Chapter 299: Paradise of the Soulless (Patreon)

“The Puritan Inquisitor who hired you,” Yoan said, pointing at the sigil in Berrant’s hand. “They sold out their own people without hesitation?”

“Isn’t that… normal?” Berrant replied, momentarily taken aback.

“Fair enough.” Yoan nodded helplessly. When he thought about it, that kind of behavior was perfectly normal, especially within the vast, decaying institutions of the Imperium.

Yoan recalled that even the fleet dispatched to the Talon Sector to collect Imperial tithes had operated in much the same way.

The Administratum tax official had offered Anruida a deal: satisfy his private, unrecorded demands, and the tithe figures would be quietly reduced.

Then the official’s colleague approached Anruida with an even lower price, exposing the first man’s greed, claiming that he had inflated the numbers compared to other sectors, and he had openly mocked the Talon Sector as a place of “rich fools,” doing so while still aboard their own ship, without even the courtesy of discretion.

Betrayal and treachery, such things were commonplace in the Imperium of the forty-first millennium.

“I have a question,” Heatdeath, silent until now, suddenly spoke.

“Ask,” Berrant replied with a nod.

“When I arrived, I saw Klein. He does not resemble an opportunist,” Heatdeath said. “Why would Bellona trust him? And has Ayen not already begun to suspect Klein’s motives? Even an acolyte harbors doubts, yet Bellona displayed no reaction at all. Or was that their first meeting? Had she never encountered him before?”

“A perceptive machine, aren’t you?” Berrant looked at Heatdeath with interest. “The reason is simple. The one who sent me has a special relationship with Bellona. They’ve worked together since Bellona was a fifteen-year-old wretch and that partnership lasted over two hundred and seventy years.”

Heatdeath still didn’t quite understand why Bellona would place such trust in someone like that. Then it remembered something crucial.

Bellona was human.

And humans were always shackled by emotion, memory, and misplaced loyalty.

Just like Ayen, used like a dog, less close to Bellona than even Berrant, yet still willing to protect her right up until the moment of his death.

Bellona treated everyone as tools.

Yet in the end, she died at the hands of the only person who had ever truly been her friend.

“Either way,” Yoan said, retrieving a compact device and handing it to Berrant, “it’s over.”

Berrant recognized the device immediately, a Talon teleportation shield, but he didn’t understand why Yoan was giving it to him.

“My ship is outside the trade station,” Yoan said, glancing toward the docking viewport. “The Pariah can register their identities once they reach Talon.”

Berrant chuckled and shook his head. “I’m a Soulless. Wherever I go, it’s the same. A disposable tool. An outcast.”

“Don’t use that contemptible name,” Yoan said firmly. “We are the Blanks. Yes, anyone who encounters us feels revulsion, but on Talon Prime, there is a settlement meant solely for our kind… a home.”

Berrant hesitated.

The Inquisitor who hired him seemed more human than Bellona ever was and had already paid him for his work. He could take that payment, go back, and continue ruling his underworld gang…

But what Yoan described was too tempting to dismiss.

A town of nothing but the Blanks.

No Arbites standing watch outside his door, waiting for him to make a mistake so they could kill him “lawfully.”

No ordinary humans recoiling in disgust, pinching their noses the moment they sensed his presence.

Berrant even began to imagine himself living like a normal man, eating in a public restaurant, served by Blank women who did not look at him with fear or hatred.

It was heaven.

A heaven reserved for the Blanks.

After a long moment of thought, the Throne Gelt flipping between his fingers finally snapped shut in his fist.

“Alright,” he said.

....

The Voidship Black Void.

A flash of blue-white light split the bridge as three spatial rifts tore open. Yoan, Heatdeath, and Berrant stepped out onto the command deck.

The Black Void did not belong to any recognized Imperial classification, neither frigate, destroyer, nor cruiser. This class of vessel was constructed exclusively for the Thunderborn of Talon. Whenever a Thunderborn needed to leave the Talon System on assignment, this was the ship that carried them.

The warship was modest by void-combat standards, measuring only seven kilometers in length. Three heavy energy shields were mounted along the fore, mid, and aft sections of the hull. At the ship’s core sat a massive rotating sphere: an omnidirectional photonic lance capable of engaging enemy vessels or scouring planetary surfaces with equal efficiency.

Another major distinction between Thunderborn-exclusive vessels and standard Talon Navy ships was that they did not require their crew to be entombed in nutrient tanks or hard-linked sarcophagi.

The bridge was crowded.

The crew had seen Heatdeath before, but Berrant was new.

As Berrant emerged from the rift, his body stiffened with instinctive tension. He stopped flipping his Throne Gelt entirely, half-expecting the crew to hurl insults at him, or order him off the ship the instant they felt his null-presence.

That would have been unbearably awkward.

But no such thing happened.

Everyone reacted with casual indifference. Only then did Berrant realize something astonishing.

Every single crew member was his kind.

“A newcomer?” someone said.

The crew rose from their seats to look at him.

If a normal human had entered a bridge full of Untouchables, they would have collapsed instantly, vomiting until dehydration or shock set in. But Berrant felt nothing at all. There was no need for introductions; they immediately knew he was one of them.

“He looks thin. Fragile.”

“So did we when Klein sold us into the Talon Sector,” another replied. “He just needs to eat a few meals at Aunt Lina’s restaurant.”

“...”

They crowded around Berrant, talking over one another with unrestrained familiarity.

Berrant stood there awkwardly. These people didn’t behave like Soulless at all. If anything, they were far too enthusiastic.

“Ahem.” Yoan cleared his throat. “Prepare for departure.”

The crew snapped back into discipline immediately, returning to their stations. They operated consoles one-handed, plugging neural interfaces into the ports at the backs of their skulls.

Yoan assigned Berrant a seat, fastened his restraint harness personally, then moved to the command throne at the center of the bridge.

Once all stations reported ready, Yoan gave the order.

[“Destination: Talon System.”]

[“Dimensional engine diagnostics complete. All systems nominal.”]

[“Charging dimensional engine. Ten percent.”]

“...”

“Activate auxiliary propulsion,” Yoan ordered suddenly.

The crew exchanged delighted glances and executed the command at once.

A drone drifted behind Yoan, trailing a thick cable, which it connected directly into his spinal interface.

Three fusion reactors surged to maximum output. A wave of heat radiated outward from the command throne, flooding the bridge.

Berrant had no idea what was happening. He idly resumed playing with his Throne Gelt.

Instead of entering the Warp, no, the Dimensional Expanse, the ship drew dimensional energy outward, coating the hull in a shimmering sheath.

In the next instant, the entire vessel surged forward at more than twice the speed of light.

Berrant was slammed into his seat, his body completely immobilized by acceleration. The Throne Gelt flew from his hand and buried itself deep into the bulkhead behind him.

The crew whooped with exhilaration, reveling in the rare indulgence, as the stabilizers could not fully compensate for this form of travel.

Thunderborn vessels were equipped with auxiliary dimensional engines. When a Thunderborn used their own body as a living power source, these engines could be activated. The advantage was clear: no transition into the Dimensional Horizon was required, eliminating the need for conventional system-hopping and allowing continuous, extreme acceleration over vast distances.

The ship continued on its course.

Baal lay directly along the flight path. It appeared as though they were about to collide with the planet, but instead of entering the atmosphere, the ship passed straight through its molten core.

Then it pierced directly through the star beyond.

The dimensional energy sheath rendered the vessel intangible, preventing catastrophic interaction with matter during ultra-high-speed transit.

“Request stop at star system designation 83123.” Heatdeath said, moving beside Yoan. Its legs merged seamlessly with the deck, anchoring its mass.

“Why?” Yoan asked.

“Because I need to return to my gloomy mothership and mutter to my cold, unresponsive kin,” Heatdeath replied irritably.

“You’re coming back to Talon with us,” Yoan said. “The Lord of Talon personally ordered me to bring you along during our last transmission.”

The ship surged onward through the void, its speed still climbing, leaving nothing behind but distorted starlight and silence.