![]() ![]() As the stars around him steadied he felt the swelling tide of sickness recede, and sighed faintly with relief, misting the viewport ahead of him for a moment before the environmental unit’s machine-spirit recognised and compensated for the minute increase in humidity. He took a deep breath of recycled air, stinking of old sweat and flatulence, and triggered the attitude jets of the tiny shuttle, steadying the slow tumble that had begun to trouble his inner ear. In his time as an acolyte, and latterly as an interrogator, he had discovered reserves of mental and spiritual fortitude that still occasionally astonished him, but no amount of physical courage or faith in the Emperor could quell the rising nausea that assailed him every time he found himself in open space. PROLOGUE Astra Incognita: the Halo Stars 41 Pieter Quillem felt sick, a sensation he was depressingly used to, despite years spent in the service of the Inquisition: a calling which, in the very nature of things, tended to strengthen the stomach by repeated exposure to abominations that would have left a more sensitive soul reeling. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. ![]() To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants-and worse. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bioengineered super-warriors. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperors will. Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. ![]()
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