Alpha Level

0

Trooper John Ryider always considered himself a smart man. Not just knowing stuff from books and the like, but more like being smart in life. He usually made the right decisions, and always made them with the best intentions. He knew that, and therefore he wondered what he was doing lying face down in the mud, his ears filled with a loud shriek and the occasional low booms of artillery fire. He felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him up. “You ok Ryider?” Asked the squad sergeant. “Yeah, I'm alright, just got the wind knocked out of me.”
Yes, joining the guard definitely had been one of his few wrong decisions...

He had been happy during the first months of his career in the Imperial Guard. There hadn't been any fighting then, just training and goofing of with his fellow troopers, but his training had been cut short when a Chaos armada had arrived in-system. Within a day the chaos fleet had landed thousands of troops, and even a number of the dreaded chaos marines had been sighted. His homeworld wasn't an important planet and did not have much to offer in defence troops, however the governor had been confident that help was on the way and had not ordered an evacuation. When a week later he was spotted leaving the planet in his personal shuttle some people had just assumed he had left to welcome 'the saviours' he promised where under way, but Ryider knew better. A week later he had been proven right. They where down to their last hive city, and their last 400 men, and the chaos warhost was still going strong. What was even worse was the constant headache and the bad dreams that plagued him at night. And the whispering.
John Ryider was a person that relied on his instinct as well as his intelligence. That had kept him alive these past two weeks. He had always know precisely when to keep his head down and when to charge the enemy. Because of this some men followed his lead, and most of them had survived as well. They where therefore most shocked and surprised when they had seen him fly though the air, surrounded by dirt, and land a couple of metres back on his face. What they did not know was that Riyder knew that would happen before it happened. The fact that he had known it, instead of his usual feelings and suspicions shocked him so deeply he, at that moment, could only think about the message, instead of the contents of the message. It had been so crystal clear in his mind. A voice just saying duck.  Could it have been the soldier next to him? Surely not, he could barely hear his own shouting voice over this shelling. He brushed it of as a figment of his imagination and got up to fight on.

The second time he heard it he was sure it was in his head, and since it had been right the first time he listened to it, saving not only his own life, but that of several of his squad mates as well. The third, and fourth time it saved him as well, and the voice was becoming more defined. It was now saying things like 'they are hiding behind that wall' and 'they will charge soon'. After a couple times the voices became less vocal and more like visions, they where also showing him more and more, and he could direct them. If he wanted to know what the enemy was doing he instantly got a vision of them, fixing bayonets, or reloading their weapons.
At first he was fearful. As a young boy he heard stories about 'the witches taint' like almost everybody in the Empire had. But how could this be dangerous? He was saving himself and his friends, that could only be a good thing, right?
In secret he was now training his 'abilities'. And before long he could not only see visions of the possible nearby future, he could also move objects, just by thinking of moving them. It was not long before he got overconfident, and he started thinking of a plan to destroy his enemies. Apart from the visions he now had and could control, the voices had not quite left him, and these where the only good things he could not manipulate to his will. This angered him, he had come to see himself as a leader, and he could not stand people disagreeing with him. Had he not immeasurable powers now at his command? Who where they to defy his wishes. However as a soldier he still had to take orders from his superior officers. Ha, superior! No one was superior to him!
And at a certain point, as suggested by the voices, he decided he didn't need any of them. He decided that he alone was to rule this planet, indeed, even the galaxy!

When the reinforcements really did arrive they found the most particular thing. Several Chaos ships where drifting in space, nothing alive on board of them. When scans where made of the planet only one life sign was detected, and when it was detected all astropaths on board fell silent. A week later they had all died from internal bleeding. It was a clear sign for the inquisitor on board of one of the ships, and within the hour the entire planet was bombed with viral bombs, killing all remaining life on the planet.

Or so they thought

1

400 years later a single ship took up orbit around the planet, now a desolate wasteland instead of the lush planet it once was. On board no army, just 21 Space marines of a most secret chapter, the ships crew and 7 of some of the most powerful individuals in the Imperium. If the ship had arrived in an inhabited solar system very few people would have noticed it, and those who did would not have marked it as a ship of importance. But it was one of the few 'black ships', and the arrival of one almost never meant something good.

Antonius Focht looked out of the window at the planet below, contemplating his thoughts, feeling his surroundings. His tall powerfully build body dwarfed the man next to him.
“Strange, this 'void'” Said the smaller man.
“Indeed Sergei, so similar to our mind barriers” Focht answered, pulling his large deep red fur cloak a bit tighter around him. Although the ship was properly heated he always felt cold travelling through space.
“But this is no simple mind barrier is it?” Sergei asked. Both men knew it wasn't. Their mind barriers protected their minds from the predations of the warp, kept the manipulative voices out...kept them sane. What they could feel on the planet below was different though.
“It is not only a barrier to keep us out of his mind, it is a barrier to keep out everything, a place where nothing exists but himself. Or as you have put it, a void” Focht answered.
“But how could he have survived 400 years and an viral bombardment?” Sergei asked more to himself then to Focht.
“I can think of a couple of ways, but all are speculation at this point. We'll find out when were are on the surface.”
“I'll inform the captain to prepare our shuttles”.
When Sergei had left Focht went back to his thoughts. However this 'man' on the surface had survived, he had to have been smart to do so. Being a psyker did not mean you could do anything you thought of, you had to know how to do it. You could not kill a man just by thinking of him dead, but you could do so by thinking of a particular way to kill a man. If you just concentrated hard enough on squeezing someone's hart to the point it would not beat any more, you could kill the man. But that was just one man, to kill thousands at ones you had to concentrate hard, and pull a lot of energy from the warp, and that was dangerous. When drawing power from the warp you exposed yourself, and the more power you drew, the bigger target you where. Some psykers did not have the ability to draw and store much energy out of the warp, which made them less effective. Those few that could, however, did not do this regularly. More than one of Focht's friends had ended in that way, drawing to much power. They got to greedy. And that's where Focht's training had come in. He had learned to protect himself from the warp, and from himself. As a popular saying went 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'. And Focht had a lot of power. He found out that with so much power came more than corruption. He was afraid, almost always afraid. He knew that when he lost control thousands could die, just like on this planet below.

The small shuttle landed on a rusted old landing pad an hour later. Focht was surprised of how much of the hive was still standing. Of course a viral bombardment did not destroy buildings, just everything that lived. The viral strains however had now dissipated and they could breathe freely. Focht walked away from the pad, his 'bodyguard' of marines form the Black Sentinels Chapter followed him. Focht thought of them as bodyguards, but knew they where not. They where clad in black specially infused armour, designed to stop everything but the most powerful of psychic powers. If Focht ever showed signs of corruption, they would execute him without question. Focht doubted however if even they would be able to stop him if he 'lost it'. Every member of his team had three guards just for that same purpose.
The crew of the shuttle unloaded a couple of motorised vehicles and then lifted off and returned to their ship. The team seated themselves in the vehicle and took off.

A few miles away from the hive they stopped at what had been the site of a large battle. Several wrecked vehicles broke up the flat dusty landscape, here and there some bleached ribs poked out of the sand. In the middle of it all was a small grey sphere about three meters tall and one meter wide. Its outside was opaque and Focht and the others could not Feel inside it. This was the thing they had come for. They parked a couple of meters away and got out.
Any other man would have walked up to touch it, but they did not, they knew better. The seven psychers formed a circle around it to study it.
After a couple of minutes one of the psychers spoke.
“Its electrified air”
Focht probed the sphere again.
“It seems you are correct, Christian”
Christian Grey smiled at the praise. He wasn't as high a level psycher as some of them, but he had just proved to them he was still useful. Something Focht had not doubted, the kid had a smart mind, although not much command over his 'actual' powers.
“Very interesting” Sergei said after re-probing the sphere himself.
“He grouped the air molecules so tight together the air has become solid, and then he charged it with electricity. Its like a solid storm cloud.”
This kid was smart indeed. You couldn't do stuff like that if you did not know about molecules.
“Ok, now to open it” Focht said as he went deep inside his own mind. There he could see the structure of the soil. He too knew about molecules, and he too could rearrange them. He sought out the stones inside the earth and smashed them together, building up a physical stone wall in front of everybody. Then he moved on to the sphere itself, looking for a weak spot. When he found one he probed into it. His original plan was to shatter it with a build-up of air inside, but he could not penetrate the outer hull, the void inside the sphere stopped him. So instead he got some water into the small crack and froze it. As the water froze, it expanded, making the crack wider. Focht repeated this process several times, carefully using as little power from the warp as possible. Eventually it broke and pieces of solid air fell to the floor. The electricity released struck the stone walls and the vehicles, charring them. Inside they found something they had not expected. A young man, fully awake stared into Focht's eyes. His icy blue eyes pierced into Fochts brown eyes, probing for information. But Focht wasn't new to this game, and he quickly blocked the man. The man smiled, it was a cold smile that send shivers down Focht's spine.
“Welcome to my planet, my name is John Ryider”.

2

“Your planet?” Christian mumbled softly.
“Yes, mine. And please shut up mister Grey.”
This clearly seemed to shock the psychers.
“How did you know his name?” Focht asked.
“He is clearly not as good as you are, you still need to introduce yourself to me” Ryider answered like it was nothing special.
“My name is Antonius Focht, and Grey was right, this is not your planet. It belongs to the Emperor.”
Ryider laughed, but his laugh did not match his eyes, which where still fixed upon Focht.
“Aah yes, how is the old man doing? Still sitting on his rather expensive chair?”
Ryider laughed again as the cries such as 'abomination', 'blasphemy' and 'heretic' filled the air around him. Focht however did not speak, a hint of worry on his face. Was he possessed by Chaos, or simply an overconfident fool? When the cries of outrage died down Ryider spoke again.
“How long has it been since I 'found reason'?”
“If you mean by that how long it has been until you slaughtered everyone on this planet, the answer is 400 years. But how do you not know this?” Sergei inquired.
“The little one speaks” Ryider said amused “Well, little one, one does not normally live 400 years you know” Sergei did not flinch at the way he was addressed but simply replied.
“How rude of me not to introduce myself, my name is Sergei Denoi.” This struck a nerve. Ryider obviously had not been able to bypass Sergei's mental defences to find out his name. He immediately changed his behaviour to the small man.
“Very well, mister Denoi, let me elaborate. I am quite proud of my achievement anyway. Time, you see, is not the constant most people think it is. Look at the warp, you can spend only a few seconds in there and in the outside world a hundred years could have passed, or in my case, 400 years. It is all a question of perception. Have you never noticed time seemed to crawl along at a snale's pace when you where bored, and it fly by when you where having fun?”
“You have been in the warp?” Sergei asked alarmed.
“In a way, yes. I created a void shield around myself, not unlike the ones one your ship, and then  ruptured space to create a small layer of warp around my void shield, around that I created another shield to keep the warp in, and the physical barrier you just shattered. So in effect I was immersed in my own little piece of warp space.”
It all made sense now to Focht. The void shields and the warp where the void he and the others had sensed. It was that void that confused the astropaths in this region. Just one thing didn't add up yet.
“How did you know we would get you out?” Focht asked
“I didn't, at least, not you specifically. But someone eventually had to find me and set me free”.
“Quite a big gamble” Grey cut in.
“Not really. You can always count on man's curiosity. And speaking of curiosity, you have quite a lot of it Christian.” Christian stepped back a little, now fully aware of the presence inside his mind. It had been there since the beginning of the conversation he now knew.
“Get out” He whispered. Ryider only smiled, greed showing in his eyes.
“You know, I can see your deepest desires and fears. Funny enough they are almost the same with you. You want to experience the full power, you want to be at the same level your revered Focht is. However you are afraid as well, afraid to lower the barrier that keeps the power out.”
“Ryider, stop this at once!” Focht bellowed, but Ryider did not pay attention to his words.
“Shall we both explore the powers of your mind Christian?” Ryider asked in his most friendly and icy voice. At this moment Christian could only groan and he fell on his knees. Focht had enough and ordered the marines to open fire. Their bolter shells however got caught in in a wall of condensed air and fell to the ground harmlessly. Ryider wasn't even distracted.
“We only need to lower you protections...” Ryider whispered. Shortly after he said that Christian's nose, ears and eyes began to bleed. He let out a last shriek and fell to the ground, dead. Ryider turned away.
“Inferior. That was not very nice of you Focht, ordering your men to shoot at me”
“It wasn't very nice of you to kill one of my men” Focht answered coolly.
“He was clearly not worth the power” Ryider said with disdain in his voice.
“As for shooting at me, that I cannot let go unpunished”
“You are not in any position to punish anyone”.
“Did I not say that this was my world? I am in the perfect position to punish some one. Lets say all 21 who shot at me”.
There wasn't much noise, except the sound of 21 upper bodies hitting the sand, their legs following shortly after that.
“I always love using air” Ryider said smugly. “It can be formed into strong walls, or into sharp blades that cut through even the thickest of armour, psychically protected or not”.
But talking was now over, and Focht prepared himself for a fight, clearly this man could not be reasoned with, and had to be dealt with.             

3

Focht retreated into the calm of his mind so he could concentrate. He did not need to see he enemy to know what he was doing, he could feel the changes in the air, and in the ground. The adrenaline started flowing, his muscles tensed, he noticed the changes in the others as well.
“You have gone to far Ryider” Focht whispered. Ryider's calm was gone now, replaced by a mad anger.
“It is you who have gone to far, invading MY planet, disturbing MY peace! It is now time for you to leave!”
“You know we cant just leave, we came here to deal with you.”
“Deal with me, ha, you cant even deal with an angry butterfly if you wanted” And with that the conversation was over. Ryider lashed out with an electric whip, but Focht had been ready and easily blocked it with a shield of stone. He felt the air get colder and as he looked over he saw Sergei draw warmth from the air and form it into a fireball. He quickly formed his own rock spear and threw it at Ryider at the same moment Sergei threw his ball of fire. Ryder drew up a solid wall of air, deflecting the spear and ball, which hit two other psychers, killing them instantly. Ryider quickly retaliated with his own swords of air, Killing another of the psychers, but the other one was deflected by Focht. I already became clear this battle could not be won by physical means. While the others where still hurling bolts of electricity and fireballs at Ryider, Focht attacked his mind. Ryider could not block all, and his mind was relatively open, so Focht did not have much trouble getting in. When Ryider noticed it, he threw up a large air cocoon around himself and Focht, he felt this was the battle that needed fighting. The world around them changed as they both moved into the psychic realm of their minds. Focht was amazed at what he saw. It was not a chaotic desolation, but a nice green field with some trees, sunshine shining on his face.
“Interesting is it?” A form materializing before him said, it was Ryider.
“It sure is...unexpected” Focht answered.
“No lava, no ash in the air. I found it to much of a stereotype to use, and I figured this would unsettle you more then a hellish landscape.” Focht knew he was right, hellish landscapes he had seen while fighting chaos, this was new. Focht was thrown of balance so much his defences cracked, and Ryider jumped right in, sensing all of Focht's fears and ambitions.
“You are a scary one Focht...Happy where you are right now, no wish to rise to your full potential. That is what's wrong with you Imperial lackeys, no ambition at all, just serving.”
“So much potential, but so much fear to unleash it” Ryider continued “Why don't we open the door a bit to the warp, let you experience the full power, I know you want it.” A door appeared in the landscape representing the door to the warp Ryider mentioned. He walked up to it and grabbed the door lever.
“Lets see what behind door number one, shall we” and he pushed the lever down and tugged at it. Nothing happened. Focht smiled. “You said it yourself, I have no ambition to see what's behind it.”
Ryider was shocked, and Focht took advantage of it. The terrain suddenly changed. They where in an underhive, being the lowest of the low.
“How does it feel to be meaningless Ryider?” Focht asked. “How does it feel to serve?”
Ryider screamed and tried to lash out with his powers, but he was not in the real world and nothing happened.
“I will not serve anybody, I am lord!”
Focht reappeared besides Ryider, dressed as a drill-sergeant.
“Drop down and give me twenty!” He yelled, in his best drill-sergeant voice. Ryider was thrown to the floor, but he quickly got back on his feet.
“Never!” Ryider yelled “I will not serve!”
“Yes you will Private!” Focht, still with the same voice yelled back.
“No, I. Am. Lord.” Focht changed back to his normal form.
“No one will ever follow you, you will always be the lowest life form in the galaxy.” He whispered.
“Now kneel!” Ryider fell to his knees.
“No, no, its not true. I will rule” He whimpered, but his spirit was broken, his worst fears come true. He was to lead a life of servitude. Focht delivered the coup-the-grace.
“Now kiss my feet servant.” Ryider collapsed and Focht was thrown out of his mind, the air cocoon shattered. Ryider was lying on the floor, blood coming out of his ears and nose. He had resisted so hard, his mind had not survived the shock. Sergei was helping some of the wounded and looked up as Focht stepped out of the shattered cocoon. He was tired, the mental battle had drained him.
“Inform the colonisation ships the planet is ready for resettlement, and burn the bodies please.”
Sergei nodded and got to work. Focht walked to one of the vehicles and established a link to the ship. “We are ready for the next assignment.”