Well of Night

“The greatest gift Mankind is blessed with is an inability to conceive of its true place in the universe—that of a pitiable shred of matter lost in an endless sea of crushing darkness—a gift without which the entire species would have slit its collective throat at birth. –The Arch-Heretic Elak Sarda

The Well of Night is a stellar dead zone surrounding the Jericho Maw-Warp Gate within the Jericho Reach, named by the first Imperial probe ships that passed through the side aperture of the Warp Gate. Since the start of the Achilus Crusade, it is surrounded and guarded by the Iron Collar.

History
An immense swathe of chill nothingness devoid of stars or worlds, the Well of Night is empty wastes broken only by drifting invisible dust clouds of particulates that can shred hull armour as surely as a missile salvo and deadly null-energy reefs that can leave a ship floundering and powerless before the merciless cold void. At the heart of this killing darkness, seemingly static and unmoving, stands the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate aperture.

Since the Warp Gate's discovery, repeated attempts have been made to fashion a permanent base in proximity to the Jericho aperture. This has met with repeated failure, both due to the transitory perils of the Well of Night itself and the infrequent but deadly gravitic distortions and energy waves put off by the gate.

As a compromise, the Adeptus Mechanicus maintains a warship, usually of no less than cruiser class, on rotating a station near the gate aperture to monitor it and serve as a relay point for ships transiting through. Although the nominal tenure for these ships is ten months, it is rumoured in Imperial Navy circles that no single vessel during the last decade has lasted more than seven months before having to send for relief and quit its post thanks to hull degradation and mounting damage. In fact, an orbital dock above the Forge World of Lathe-Het in the Calixis Sector is now set aside permanently to attend to this ongoing need for repair.

Suffice to say, once passing through the Warp Gate, ships seldom tarry long in the Well of Night before travelling on under normal warp-drive to their selected destination.