After first contact with the Eldar fleet, the Cursed Echo escaped over and over again, under the control of its navigators.
Two days after its first emergency jump, the Cursed Echo sailed back to the true void, only to find a group of Eldar cruisers waiting quietly near the asteroid belt.
Cursed Echo can only jump again, avoiding the path of enemy fire in a twisted arc.
It rolled and dived, breaking out of the material world and entering the relative safety of subspace.
Three days later, it broke away from interstellar travel and drifted towards the center of the Tempest Sector, only to find that five Eldar cruisers were already circling the route.
As the Cursed Echo approached, the alien spacecraft adjusted the angle of its sails and detached itself from orbit to intercept the Eighth Legion warship.
They had to run away again.
As it exited the Warp for the third time, it was not slowed down by the Eldar blockade.
Echoes of the curse surged in the icy tide of real space, and the sides of the ship sang in the darkness, screaming and spitting fragrance at the alien spacecraft.
Skirmishes broke out in the process, and the Eldar warships banked and turned with uncanny grace as their solar sails were shattered by pulses of weapons from the Eighth Legion.
The Cursed Echo won a battle it could not win, concentrating all its retaliatory firepower to trap the xenos warships in the asteroid field long enough to force them back into the Warp.
But then, the fourth, fifth, and sixth times, each successive appearance encountered stronger resistance, and at the same time they flew farther and farther away from their intended route.
"They herd us like herds!"
Sirion said as he returned to physical space for the eighth time, to which Talos just nodded.
"I know."
"We can't get to the Great Eye, brother, they won't let us go. You knew that beforehand, didn't you?"
"I know."
"No wonder you are so insistent on a change of course."
One week passed safely, and then they stumbled through the second week, but by the third week...
The cursed echo once again broke through the crazy clouds. It rode the purple lightning and agate-colored smoke all the way back to the material world. This time, it did not stop briefly and then enter the cracks in the subspace, nor did it stop to collect their location and direction. Scan for enemies.
This time, the cursed echo returned to reality and continued to accelerate, its engines honking fieryly.
The battleship moved forward among the psychedelic colors of the nebula, deep into the huge gas cloud.
Talos ordered the engines to continue roaring and push forward at maximum speed.
"There are no Eldar."
Cerion looked over the scanner.
Talos then said:
"Go full speed ahead and bury the ship as deep into the nebula as possible."
When the attendants began to chatter, the chief priest suddenly shouted.
"Lord Talos, urgent——"
"Scanner jammed."
Talos interrupted calmly.
"That's why we're here, I know, Commander."
Today, the First Claws gathered around the central throne to spend the night with their leader, and one by one the surviving Night Lords made their way to the command deck, staring up at the eye monitors in silence.
The continued pursuit of the Eldar made everyone highly nervous.
Several hours passed.
Talos occasionally took his eyes off the stars and glanced at the tactical hologram.
For a long time, holographic projections showed nothing but stars and a gas planet spinning in the void.
"How long?"
Talos asked.
"Four hours."
Markusen walked past the bow weapons console and looked down over the shoulders of the seven uniformed officers stationed there.
"Four hours and thirty-seven minutes."
"The longest one yet."
"so far.
The Prophet sat forward in the ornate command chair, the Blood Angels' golden sword resting on one arm of the throne, his own bolter on the other.
It was a massive dais made of heavy black bronze, with the throne itself extending from the central podium overlooking the rest of the command deck.
Talos had always known that the mentality of most of those above him was one of standing above his fellows in the Blood Pact.
But the prophet didn't think so.
If anything, he felt separated from his loved ones, and it wasn't a comfortable feeling.
"I believe we are safe."
Cerion said tentatively.
"Don't say that."
Talos answered, shaking his head.
"Don't even think about it."
Cerion listened carefully to the sound of the podium, which had its own unique melody: the friction of levers, the murmur of servants, the thump of boots.
"You should take a break."
He then said to Talos.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"I do not remember."
"You're kidding me."
The Night Lord looked shocked.
Talos turned to Sirion, his pale face tensed and his dark eyes dull with sleeplessness.
"Do I look like I'm kidding?"
"No, you look like you died and forgot to stop moving, it's been three weeks now, you're so stupid, Talos...go, rest, I'm here."
The prophet turned back to the eyeball display.
"Thanks, not now, unless we escape."
"What if I call the Skinner to teach you a lesson?"
"Valiel has already told me about this."
Talos sighed regretfully.
"He had diagrams and everything, and he even wrote down the stresses in my head in great detail, citing numerous examples of the mobility restrictions that would result from depriving a soldier of sleep for two weeks."
"Very good lecture on physiology. I sometimes think he forgets that you are a pharmacist."
Talos didn't answer. He kept looking at the stars on the eyeball monitor.
three weeks.
The Seer thought, not having slept since the endless chase began, the Eldar disappearing from the void just hours after he killed the Astropath.
How many times have they been in and out of the Warp since then?
How many times had they returned to real space only to find another Eldar fleet waiting for them?
three weeks.
"We can't keep running, Sirion. Octavia will die if we continue like this, we will be trapped, and we will die in the end."
Cerion looked up at Reuven's bones that were crucified.
"I almost regret you killing the wizard, his power should be a boon now."
Talos turned his weary eyes to his brother, and something like amusement shone in the dark depths.
"Maybe, but then we'd have to endure his endless conversations."
"well said."
As soon as he finished saying this, an alarm sounded on the deck. Everyone was united and there was "joy" on the deck.
"Damn pointy-eared thing!"
"They found us."
Amidst Sirion's curses, Talos leaned back weakly on his chair, his voice now a tired whisper.
"Yes, they found us again..."
Then, he pressed the button of the communicator
"Ottavia, I'm Talos,"
