The Outcast Dead and Astropath Kai Zulane as they escape from The Vault
"The Outcast Dead, a dishonourable name for warriors, but a more fitting one than the last we bore."
- —Sergeant Tagore of the World Eaters
The Outcast Dead were a small group of Renegade Space Marines who belonged to the Traitor Legions and had been part of an Astartes honour guard known as the Crusader Host based on Terra. The Crusader Host was comprised of members drawn from all 18 of the Space Marine Legions. When news of the Warmaster Horus' betrayal of the Emperor of Mankind reached Terra on the frigate Eisenstein, the loyalty of all members of those Legions that had sided with Horus was considered suspect by the warriors of the Legio Custodes. The Custodes imprisoned these Astartes within a vast, underground Imperial prison complex deep beneath the Himalayan Mountains called The Vault. After breaking free and rescuing the Astropath Kai Zulane from The Vault and escaping from the prison complex, the Outcast Dead proceeded to fight their way across Terra in an attempt to escape back to their respective Legions. In so doing, they ultimately unleashed the secret help within Zulane's mind for which he had been imprisoned and which held the key to the future survival of the Imperium of Man in the wake of the Horus Heresy.
History
Great Crusade
The members of the Outcast Dead were once part of an elite Astartes honour guard called the Crusader Host which had been stationed on Terra. The Crusader Host was a unit of Space Marines that was composed of representatives from all 18 Astartes Legions and normally numbered at least 30 members. Although service in the Crusader Host was required on a rotational basis that all of the Legions had to adhere to, the Host was not required to have a member from each of the Space Marine Legions in its complement. The Crusader Host's main assignment was to act as an honour guard that patrolled the boundaries of the Imperial Palace while acting as representatives at the heart of the Imperial court for their respective Legions. The rotation of Astartes did not happen regularly, as some members of the Crusader Host had been away from their Legions for over 100 Terran years.
Horus Heresy
The Imperial Palace, which the Crusader Host helped to protect for most of the Great Crusade
During the early 31st Millennium, the Emperor's favoured son, the Warmaster Horus, fell to the seductive whispers of Chaos and instigated a galaxy-spanning civil war against the Imperium. Horus pited Primarch against Primarch and Legion against Legion. When the horrific news of Horus' betrayal reached Terra and the Emperor, the Crusader Host naturally came under suspicion of heresy and treachery. Under the orders of High Custodian Constantin Valdor, the Captain-General of the Legio Custodes, a "hunt team" of Custodes warriors was assembled to bring all the members of the Crusader Host to justice, by force if necessary.
Imprisonment
The hunt team sent to arrest the Crusader Host at their barracks, known as the Preceptory, was led by a Seer Hunter named Yagu Nagasena who worked for the Sisters of Silence in seeking out psykers for the Black Ships. Nagasena and his bondsman, Ulis Kartono, a bearer of the anti-psychic Pariah Gene, gathered a force of around 3,000 Imperial Army soldiers under the command of Major Maxim Golovka. The force consisted of Golovka's own Black Sentinels regiment, a regiment of the Attaman Janissaries, Lancers and a squad of Custodians that Golovko thought would be overly sufficent to bring 30 Space Marines to justice. Yet Nagasena remained unsure whether this force would prove to be enough.
Not wishing for any bloodshed, Nagasena and Kartono organised a meeting with Adept Exemptus Atharva of the Thousand Sons, one of the leading Astartes of the Crusader Host. Meeting at the doors of the Preceptory, Atharva made it clear that he and many others of the Crusader Host found it an insult that he had brought such a small force to apprehend them. Nagasena attempted to reason with Atharva and try to convince him and the Crusader Host that a battle was not necessary, to which Atharva agreed. While stating that he himself would not participate in any fighting, Atharva pointed out that the other Space Marines, especially the World Eaters, would not go down without a fight.
A battle shortly ensued, claiming the lives of 18 Astartes and hundreds of Imperial Army troops. The remaining 12 Astartes of the Crusader Host's suspect Legions were subdued, arrested and taken away to be imprisoned inside the most feared Imperial prison on all of Terra, which had been created to hold the worst war criminals of the Unification Wars.
The Crusader Host were taken to the underground, maximum-security prison complex buried deep beneath the Himalayan Mountains that was officially named Khangba Marwu, but was better known as "The Vault." The Vault had been created to hold Mankind's worst criminals. The Emperor had even designed some of its cells himself to hold his worst enemies, including a newly created cell intended ultimately to hold Horus himself. The surviving members of the Crusader Host were placed in cells in Primus Block Alpha-One-Zero where they were the only inmates. Their gaolers consisted of Custodians and elite Imperial Army drop-troops commanded by the Custodian Uttam Udar, who acted as the head gaoler for the entire facility.
During the many months that the Crusader Host were imprisoned inside The Vault, Atharva continued to behave respectfully to his gaolers and did not insult or threaten his guards in any way. Despite his seemingly serene behaviour, Atharva used his psychic abilities to scan and probe his surroundings and the minds of his gaolers. Despite the psy-dampners built into his cell, Atharva was easily able to reach into the minds of the normal humans that acted as his gaolers though he could not scan the minds of the far more powerful Custodian without detection.
Magnus' Arrival
While the Crusader Host was imprisoned inside The Vault, the Primarch Magnus the Red attempted to contact his father, the Emperor, to warn him about Horus' betrayal and his plans after learning them when he made contact with Horus in the Warp while the Warmaster was incapaiciated in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin, where the Chaos Gods, acting in rare concert, successfully corrupted him. Although the attempt failed and resulted in the Emperor despatching a force to Prospero to return Magnus to Terra for violation of the Edicts of Nikaea, the damage done to the Emperor's attempt to open up the Webway to humanity deep within the bowels of the Imperial Palace allowed Warp entities to launch an incursion into realspace on Terra. Although weak and easily destroyed, these Warp creatures passed on a vision of the ultimate outcome of the Horus Heresy into the mind of Aniq Sarashina, the Mistress of the Scholastica Psykana, before they were destroyed by Major General Maxim Golovko and his Black Sentinels. The vision included the knowledge that a true Imperial victory over Horus and the Forces of Chaos would prove impossible. Instead, the Emperor would be forced to sacrifice his own continued leadership of the Imperium in order to prevent Horus from claiming a total victory and damning Mankind to a servitude to the Ruinous Powers that would only result in the ultimate extinction of the human race. But the cost for this salvation would be terrible -- without the Emperor's active guidance the golden age of the Imperium of Man would come to an end and be replaced by an age characterised by religious superstition, technological stagnation, ruthless tyranny and endless war. Sarashina was unable to pass this vision on to the Emperor, as her exposure to the full power of the Warp was quickly killing her. Sarashina instead passed the information into the mind of the Astropath Kai Zulane. Zulane was unable to extract the message from his own mind due to his recent inactive time as an astropath. Because of this, Zulane was taken to The Vault by the Custodians for psychic interrogators to tear the information from his mind.
Although Magnus' attempt to warn the Emperor ultimately proved fatal for both himself and his Legion, it did allow Adept Exemptus Atharva to witness what had happened to Astropath Zulane and to understand that the knowledge inside Zulane's mind was of the upmost importance to the survival of the Imperium. While Atharva analysed this information, Kai Zulane was locked inside a cell within The Vault with two psychic interrogators, Adepts Hiriko and Scharff. Atharva quickly learned of Zulane's location using his psychic abilities. It was at this point that Atharva realised he needed to escape from his cell, rescue Kai Zulane and escape from Terra.
Escape from The Vault
During the crisis that unfolded after Magnus' breach of the Imperial Palace's psychic defences, the Custodians Uttam Udar and Sumat Tirtha were leading a group of elite Storm Troopers from the Uralian Stormlords Regiment to delivery food to the inmates of Primus Block Alpha-One-Zero. The first cell contained the imposing figure of Sergeant Tagore of the World Eaters. Tagore had been away from his Legion for around 100 years and had fought with his Primarch Angron from the very beginning of Angron's involvement in the Great Crusade. Like all World Eaters Astartes, Tagore had received psycho-surgery and cybernetic neural implants that made him more vicious and prone to fits of rage and violence. Tagore insulted and threatened his captors, stating his cell would not hold him forever. He held a particularly vicious grudge against the head gaoler, Custodian Udar, and had promised to "rip his spine out through his chest." The next cell contained Atharva who continued to not rise to the goading and sarcasm of his captors, remaining calm and quite. Atharva was in fact reaching into the minds of the Uralian Stormlords attempting to find a suitable mind to influence, as Atharva was not powerful enough to take actual control over someone's mind.
The Legio Custodes acted as the lead gaolers at The Vault
The mind most suitable to influence was that of Natraj of the Uralian Stormlords. Although loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium, Natraj wished he could leave the service of the Imperial Army to look after his wife and many children. Atharva psychically convinced Natraj into thinking he could leave the Imperial Army by shooting and killing his fellow gaolers. Natraj levelled his Plasma Gun and fired into Custodian Tirtha's stomach, killing him. Custodian Udar quickly despatched Natraj with the Master-Crafted Bolter on the end of his Custodian Spear, but this only instigated a fire-fight with the other Stormlord troops, who Atharva also psychcially convinced that Udar was an enemy. While Udar was occupied with defending himself from some of the most lethal and well-trained soldiers of the Imperium, Atharva psychically forced another Uralian Stormlord, Tejas Dozyna, to take the identification ring off the deceased Tirtha and use it to unlock the cell door of one of the prisoners.
Moments after Custodian Udar despatched the remaining Uralian Stormlords, Dozyna opened up a cell door allowing Tagore to walk free, who once again promised to rip out Udar's spine. Tagore and Udar then engaged in a vicious close-combat fight that saw each warrior suffer inhuman amounts of punishment and damage. Despite being separated from his armour and weapons, Tagore easily matched Udar's skill and training with pure barbarity and the savagery induced by his neural implants. While Udar was occupied fending off Tagore's brutal blows, Atharva psychically scanned Primus Block Alpha-One-Zero and determined who of the Crusader Host would be useful for their escape and rescue attempt. Atharva chose those who would be freed and psycjcially convinced Dozyna to free them. Dozyna freed Severian of the Luna Wolves, Argentus Kiron of the Emperor's Children, Urhu Gythua of the Death Guard, the World Eaters twins, Asubha and Subha, and finally Atharva himself.
Slowly but surely, Tagore began to gain the upper hand in his fight with Udar. Despite being armed and armoured, Udar was unfortunately not able to stand up against the relentless blows of an Astartes further enhanced by Angron's neural implants and psycho-surgery. Udar's death came when his Guardian Spear was broken in half by a powerful strike from the World Eaters sergeant, who used the lapse in the Custodian's defence to punch clean through Udar's armour and chest, ripping out part of his spine, just as he had promised.
Before setting off to rescue Zulane, the Astartes of the Crusader Host stopped to salvage weapons and ammunition from the fallen Stormlords and Custodians. Tagore picked up the top half of Udar's shattered Custodian Spear, Subha took a shard broken from the blade of one of the Custodian Spears, Severian took a large two-handed sword that became a mere gladius in his giant hands and Argentus Kiron took a Plasma Carbine. Atharva, Asubha and Urhu Gythua chose to remain unarmed.
Understanding that they could not escape the huge complex of The Vault with its myriad defences as they were, Atharva reached into the mind of the recently deceased Uttam Udar. Although dead, Udar's brain was still slightly active due to residual bioelectrical activity. Atharva retrieved and commited to memory escape routes, the complex layout, security codes and passwords, gun emplacement locations and the list of security forces and their numbers that served in The Vault. Atharva also learned that some doors and barriers required a retinal and voice command from Udar, so the Thousand Son decapitated Udar, apologising for the desecration as he did so.
Rescuing Kai Zulane
The Astropath Kai Zulane
In another part of The Vault, the Astropath Kai Zulane was constantly subjected to physical and psychic torture at the hands of Adepts Hiriko and Scharff. The torture was starting to take its toll, slowly and painfully withering the astropath's mind and soul. During the final bout of torture, Atharva reached into the mind of Adept Scharff and used all of his power to influence him into letting Zulane go free. This unfortunatley was not as easy as influenceing the Stormlords as Scharff was a relatively powerful psyker and had been trained in resisting psychic intrusions. Despite Scharff's resistance, Atharva was able to get him to release Zulane and attempt to throttle Hiriko. Hiriko managed to get hold of a hypodermic needle and stab her fellow interrogator in the eye, killing him, but was unable to stop Zulane from escaping as the Space Marines turned up before she coudl take any other action. It was at this point that the Astartes of the Crusader Host realised that they were outcast now from the Imperium they had once served, and Atharva aptly named them the "Outcast Dead."
Escaping the Vault
With Kai Zulane in tow the Outcast Dead proceeded to escape from The Vault. Atharva naturally took the role of the band's leader due to his knowledge of the layout of The Vault and the true reason why Zulane had to survive at all costs. During thier escape from The Vault, each Astartes' personality and characteristics became apparent to his fellow survivors. Atharva became the natural leader of the group, with his calm and methodical approach to all problems while Tagore managed to keep his obvious bloodlust and violent nature barely suppressed though even he recognised Atharva as the best candidate for command. Asubha and Subha, desptie being identical twins, were nothing alike. Subha, dubbed the "butcher" possessed a savage, violent streak; while Asubha was dubbed the "assassin" due to his ability to control his rage and the tactical approach to problems he took that was rare in a World Eater. Argentus Kiron and Urhu Gythua formed a close friendship; Gythua earned the nickname "Goliath" due to his size and ability to soak up fire without taking much damage, while Kiron continued the pursuit of perfection and beauty that defined so many of his fellow Emperor's Children. Severian became the loner of the pack, nicknamed the "Wolf" and choosing to fight on his own rather than alongside his brothers.
Shortly after rescuing Zulane, the Outcast Dead came across their first major set of defences, a 2 metre thick door surrounded by gun servitors and ceiling gun emplacements. Upon recognising the Outcast Dead as a threat, all the weapons open fired without warning. Luckily enough, all the members of the Outcast Dead and Zulane managed to place themselves flat against cell doors allowing them to hid from the fire coming from down the corridor. With a kine-shield protecting him from the las and solid slug rounds, Atharva slowly made his way forward to the door in front of him. Challening his considerable psychic power through himself into the decapitated head of Custodian Udar, Atharva managed to decativate the wepaons and open the door by using Udar's voice and retinal print to fool the scanners.
During their escape from the Vault, the Outcast Dead came across many more defences, from gun emplacements to squads of storm-troopers. Throughout thier escape, each marine of the Outcast Dead excelled in their skills and helped clear the corridors of all enemies. During ambushed set up by the goalers and gurads, Severian struck from the shadows before the trap could be sprung, when large counter-strikes came out of nowhere, Tagore and Asubha pushed them back with ferocious power and barbarity while Subha protected the weak form of Kai Zulane. When gunfire filled the corridors, Kiron took down his foes with well place headshots from his plasma carbine and when the Outcast Dead became pinned down by substantial firepower, Gythua waded through shots, barricades and men alike, seemingly unharmed from taken so many hits and finally Atharva deactivated and open all doors using Udar's head and his identification ring.
Fighting and killing their way through numerous guard details and gun servitors, the Outcast Dead and Kai Zulane eventually made it to the entrance of the Vault, and out into the open air of Terra for the first time in many months.
Flight across Terra
The joy of finally escaping from the Vault was soon replaced with the need to once again escape and a large and growing force of Imperial Army was approaching the entrance to the Vault, ready to take on any threat they met. Atharva quickly anlysed the situation and summarised thier only chance of escape was to use a Cargo-9 air-cutter and fly across Terra. Upon boarding the air-cutter, Asubha boldly states he could 'fly it in his sleep' and quickly starts it up and takes off just as the first squads of Imperial Army reach them and start firing.
Once in the air, three Firelance-class fighters were scrambled to track the air-cutter and shoot it down. Flight Leader Ptelos Requer flew the lead fighter and commanded the sortie aboard the Eastern Light, with his fellow pilots Tobias Moshar and Osirin Falk flying the Promethean Ark and the Twilight's Fade respectivly. The fighters easily catch up with the relativley slow air-cutter, and are soon within missile range. Requer has the priviledge of being flight leader and acquires his target first, and goes to launch his missile. Just as Requer goes to fire at the air-cutter, Atharva reaches into his mind and influences him to also acquire a lock on his fellow pilots. Although Requer shoots down his wingmen, he unfortunatley also manages to launch a missile at the air-cutter. Shortly before the missile strikes its target, Atharva manages to influence Requer into flying his fighter into the side of a mountain, killing him.
With the air-cutter's wing and rear end badly damaged from the explosion caused by the missile, Asubha has no choice but to attempt a crash-landing on the nearest flat piece of land.
With the need to recapture the Outcast Dead and stop Kai Zulane from potentially taking his message to Warmaster Horus, Yagu Nagasena once again formed a 'hunt team, composed of Ulis Kartono the assassin, Major General Maxim Golovko, Adept Hiriko, Custodian Saturnalia and Astropath Athena Diyos, reinforced once again by Golovka's Black Sentinels.
Petitioner's City
Asubha manages to crash-land the air-cutter into the Petitioner's City, a huge, ramshackle city built in the shadow of the Imperial Palace. The original inhabitants of the Petitioner's City had travelled from all over Terra to pass into the Imperial Palace and see the Emperor. With a such huge influx of people to hold, the Imperial Palace could not sustain all the immigrants, escpecially during the time when the Emperor was off-world fighting the Great Crusade. Becasue of this, a mega-city was built next to the Palace to hold all the immigrants. Built from any material available, the enitre city is an amalgamation of many different styles of buildings. The enitre city is rundown and most of its inhabitants live in poverty, waiting for the day they are finally called to have audience with the Emperor of Mankind.
The Petitioner's City is ruled over by a particularly brutal gang called the Dhakal Gang. The members of the Dhakal Clan are huge brutes who run the city through fear and violence. It is beleived that even the Legio Custodes do not venture in the Petitioner's City, so Dhakal Clan can rule with an iron fist without any problems from law enforcement. The Dhakal Clan is led by the biggest and most feared member, Babu Dhakal himself. Babu Dhakal was once a mighty warrior who fought for the Emperor during the Unification Wars under the name Arik Taranis. Dhakal and his closest warriors are all Thunder Warriors, the genetically enhanced predecessors of the Astartes. Unfortunatley for Dhakal and his men, their bodies are degrading at quite a rate, as the technology used to make them was flawed and riddled with inperfections that forced the Emperor to start again to build the Primarchs and thier Space Marines. Believed extinct after the culls that followed the end of the Unification Wars, Dhakal and his Thunder Warriors hide within the Petitioner's City, attempting to find a way to halt their bodies from degrading.
Known Outcast Dead
- Adept Exemptus Atharva of the Thousand Sons - Killed by Primarch Rogal Dorn
- Sergeant Tagore of the World Eaters - Killed by an Imperial Army Major General
- Battle-Brother Subha of the World Eaters - Killed by a warrior of the Legio Custodes
- Battle-Brother Asubha of the World Eaters - Killed by a warrior of the Legio Custodes
- Battle-Brother Severian of the Luna Wolves - Alive and suspected to have gone into hiding on Terra
- Battle-Brother Argentus Kiron of the Emperor's Children - Killed by a Thunder Warrior
- Battle-Brother Orhu Gythua of the Death Guard - Died as a result of multiple injuries suffered in the course of the Outcast Dead's escape
Gallery
Sources
- The Outcast Dead (Novel) by Graham McNeill