#vox corruption

It came through like a call that shouldn’t have been possible. Snorri felt it first—his helm vox flickering with an incoming link that carried a signature he recognized instantly, even before the system confirmed it.

Algeret. For a moment, none of them moved. Baggi opened the channel without thinking. Kolr’s head turned slightly. Herliefr went still in the way he did when instinct overtook speech.

The connection stabilised. And then— Breathing. Not steady. Not controlled. Wrong. Wet. Algeret tried to speak. The sound that came through was broken by something deep in his throat—wet choking, forced air, a body refusing to cooperate with command. There was no introduction. No code phrase. No report.

Just effort.

Snorri’s hand tightened slightly at his side. “Algeret?” he said, as if distance alone could fix whatever was happening.

A pause. Then a voice that barely made it through the suit systems. Not words, at first. Just fragments. A rasp. A sharp intake that never finished. Something wet shifted again—too close to the mic.

Kolr stepped forwards, half a step. “Algeret, report.”

Silence answered him. Then a sound like someone trying to laugh and failing halfway through it. Baggi’s expression changed—not fear, not yet. Calculation refusing to find purchase.

“Location,” Herliefr said sharply. “Give us your location.”

The reply never formed properly. Instead, there was a long, broken exhale. Something inside the line gave way. A wet collapse of breath and pressure and failing life support. For a brief second—too brief—the signal stabilized again.

And in that moment, they heard it clearly: Algeret trying to breathe through blood. Then nothing intelligible. Only strain. Only the sound of a body that was no longer winning the argument against death.

Snorri reached for the link instinctively. “We’re coming—hold—”

But the system didn’t wait. The signal flickered. Once. Twice. Then cut cleanly. No warning tone. No final message. Just silence. The vox channel remained open for another five seconds out of protocol redundancy—dead air stretching too long, as if expecting correction. None came. Then the line terminated itself. Baggi tried to reconnect immediately. Denied. Kolr attempted a direct override. No response path available.

Herliefr stared at the readout, jaw tight. “That wasn’t a drop,” he said quietly.

Snorri didn’t answer at first. His hand was still half-raised, like the conversation might resume if he waited long enough. 

Baggi finally spoke. “…He was alive when he called us.”

No one corrected him. Because the system log was already updating. It felt like things were going too fast and too slow at the same time. They were trying- desperately to try and find him. 

“We should try and chase after him!” Snorri says as he paces.

“And go where?” Herliefr snaps back, “He went for a walk out in the forest- that forest is huge. We could be lost in there for days and not find him!”

“Enough!” Baggi snaps out, “The machine just beeped - it should- hopefully give us more information.”

Last transmission: 00:00:05.

And after that, nothing at all. The moment the channel went dead, Baggi was already moving. Snorri scowls at it and smacks the machine- frustrated- that was not useful at all- just a timing- no coordinates.

“Trace it,” he said.

It wasn’t a request.

Snorri keyed his helm into diagnostics, fingers steady in a way his breathing wasn’t. Kolr dropped to a knee beside the nearest cogitator relay point, forcing a hard line into the barracks network. Herliefr stayed still—watching the system more than the others, like he expected it to lie.

The reply came almost immediately.

REQUEST: VOX TRACE — DENIED

Baggi frowned. “Again.”

Snorri tried. Different routing path. Secondary relay. Internal override.

DENIED

Kolr’s jaw tightened. “That’s not a standard failure.”

Herliefr stepped closer to the display. “It’s not a failure.”

That earned him a glance.

“What do you mean?” Baggi asked.

Herliefr didn’t look away from the readout. “The system isn’t trying and failing to trace it. It’s refusing to acknowledge the request.”

Snorri tried a third route—this time bypassing normal authorization tiers, pushing it through combat emergency protocol. For a moment, the system hesitated.

Then: 

ACCESS RESTRICTED — ORIGIN NODE UNAVAILABLE

Kolr straightened slightly. “Unavailable how?”

No answer came. Only a secondary line of text that shouldn’t have been there at all.

LAST KNOWN ORIGIN: NULL

Baggi stared at it. “Null isn’t a location.”

“It is when something’s been scrubbed,” Herliefr said quietly.

Snorri tried to force a physical trace through suit logs—helm handshake data, signal compression signature, anything that could be reconstructed manually. The cogitator- the Ancient Terran equivalent of one responded again. Slower this time. Almost… deliberate.

TRANSMISSION SOURCE: INTERNAL

Silence hit the room harder than the message had. 

Kolr blinked once. “Internal to what?”

No one answered him, because the system had already moved on. Snorri’s eye twitches a little as he growls at the machine. “You useless piece of grox shit!”

“Don’t break the machine.” Korl warns. “Then we will get into a lot of trouble.”

ROUTING PATH CORRUPTED

EVENT LOG INCOMPLETE

RECOVERY IMPOSSIBLE

Baggi took a half-step back from the console without realizing it.

“That’s not how vox works,” he said.

Herliefr finally looked at him. “Not normally.”

Snorri’s voice was quieter now. “Then how did he call us?”

A pause.

Kolr answered without wanting to. “…From somewhere something- or someone didn’t want us to see.”

The terminal chimed once more. They had been told that the machines on Ancient Terra weren’t as efficient- that this technology had its advantages and disadvantages that the tech they are used to in the far flung future doesn’t have yet. 

A final line, almost unnecessary:

TRACE ATTEMPT LOGGED

And then it locked them out entirely. Not crashed. Not broken. Locked. Baggi stared at the frozen display for a long moment. Then, very slowly: “…Someone just decided we don't get know where he died.”

No one argued. Because for the first time since the call came in, that wasn’t a theory. It was the only explanation the machine would allow. The cogitator display had gone dark. Not crashed—locked. A clean, deliberate severance that left the room feeling abruptly smaller.

Baggi was still staring at it when the Thousand Sons officer arrived. He didn’t announce himself. He didn’t need to. The soft, precise cadence of armor on deck plating was enough—measured, controlled, entirely unlike the tension in the room.

He stopped just inside the threshold. He took in the scene once. Four Astartes. Stationary terminal. Locked systems. Elevated stress markers across all helm feeds. His sigh was quiet, but unmistakably tired.

“…Again?” he asked.

Snorri blinked. Kolr straightened slightly. Herliefr didn’t move. Baggi slowly turned his head. The officer folded his arms. “I leave you alone for a brief operational window and return to find you clustered around restricted cogitators as though they have personally insulted your lineage.”

Baggi’s jaw tightened. “We were tracking a vox signal.”

“A vox signal,” the officer repeated flatly. “Or what you believe was a vox signal.”

Snorri opened his mouth- to say something- to defend themselves.

The officer held up one hand. “No. Do not begin. I am not interested in speculative emotional escalation at this time.”

That shut Snorri down mid-breath.

Kolr stepped forward half a pace. “We received a transmission from Algeret.”

That gave the officer pause—but only briefly. These four have been so much trouble- and that is not including Algeret who’s almost quadrupled the trouble on his own. Hearing that something happened to Algeret made his hearts sink a little. He had been… waiting for something like this to happen. Algeret’s personality- arrogance- and lack of care in some regards… Well it was all but inevitable with the enemies he accumulates like flies to honey.

“…And you immediately attempted to brute-force restricted system access,” he said, glancing at the locked terminal. “Of course you did.”

The amount of paperwork he is going to have to do because of this latest stunt- he is not looking forwards to it- at all. And there is only going to be more looming in the distance. Some of the teaching methods that Anrir had offered- had helped- somewhat for the foolishness- but not enough. He couldn’t teach or discipline those that wouldn’t listen and regarded him as not a person worthy of respect. Despite all that he is- has been doing to keep their sorry hides intact. No wonder the other Thousand Son had dumped them off on him. They are a fucking nightmare.

Herliefr’s voice was low. “We were trying to trace him.”

“And now,” the officer replied, “you have succeeded only in convincing the system you are a persistent security risk.”

Baggi exhaled sharply through his nose. “We’re not making this up.”

“I did not say you were,” the officer replied calmly. “I said you are escalating without authorization.”

He stepped closer to the terminal, eyes scanning the frozen logs. His expression didn’t change much—but something in his tone shifted slightly. More focused.

“This trace denial is not standard,” he admitted.

That got all four of their attention.

The officer noticed immediately.

“And no,” he added, cutting off the reaction before it could form, “that does not mean it is evidence of conspiracy. It means it is evidence of systems behaving outside expected parameters.”

Snorri frowned. “That sounds like the same thing.”

“It is not.” A pause. The officer turned back to them.

“You are Blood Claws,” he said, with the tone of someone repeating a known structural flaw. “You are designed to run toward problems and assume violence is the correct interpretive lens.”

Baggi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The officer continued. “This is not a battlefield yet. It is an investigation space. And you are contaminating it with assumption.”

Herliefr’s voice sharpened. “Our brother is missing.”

“And you will find him faster,” the officer said evenly, “if you stop behaving as though every locked door is an enemy soldier.”

Silence again. Heavy, but different from before. Controlled.

Then he added, almost as an afterthought: “Report this properly. Through command. Not through improvised system intrusion.”

A beat. “And stop breaking things I will later be required to explain.”

He turned to leave. Then paused at the threshold. Without looking back: “If your squadmate sent a transmission at all… someone allowed it. If he’s dead.”

That landed cleanly. Not comforting. Not accusatory. Just an observation that made the room feel colder than it had a moment ago. Then he was gone. And the locked terminal remained exactly as it was—silent, sealed, and refusing to say where Algeret had… might have died.

Baggi stands up, “Herlir, Kolr- go to the forest near Gannet Point- see if you can find Algeret.”

“And what will you and Snorri be doing?” Herliefr asks.

“We will be going to the security room and getting access to the cameras to find intel.” Baggi responds.