Chapter One: The Dead Air

The vox bunker stank of ozone, sweat, and old blood. Vox-Officer Tamm sat hunched over the brass-and-iron console, his gauntlets caked with grime from the last time he’d crawled through a collapsed tunnel to splice a new length of wire into the antenna feed. The machine’s runes flickered in a familiar pattern—amber, green, red—no signal. Nothing but the hiss of dead air. “Still nothing?” Sergeant Vela Kross ducked under the low archway, her lasgun slung across her back. A fresh gash ran along her jawline, crusted black under the bunker’s dim glow-globes. She didn’t wait for an answer. She already knew. “Command’s last reply was forty hours ago,” Tamm said, not looking up. “They told us to hold. That’s it.” “And you haven’t logged it.” Tamm’s fingers tightened on the vox’s brass key. “If I log it, it’s over. It becomes a record. A fact. This way—” He gestured at the blank screen. —“I can still pretend they’re just busy.” Kross leaned against the wall, the plastek of her armor creaking. “They’re not coming, boy. You know that.” “I know.” His voice cracked on the second word. “But there are still regiments out there. Other hives. Someone’s listening.” “Is anyone?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed the transmit key and spoke into the vibrating brass mouthpiece, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. “This is Vox-Officer Tamm, Hive Tertium, Sector Seven Garrison. Still holding. Objective Aurelia is secure. Munitions at twenty percent. Casualties—” He paused, swallowing. “Casualties heavy. We request immediate reinforcement or extraction. Over.” Nothing. Just the hiss. Kross watched him for a long moment, the weight of twelve years in the Guard pressing down on her shoulders. She’d seen a dozen worlds burn. Seen regiments bleed out into the mud. But this kid—nineteen years old, no more than a conscript with a faith in the Emperor that bordered on madness—he wouldn’t quit. “You keep sending that, they’re going to hear the emptiness back. It’ll drive you mad.” “I’d rather go mad than go silent,” Tamm replied, finally meeting her eyes. “If we stop broadcasting, we might as well be dead already. Because then nobody’ll ever know we were here. That we held.” Kross sighed, a sound that carried the dust of a thousand marches. “They’ll know, kid. The genestealers will leave enough of a mess for the Inquisition to find. We’ll be a footnote in a decade-old report.” “Then let’s be a footnote that says ‘they never stopped fighting.’” He turned back to the console, adjusting the frequency again. “Besides—” A burst of static cut through the air, sharp and sudden. Tamm flinched, then leaned in, fingers flying over the dials. “That’s not feedback. That’s—” The static resolved into a garbled voice, barely recognizable as human. “—aintum—anyone—this is Hive Secundus—” Kross was at his side in a second, her hand on his shoulder. “Can you clear it?” “I’m trying.” Sweat beaded on Tamm’s forehead as he twisted the fine-tune knob. The voice came through again, stronger now: “—still fighting—the cult is everywhere—Emperor protect us—” Then silence. The carrier wave cut out. Tamm stared at the speaker grille. “They’re still alive. Secundus is alive.” “Was.” Kross’s voice was flat. “That could be a recording. A loop. Could be anything.” “Or it could be real.” He activated the transmitter again. “This is Vox-Officer Tamm, Hive Tertium. We hear you, Secundus. We’re still here. Repeat, we are still here.” The static answered him. But Tamm smiled, a thin, weary expression. “See? Someone’s listening.” Kross shook her head, but a faint, reluctant smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just talking to ghosts.” “Either way,” Tamm said, settling back into his seat, “I’m not logging that last reply. Not yet.”