Ajax had begun to read the entire collection of tomes the Truth's Razor had in it's complement regarding the nature of the warp, psychic powers, and the manipulation of warp energy. The information was lacking. The Imperial Truth, the 'lie' promoted by the Emperor, decried the occult and the supernatural. It ostensibly sought to reform human society into a society where rationalism and science reigned supreme. Ajax drew parallels between the idealized society of the Imperial Truth and the Republic described by Plato. In Plato's Republic, the republic was ruled by philosophers and a philosopher king. Ajax felt a chill run up his spine as he realized the Emperor probably saw himself as such a philosopher king. It smacked of the arrogance and overreach that were principal amongst the Emperor's many flaws. The original sin of the Imperial Truth, and why it was doomed to fail, was that it was not the truth. Ajax agreed with many of the principles and the goal behind it, to protect humanity from the corrupting powers of chaos. However, the Imperial Truth was built like a stack house of cards upon the bedrock denial of the arcane and mysterious. Without it's foundational tenet, many ardent adherents of the Imperial truth became it's most ardent opponents. The Emperor was not able to build enough protections and safeguards to prevent important members of the Imperium from being 'enlightened' by the truth of reality, which caused these members to throw the good of the Imperium out along with the lies. His hamfisted regulation of knowledge regarding psykanium only delayed the inevitable, and it really screwed Ajax's research goals.
Out of frustration, Ajax began to aimlessly scan through the Archivum's collection of books, when he noticed that there was a large collection of un-catalogued tomes in various xenos languages that had been captured by the Dark Angels at some point in their early Crusade battles. There was little to no information about the books, since no one could translate them, except for where and when they were captured. Ajax selected some at random and they were brought over to his table by a small host of servo-skulls floating song with their suspensor fields. He was a little surprised that they weren't busy helping others. He looked around and realized the Archivum was essentially empty.
Checking his chrono, Ajax realized he had been in the library for ten Terran-standard hours. Shrugging he looked through the selection of tomes for something useful. Reading the titles Ajax looked for one that suggested it might be useful. We Have Always Been Fungus. 'Nope, only useful for Orks or maybe the Slaugth.'
The Screaming Alphabet of Lierx'tyul'eth. The book screamed when opened and rearranged it's text to insult the reader. Ajax chucked that one across the Archivum.
Unclean But Delicious: A Culinary History of the Kroot. An interesting but unhelpful tome that gave recipes that made use of almost every xenos Ajax had ever heard of, and some he hadn't. It also had quite an amusing philosophical treatise on the morality of eating sentient species, which the book's author was very in favor of.
The Worm Speaks: A Romance in Seven Dimensions. This tome just made Ajax want to throw up, both from the seven dimensional physics and the cheesy, worm love story.
Ten Thousand Exquisite Flayings: An Artisan's Compendium of Mon-keigh Unraveling. By Archon Yllithar the Vivisectionist, Flesh-Painter of the Obsidian Coil. Ajax's eyes felt like they were on fire each time he looked at the book, especially the grotesque diagrams. However, Ajax felt that it was a good tome to keep, as it would show him every minute section of the body in excruciating detail. It would also be a good way to exercise his willpower, which would become critical as he continued his journey in the psychic arts.
In the Horus Heresy, humans would become the greatest enemy of other humans, so it would serve Ajax well to know how to take other humans apart and deliver pain to them. Finally, Ajax found a book that seemed unambiguously pertinent and helpful.
Silence in the Stream: A Seer's Resonance. Ajax checked the info on this tome. The Dark Angels had captured this tome from the libraries of Craftworld Iriathar. The Dark Angels had swiftly defeated and destroyed this small craftworld in early years of the Great Crusade, but not before looting all the knowledge of the declining species contained within it's libraries. The only reason this tome remained untranslated and left in this Archivum to rot was because it seemed to be written in an ancient form of the Eldar Language that few humans had probably mastered. This dialect seemed to come from the very first craftworlds that left Eldar society before the Fall and the birth of She Who Thirsts. It seemed to be a treatise on how Eldar were supposed to rediscover the lost path of the Seer the eldar had given up on in their hedonism. Looking at his chrono, Ajax took the Dark Eldar book and the Eldar Seer's tome with him. He had to grab a couple hours of sleep before 10th company's formation. Ajax left the Archivum with the two tomes and returned to his billet. He passed out before he hit the mattress.
BANG
There was a loud crash and ringing in his ears. Looking around the cabin of the shuttle, Drogant saw cracks in the hull leading straight to the void. The atmosphere in the shuttle had fled in less than a millisecond through the huge rents in the hull. Drogant could feel the speakers in his void armor shaking, but he couldn't hear anything over the incessant ringing. Drogant looked over his shoulder and saw a fragment of hull had sliced Silma Yorr, the quiet former techno barbarian grenadier, in half and pinned Jast, the former arms smuggler who had helped Kjarrick improve his marksmanship, to the back wall of the assault shuttles' cabin through Jast's throat. Jast was still twitching as his blood had frozen the hole in his void armor shut, but that had just led to Jast drowning and gurgling in his own blood.
Drogant felt a hand firmly grasp his shoulder and spin him to face the door of the cabin. He still couldn't really hear anything, but he saw Sergeant Tundr shouting through his faceplate and gesturing towards the hole in Tharsis Station's hull. Halvek and Kaedra had pushed in through the hole into the station and were trading fire with distant figures in void armor. Kjarrick moved forward, seemingly without even intending to. He took cover next to Halvek, as the shotgunner fired at the enemy force. Halvek ducked into cover to reload. Kjarrick immediately opened fire to maintain suppressive fire on the enemy. It felt like he was watching a stranger puppet his body. He was reacting to combat exactly according to his training, he didn't even have to think. He only reacted. Sergeant Tundr took cover next to Kaedra behind a support beam that jutted out into the hallway they were fighting in. With Sergeant Tundr adding his arc shotgun to the suppressive fire, the enemy really kept their heads down. Kjarrick and Kaedra had the freedom to more carefully pick their shots and they each took out two enemy soldiers with headshots. The rest of the enemy squad retreated down the hall and made a turn out of sight, a few died to Sergeant Tundr's arc shotgun as they ran. Drogant turned to Halvek to say something, but, when he turned to Halvek, all he saw was a headless corpse lying on the ground next to him. Halvek's blood had painted the back and left side of Kjarricks void armor. His head had been turned into blood mist by a large caliber round. The ringing in Kjarrick's ears seemed to get even louder.