[F] Order of the Celestial Observatory - Adepta Sororitas
Repost with a slight change to the Order name after I was reminded of the slightly more important Necron Celestial Orrery!
This is a fan work piece of lore introducing a homebrew Order of the Celestial Observatory and how they use the stars to try and predict the God-Emperor's plan for the Imperium.
Two dozen sisters stood in the domed room, arranged around a central dais upon which stood Canoness Superior Katrina of the Order of His Celestial Observatory. She was attended by four others who moved about the platform and its various consoles and tables, making minor adjustments to their esoteric and ornate looking controls.
All were clad in their full panoply of war, venerable suits of power armour, their helmets mag locked down at their hips for now. Each suit was a hallowed mantle, heavy with the legacy of the women who had lived and died encased within their ceramite plates in service to the God Emperor of Mankind.
One more figure stood on the dais, unadorned by heavy armour but still wearing a robe that echoed those that were worn over the armour of every other woman present. However, where every other robe was currently void black, this one robe looked as though it had cut from the very vastness of space. A sea of stars and nebulae swaddled the figure’s slight frame and the hood of the garment covered her face. She stood at attention, eyes fixed on the working attendants.
So too did the Canoness Superior wait as the preparations were finally complete and each attendant stepped back to the cardinal points of the dais. The Canoness then made a slow turn, her eye taking in every upturned face from amongst the lower Canoness and the Palatines present. It was a rare face that bore no scars and there was none amongst them that showed anything but dutiful attention and a zeal that could be used to shape the very stars of the Imperium.
The chamber was nearly silent now, the minor whine of the many suits of power armour fading as each person settled, expectant. As the Canoness began to speak it was with the soft hum of the power packs on each sister’s back as the only accompaniment, the softest mantra of the Order’s eternal war to underline her words.
“We acknowledge only one, the God-Emperor of Mankind, above all others. We know his will to be the one true path for the Imperium. His voice, his words, even now shape the galaxy from Holy Terra. His will has set the stars in divine motion for those with faith to bear witness to.”
“We have faith” Came the response from the assembled dedicants.
“Sisters prepare yourselves, for such is the majesty of his holy dominion will it scar even the most devoted of us”
There was a brief pause as each person donned their helm, completing the seal of their armour with a soft hiss as the fixings locked in place. After replacing her own helmet the Canoness allowed herself to glance over to the lone robed figure who stood on the dais without armour. With her face now safely obscured she didn’t bother trying to hide the snarl of utter hatred that creased her face into something more feral than her sisters usually saw.
Turning slowly to ensure all could see her, the Canoness allowed herself a moment to bask in that righteous fury before mastering it and addressing the room once more. There were worse things out there than there were in the abbey. For now.
“The God-Emperor’s plan is written in the very heavens above! We bear witness and we will not be found wanting!”
She gave a quick nod to the robed figure who stepped forward and raised her hands to the ceiling above. There was a mutter of words from somewhere within the good and then something akin to a ripple rolled out from the dais. It tugged at the surrounding sister’s robes before climbing the walls and finally the ceiling. It was a barely perceptible thing, like a scanline on an updating dataslate but it was obviously wych work.
The sisters paid it little mind though, each was focused on the roof above. The lights of the room sputtered and then went out entirely. Then, slowly the quartered sections of the dome began to pull back revealing the vastness that lay beyond. Behind the plas-steel of the dome and its painted murals there was an almost impossibly thin structure of perfect glass. And beyond that, stars.
Placed at the top of the Order’s abbey, this observatory always looked upon a night’s sky. The rogue planet that was the Order’s home had been chosen for just this reason. Untethered to any solar system they were not blinded by any one light here. Instead they were bathed in the soft pinprick glow of a hundred million far away stars. More prominent than any one star alone was the slash of the Milky Way itself, mankind’s birthright. Nearly every woman here had seen the sight before yet not one among them could keep their breath from catching in their throat such was their awe.
As the shutters sank into their hidden compartments there came the sound of whirring gears and the hum of a much larger power plant that subsumed that of its lesser brethren. Great hemispherical bands of hold now swung up over the glass dome, each holding a lens somewhere along their length. The lenses varied in size, the largest the size of an astartes and the smallest akin to a sisters helmet. They held for a moment at the edges of the observatory until the robed figure raised her arms high and spoke more words that the other sister refused to hear.
The lenses quickly converged, becoming a single focusing array that projected a view of a star system light years away onto a table at the centre of the dais. The Canoness stepped forward, regarding the display briefly before begrudgingly nodding at the observatory operator.
“Start in the Segmentum Solar, include the Armageddon cluster.”
The figure spoke once more, words that caused great sigils to blaze to life on each of the golden bands and the lenses themselves to shimmer. They took on a film of iridescence that constantly shifted even if the observer stood still, rainbow bands of power chasing each other across the surface.
Somewhere, in a cruelly shaped cell below the sisters feet someone screamed as something began to be slowly ripped from them.
As she looked up upon her work, the figure's hood fell back. There, in the centre of the forehead was the eye of a Navigator. It was almost pitch black, along with her more human eyes, each looking as if it was dilated beyond all reasonable sense. Her skin was the colour of glacier ice and had a waxy finish, more signs of her obvious mutation. Yet here she stood, free in the very heart of an Order’s abbey. For she was the guide that was needed to see beyond the surface of what was into the ripples of the Immaterium that originated from Holy Terra, seat of His power.
She was a necessary evil.
The lenses shifted, refining their focus in both the real world and the Immaterium, and the image in the centre of the dais that had once been hazy now sprang into sharp focus. The colours of nebulae which had once been subtle now sang out in vibrant hues of blood and ocean blue. Still yet more incredibly the entire image began rising like a mist into the centre of the room for all to see. Overlaid now were the stars of the Imperium and the currents of the Immaterium in a single living celestial orrery and it was a terrible majesty to behold.
The Canoness spoke quickly now.
“Raise your voices now in supplication to the God-Emperor. The abominations of the Immaterium ever seek our downfall but with faith as our shield we shall not falter!”
The sisters surrounding the dais raised their voice in hymn as one. Even in their armour, shielded by ceramite and faith both, this was not a place a person could linger long. Least not one who wished to remain pure of body and soul. Even now could the light of stars be seen haloing those in the chamber. It rolled like waves over their armour, pausing briefly at any joint it found as it quested for a way in. The Navigator, despite being unarmoured, seemed unconcerned.
After a quick glance at the current view of the stars, the Canoness Superior began barking orders out to her attendants and the Navigator both. The view shifted as the Navigator worked her witchery, the great golden lens arms whirring as they followed subtle shifts in the light of the stars and the flowing and ebbing of power.
Simultaneously, the attendant brought over data slates for each of the relevant subsectors that the lenses passed over. Each was loaded with local reports and astropathic communication that had managed to be intercepted by the various ships that came and went to this remote outpost. Of them were the Order’s own ships, Inquisitors and the occasional Rogue Trader. A rogue planet was not an easy place to find though it was the only place suitable for the Order’s mission.
The surrounding sisters looked on, knowing the work that was being done would decide whose lives would be spent where. They were already to play their part in the God-Emperor’s plan. Eventually the Canoness’s commands slowed and the projection lingered over a particular section of stars. As they completed the final steps golden lines burst into life between the stars at the centre of the chamber and as they did a pattern was revealed.
Anchored in both the overlapping realities was a constellation that a curious mind might describe as the two doors of a large gateway in the middle of closing or opening. A heavy, ancient tome was consulted and when shut the Canoness addressed the room.
“His will has been made known to us.”
“Let his hand set the path”
“Sister, look upon the stars above and the gate through which a great evil will come pouring forth. We have been charged with stymying whatever force may come and blunting this spear aimed at the flank of His Imperium.”
She paused just a moment, looking across the faceless visors arrayed before her.
“I call upon sisters Alys, Ephren, and Syn and their forces to undertake this task.”
The three sisters stepped up to the dais before kneeling before the Canoness.
“Upon your shoulders is placed the yoke of fate. It is your duty, given to you by the God Emperor to see his Imperium survive these millennia of twilight until the golden dawn of His return”
An attendant worked at a console briefly and the central table upon which the projection has been resting sunk back into the dais, allowing the ephemeral orrery to sit at the same level as the sisters.
The 3 chosen commanders needed no further instruction, each stood and one by one they stepped forward through the captured stars and tame constellation that even now pulsed with the power of the chamber. As they passed through the projection they took part of the night sky with them. It burned away where it touched the ceramite of their armour but sunk deep into the dark cloth of their robes until each was adorned the skies above, reminders of His plan and humanities destined dominion.
The shutters of the great observatory began to close, its work done. As the chamber fell back into darkness his chosen warriors remained wreathed in the light of stars destined to die.