#lost crew

Things keep happening in my life, lately, so I haven’t even been able to draw or stream as usual 😭 I was sick for a while, and then I got caught trying to finish projects and meet deadlines. I hope to start streaming art again soon, but I haven’t found the time yet. Sorry to my regulars!

But I finally finished this comic from MONTHS ago. It’s so silly that it took me so long to finish, but in my defense… I hadn’t opened the file until yesterday lol

In other news, I have also been toying with the idea of streaming regularly on Fridays… Since I got a capture card, I thought it’d be fun to play BoTW together. (I’d probably do this on Twitch.)

[YouTube] [Ko-fi]

Individual panels below 👇

<meta anomaly-type="warp-exposure-confession"> <script> ARCHIVE_TAG="WARHAMMER_40K::ENGINEER_REPORT::CLASSIFIED_FUCKERY" EFFECT="laughter, fear, genital regret, warp-induced mirror phobia" TRIGGER_WARNING="radiation exposure, servitor horror, off-screen body theft" </script>

🛠️ MISSION REPORT: I WAS JUST A WARP DRIVE ENGINEER

This log is unauthorized. I am not supposed to be writing this.

But I have to. Because you need to know.

My name’s not important. My rank? Non-senior warp drive maintenance tech. Just another grease rat making the god-machine run.

But here's what they don’t tell you in Mechanicus orientation:

If you write this, you die. If you speak this, you vanish. If you think too loud, they promote you to plasma fertilizer.

Or worse— they assign you to female barracks as a pleasure servitor. With a permanently vibrating rod where your dick used to be.

Yeah. That kind of trouble.

But I’m writing this anyway.

Because what happens inside warp ships? Isn’t just science. It’s fucking sorcery duct-taped together with imperial faith and denial.

You think we understand warp travel?

We don’t. We’re winging it.

All those big, confident orders from the bridge? All those “stellar-calibrated” jump trajectories?

They’re guesses.

Educated guesses dipped in holy oil and blessed by a priest who doesn’t know how physics works.

🚨 Here’s what they don’t say out loud:

Warp travel isn’t reliable. Warp travel isn’t safe. Warp travel isn’t travel.

It’s rolling the dice with reality and hoping the Eye of Terror isn’t blinking that day.

And that’d be fine if we were all 8-foot-tall genetically sculpted demigods running on gold-plated protein paste and jizzed into existence by the Emperor himself.

You know the ones. The big chads. The thunder-voiced murder-angels who could drink plutonium through a bendy straw and shit out silicon daggers while flexing.

But I’m not one of them.

And neither are you.

We’re regular-ass humans. Joe Grunts. Janitors. Welders. Engineers. The people who actually keep the fleet floating while praying we don’t get telefragged by some demon dickworm when the warp opens like a rotten zipper.

Here’s a fun fact: Every ship doses you with the radiation equivalent of a kitchen microwave on tantrum mode. Constantly.

You’re basically living in a cosmic tumor accelerator with plumbing.

Did you know that?

No. Of course not. Because you didn’t read the small print.

Because you were too busy kissing your service bonus and telling your mom you'd “see her after the next run.”

You won't.

Wanna hear something worse?

I’ve seen crew just not be there after a jump.

No alarms. No screams. No blood trails. Just missing.

“Acceptable misplacement,” they call it.

ACCEPTABLE. MISPLACEMENT.

Like they left their body in a cargo bin and forgot to tag it.

But I’ve seen things.

Things we haven’t named. Things we can’t name because anyone who sees them doesn’t finish the sentence.

One jump, they said we were “clear.” “Totally clean warp event.” “We beat the drift,” blah blah.

But I saw them.

👤 A few MIA’s. Walking. Shuffling. In the darker corners. Of engineering. Of the waterline crawlspace.

Wrong.

Too quiet. Too smooth. Too mirrored. Like someone was trying to recreate their body from a description given by something that doesn’t have bones.

One turned. I swear to the Throne, it turned like a meat puppet on strings.

Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t stop.

I ran.

I wasn’t brave. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t take samples.

I ran because whatever that was had too many teeth in places that don’t open.

I filed nothing. I spoke to no one. Because speaking gets you flagged.

And flagged gets you “reassigned.” Or “accidentally ventilated.” Or “donated to the tech-priest autopsy internship program.”

We’re told to trust the Machine God. To bless the sacred cog. To pray before every jump.

Let me tell you something:

No god worth worshiping makes you breathe recycled fear through warp-peeled lungs while your fingernails grow wrong.

Since I got back groundside?

I haven’t looked in a mirror.

Not once.

My reflection’s been off.

Too fast. Too slow. Too… curious.

It looks at me like it’s waiting for me to catch up. Or get tired. So it can step forward first.

You ever feel your smile stretch one beat too late? That’s the warp residue. That’s the part of you that didn’t come back alone.

I don’t sleep well anymore.

I hear static in my dreams. I see hands reaching through reactor vents. I feel air where there shouldn’t be air trying to crawl inside me.

The Mechanicus won’t admit this. The Inquisition sure as fuck won’t. But I’ll say it:

The warp is not a route. It’s a predator.

And we keep feeding it by pretending it’s a tunnel instead of a mouth.

If you’ve been lucky enough not to jump yet—

Don’t.

If they tell you it’s safe—

They’re lying.

If they say “Just this one run, the cogitators are stable”—

You run.

Or you’ll be like me.

Grounded. Rattling. Haunted by your own face.

And praying your reflection never blinks first.

📜 Archive Protocol: “Never enter the warp. It’s already inside you.”

🧠 Read more blacksite warp confessions, field logs, and heretical truths at: 👉 https://linktr.ee/ObeyMyCadence 🛡️ Blacksite Literature™

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For seven years I spoke with God. He told me to take us all to Heaven.

Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Toward the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, Let them go! Let them go! Sand and stone and pool and dell. Fare you well! Fare you well!

Saying goodbye like this was something he never wanted to do. Planting so many markers would have been impossible, so they had taken this time to inscribe the names of all of their fallen.

The bonfire blazed, giving the marble obelisk a bloody cast, as it should be, really, with even the fire remembering the blood spilled. Family members - those who’d had family, anyway - stood around, adding their pieces of pitch-soaked wood to the fire. Saying their last goodbyes.

Even Captain Daniel Conaroy’s eyes couldn’t stay dry. These had been men and women who’d counted on him to take them to their delivery port, and back home to their own beds. They’d needed him to bring them home, and he couldn’t even bring home bodies to their families. The guilt hung thick around his shoulders like a water-filled yoke, bearing him down, and down.

Guilt for failing his crew, even though it was something he’d had no control over, and could never have stopped. Something that their two mages and shaman couldn’t calm. Guilt for leaving his Sabine, and causing her pain. Sorrow for each of his dead crew, who he’d hired personally, and watched grow over the years into a competent family.

Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight.

His voice, as the families or his remaining men dropped their burning brands into the fire, rose from a quiet, almost strangled sound, into something that flew on the sparks into the sky. All could hear the grief in his voice, where true tears were something he’d keep till he was alone, the aching in his voice gave some relief to those gathered.

The song was normally sung with gusto, being a simple travelling song, but Daniel’s voice gave it such an intensely sad tone that they wept. They all wept as they’d needed to. Not the harsh sounds that feel as if one will die of their grief. No, these were the tears that began the healing process. These were the tears that helped to truly let the sorrow out.

He sang of longing for home, of adventure, and those we’ve passed by. It was slow, and solemn, for there was nothing about this night that could call for any joy. There was nothing but the fire and the song to bring relief as the stars wheeled overhead.

There was only the grief of loss, and the survivors’ guilt at living while those they’d loved now rested at the bottom of Mother Ocean, food for the life there. There was only the darkness, and the yearning for the lost.\

Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade! Then world behind and home ahead, We´ll wander back to home and bed. Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, And to bed! And then to bed!

The last aching strains of the song rose into the sky like the embers that danced above the fire, taking their wishes to the Beyond - whatever lay there after life has faded - and to those they’d loved. 

The Captain had been slowly trying to die since they’d returned, and Sabine had reacted as she did. Not that he truly blamed her, of course. But his men were home, and he’d found them employment that fit their temperament. He’d found them places to live. 

He’d brought them home. His job was done. What else did he have?

He’d resisted this memorial when it was brought up, but when the men had brought the families together, and gathered the bonfire materials... well, what could he say then? 

So he’d agreed.

As he sang, he decided. He was going to live, goddamnit. He was going to live for those of his crew who hadn’t. He was going to live to provide for the families who’d lost a husband, father, or son. He would live for his men who’d already lost so much.

He would live, and live well.

I started this one some time ago, but I finally got back to working on it last week.

Made in 2018, I revamped this old set of comics last year in October. My plan was originally to print it as a zine, but my printer is very unreliable, haha. In any case, I hope you enjoy.

Solstice has never had anyone she could rely on before. She grew up poor with a single mom and was left mostly to her own devices. When she got into the bounty hunting business, she prioritized getting to the top over everything else. So having people who care about her is an entirely new experience for her.

Individual panels below 👇