature was too determined and had scattered everyone who had tried.

With a shriek, one of the crewmen lost his footing and got slammed for his efforts, the flailing eyes wrapping around his legs and dragging him towards the daemon. The creature cackled with malicious glee as it dragged its meal closer.<br>
Before it could chow down, however, salvation arrived. With a roar, a green and black machine tore from the open hatch, roiling flames leaping from its wrist. The monster released its helpless prey and lashed out at the armored goliath, but there was no chance it could hit it, the flame-spewing angel was too quick. The daemon recoiled as the white-hot flames licked closer, then erupted into the air, over the carpet of fire. It hovered for a second, then dove upon the crewmen’s rescuer, its eyestalks flailing about.<br>
The green titan drew back its flame-spewing gauntlet and held the other arm at its side, clenching its fist. When the daemon got close enough, the armored figure suddenly thrusted the arm upwards, and a glowing blue spike projected from its wrist, neatly impaling the daemon. The creature had just enough time to look offended before it exploded, a massive electric bolt arcing to the deckplates and raising the hair on the surviving crew.<br>
As the squelching noises of the falling eyes faded, one crewman managed to work up the courage to approach his rescuer. “Th-thank you, Lord Astartes. Your timing was divine.”<br>
“My timing would have been divine if I had saved the ones who died before I got here,” the Marine replied. “Now, drop us out of the Warp.”

Back on the bridge, Ir’Shan was listening in on the exchange, and broke in. “Hold that order, my Lord, something’s changing.”<br>
Vulkan held up his hand for pause. “Say again, Shipmaster?”<br>
“Something else is happening,” the younger man replied, looking over his sensors in bewilderment. The Gellar field was holding again, barely, now that the ship had been purged of daemons, but the weakened state of the field had allowed him to see something horrible in their path as they hurtled through the Warp. A shimmering wall of white energy lurked in their path, brilliant and terrible. Ir’Shan examined his sensors and spoke again. “I think the death of the Navigator skewed us off-course. We’re headed for the edge of a Warp stream, a huge one.”
“Then we should drop out immediately,” Vulkan said urgently.<br>
“I’m not sure we can, my Lord, not now,” Ir’Shan said, glancing over his shoulder as the other two Salamanders walked aboard, their own armor donned. “The ship is moving between stellar systems now. If we drop out, we’ll never get back, unless the Emperor himself can detect it.”<br>
“A ship this small doesn’t have enough Astropaths to contact Terra from here,” Vulkan said grimly, “but can we survive impact with the Warp Stream?”<br>
“Easily, my Lord,” Ir’Shan said, examining his sensors. “We’ll dire the current and see where it takes us. It more or less has to end on an inhabited planet, thanks to the nature of the Warp. There’s something with souls at the end of this, rest assured.”

“Then so be it,” Vulkan said heavily. He turned to face the expectant crew and tried to compose his thoughts. “Men…” he started. He struggled for a moment and continued. “We are about to enter a Warp stream. We have no idea where it leads yet, save that the system is almost certainly inhabited. I need you to power the Gellar Field up as much as it can be, shutting down everything we don’t need in the process.”<br>
The enginarium staff gaped in horror, so Vulkan added a qualifier. “Immediately, men, we may have only minutes.”<br>
The staff lurched to life, overcoming their understandable fear with commendable speed. Vulkan left them to it, and headed back up to the bridge, joining the other three Salamanders in staring at the sensor panel as if it would change anything. A timer counted down until the ship slammed into the Warp stream, the current in nonreality. As the numbers crawled away, He’Stan sighed and leaned against a nearby console.
“No clue where we’re going?” he asked.<br>
“None,” Ir’Shal said. He tapped his armored finger against a tiny rune on his console and the holoscreen at the front of the room flattened against the wall, revealing an image from one of the forward cameras. The sanity-erasing horrors of the Warp were abated by the camera’s machine spirits, which could only show a picture of the outside, after all.

In the middle was a growing ribbon of light, stretching to infinity in two directions. The ship’s lights went dim as the enginarium crew desperately shut down systems and diverted their power to the Gellar field, until there wasn’t much light in the room save that coming from screens and illuminated controls. The ribbon grew larger and larger as the ship swarmed closer, until there was no point in keeping the cameras on any more, and Ir’Shal silently reached over to their controls and powered them down. By unspoken agreement, all four Salamanders made their way to the various control terminals scattered throughout the bridge and relived the surviving bridge crew, who scampered off, no doubt relieved to have a chance to go and pray uninterrupted.<br>
Vulkan could FEEL it when they hit the ribbon. The entire ship was wrenched violently aside, but not physically; he and every other man aboard felt like their souls were being surgically cut from their housings and shifted to starboard ten feet, then rammed back into place by a Painboy. Vulkan felt his vision cloud for a moment, then it cleared, though the feeling of dizziness lingered. He gripped the console until he felt his sense of self reassert, then straightened up. Tu’Shan seemed to have weathered the transition as well as he had, but Ir’Shal and He’Stan were still kneeling, gripping their consoles for support, their armored fingers bending the brasswork on the trim.<br>
With a start, he realized what that meant. With a few pokes of the intercom, he opened a channel to the enginarium. “Enginarium, report in. Are the fields holding?”<br>
“Affirmative,” a shaky voice replied. “We’ve had to shift them to hull mode instead of bubble, though. It’s lower-power, but it won’t get chipped away by the stream.”<br>
“Good thinking.” Vulkan thought for a moment. “Are the viewports proofed against this?”<br>
“Negative, my Lord,” the man on the other said, swallowing a few times.

“Understood. Bridge out.” Vulkan released the stud and switched lines, paging the astropathy temple. “Comms, this is bridge. Come in, comms.”<br>
After a delay of nearly a minute, another voice came on; Vulkan recognized it as the voice of the astropath that had passed along his father’s message. “I’m…here…my Lord,” he managed, sounding even worse off than the enginarium crew had.<br>
“Sieur, this is Lord Vulkan. Is the character of the Warp stream through which we’re moving definite?” Vulkan asked. Ir’Shal looked at him agape, but said nothing. The other two Salamanders looked at one another, confused.<br>
“Negative…I mean, I haven’t…looked,” the voice said. Vulkan nodded slowly.<br>
“Very well. Contact me when you do,” Vulkan said, cutting the channel.<br>
Ir’Shal spoke up. “You wouldn’t.”<br>
“Why not?” Vulkan countered.<br>
“You’re not a Navigator, my Lord!” Ir’Shal protested, as realization dawned on the other two Marines. “You can’t see into a Warp current!”<br>
“I’m not going to try to steer us, brother,” Vulkan said, “just try to figure out what’s causing this.”<br>
“Don’t bother, my Lord,” Ir’Shal said firmly. “Not even a man tempered by your experience can see into the Warp and stay sane.”<br>
Vulkan stared at him for a moment before relenting. “Very well.”<br>
Ir’Shal sagged with relief. “I’m glad I could convince you, Lord. It would have been a terrible loss for the Chapter if we were to lose you so early.”

Abruptly, the ship shifted again. This time, the shift felt more like what a Warp transition should feel like, rather than dropping into the Warp like a stone. Vulkan looked around the bridge for any sign of change, but couldn’t tell what was wrong. Ir’Shal turned back to the Captain’s controls and glanced them over. “We’ve reached the core of the stream, my Lord,” he said. “It’s like the eye of a storm, surrounded by the maelstrom of souls, but not buffeted about by them.”<br>
“Could we drop out safely?” He’Stan asked.<br>
“No chance,” Ir’Shal said grimly. “We could drop out in the middle of deep space, dozens of light-years from a star. We can’t risk it.”<br>
Vulkan turned for the exit. “The ship is yours, brother Ir’Shal. Please unseal the pressure doors on the vessel so the crew can go about their duties.”<br>
“Where are you going, my Lord?” He’Stan asked as Ir’Shal acknowledged his instruction and started working the ship’s life support controls.<br>
“I need some rack time, brother,” Vulkan said wearily. “And I seem singularly useless here. Wake me to take a shift.”<br>
“I don’t…aye, my Lord,” He’Stan said as the hatch slid shut behind his Primarch. He turned to Ir’Shal and shrugged. “I can’t blame him. Those daemons…for all we know, this isn’t even the first time they’ve met.”<br>
“Chilling,” Tu’Shan muttered. “You may be right.”