Space Marines - Background Primer

"They say the Emperor is dead and gone."

Orrel looked up from his drink, startled at the forcefulness of the comment. He looked around the dingy bar, soaked in the sepia dust of Logan's World, scanning the assembled flotsam as one would look through a book of old daguerrotypes.

A merchant, dressed in ragged, and no doubt stolen, Mordian Iron Guard officer's finery, was looking directly at Orrel's Inquisitorial pendant, a melancholy expression fixed on his face. "They say the Emperor is dead and gone," he repeated.

Orrel realized that this was a roundabout method of addressing him. He blinked. "They're wrong," he said wearily. This was, of course, the official line, and just the fact that the Inquisition had an official line on the topic was concerning.

The merchant scoffed, a little too enthusiastically, and Orrel knew that he had been looking for such a response. "My friend Anton said he was raided by Fenrisian pirates, and that he only barely lived to tell of it." His eyes shifted uneasily.

"If the Space Wolves indeed attacked your 'friend', you can rest assured they had good reason." Orrel had heard these rumors before, that the Sons of Fenris had gone feral and were prowling the space lanes and raiding weak outlying settlements. His superiors assured him it was unthinkable, and patently untrue. Orrel himself was not so sure. He turned to the merchant, and fixed him in a steely gaze. He let his pendant dangle visibly, the better to remind this man of the heresy he spoke.

The merchant was unfazed, and now a crowd had gathered. "That's bullshit," he said. "Anton showed me the vidbox, and they were the Wolves, all right. He said that his first mate got his head bit clean off by an eight-foot frothing lunatic."

This was beyond the pale. The rumors were circulating, people were talking, but he was still an Officer of the Inquisition, and it was his responsibility to maintain order and root out heresy. He stood.

"What about Inquisitor Lothario? They say he founded a New Empire on Fauston," Someone yelled before Orrel could speak.

Orrel's eyes grew wide. "That is ludicrous," he stammered.

"I crewed on a ship the other day," another member of the group said almost conversationally, "and the Navigator was saying that the Astronomican was short these days, and that he had to use private beacons to get us to Molov."

"The Drinkers burnt my uncle's hive to the ground, a million people, and slaughtered them as they ran to safety," a drunk in the back shouted. "What kind of Emperor would let his soldiers do that?"

"A dead one, of a gov'mint what don't care none for its people," the merchant growled.

The room erupted into a low, angry buzz, the patrons talking amongst themselves, their malice rising, and Orrel knew it would come against him soon enough. He decided it was time to leave. He swept his long coat aside, revealing a power blade sheathed at his side.

"To listen to rumors and hearsay is to weaken one's heart," Orrel said in a loud, clear voice. "I can offer you no assurances of our Emperor, for He is a creature beyond my or your ken." He put his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"What I can assure you is that His servants are real, very real, and will not suffer this heresy to stand." Orrel glared menacingly at the merchant.

"Hmph." The merchant shrugged, and the anger in the room lowered to a simmer.

Orrel strode quickly out of the bar, making note of its location for later cleansing. His brow was furrowed. In a month, he surmised, such an encounter would end in bloodshed.

Whether the Emperor was alive or dead, His domain was falling apart.