Capture Company Argus

**Capture Company Argus**, known also as **Recovery Company**, is a organized fleetbound force subordinated to the *Shadowkeepers* of the Adeptus Custodes, the stalwart guardians of the Emperor of Mankind and gaolers of His darkest secrets and most dangerous prisoners.

Ordinarily charged with the vitally important task of standing eternal vigil over the Dark Cells deep beneath the Imperial Palace on Terra, the need to recover and imprison new eldritch terrors from the depths of Old Night is a task that is never quite done.

## Broad History

Among the endless human mythologies of the countless worlds of the Imperium, there are stories of the apocalyptic wars of the gods in whose aftermath terrible weapons are left upon the desolate battlefield for the gods' inheritors to find. The end results of their inevitable rediscovery was a world already plunged into violent anarchy and environmental collapse made infinitely worse by the abused powers of those lost gods and devils of ancient science.

Unbridled and recklessly potent human science had unlocked myriad potentials within the human genome as well as releasing forbidden technological terrors upon humanity as it suited the whims of the scientist-kings of that lost age. At the height of Mankind's power, it would give birth to the ultimate of the dread technologies of that era; Thinking Machines. Artificial Intelligence.

It was the greatest of these ancient sins which gave rise to the Argus Company. A great premonition by the Imperial Doomscryers saw a mighty threat rise in the Galactic Northwest, deep within what would someday come to be known as the Ixaniad Sector, and the The Calyx Emanation therein. In a display of urgency nearly unheard of, a vast host was assembled to contain the technological apocalypse making ready to tear forth unto the galaxy. The entirety of the Dread Host and the three ships of the Moiraides assembled in force along with the entirety of the Pyre Warden Chapter of Space Marines, an entire Grand Convocation of the Hephaestian Forge working in tandem to a Grand Convocation of Mars itself, three whole regiments of the Imperial Guard, the Inquisitorial Conclave of the Carnidian Subsector, and a demi-legio of the Legio Kreuzius. In an unheard of alliance, Necrontyr of the Kyoptek Dynasty lent their technological expertise as the Horrors of the Dark Age encroached into their territory. A whirling maelstrom of star-spawned plagues and nightmare flesh bent on consuming all in their path. Biomechanical monstrosities and void-parasites of such scale and hideous reach that they could not truly be bested even in exterminatus. Upon the costly defeat, five keys were turned and a codex authored, a watch-lock of such dread provenance, that it was born back to Terra where a portion of the Dread Host underneath Shield Captain Arminius Uremedes and his chamber immediately took the colours of the Shadowkeepers where they stood a watchful guard for many long millennia. In their duty, many Custodes under the Company of Arminius traveled back and forth across the stars to stand vigils and do maintenance to the critical locks.

## Taking to the Stars

The status quo would remain for nearly 4,000 years, the company under Arminius moving back and forth to the Emanation to maintain their duties, maintain their vigil, and take other duties as needed. The primary additional orders given to the Custodes was to give attention to secondary threats along their transit route. During a stint as *Lockwarden* of the Shadowkeepers, a name that is borne in perpetuity and garners solemn respect from every other member of the Ten Thousand, Arminius Uremedes took it under his authority to send out waves of strike teams to bring back lost artefacts and rumored terrors, and succeeding in many of these ventures. The growing scope of these threats allowed Arminius to conclude that the recovery of these dark things would require his own attention.

Relinquishing his office of Lockwarden to the next incumbent in the early years of M37, Arminius called for Custodians willing to take the trials of the Shadowkeepers and set off into the void. Finding over a dozen additional volunteers to bring their number to over twenty Custodians, the Company departed to distant regions of space upon advice of his close friend Nathulis, then of the Emissaries Imperatus, who received a vision of the Emperor. While abroad to contain the threat, Arminius encountered the monstrous Xenarch xeno-empire. In ambush, the Cathedral Terra took a point-blank shot from a well-aimed lance shot while persecuting the frenzied void war. After this, he took twenty of his Custodians for a successful decapitation strike upon the xeno flagship. It is said that Arminius' stalwart second, Magnus Keithgarde, ripped the Xenarch's admiral's head and spine from her body in one go.

## Current Day

The Argus Company has a long record of highly successful operations; their technique is without flaw and their means of capture esoteric and grounded in tried and true principles. From the blackness of space do they arrive clad in ashen midnight to crush a foe beneath the auric boot of the Emperor, and depart back into that same blackness. Prior to the opening of the rift, the presence of the Argus Company was a bare whisper within the annals of the Terran bureaucracy; a sign of hidden actions able to be contained. With the opening of the rift and the vanishing of so many dread prisoners of the Black Cells the veil of secrecy of many hidden units of the Custodian Guard was drawn back. The chaos of the age grows ever greater, and the entirety of Mankind's mightiest warriors must rise to the call of their vocation.

### Notable Campaigns

* 839.M39; Neifdorf Quieting; A siren call crept out from the Neifdorf System, spreading through the void like sound waves bouncing from the distant cold stars. A miasma that overtook individual planets, swathing them in a fog of mental tendrils before blowing away like a snuffed candle. Its influence wrapped through the minds of highborn and industrial peasant alike to join all in promises of unity. It whispers promises of wealth, power, and divinity, each meticulously crafted to reach the ears of the all who heard it; human, alien, and otherwise. Upon the surface of Neifdorf Primarus, the Shadowkeepers of the Argus Company descended upon the world, finding it utterly transmogrified. A nightmare world of chaos fused technology and warped animus. Machine Minds dredged up from the lost dark age and fused into atrocities of warp spawned madness. In ancient chains of chronometric science, the mind cores were torn out and dragged back to Terra forevermore.
* 998.M41; The Suppressed War; In ages past, a great calamity was averted only by the alliance of foes and disparate Imperial strength. A bound wickedness named by the Mechanicum of Hephaestia in Gothic parlance as ‘Heretek Omega’, a descriptor of a fatally dangerous tech-blasphemy of the highest order; a sin of the Dark Age of Technology which cannot be allowed to continue to exist. Intelligence of inhuman acumen seeking to break the stasis locked bonds of amalgam technologies. It was silica anima. The Blasphemy of a true machine-mind. Dark Powers and alien foes sought to unmake the millennia old prison for their own ends, either ignorant to the threat or wanting to propagate it, and nearly succeeded. The unmakers accessed the machine, and made to turn it off, releasing the abomination within. The Custodes accessed the machine, and with the Epoch Codex, engaged its full functions once more. The shields burned out in a blinding storm of actinic light and the abominable intelligence’s screams reached a hypersonic climax as its corporeal code-form was deconstructed and bound back into the arcologies of The Machine. The Calyx System was a forbidden and dead system once more to which humanity would never ever return.
* 008.M42; The Death of Magc'Sithral; The Argus Company briefly was reported at the edges of Warzone Luxor, intervening only to dock with the stricken craftworld and the Custodian inhabitants cut a swath of destruction into one of the arcane reliquaries of the Aeldari. In the midst of their propagated slaughter, the Gatemarshal held brief concordance with Magos Emerik, master of the Hephaestian invasion force. Their assignment a mystery, and a strange technology was taken into their custody before the company departed as swiftly as it had arrived.
* 009.M42; Doom of Karramas;

## Fleet Composition

The Capture Company is comprised of three ships, each one under the command of one of the leaders of the host; Gatemarshal Arminius commanding the *Cathedral Terra*, Gatecaptain Magnus in command of the *Raptorus Aeternum*, and Gatecaptain Nathulis in command of the *Solar Blessing*.

### ***Cathedral Terra***

The **Cathedral Terra** is a warship of the Imperial Household in service to the Shadowkeepers of the Adeptus Custodes. A jailer ship intended for hunting expeditions lasting solar years or decades under the auspices of **Captain-Commander Arminius Uremedes**. Like all of the Custodes' warships, the Cathedral Terra has no standard class designation, though, it has the mass of a Grand Cruiser. A unique vessel of pre-crusade provenance, this ship is thought to have been one of the earliest vessels laid down in the orbital yards of Luna, and its design speaks of its majesty of itself and its occupants. Entry hangers greet visitors with lintels of heavy brass and sculpted reliefs of ancient heroes, and weapon barrels and vanes are as ornate and gilded as they are potent. Many worlds have welcomed such a vessel into their orbital docks or felt the touch of its world burning fire, and so few have lived to see it depart with dread cargos in tow.

### ***Raptorus Aeternum***

The **Raptorus Aeternum** is a warship of the Imperial Household in service to the Shadowkeepers of the Adeptus Custodes, a might war vessel intended for swift movement and support operations. More maneuverable than the parent ship, Cathedral Terra, the Raptorus has run down and annihilated hundreds of vessels during the millennia of service to the Imperial Household. Under the Command of Gatecaptain Magnus Keithgarde, the ship sails at his behest and supports the captaincy of his lord Arminius. Like many vessels of the Custodian fleet, the *Raptorus Aeternum* has no standard class designation, though can roughly be aproximated to the mass of a cruiser. While the vessel shares some superficial similarities with the venerable *Lunar-Class* Cruiser, its design is far more elegant and robust, as if it were a forerunner or an expansion upon its design; sweeping and artful where the *Lunar-Class* is brutalist and pragmatic. Weapons of arcane provenance stud the hull, and the prow is a striking reminder of Imperial Power; a great eagle in adamantium, closed wings and twinned heads representing the covering shield of the Emperor's sight.

### ***Solar Blessing***

The **Solar Blessing** is an advanced warship of the Imperial Household fleet intended for swift and decisive action. The Solar Blessing is notable for being constructed in the Lunar Docks specifically around its engines. Known to be one of the fastest of the ships of the Imperial Household fleet. Its Plasma Reactor and drives had been heavily modified by the Terrawatt Clan to allow for much more rapid acceleration in realspace than the starships of the base class. Roughly analogous to a Cruiser in mass, this swift vessel makes use of its incredibly powerful reactors to mount two Nova Cannons which can be fired in alternating sequence. Used as a messenger vessel and herald ship for the Emissaries Imperatus, this vessel is unique in design, almost bladelike in form, and is capable of deploying squadrons of lifter craft, bulk haulers, and interceptor fighters.