Salient Pacification

The Battle of Plenty Valley, M.31

Thirty bikes raced across the southern desert, dust and grit pluming up behind them. The riders were Astartes, save for the two, the lead bike being a two-man pattern starters bike with a sidecar and heavy bolter strapped onto it. On that bike rode Arnulf Wode, newly-minted Primarch of the Tenth Legion, and his longtime companion, Saul Imogen, who manned the heavy bolter, which seemed comically large for the smaller human.

The run had been quiet for the most part, the small kill team moving under cover of night and resting during the day under chameleoline, auspex-resistant tarps to avoid detection. Imperial Army orbital augur scans had confirmed something large and mechanical was traipsing around the southern desert, a machine so large and so densely protected even concentrated orbital lance strikes had failed to kill, or even wound the unknown archeotech weapon.

This, however, had merely confirmed what Wode and the naturalized members of Salient had known through legend for years, that there were technological horrors roaming the sands that had made vast swathes of the desert uninhabitable, as the devices would spring from the sands without warning and wipe clean any efforts to colonize these parts of the planet. The merchant houses had, over the years, attempted their own crusades to lay low these ancient horror-devices, but had always ended in failure, the graveyards of tanks and men dotting the desert scant evidence of these failed punitive measures.

With the arrival of the Emperor and his Astartes however, a problem that was inconvenient politically for the Merchant houses became top priority for the fledgling conqueror that was the Primarch of the 10th legion. As steward of Salient, as leader of the Pact of the Lance, these Dark Age techno-horrors had to finally be brought to heel.

Thus, this kill-patrol, this attack swarm. The merchant houses had tried open warfare without success; the giant war-machine roaming this stretch of desert more than equal to even the most lavishly equipped armies. Imperial tacticians had tentatively agreed when Wode suggested using a small team of warriors to board the device, which resembled something like a giant, mechanical snake or worm, and find some weakness in its insides that could be used to kill it.

He had, of course, volunteered for the duty, as had Saul, and most of the newly-minted Pact marines. The team had eventually been decided by lottery, with only Wode and Saul being confirmed by seniority.

The radio in Wode’s ear crackled. He wasn’t wearing the specially forged armor his Father had brought him, instead opting for simple tanker fatigues and a carapace vest. He wore a radio headset pressed over an abused and wrinkled field cap, and Saul wore similar. The rest of his team was wearing the lavishly protective armored plate of Imperial space marines, so they didn’t have to shout over the wind noise like he did.

“Getting somethin on ‘spex, father.” A deep voice rumbled in his ear. “Looks big. Might be our target.”

‘Bearing?” Wode shouted.

The astartes listed off a direction, and Wode ordered his bikes to to re-align and pursue. The device - it had no name as far as anyone knew, and the idea of recognizing it with a name seemed to disgust the strange, half-mechanical priests of Mars - was below them, traveling along a valley that had ironically been named the Valley of Plenty.

In truth, this valley was no such thing. A stretch of sand that was, at best, deprived, and at worst, actively hostile to life, it was of little value to anything alive. But, it was narrow, and the sides of the valley gave the team a way to drop onto the top of the beast. The team gunned their bikes, gaining speed, going as fast as the compact fusion engines pushing the bikes along would go. The device was sliding through the bottom of the Valley, kicking up a vast gale of sand and stones that pittered off the armor plating of the bikes with a sound like rain.

Wode keyed his radio again, looking for the frequency of the orbital ships of the Imperial Army.

“Lord?” The voice on the other end asked, choked by static and distortion.

“Son, I need a lance strike on grid…” Wode listed off the grid reference. “We’ve got eyes on the Device and we need it to stop so we can drop onto it.”

“Roger sir. Our lances have been primed and waiting. You’ll have your strike in…” His voice trailed off into a blast of static.

The night sky was pierced by a bright white beam of energy, creating a hole in the cloud cover and striking the earth in front of the vast machine, throwing up a mushroom cloud of smoke and sand that would be visible for miles around. The machine howled, a sound that seemed like a frustrated scream to Wode, coming to a stop in front of the newly created, glowing-hot gully that halted its progress.

The team stopped above the creature, laying their bikes on their kickstands and removing their weapons. Saul climbed onto Wode’s back, as the drop would’ve been long enough to kill him unaided. With a nod, Wode dropped down onto the hull of the beast first, the other Astartes falling in behind him with loud clanks, their mag-locked boots securely clamping them to the ferro-steel construction of the archeotech device. Wode crouched, allowing Saul to hop off his back onto the ground. At five feet, the human looked like a child compared to Wode and his gene-sons, clutching a Salient-pattern autogun, but the primarch trusted Imogen with his life.
His own sons, as callous as it sounds, were still relatively unknown quantities.

“Start looking for an entry point.” Wode growled to his team, “A hatch, a void we can cut into, anything. I don’t want to be topside when this thing starts moving again.”

“Here, father.” A rasping voice sounded over Wode’s shoulder. That would be Markus Vulf, then, the mutilated old-timer that had, if the Legion rumours were true, participated in the unification of Terra. A lot of his legion had, the veterans at least. Wode wasn’t sure what to make of that, inheriting soldiers who had claimed loyalty to his father long before they’d known who we was, but most seemed loyal enough.

Wode walked over to Vulf, the Lancers around them parting to their Primarch could go through.

“What d’you got, Optio?” Wode said, referring to Vulf by his rank.

“Access hatch. Locked, but-” Vulf said, but was cut off. Wode had pulled a bolt pistol from his belt and put a shot through the hatch, shattering the locking bar beneath. He wrenched the miserable piece of metal off of the hull of the beast and threw it away, the hatch tumbling to the desert hardpan below.

Wode and Vulf locked eyes, and Wode grinned. Vulf was wearing his helmet, but he laughed, rasping into the local vox push.

“After you, Father.” Vulf said, “Age before beauty.”

It was Wode’s turn to laugh, as he jumped into the hatch. He fell a few feet, landing squarely on his feet, then caught Saul as he jumped down. The Lancers followed, twenty-nine of them. They had landed in some sort of hangar bay, completely empty and covered in dust and rust. Whatever this was, it was unused by the device, having been long forgotten even for storage.

“Spread out.” Wode said, holstering his pistol. He unslung the shotgun on his back, racking a fat shell into the chamber. “We’ll use this room as a staging point. Volunteers, c’mon. I need five men to hold this room while we look for our objective.”

Five assents rapidly followed, and five Lancers took up defensive positions, bolters held ready. Wode and the rest strode towards an access hatch facing north, and opened it, striding forward along the device’s length. Fates willing, they’d find some sort of enginarium they could sabotage, but if not, there was always the kilometer or so of machine behind them.

As the kill-team walked along the capillarial maintenance trunks and arterial passageways, the sense that they were in something alive became more and more apparent. The temperature took on a humid, warm sensation, condensation beading on the walls. Wode stopped the kill-team briefly, coming to a halt to read the hull numbers in an effort to get some sense of direction besides ‘north’. His hands brushed a trunk of hydraulics hoses and he recoiled, his hand snapping back as if bitten.

“Arnie?” Saul said, looking at his hand, then up into his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yea, I…” Wode flexed his fingers, looking at the hoses. “Feel those. The hoses. Tell me what that feels like.”

Saul looked at him, puzzled, then felt the trunk. His eyes widened.

“They’re warm…” He recoiled, “And it almost feels like a pulse…”

Wode motioned to one of the Lancers near him, and took the knife from the Astarte’s belt. He cut into the hose, and brown-orange fluid seeped from it. It was oily, viscous. He put some on his fingers. It didn’t seem to burn him, but it was warm, almost hot. He sniffed it.

Promethium oil and… he sniffed again.

Blood.

Wode wiped his hand on his fatigues. He gave the Lancer his knife back.

“Father?” The marine asked. “Is everything alright?”

“No.” Wode remarked. “I… let’s go. Whatever this thing is is unlike any machine I’ve ever seen.”

“Goes without sayin’.” Vulf said from the head of the column. “This is techno-blasphemy most foul.”

Wode motioned them forward again. “It’s definitely an affront to -something-. To what remains to be seen. C’mon.”

As the party moved forward, the sensation of life became more apparent, more pronounced. Small robots skittered along the passageways, repairing damage, or simply traversing the walls or ceilings. The team ignored them, as the robots seemed intent on ignoring them. When the machines stopped to look at them, it had an animal feeling, like being watched by a cat, more than being scanned by a machine.

“If this thing is alive…” Saul said, “And those hoses, those are the arteries and veins.”

“Right.” Wode said, not really wanting to consider it, but tired of the silence.”

“Then the robots, they’re like the platelets and red blood cells, they fix the damage to it.” Saul said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

“One shouldn’t think of these things too hard, human.” Vulf rasped, “They can drive a man insane.”

“Let him.” Wode said, “He may stumble on something that will let us kill this thing.”

“My question is, then.” Saul continued, “What’s the white blood cell equivalent? The antibodies? We’d be an infection then, wouldn’t we?”

Silence passed over the party, itself an answer to the question. Gunfire erupted into their commlinks.

“Contacts!” The voice was from one of the Lancers that had stayed behind to guard their entry point. “Coming in through the north and south hatches!”

“Kill ‘em. Single shots as they come through.” The Optio of the section responded. “Father, we have hostiles.”

“Report, then. Organic? Mechanical?” Wode asked.

“Both. They’re human, sir, but they’ve been extensively modified.” Another bolter shot rang through the link. “Like servitors, but…”

“Can you hold them?” Wode asked.

Silence met his question.

“Optio, answer me.” Wode growled, “Can you hold them?”

Laughter answered him, female, manic. It screeched into their commlinks, the volume and frequency of it disturbing on a basic, primal level. It made their stomachs churn even hearing it, and then it cut off. The lights cut out in their passageway, replaced by red emergency lighting. Sirens blared.

The Lancers began to fire as targets appeared, not even bothering to call out targets. The bolters were deafeningly loud in the cramped causeways, the muzzle flash blindingly white. They were shooting at… humanoid figures, with human features, but the proportions were wrong. They hand long legs and arms, the toes and fingers ending in wicked claws. They had no faces, the skull a cavity that had two pinpricks of light emanating from it. They howled as they came on, folding as .75 caliber bolt shells punched into them.

“You said something about the antibodies, Saul?” Wode shouted, shooting his shotgun, the blasts drowning out even the rak-WHOOSH of the boltguns.

Saul changed mags on his autogun, the barrel red-hot. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Arnie.”

“Push forward!” Wode bellowed, “If this thing is alive, it has to have a brain, or a heart! We find that, we kill it!”

The Lancers responded, using the weight of their fire to push up through the causeway. Although they could only fit two abreast, with Wode shooting over them and Saul shooting between them, they managed an intricate formation where the lead two Lancers would fall back as their guns ran empty, pressing against the sides of the causeway as the column moved past them, reloading their weapons and taking up rearguard. It was a peculiarly caterpillar-like motion, but it worked, and they made progress.

As they moved up, Wode’s nose began to bleed. He could feel something scratching on his scalp, his skull, but everytime he pressed his hand to his head, there was nothing. The feeling got stronger and stronger as they moved up through the bowels of the machine.

The scratching became whispering, then a voice.

“What is this, crawling through me…?” the voice whispered. “A new host? You seem worthy…”

Wode gritted his teeth, pushing shells into his shotgun. The revenants seemed to have stopped their attack for now, for whatever foul reason their logic worked by. Wode spoke out loud in response to the voice.

“A new host?” He growled, wiping the blood from his nose. “I’m your killer, whatever you are.”

“Are you…?” It sounded amused. “You don’t seem to be. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. I was promised a new host, a strong one, and you are quite possibly the strongest I’ve seen yet…”

“-Fuck- your promise.” Wode snarled. Saul looked at him like he was going insane, and for all he knew, Saul was right. “You’re about to learn what disappointment is, you bitch.”

“We will see, Arnulf Wode.” It tittered. “That’s not your real name, you know. You weren’t supposed to come to this planet. You were part of a deal, a deal that was reneged upon. I intend to fulfill it, and my reward, oh, my reward...”

With that, the scratching sensation on his skull stopped, the voice absent.

“Arnie, who were you talking to?” Saul asked. The Lancers, for their part, were too professional to let themselves be distracted by their father as they bounded and held, but they clearly were curious as well.

“This thing, I think.” Wode said, “It doesn’t matter. The sooner we kill this… horror, the better.”

“Read my mind, Father.” Vulf said, reloading his bolter.

They continued on, before reaching another access panel. Vulf tugged on the panel, confirming it was locked, then called a Lancer forward, who sparked a fusion torch. Wode felt the scratching at his skull again.

“Let me.” He said. Vulf looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded. Wode touched the hatch, and pulled. It opened, without so much as a squeal of tortured hinges. He stepped through, and the hatch slammed close behind him. He could hear the anvil-blows of Vulf hammering on the hatch, then the hiss of the fusion torch. Then, gunfire.

His team wasn’t part of this thing’s deal, and they had served their purpose of delivering him. He sneered at the hubris of this monster, this archeotech demon that had lurked the southern wastes for millenia waiting for… the Lord only knew. Well. If it thought mind tricks were enough to save it, then it would be sorely mistaken.

He walked forward into a cavernous chamber, the ceiling and floor not even visible to him. The space was split by a lonely catwalk that he strode upon, his shotgun held ready. There was a light at the end of the catwalk, pulsing, white, warm. He followed it, the scratching becoming louder and louder, until he swore it was flaying the skin from his scalp. His nose bled freely.

“There you are…” It cooed, “Come to me. Come to meeeee… Join me, become one with me…”

It whispered coyly, seductively, beckoning him to it like a concubine beckoning an emperor to their bedchamber. His body reacted, his pulse quickening, his skin becoming warm, itchy. He was sweating, rivulets of sweat running down his skin, pooling in his boots, his socks soaked through. His men were shooting, cursing, dying on the radio, and there was nothing he could do, nothing except approach the light, approach the warmth that threatened to swallow him.

He entered it. It was warm, wet. He pushed through it, elbowing, striking at it, the voice laughing, bubbly and bright, in his head. He emerged out the other side, his body shaking with the psychic pressure on his mind, on his body, threatening to fold him like a cheap table. He looked up.

The nexus of this machine, this device, was fleshy, organic, a wet, meat chamber of veins and skin and mass that turned mechanical the farther it got from the center. Polyps were suspended all over the mass, hanging like heavy fruits from tree branches, and as he looked up, one opened, dropping a human figure to the ground. It was a woman, one of the most beautiful he had ever seen, despite being covered in viscera and amniotic fluid.

She stood up, her skin light brown, her hair black, her eyes brown, and she strode towards him, confident, smiling. She seemed so familiar somehow, his mind recognizing her, but no name, no face came to his memory. Other polyps sprouted, creating similar women, all of them the same as the first. When they spoke, they all opened their mouths in unison, but only one voice entered his mind.

“There you are.” The voice cooed, “Delivered to me, as promised. Come, take your place. My benefactors can grant you anything your heart desires, and so much more.”

“Who are you?” Wode spat, “What are you?”

“Don’t you recognize your sister?” The bodies spoke, “You were built to be compatible with her. Is she not enticing? I can be anything for you, you know…”

The masses of bodies began to change, all except for the first woman, who retained the sister-shape, as it called it. The others formed a vast variety of women, of all shapes, all colors, and in species other than human, some Wode recognized, some he didn’t.

“Your father broke his arrangement. His agreement. You and your siblings were scattered across the galaxy because he couldn’t play by the rules he agreed to.” The voice was venomous, hostile. “But you, you can make it right. Join me, and share in my gifts…”

The scratching, the pressure increased, but Wode stood, his legs shaking. He lashed out at the press of warm, inviting bodies, his fists killing everything that they struck. Laughter rung out in his mind like the bell tolls of the damned as he killed, but he wouldn’t be stopped. The forms the mass had created were weak, even the one of his supposed sister-primarch. He waded through them the way a man might wade through a high river, his body covered in their blood. He was screaming, incoherent, his rage and his disgust all consuming, rejecting the influence on his mind.

“No, NO!” The voice screamed, “You’ll kill me! This is your last chance! Accept my offer or die! The fates are sealed! I am your last chance to live!”

He focused, his face a painful rictus of hate. This seemed to hurt the voice, and the mass, more than any physical weapon could. Flesh withered at his indomitable will, his hatred of this profanity of life itself. When he got to the tower of flesh in the center, he tore into it, biting, ripping, and the scream in his mind got louder and louder. He tunneled through the flesh, tearing as he went, soaked in gore, not able to see but able to hear a beating heart, a pulsing that he dug towards in an inconsolable rage, a gross parody of intimacy.

He clutched the beating heart in his hand, and he crushed it. The voice stopped, and everything went black.

----

In the coming months, the history of the horror-device of the southern wastes would be wiped from Imperial record, and the survivors of it’s purging sworn to silence. When the team that killed the beast emerged, blinking, into the desert sun, they ordered the Imperial Army orbital elements to bombard its corpse, now devoid of its ability to protect itself or heal itself for three days with lance strikes, ensuring nothing of the foul creature remained.

Eventually, even the craters of the bombardment filled with sand, the Battle of Plenty Valley was over.

High orbit of 20-63
Strategium of the Redemption

Three thrones had been arranged at the back hall of the Doomsayer's camera arcanum, fit for demigods to lounge and gaze upon the holographic image of Praxia below. An entire wall had been dedicated to the effort, with a far more practical display of relevant strategic information projected from a hololithic tank in the center of the chamber. After pomp and ceremony, Daena's mind had turned to the work that was before them - the true work of rooting out the cause of this insipid insurrection. To that end, she had kept her own members of the war council to a minimum.

The Legion Mistress and Mistress of the Forge of the XIVth needed little introduction, both Vairya Kurus and Elise Hohenheim attending in full warplate that made no secret of their rank or station. More strange were the two men in attendance, one unaugmented and the other clearly Astartes. The mortal man wore the uniform of one of the Emperor's scientists and resembled Elise albeit on a far smaller scale, and was introduced as her twin brother Gustav. The odd man out wore plate marking him as a member of the Pact of the Lance, the Angel breezily explaining that she had chanced upon a detachment of their brother Primarch's Astartes without much to do. She was surprisingly tight lipped upon the details.

With introductions from her own council - and guest - finished, Daena's attentions fell upon Sekhmetara and Nelchitl. "I will be blunt, sisters. I am not here because you need assistance bringing Praxia back to compliance, I am here to ensure that another Praxia does not arise. I have reviewed your reports, and what I have read is disquieting in the extreme. I would know all that you would not trust to courier or astropath of this matter. All technical information on their arms should be directed to the Hohenheims, and you would have my gratitude if working examples of enemy technology could be delivered to them as well. We must root out who provided the rebels with such, they match no known models in the archives."

The Pact lancer spoke next. He was startlingly ugly, half of his face an oily pink burn scar, missing an eye, and his mouth was half-transfixed in a ghoulish grin due to missing skin around the teeth. He drooled as he spoke, but made an effort to wipe away the spittle with a handkerchief. On his face, the Raptor Imperialis was tattooed around his remaining eye.

“I am Optio Markus Vulf, 3rd Army group of the Pact. Sad to say, I am the highest ranking Lancer in the detachment Lady Azrael found.” He rasped, his voice dry and whisper like, but much louder. “I fought alongside the ‘Sayers on Terra, before we found our gene-father. Mistress Kurus, it’s a pleasure to see you again. Consider me the old man’s eyes and ears for this meeting. Any requests for materiel or troops…”

He wiped away the spittle foaming from his mouth. “...will no doubt be given utmost priority.”

“I can speak for the efficacy of Optio Vulf and his Lig- Lancers personally,” Kurus said after giving the Astarte a nod of recognition. “He earned his Raptor,” she explained laconically.

The grizzled Lancer laughed at the legion mistress’s verbal gaff, nodding his head at her explanation. “An old mark, but a powerful one. I wear it with pride.”

Nelchitl knew of Daena’s Doomsayers, knowing full well their positions and admittedly outdated honor rolls from the last time she had had the pleasure of being in their presence. But the likeness of the Pact Astartes was a new addition to her knowledge. A gnarled looking man, grizzled by war and the unforgiving nature of the tanks that her still mysterious brother so very adored.

She waved a single hand to Kurus, “Your cousin needs little praise in front of me Kurus. If your scion deems him worthy of sitting at this table, it is proof enough of his worth.” she assured her as she studied the Raptor tattooed over his good eye.

“You honor me, Lady Cuamani, I will endeavor to uphold your high praise.” The Optio bowed his scarred head in acknowledgement of the praise.

“However I wish to introduce my own council. As known as he may be, I fear he shows himself far too seldom to the majority of my siblings' most trusted members.” she stated with pride as she inclined her head to Daena’s daughters and Vulf. “Tech-Adept Octavian, Forgemaster of Elysium Mons and Representative of Mars to the Seventeenth.” she stated with a hand open to the hooded Martian standing silent vigil over her right shoulder.

Augmetics hissed as the statue moved for the first time since entering the strategium, the rhythmic clink of finely machined cogs and gears whispering from beneath his robes as Octavian bowed. A pair of exquisitely wrought arms of platinum rose from within their sleeves to form the Cog Mechanicum with mechanized precision, coming together with an obviously calculated clink of metal on metal.

“By the Omnissiah’s grace.” the Tech-Adept intoned to Daena and then Sekhmetara. His voice was like honey, surprisingly smooth and sweet as it was projected from some augmitter hidden beneath his hood.

Those who looked upon Sekhmetara in the time that introductions were flowing between the gathered parties beheld a side of her that might have been deemed unusual to those who did not know her well. The Mithran Primarch did not lounge, in fact she did not seem remotely at ease. The long flowing mane of her hair was bound in a complicated, but functional, weave of braids, the tips of its flecked with white and gold, a sure sign of the recent use of her psychic ability. Gone too were the ostentatious outfits of her planned social functions or the pride of her warplanes, instead her form was clad in a white body glove, accented with gold and black. The purpose of her garments were clear, various induction ports along the spine enabling her to interface with her artifacts of war to a far greater extent.

As the others spoke, she stood without warning, the smooth texture of the bodyglove flowing about her movements, framing her form perfectly but without any resistance, it was as much a second skin as it was an outfit. The Mithran’s eyes flashed with something approaching anger, but the focus of her attention was no one in the room. The Pakhetera had been hunting, soaring the traitorous atmosphere of Praxia as a part of the unceasing aeronautical war her legion had been fighting. Still her hazel eyes flickered with blue light as her iris display continued to detail after-action-reports and live feeds of the air campaign. The primarch paused her pacing as she beheld the vast view of Praxia. For a few long moments it was as if nothing else in the room existed, just Sekhmetara and the world who's kill she had claimed.

Then she turned, and her expression broke into a smile, nodding to those who had introduced herself. She strode back to her chair, but instead lent against the throne rather than sitting.

"You have a right to be concerned of this, sister." Sekhmetara waved one hand, interacting with the display to bring up a fragmented holographic recording. The picture was not clear enough to identify much in the way of details, but certainly depicted an engagement between astartes and mortal human forces. The engagement proceeded much as one could expect such a mismatch of ability, until a sudden flare of energy ripped through projection, flaring across one of the Astartes, before downing them. Vengeance was swift, but the rebels had certainly earned a kill strike.

"This was recorded by a remembrancer attached to the 912th expeditionary fleet. The 7th Chapter of my Legion is currently engaged in defending the Ulbix System from Orcish raiders, while elements of the human population have opted to use the opportunity to carry on the civil war compliance was supposed to have finished." Sekhmetara’s voice was far more even than her discussion of Praxia's rebellion. Ulbix had not been marked compliant by a fleet associated with her Legion. Resolving others' mess wounded her spirit far less. "There has been no suggested connection between Praxia and Ulbix before now, but it seems whatever force has emboldened the Praxians has a wider reach than this system." There was no sense of hostility between Sekhmetara and her sisters, but she was certainly competitive, and the web of remembrancers she had spread with her adoptive-sister's aid making a connection before her Sister’s close bond to the Imperial Regent was enough of a victory to steadily begin easing her out of the restless hunter's urge that still coursed through her.

“Forgive me my impudence for speaking out, honored Primarchs.” Optio Vulf once again rasped up, “But I do have ample experience with rebellious human populations, so to speak, and Lady Sekhmetara’s logic is sound. Populations do not typically rebel unless they have outside support from an entity perceived as being on equal footing with their enemy.”

He once again wiped spittle from his ruined face. “There’s no benefit to the human population of Ulbix rebelling against the Imperium when the Ork is pressing at their gates, unless they have a guarantee of protection from some other power. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and this… coincidence, I feel, is no such coincidence at all.”

“So our worst suspicions have been confirmed,” Daena said in a voice that carried a grim finality. The our could only refer to her quiet consultations with the Sigilite, the closest the Angel had ever come to admitting such even to her siblings. The great hololithic image of Praxia on the wall-sized screen faded away in a wash of static and fuzz, soon replaced by the Segmentum Obscurus. Two angry red runes pulsed upon the screen, denoting Praxia and Ulbix.

“My own forces here are more powerful than they need be. A Chapter shall be sent to seek out our rebels’ benefactors. Assemble the Arcana when we are done here, Vairya,” she said, turning to the Legion Mistress as an aside. “Sekhmetara, my heart, keep your eyes open. And let me know if you loosen any tongues. I fear, Nelchitl, that I am going to ruin your sport. We require survivors.”

With a disappointed grunt Nelchitl sat forward in her chair, “I don’t always have to kill everything.” she stated matter-of-factly before turning her attention away from Daena and to the hololith of the Segmentum.

“With Praxia nearing its end, I would like to divide my forces as well.” she seemed to think for a few moments before a scowl grew across her lips, “I’ll keep my Serpents in reserve for now. I imagine there is little a rebellion can do to stand before your daughters Daena, and as remiss as I am to admit it, my Serpents and Auxilia require time to rest and refit…” she seemed pained as she continued, “Not to mention House Cadaval’s losses, far harder to replace than even my own. Time will do mine well, and if they are again required they will be made available.”

She shifted in her seat and gave a wave to Octavian behind her, “As I will be setting my forces in reserve once Praxia is complete, I offer Octavian to help with any supply issues he can handle with the Mechanicum. Though the Serpents rest there will still be a role for them to play while you all require it.”

“I suppose that leaves me, then.” Vulf rasped. “I can’t really speak for dispositions, due to my humble rank, but, what I can say is that the Pact is… basically without work. Whatever you request from Father will probably be approved, as long as it isn’t something like…”

He shrugged. “The whole Legion? He wants to make a good impression on his siblings, so, if we have anything that will plug strategic gaps you’re worried about, it’s yours, up to and including our Superheavy assets. Fellblades, mind, fresh out of Martian storehouses.”

The mistress of the Tears of Dawn did not waver in her condemning stare at the projection of Praxia. Even her sister’s affectionate words did not pull her from her transfixed state. Her arms crossed over her chest, her stance almost petulant if it was not writ over the form of one of the Emperor’s own scions, the trim of her body glove flowing as she favoured the lean of one hip, before she exhaled in frustration.

"Finish the fight, then we can talk of reserves and support. I care not for what is next, but that this world will kneel." Her fingers flexed in place, wrapped as they were around her own opposing biceps, her own grip tightening as she beheld the object of her frustration. "Still they resist while three of our Father’s children wage war on them, the three of us!?" There was a snarl to her words which wasn't there before, a savage fury which seemed to bleed into the room, condemning all those around her as much as those truly responsible.

"I take this world within the day, find some wretch in the ruins for your questions." With her words spoken she was already moving, the fluid grace of her form belying the palpable tension of rage about her, the whites of her eyes bleeding to gold, vapour rising from her glowing orbs at her fury.

Vulf wiped his face once more, before chuckling to himself. “Good thing no one decided to tell her it was about to be four, then.”

Nelchitl, slightly taken aback by the anger on display, smiled. Her grin growing from ear to ear as she watched Sekhmetara stalk away, “The Serpents have fight in them yet sister, and I doubt House Cadaval would want to miss the fall of this disgusting rebellion.” she stood, her hands coming together as she wrung her knuckles where she stood, “No. They’d very much hate that.” the Emerald Priestess turned to Daena, her eyes alight with anticipation as her smile widened, “Loose us on that last wretched bastion of resistance. We finish this today, no more talk now Daena.”

Behind the Emerald Priestess, Octavian stirred as the hum of cooling fans filled the space around him, his eyes blinking as he recorded the events unfolding and streamed them directly back to the Headquarters of the Seventeenth Legion. “The Omnissiah’s Will be done.” he blurted in a lightning fast burst of lingua technis.

Daena sat upon her throne with a dour expression as Sekhmetara left the chamber, her daughters mirroring her clear displeasure. “So be it then. Ready your Astartes, our sister will brook no delays,” she said to Nelchitl and Vulf without looking at them, eyes fixed on the Mithran’s retreating form.

“It will be done.” Vulf said simply, and bowed his head. With that, he also left, carrying the promise of the support of the 10th legion.

Some time later

The camera arcanum had finally been emptied of foreign presences, all those remaining having sworn dire oaths in service of the Legion and its Primarch. Though few of her siblings matched Daena in her rigorous application of the Imperial Truth, even she retained affectations of her upbringing - trappings of the heathen temples of her youth. The Arcana was the most blatant of these, and the most hidden, its existence generally unknown outside of the ranks of the Doomsayers.

Membership rotated according to the inscrutable whims of the Deathseer, but those within the Praetorate and in command of a Chapter typically expected to attend to her in camera. Rumors swirled within the lower ranks how the remaining seats were filled, the most popular two insisting that Daena either could not foresee the woman's death or that she had seen a particularly auspicious one.

Traditionally, a full Doomsayer Arcanum consisted of thirty-six seats. Ten of these were filled by rank Astartes, another four by junior officers. A further twenty consisted of Praetors, Ladies-Commander, and other distinguished figures who had drawn the Primarch's eye - she herself sitting in the foremost throne. Directly opposite her was the thirty-sixth seat, in which currently sat an effigy of one of the leaders of the Praxian revolt.

Her Praetor Primus, Legion Mistress, Librarus, and Mistress of the Forge were all granted the honor of the upper rung of seats - along with the Ladies-Commander of the Chapters who had followed her here. It was a scanty order of battle, eight seats filled by mere Lieutenants Commander. But it was none of her Astartes that currently held Daena's attention, the Primarch's eyes locked upon her mortal Lord Engineer.

"As I was saying, my lady, the initial reports from your lady sister's tech-adept are... less than helpful." Gustav gave a quick apologetic shrug to his twin sister, though her elevation to an Astartes had somewhat muddled the resemblance, before continuing. "The Mechanicum has done distressingly little practical work upon the pieces of technology they've recovered intact, most of which was already included in the initial report. If I had time to work with the components I could perhaps discern certain... fundamental principles."

Elise snorted at her brother's dissemination, the Astartes shifting in her seat to face her Primarch. Though she still wore the cog-skull upon her armor, the Tech-Marines of the Doomsayers had never been fast in their faith even before their Primarch was rediscovered and she was little better. She and Gustav had established a working fiction under which she only worked on sanctified technology and 'fundamentals' while he - protected by the explicit permission of the Emperor and unbound from the Mechanicum's tenets of faith - busied himself with activities some might declare heretechal. But as polite as that fiction was, it was still merely a fiction. "My lady. Give my brother and I a month with their wargear and you shall know whether or not we have fought these benefactors in the past."

"Done. Gustav, the Tupelov trust you and your engineers. They will not ask questions if you ask their Lancers to bring you choice spoils. Elise, I trust your own subordinates do not require further orders," Daena said flatly before turning her attention to the assembled commanders of her Chapters in theater. In this most intimate of meetings, she did not bother hiding her emotions, and her expression swiftly turned sour.

"My beloved sisters have their blood up. Our original plan for this excursion has been scrapped. We will reinforce the Tears and Serpents as they assault the last holdouts of rebellion, and we shall show them what our judgement entails. Bring only your Raptors, the remainder shall fill the garrisons that Sekhmetara and Nelchitl will empty. I do not trust this world to give us victory so easily, but nor will I bring less than our best to my sister's party."

Year: 001.M31
The Triumph of Ullanor

The first day of celebration arrived. The event, great as it was, was planned to last in its totality for quite a while, even though the Triumph proper was not likely to last longer than perhaps three days. Indeed, the world itself was a celebration of humanity’s triumphs, and never more so than today.

To each side of the mirror-smooth granite platform, beyond the rows of Ork skulls lining its perimeter and the smokeless Promethium lanterns lighting it, countless human soldiers awaited the arrival of they who would walk the runway, a great sea of bodies that stretched to the horizon and beyond, men and women from all over the galaxy coming together as one united mass of human spirit and uniforms, kept informed of proceedings by innumerable pict-casters and kept excited by vox-hailers praising them and those they fought and died alongside. From these alone, their energy was high - it was already known that, save a few exceptions, every single Astartes Legion would be represented at the Triumph, not to mention the Cult Mechanicum and the Titan Legions; and though nothing of the sort had been confirmed, it was said too that the Primarchs may make an appearance at the event- perhaps even the Emperor himself, first and most resplendent of mankind’s number.

It was said, of course, that so too would the xeno races emancipated by the Edict of Tolerance be represented in this march. Reaction to this was mixed; some supposed there was a plot against them,

And, sure as planets orbited their stars predictably, the first craft descended from the skies above the crowds of man to thunderous applause. A shimmering, auramite-clad transport custom-made for the occasion, as lengthy across as some Titans were tall, its landing was clouded by a burst of water vapour and vaporised coolant as its landing gear extruded toward the ground, cloaking the opening of its doorway as a mass of silhouettes.

Then, with what seemed a sudden burst of wind, the vapour cloud dissipated, revealing a company of one hundred warriors of the Legio Custodes, a formation ten men by ten, all easily nine or even ten feet tall, each impeccably clad in spotless golden power armour itself covered in symbols and text describing their unbelievable feats, who would have easily been the height of celebrations were it not for the fourteen-foot giant leading them: the Emperor of Man, a halo of light surrounding shoulder-length black hair and a face whose jawline could cut diamond, outfitted with His own relics of war. Golden auramite and perfectly-cut red jewels encased His frame in an impregnable defense, the Palatine Aquila that was His personal heraldry borne proudly upon His chest; His left hand was ensconced in a mighty power claw, its curving talons promising an end to all who might face Him; and hanging at His right hip, the scabbard containing His legendary blade, a meager trinket by comparison to the weapon it contained, but a masterfully crafted item in and of itself.

There were no words to describe the moment, other than simply “glorious”. The only sound that broke the silence that befell the crowd was the noise of the Emperor’s transport returning from whence it came, and the continued whirring of machinery throughout. At last, as a servo-drone equipped with vox-speaker and pict-capture moved to the level of His head, He spoke.

‘Rejoice,’ He said softly, ‘for we have come far. Rejoice, for the day is ours, and the galaxy with it; many men and women have lived and died for this day, and many more have fought to see it come to fruition, some even since the inception of my grand design. There is still much work to be done; but rejoice, for this moment shows that there is nothing that can stand in our path, no obstacle that cannot be overcome by the combined might of humanity, and the many soldiers, warriors, and combatants we celebrate this day.

‘Rejoice!’ He called, His command ringing out to the farthest stretches of the crowd even before they heard it from the vox-casters, filling them with awe and empowering them beyond measure. ‘For today, we are almighty!’

The outcry of adulation outshone any cheering that had come before it. Tears were wept, friends were tightly grasped in siblinghood, and the Emperor along with His personal guard began the long walk down the highway toward their final destination.

And behind them, the next of the representatives’ ships began to alight from above...

The first ships to land and disembark their forces came from the Fifth Legion, ships and forces clad in gleaming white and bronze. Prometheus walked at its head flanked by his captains and Imperial Army Generals. In contrast to his Legion, and the Emperor himself, Prometheus had ordered that his armor not be repaired or cleaned after his battle with the Ork Warlord. The great armor was still scorched and scarred from battle whereas each of his captains showed polished perfection. The image however was striking, capturing the same visage as the famous pict captured at the summit of the Ork fortress.

Directly behind him marched the Ancient Dreadnought, first commander of the Knights of Awe, carrying the great banner of the Legion. Around the Ancient walked several other Dreadnoughts each carrying a company banner. Uniquely behind the great banners of the Astartes Legion walked Sentinels with their own crippled heroes in Dreadnought caskets who carried Imperial Army banners, specifically banners of Imperial armies lost to the Grim Crusade, even those who had not fought alongside the Knights of Awe.

For miles the Legion and their Imperial Army attachment marched in blocks of a single Astartes and the ten Imperial Army soldiers they often fought with. The columns stretched for miles, no tanks or vehicles accompanied the Knights of Awe, simply hundreds of thousands in immaculate parade dress. Many groups were conspicuously missing one or several soldiers, or even their Astartes at their head. No efforts were made to hide this however. Squads missing their Astartes leader honored the fallen by carrying some artefact with them, a helm, sword or pauldron. Equally Astartes who had lost men under their command honored them by carrying a small flag with each of the fallen’s medals and commendations.

The Triumph was a celebration of victory, but the Knights honored the fallen just as strongly as the victory itself. Their remembrance was not entirely a somber one, the fallen were exalted as heroes who had earned the Imperium this victory rather than a grim cost. As the Knights of Awe began to finish their section of the parade Prometheus finally climbed the stage and joined the Emperor, falling to a knee in greeting showing humility and continued fealty to the Emperor at the height of his own honor during the Triumph.

Next came the procession of the Stargazers. Though it had been said that doubtlessly the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion would have insisted upon a full procession of Tech-Priests, automata, Skitarii, Sydonians and Onagers, the Legion’s ranks as they marched down the causeway proved to be subdued in that regard. Beyond the columns of Astartes arranged in the Legion’s peculiar twenty-five man Maniples with two rows of twelve Astartes led by a single Commander, the only noteworthy deviances were two three-man squads abreast each column, a Princeps and two Rangers, holding aloft gilded banners depicting the Aquilla Mechanicum. Thirty war cohorts of the Stargazers Astartes marched, representing the fifteen Macroclade Fleets of the Ordo Astranoma that had attended the battle of Ullanor.

To the rear of their procession came an ordinatus tractor and gantry between an assembly of the Legion’s Knights. The tractor was flanked by three Armigers, followed-up by two Questoris Knights, and capped the Legion’s procession off with a looming Astronomer Dominus. Set atop the ordinatus tractor’s gantry was a ceremonial platform and dais upon with the Primarch Augor Astren stood, fully armored and equipped, brandishing his Omnissian Axe with both hands while his six spider-like servo-arms each held aloft the severed head of an Ork Warboss. Upon the topmost circle of the dais with him stood the Legion’s Archmandriture, Mercaerath Kyrius, cutting an unusually reserved figure due to his wholly unaugmented visage amongst the heavily modified crowd of the Legion’s senior personnel. Three figures shared the next step down upon the dais: A single Astartes and two comparatively diminutive figures to his sides, easily overlooked and dwarfed by the enormity of the figures standing betwixt them. The Marine, clad in stark white and ivory power armor, was evidently the much-reviled Corneceus Sicanus, the Legion’s Chief Apothecary. His demeanor was reserved, making little in the way of movement beyond adjusting the ceremonial stave he carried, modeled upon the Prime Helix and capped with a sigil of the Cog Mechanicum. To his right stood Andron Axaltus, a Skitarii Alpha and the leader of the Stargazers’ Skitarii Legion. He had adopted a particularly affected pose, holding aloft a Power Sword and a Transonic Blade alike whilst supporting the weight of one leg atop the headless carcass of a heavily augmented Ork Mekboy draped across his end of the dais. His figure was the only one upon the entire platform to wear the Martian-red robes of Mars, in an unusual show of conservatism on the Primarch’s part. To Corneceus’ left stood a perplexing and nearly unheard of figure of Baron Sigveyr Archarnon, the commander of the Ordo Astranoma’s Knight Legion. Nearly a complete unknown to most of the Imperium writ large inclusive of most of the other Astartes Legions, his unexpected appearance upon the Twelfth Primarch’s dais essentially served as his premier introduction to them all. He was adorned in the oddly ceremonial pilot armor of the Feudal Nobility and hefting a ceremonial saber. Curiously, his personal augmentation struck out as the most unusual amongst the assembled figures: a thin, tethered cable ran out from the base of his skill and connected to the base of a floating servo skull that drifted in eerily close proximity to the Baron’s head, almost seeming like some decrepit figure muttering in his ear.

Why the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion had foregone a procession abundant with more of the colors and blatant insignia of Mars was not entirely clear, though rumors that would spread for weeks thereafter claimed a number of wild theories - that he was attempting to distance himself from the Mechanicum, that he sought to waylay the disapproval of the Emperor, that it was a conciliatory gesture made towards the Primarch of the Second Legion, and more than a dozen other unsubstantiated rumors. More broadly, while the Legion’s comparatively miniscule procession had barely even begun to approach the size and pomp of those of the other legions, it had surprisingly stood out amongst a number of Imperium’s populaces for the simple reason that their procession had been amongst the only ones to feature the titanic elements of their Knights, which so far after the original procession of the Titan Legions had managed to stand out amidst the march.

Behind the precession of the Twelfth Legion came the forms of the Nineteenth Legion, the Steel Sentinels, the field grey of the Neophytes contrasted by the singular mass that was the light brown of the fully armored Astartes that led the columns. The blue glow of their weaponry reflected off of them, giving the Steel Sentinels a stark contrast to the red eyes of their helms. Their march was in near perfect unison, rivalling the Mechanicum in synchronicity as they moved through the Triumph, brandishing the medals gifted upon them by the Primarch Prometheus proudly and with honor. Behind them came the cohort lead personally by Usriel, amongst his gene-sons he marched, joined by his Chief Librarian, Apothecary, Master of the Forge, Head Consul, and the Legion’s Standard Bearer immediately behind him in a single line. Unlike the Twelfth, the Steel Sentinels had not come bearing trophies of war, no ork heads or treasures taken to adorn themselves. Yet, behind that cohort came a great many blackened walls hoisted by moving platforms, these walls were studded with diamonds shining into the air and casting light into the crowds from their reflections and refractions. Under each diamond was a plaque with a name and designation, each was that of a fallen Neophyte or Astartes that had fallen during the Ullanor campaign, their memories and sacrifices being honored by the grace of the Triumph.

As the glimmering memorial passed ahead and the onlookers turned to greet the next segment of the procession, the cheering seemed to falter and grow pale for the merest instant. It was soon reprised by a new surge of acclaim, but the calls felt strained and perfunctory, as though they had only been raised because such was the form for a great Triumph and not because of any genuine love or admiration. For indeed, the force that now approached, wordlessly stepping in synchrony like a single-minded machine and arrayed in the full panoply of battle, had never cultivated anything but fear and unease among the greater part of the peoples of mankind.

The Abyssal Lurkers marched in tight ranks, bolters, claws and chainswords held at the ready, the unfeeling eyes of their helmets staring deadly ahead. Faceless and unadorned, they covered the path like a river, its surface drowned beneath the unending flow of impersonal blue armour. At the head of every vortex came its Skotarch, holding a metal stave tipped with a sculpted simulacrum of the Ninth Legion’s symbol. After him there followed the specialist troops, bristling with shield walls, bladed hands and fearsome weaponry, and the great mass of the legionary files. Finally, the rearguard was closed by the looming shapes of Terminator cohorts. Time and again was this sequence repeated, uniform and unchanged, until the sight began to blur.

At long last, the vortices came to an end. Yet the calls from the crowd did not grow any more genuinely elated, and in truth more than a few soldiers had to suppress a sound of consternation. Grim as the march of the legionaries had been, their bodies had at least borne the semblance of humanity. The same could not be said of what came next – the hulking armoured forms of the Abyssal Dreadnoughts, advancing with implacable mechanical gait, and the creeping packs of the great charybdes, guided by their mancipes and surmounted by the withered silhouettes of targeting servitors. Casting their spindly shadows over all, the titanic beasts Opis and Clymene closed the cortege. Their backs had been relieved of artillery and fitted with palanquin-like platforms for the occasion; thereupon stood Sarghaul himself, unmoving like a statue and surrounded by his Lictors. Alongside him were high lieutenants from among his gene-spawn, the Fleshweavers and the Heralds of Silence, the many-limbed Primus of the Dronemaw and Nuvornal the Elder Manceps, as well as the equerry Issnos Traal, in dark armour with talons of polished leviathan-bone tipping his gauntlet-fingers. Unlike those who had come before, the Lurkers bore nothing at all to commemorate the battles of Ullanor, yet the meaning of that absence was clear, as did their silence speak louder than any words: that they would fight to the utter annihilation of the foe, and not even a memory would remain of those who would stand against the Imperium.

With most of the Legion afield in the far flung corners of Imperial space, from the civil conflict in Obscurus to pushing the boundaries of the Astronomican in the galactic eastern fringe, the contingent of Tears of Dawn present for the Triumph was not grand in size. Nevertheless, Sekhmetara had taken the Emperor’s summons as seriously as she had his command to focus on the completion of her current campaigns instead of attending herself.

In a fashion typical of the Legion, none of the diminished presence of the Mithran legion marched in the ground formation, but instead soared upon the air. A formation of blazing orange and gold seared through the sky, Fire Raptor gunships flanking the dominating form of a Stormbird. The roaring engines of the craft added to the cacophony of assembled noise even as the craft screamed overhead, before banking around and over the assembled procession. The expert pilots of the Tears of Dawn pulled the large craft into maneuvers that even other astartes or advanced flight servitors could manage, flying without the alarm and predictive measures usually contained within the machine spirit of such costly craft. The proud pilots of the Raptora Wing had been assigned this duty from their primarch not because their expertise were not sorely needed across the Imperium, but instead because no force greater exemplified in martial force the character of her Legion and they bore such responsibility with the fierce Mithran pride they were known for.

Their Primarch still in orbit, seeing to the disposition of warriors and vessels throughout the Milky Way, Kaelianos had sent in his stead Modius Lavinus, bearer of the legions standard touched by the Primarchs own hand.

Following behind him came the serried ranks of nine entire cohorts of his Praetorian Guard, emblazoned shields by their sides as they marched, armour polished to a gleam and helmet crests brushed to perfection; it was a token force only, for the Eighth knew no rest, and already the majority of their forces in the Ullanor System were regrouping in orbit before jumping off who knew where in order to face another threat to their Imperium.

Behind the Eighth, came the Tenth. Arnulf Wode, the second-newest primarch to return to the fold, rode ahead of his Legion in his massive superheavy tank, the hybrid Fellblade/Baneblade Return to Sender, waving to the crowds as he rolled past. Behind him, an entire battalion of Predator tanks, ranks and ranks of medium armor, then the Legion’s Sicarans, all their turrets pointing up and to the right in salute. The driver and commander of each vehicle rode with their heads out of the hatches, with the remaining crewmembers stood atop the engine decks, cheering and extorting the crowds to new heights of fervor and exaltation.

The Pact’s contribution to the Triumph was the reminder to the citizenry that the Emperor’s armies were overwhelming, and that the Astartes that made up the vast ranks of warriors were as eager for victory and peace as they. The Pact was an honest, pragmatic legion, who valued peace and the absence of danger as much as they valued the glory and prestige victory brought them. The Legionaries of the Pact were as eager to be here, soaking up the adoration of their citizenry just as much as they wanted to be on the killing fields, decisively ending some affront to the Imperial Truth.

Behind them, came the mechanized infantry, the second pillar of the Legion. They marched, in perfect lock-step, alongside their Rhinos, bellowing baudy marching songs and stomping their left foot in cadence so that a thundering crash echoed through the procession every off-beat of their songs. Normally derisive of ornamentation, every marching squad held aloft a banner of the Pact, either their own banners, or ones taken from the enemy during the Unification of Salient, Arnulf Wode’s adopted home world.

Thirdly, the artillery. As the tanks did, the self propelled guns of the Pact, a dizzying variety of Basilisks, Medusas, Bombards, and other, more esoteric weapons, Arquitor Bombards, Scorpius Whirlwinds, and the squat, pugnacious Vindicator siege tanks all followed in perfect spacing. As the barrelled artillery passed a certain point, the crews fired underpowered blank shells that shot wads of confetti into the air as they made a thunderous bang. The crowd cheered louder and louder as each passing rank of armor filled the air with more smoke and paper.

Eventually, the grinding of treads on the roadway faded at the Tenth’s showing ended, allowing the next part of the procession to pass in review.

The finale of the Triumph was far from grand, the final participants neither counting a mighty Primarch nor god-machines among their number. Their Primarch had already left, and not being the sort to engage in pomp or pride many of their number had followed her. The XIVth Legion did not bring trophies, they did not bring great engines, and they did not prepare grand banners. Instead, those Doomsayers that did take part simply marched in loose order, their procession taking far more space than was sensible for how few were there. But they did remember who they were, and where they were and understood their obligation to give a fitting end to the lengthy affair. Lacking the typical tools to provide such a display, for after so long could anyone truly be impressed by another array of power armored figures?, they made use of what they did have.

As they walked upon the grand procession, the gaps in their ranks slowly widened, and hidden figures slowly became visible. Small, miniscule in comparison to the warriors they were among, they had been hidden at first by the rows of marching women. Yet now as they walked alongside the Astartes, the truth of who and what they were became obvious. Those Doomsayers who had remained on Ullanor lacked a unique display of martial might, but there was one resource within their fleets that they could draw from - one that almost no other Astartes could count upon. Their children. The legionnaires marched with an almost casual cadence, many removing their helmets with their sons and daughters soon lifted up into their embrace or even placed to ride upon their pauldrons.

Where their cousins had marched beneath icons of war and death, where their fathers had marched before them, the Doomsayers focused instead on what their victories had bought, the Emperor's promise so tantalizingly close to fruition. A future where the children of warriors need not become the same. That eternal, never achieved dream of peace.

As the first participants of the grand procession made it to the end of the triumphal way, a monumental sight awaited them. Long had the architects of the Triumph labored, but none so secretly as those that had provided the final trophy. What awaited them was nothing less than the preserved frame of the fallen Urlakk Urg, the greenskin warboss recovered from the wreckage of his dread tower and placed as the ultimate insult to his entire race. A cordon of Doomsayer Revenants who had demurred when offered the glory of the procession stood guard around the massive corpse, their weapons drawn as if afraid it might somehow come back to life. Judging by the tell-tale volkite burns that had scoured flesh from bone, and the neat hole in between his eyes, it was a fear that had been taken rather seriously by the XIVth. But most resplendent of all was a massive banner of the Knights of Awe hanging behind the slain xeno, proclaiming to one and all who had made such a sight possible.

As the procession of Astartes reached the final spectacle of their march, as the titans strode among them and the roars of supersonic engines spoke of the Imperium’s dominance of the skies, The Emperor and his custodes watched from the pinnacle of their triumph. Even for the Astartes, perhaps even the Primachs themselves, it was a strain to look upon the Master of Mankind when he made no effort to conceal or ease the scope of his might. Yet, they could not look away, for all eyes were drawn to the being of perfection before them. As the first of the Legions reached their final positions for the conclusion of the Triumph, the Sign of the Aquila rippled through their ranks, ceramite and ceramite clanging with such repeated enormity it could be heard over even the great warhorns of the God-Machines echoing their same praise.

The blinking lights of a horde of recording devices flared to life at the sight, preserving the sight not just for those across the galaxy but likewise for those across the Triumph itself who would be too distant to behold the finality of their glory. The golden light of the Emperor’s might shone back at him from the gleaming auramite of his guardians, the Custodes stoic in their physical form but ever alert and poised to act.

“When first the Aquila was raised on distant Terra, this day was the promise.” The Emperor’s voice broiled through the air like the surge of a rogue wave. While Remebrancers worked to bring it into being through sound systems across the length of the Triumph, the necessity of doing so was in doubt. All those present felt, more than heard, the power of the Emperor’s own words. “The path we chose was wrought with trial and tragedy, but the cost of justice has always been high. Our aim has never simply been the victory of might, but the vindication of our righteous truth. Not the enslaved peace that has been offered countless times to humanity by false religion and cosmic foes, but peace and freedom both. The right of humanity to rule across the stars, as is our birthright.” Each intonation of the Emperor’s voice stung the air like the building force of thunder, softening only slightly as his words carried on. “The Campaign we have fought here is but a sign of our inevitable victory, a hated ancient foe of our people laid into the dust, never to rise again to threaten us so. Because of our victory, generations of human children shall never need to fear the Beast as their ancestors have. What began on the slopes of Terra has reached this new pinnacle, and from here, only the Galaxy awaits.” The Master of Mankind paused in his speech, looking over the assembled parada as if his focus might reach every soul present, impossible a task as that might be even for one such as him.

“My Children have lead you all to victory across countless worlds around innumerable stars, the Legiones Astartes at the fore, but do not forget that each being within the Imperium has sacrificed that we might stand triumphant today. Each of you, from my chosen primarchs to those who toil to bring arms and armour to the front have earned the right of this victory, and countless others, be they upon Ullanor or at the farthest cusp of the Galaxy.” The whole countenance of the Emperor shone with pride, a sight that could stir even the most jaded of those present, such was the force of majesty in the presentation of this work.

“Thus it is so, that with a heavy heart, for I shall no longer have the privilege of witnessing your glory first hand, that I pass the orchestration of our Crusade on to them, my children.” For the first moment since the Emperor began his address, a true hush rolled out over the parade, not in awe, but in shocking doubt, a thousand questions springing to the mind of those assembled. “I have been your Emperor and Warmaster, but the time has come where one role must surpass the other. Here, and upon the gruelling campaigns of this Crusade, my children and the forces they command have shown that you no longer need my guiding hand, and it would be remiss of me to forsake the governance of our hard won realm, simply that I might keep your noble company. Upon Terra the Aquila was raised, but it is here, from Ullanor, that it shall be raised higher still, until the galaxy, from the Ghoul Stars of Ultima to the far rim of Pacificus are one within the Imperium. To this duty I trust, what say you?”

The question from the lips of the Emperor broke a moment of doubt, shuddering through those assembled like a wave of righteous fury from less enlightened times.

“For the Imperium! For the Emperor!”

-Praxia 2 Placeholder-

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In time, after the Triumph of Ullanor’s conclusion, more and more voices were raised about the matter of the Edict of Tolerance. Even as the Emperor of Man prepared to fully depart from the Great Crusade, rumours spread about the nature of xenos in the Imperium. Even the Primarchs, in their uniquely superior mindsets, were split on the matter, and on many others of the sort.

In the end, his hand was forced. To cement that matter and others firmly, before they could grow out of control in his absence, the Emperor called upon the Great Crusade’s War Council, to form a conclave upon the planet of Nikaea.

Compared to the building of the Triumph, the creation of the Council Halls was comparatively swift. It remained well decorated, clad in many places in gold as so many of the Imperium’s most valuable buildings were, and its doorways alone were up to 20 feet in height, more than roomy enough to contain the tallest of Primarchs and the Emperor himself - but beyond that, it was utilitarian, the very central hall no more decorated than a typical courtroom. All crafted in dark wood of distant origin: a lofty central stand for the current speaker to present themselves and any arguments they wished to put forth to the conclave; great tables lining the hall, for each individual Primarch and their retinue of accompanying staff to take seat at; and at the topmost end, the elevated seating positions for each of the High Lords of Terra in attendance, with the central podium in place for Malcador the Sigillite to hold his position as official Convener, dressed in his usual robes of office in the guise of a man in his prime, perhaps 30 years of age or so. The Emperor would be seated just to the back and left of him, out of direct attention, but nonetheless noteworthy as the conclave’s ultimate Arbiter of events.

These two were in attendance first, followed not long after by the High Lords taking their positions to either side. In due course, the majority of Primarchs would enter too, along with their respective retinues.


The arrival of the Tears of Dawn lacked none of the presentation that had come to be associated with the Legion. The onyx armour of the First Company was ubiquitous among those present, only the plate of the Chief Librarian marked in the traditional orange warplate of the main legion. Alongside the Astartes, a representative from each of the main aspects of the Tears' Crusading fleets accompanied their Primarch; Kvasi Khafre of the Mithran Knights and representatives of Auxilia among them. Their mood was celebratory, even given the rumblings of conflict among the noble scions of the Emperor, a gathering of such beings could never be anything but an auspicious occasion. The Daughters of Sekhmetara entered with their helmets underarm, revealing a broad mix of Terran and Mithran features, the former marking their first return to their homeworld since the discovery of their gene-sire.

The Primarch herself strode at their head, the already captivating vision of her posthuman appearance framed by the ostentatious regality of her gown. Silver-gold thread spun in intricate patterns across her form, tapering down into a fan and train of feathers. Each was a hunting trophy from a terrorbird of her homeplanet, slain by the Primarch herself. Many hundreds of beautiful killmarks for the Huntress of Mithra sweeping behind her in a shimmering weave of reds, oranges and yellows. The terrorbirds had been proud masters of their plains until they encountered this decidedly more deadly killer. Despite the expansive nature of the train, Sekhmetara moved as smoothly as she did in any gown or armour, the preternatural sense of her expanded physiology extended to the easy motion of the sweeping skirts, not a single feather out of place or catching on the others moving closely to her.

Before the Tears of Dawn took their place among the seating assigned for the primarchs and their retinues, the assembled Mithran throng came to attention with the sign of the Aquila to the Emperor and Malcador. Sekhmetara herself sunk into a low curtsey, holding the practically seated position with her head bowed low to her Liege and his regent.

"Lord-father, Regent-Sigillite, we are honoured to be your guests here, may we all leave these grand halls in greater concord and unity in your vision." She spoke with eyes cast low, before rising and smiling, both to the hosts and then to her siblings and their assembled guests, picking out both astartes and mortals with the favour of her attention. As one, the Tears delegation then found their assigned seats.

In stark contrast to Sekhmetara came the form of Usriel and his honor guard, his form bearing his signature armor and the glowing red of eyes of his helm staring straight forwards. His honor guard followed suit, surrounding the gene-father as the other delegation of the Steel Sentinels, including the Chief Librarian, Orator of the House, and Head Consul. They all wore their armor, including helmets as they stride to their seats, not paying heed to the other legion that had come before them. The only form being strange was that of the Orator of the House, Belloris, as she was leagues smaller than the Astartes that surrounded her.

Once they reached their seats, Usriel looked over to the Emperor and fell upon one knee, the others following his example as their father spoke, “Your presence humbles me, my Emperor. I hope that we may all stay united under your vision and may any dissent be rectified.” With those words, the Primarch rose and seated himself in silence.

Micholi was the next to arrive. Unlike his siblings, he had neither dressed up in eye-catching attire or his battle armor. Instead he was the very image of humility, having elected to wear what appeared to be a version of the Departmento Xenos scribe robe… though it had to be said, his version had clearly been tailored with the Primarch in mind in order to properly fit his larger than standard form.

The sigil of rank that adored his robe was unique; while it was true that Primarchs were not allowed to pull rank with the Departmento Xenos when it came to their duties related to the Edict of Tolerance, there was an acknowledgement that Primarch Micholi was the key reason the Departmento Xenos existed at all… and thus he bore the rather humble rank of ‘Founder’.

The delegation he had brought with him also differed from his siblings due to the fact that the majority of it was made up of humans that were divided into one of two categories; The attire of the Departmento Xenos or several slightly differing uniforms that belonged to regiments of the Imperial Army that tended to be assigned to the 2nd Legion.

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t any members of the Night Watch legion present but… compared to the two Primarchs before his entrance Micholi’s paltry six marines paled in comparison. His Head Librarian Uther and Tech Marine General Nelinho stood out from their peers only due to the differences between Librarian and Tech Marine armor from the normal legionaries while the remaining four… honestly just looked like any other squad of Night Watch marines, dressed in their power armor.

Stepping forward, Micholi and his following placed a closed fist over their hearts and knelt before the Emperor, with the Primarch himself proclaiming “You have called and I have answered, my Emperor. May these proceedings carry on with level heads and reason so that the best possible outcome might be reached.”

The formalities given, he rose and moved to claim his own section and seat for the Council.

One could almost be forgiven for assuming that those following in Micholi's wake were simply latecomers of his entourage were it not for the pure white wings blossoming from the back of their leader. Daena wore the court robes of an Administratum Prefectus Primus, her own daughters garbed in the void black and silver trimmed robes of the Legion at peace instead of their armor. Disturbingly, almost all bore some semblance of their gene-mother's face, the assembled Astartes sporting either white hair or irisless eyes. The most extreme examples seemed perfect replicas simply scaled down and bereft of wings. Such effects of their gene lineage aside, most had Terran features, a handful appearing Irkallan. Interspersed among their number were what appeared to be two twin children until one remembered the sheer size of the genetically altered warriors, the pair in the robes of the heathen temple the Angel had been raised in.

A small coterie of unaugmented humans trailed in their wake, most representing the various departments of the Administratum that campaigned with the Doomsayers. Departmentos Exacta, Elucidatum, Munitorum, Xenos, and lesser offices, an assembly of bureaucrats to debate and provide explanation for the most tedious of points. A handful stuck out from their comrades however, wearing costumes and bearing insignias little seen within the Imperium. Dressed in the white and blue of Imperial scientists and engineers, they were a living rebuke to the technological monopoly of the Mechanicum - and ones rarely seen outside of the Emperor's own gene labs and armories. Strangest among their number was a withered woman, her face pitted with age but still bearing a noble countenance.

Though on her breast was pinned the sigil of the Biotechnical Division, it was doubtful that most in attendance would notice such a small detail considering that she was personally escorted by a Primarch. Her left arm was wrapped around Daena's right, a straight cane of a dark wood in her right to keep her ancient form steady as the slow procession made its way to the center of the chamber. Ignoring the High Lords, Malcador, and the Emperor Himself, her eyes were set solely upon the Astartes and their gene-sires, gazing upon them with undisguised pride and glee. It was only when Daena and her elderly charge came to a halt before the high dais that the woman tore away from them to regard the Master of Mankind.

As one, the assemblage of Doomsayers and their mortal auxiliaries performed the Imperial salute to their lord - save for the mysterious guest. With great effort she brought her fist up, taking her cane with it, forming it into a ball before pressing it against her chest.

"Oh Emperor mine, oh Father mine, out of the void to this place I have come," Daena intoned, her voice somehow both quiet and clearly heard by all. "By your will have our pleas been answered, and by your word all discord shall cease," she lowered her salute and made for her seat, until her eyes caught those of her charge. A moment's silence passed between them before she turned once more to the Emperor, a ghost of a smile crossing both women's faces as she spoke. "For the Unity."

Her words had scarcely trailed off when a clamour of heavy metallic steps came from beyond the threshold of the great hall. Soon after, a group clad in dark blue armour crossed into it. The Abyssal Lurkers’ delegation was noticeably smaller than any of those that had preceded them, and far less diverse. At their head was the towering bulk of their Primarch, encased as ever in the bastion of his armour and masked by the graven features of his helmet. A step behind, diminutive in comparison despite his own otherwise superhuman stature, walked the pale-clawed Equerry, Traal, likewise inscrutable behind his blank visor. The pair were only accompanied by a handful of Orcus Lictors, with no other members of the legion in sight. Stopping still before the sight of the Emperor and his entourage, the Lurkers raised their right fists and smote them to their left shoulders in martial salute, sending a crash like the sound of a great gong echoing up to the chamber’s high ceiling.

“As you commanded, so it has been done, o liege,” Sarghaul’s sepulchral voice clove through the last reverberations of the impact, “Before you, I shall speak with the voices of all my gene-spawn. As our spirits are one in your service, so are our minds one in answering when you demand aught of us. Each of my words shall carry the consensus of thousands.” He bowed his head, then trudged off to the side, taking place upright behind a lectern rather than resting his immense weight on an all too fragile seat. The Equerry and his guards followed.

There was a brief, likely deliberate pause in the flow of newcomers until the Abyssal Lurkers had finished seating and positioning themselves, likely out of the desire of those who followed to distance themselves in more ways than one from the members of the Ninth Legion. Once they had found their places though, the next group of arrivals swept into the chamber. Four Martian-Red and towering Kastalan robots mechanically tromped into the room, each of their back-mounted servo-arms holding aloft ceremonial banners emblazoned with the emblem of the Aquila Mechanicum. Striding forth amidst them came the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion, finally having turned out in full war regalia rather than opting for the more ergonomic robes he was known to prefer for formal gatherings. The enormity of his six servo-arms and massive harness made him seem almost as massive as even the proceeding Primarch Sarghaul had been, and he made a point of unnervingly directly his empty gaze at each of the Primarchs already present in the room in turn as he strode forward. Following him came a procession of members of the Ordo Astranoma arranged in peculiarly staggered rows, all flanked by an honor guard of Sicarian Princeps. The first to come was, unsurprisingly, the Legion’s Archmandriture - their borrowed title indicating his status as an Equerry as well as the immediate successor to the Primarch - Mercaerath Kyrius. His familiar and entirely unaugmented visage standing in stark contrast to his position and the unmatched refinement of his armor left him as the one individual in the assembled group who bore their colors and symbols without having adopted the otherwise omnipresent aesthetic of Martian bionics.

Trailing only slightly behind him was the Archmagos Mephitor Fabrigistus, the immediate and nominal commander of the Ordo Astranoma’s Macroclade fleets. More pertinently, he was the evident and unapologetic voice of Mars and its Holy Synod within the Twelfth Legion. If ever there was a platonic ideal of what a Tech-Priest should have looked like, Mephitor was it, the proportions of his body bulging underneath his robes with asymmetrical and misshapen augmentations and devices that had completely cast aside all concern for outward appearance in favor of functionality. The entirety of his back had been replaced with a permanently grafted, shell-like abeyant comprising more than twenty-four articulated plates, nearly mimicking the shape of a gargantuan spine. His face was overcrowded by no less than nine optical implants of varying different colorations, and his robes were adorned with intricate golden trim and patterns of rank and high station, the only evidence of his position within the Ordo Astranoma being their emblem emblazoned upon his right sleeve. More than a dozen mechadendrites writhed in the air around him, assisting his right-handed grip in supporting the heft of the massive Omnissian Axe he carried aloft over the floor with him.

Following Mephitor was a pair of unlikely figures, the first being the instantly recognizable and infamous Corneceus Sicanus, the Chief Apothecary of the Stargazers and plausibly the most reviled man in the room short of the members of the Abyssal Lurkers. He bore the same ivory-white armor and intricately-shaped Prime Helix staff he had possessed on the day of the Triumph, though now his helmet had been cast aside, revealing his dour face. Beyond a single bionic eye and traces of ceremonial electoo criss-crossing about his forehead, he looked no different from any other regular member of another legion. He had a wild shock of black hair, a series of evident and heavy creases in his face despite little other sign of advanced age, and wore a wary and tired expression. Immediately alongside him was another Tech-Priest, who although largely unknown to many of those already assembled in the room was almost certainly the Genetor, Solisios Carnelan. His unexpectedly conversative appearance, with his body being almost entirely mechanical but nearly perfectly mimicking the shape of the Human form, ironically made him almost seem more like a servitor than a genuine Tech-Priest - perhaps due to their widespread disposition to so drastically alter the shape of their bodies once they had passed the Crux Mechanicum. His purpose was likewise one that drew a degree of attention - for the schedule of the Council which had been distributed prior to the arrival of the Legions plainly listed and declared that he and he alone, along with his staff of attendants, had been granted the privilege of a private audience with the Emperor of Mankind himself. The topic and nature of the audience remained wholly unknown, which had caused some amount of private speculation on the matter.

Following the two in turn came another pair of brow-raising figures. The first was the well-known Andron Axaltus, the Skitarii Alpha who had borne the honor of attending the Triumph embarked upon the Twelfth Primarch’s personal ordinatus barge. Where the rest of the gathered Stargazers were advancing solemnly and placidly, Axaltus’s gait had an exaggerated and lazy stride to it, as if he were overtly swanning down the street of a Hive. He was the only one in the group who was talking as they entered the chamber - not quite loudly enough to be coherently understood, but just enough to convey the obnoxious intonation and breakneck pace of his words to most of the onlookers. Also unlike the others, he had foregone any sort of ceremonial dress, and his mechanical legs even still seemed to be spattered with mud. His arrogant and irreverent demeanor was likely a byproduct of his status, for Axaltus was both the commander of the Ordo Astranoma’s Skitarii Legion’s as well as the Legion’s operations point-man and the most accomplished duelist within the entire ordo. It was said he had personally fought and slain more than four Ork Warbosses on Ullanor Tertius, and at least six more that he had crossed paths with even before the Ullanor Campaign - though why he had been brought to the Council at all in the first place was something of a mystery. His presence at the Triumph alongside the Primarch had been a foregone conclusion due to his performance and feats during the Ullanor campaign, but his demeanor and expertise were ill-suited for the purposes of the Council. Striding to his left, and evidently the current recipient of the Skitarii’s blather, was a Stargazers marine. His appearance betrayed substantial augmentations including a prominent surgical plate fused across the length of his cranium, and his armor bore extensive personal modifications. However, the insignia emblazoned upon the pauldron of his left shoulder indicated he bore the equivalent rank of only a Lieutenant. Even the ceremonial honor guard Princeps likely outranked him. Comparatively, he was a minnow amongst whales, and what possible purpose he might serve at the Council - much like Axaltus’ - was a complete unknown.

The Stargazers’ line halted at the base of the speaker’s podium, and Augor Astren briefly addressed Malcador and the Emperor. “As the Omnissiah has willed, so it is that his sons and daughters gather. May the Sigillite’s wisdom guide and direct our discourse so as to promote the betterment of all those who would be loyal to the Imperial Truth and the creed of the Machine God.” Behind him, the Archmagos Mephitor raised the shaft of his Omnissian axe before slamming its pommel against the ground, sending a loud, thunderous clap to echo throughout the chamber. As one, the retinue then turned and marched to find their positions along one of the great wooden tables lining the far walls of the chamber.

Bringing up the rear of the entrants was perhaps the smallest individual group gathered for the Council, consisting of only four notables of any importance, and of twice that many of armed warriors intent on their security while they participated in the deliberations of this most sanctified assembly; they came without fanfare and without announcement, the largest of them spearheading the entourage and bringing with him a presence of will and majesty matched only by the golden-armoured liege to which he and his siblings were bound – whether they liked it or not…

On came Kaelianos of the Eighth Legion at the fore, his twelve-foot frame swaying leisurely as he walked, his superhuman frame clad only in a sleeveless purple-bordered tunic which ended mid-thigh and did little to nothing to take away from the fact that he was, in a word, perfect; from his curling mane of chestnut hair – oiled and placed back with a laurel wreath for this occasion – to the face of the Primarch, so alike to his gene-fathers and yet much changed, and ending with the flawlessness that was the flesh-vessel that served as his body.

Mere mortals wept at the sight, for something so handsome and yet beautiful at the same time should not have a life of its own, and even his own sons were never entirely sure whether to keep their gaze upon him or to look away.

Sandalled feet gave way to armoured treads, his Astartes clad in all their raiments of war though they were ostensibly in a place of safety.

Salvius Merula, equerry and closest advisor to the Primarch, came next with his bared head sporting pale and scarred features covered by a head of grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard, his white-crested helmet tucked neatly under one arm and his steely gaze never sitting in one place for long.

He was followed hotly by the much heavier footfalls of Tribunus Militum Minicius Paterculus and the personal bodyguard of the Eighths liege lord, himself and eight others pacing fluidly about the cortège in a semi-circle of Tartaros-pattern armour and expertly wielded power-weapons.

Lastly came Praefectus Peregrini Cae Velthur and Primus Praefectus Classis Abdosir Hiram, mortals perhaps, but the most important mortals of the Eighth.

The former commanded overall the near unlimited fighting strength of the legions Auxilia forces, down to a man finely honed warriors in their own right, and utterly loyal to Primarch and Emperor, while the second man of brown flesh and deep hazel eyes – a former pirate and corsair prince of the Latrurian Sector – equalled his opposite in space borne command and firepower.

Making no show of formality or platitudes, it not being his way in the slightest, Kaelianos bade his followers take their place in the Council Hall somewhere they could be comfortably seated and out of the direct gaze of the other Emperor's progeny while standing alone before Malcador and the figure of his creator.

“Father!” Came a near shout, Kaelianos spreading his arms out and wide in an encompassing gesture, the statue-like makeup of his muscles and sinews clearly visible beneath his olive skin, “my sons and I come at your behest, here to sit and discuss with my relations in familial harmony, may it bring us closer together and bring us all a little more purpose in our tasks ahead.”

A perfect smile widened his mouth to just the right width, his eyes of greenish-blue unblinking as he pressed a closed fist to his chest, never taking his eyes from the Emperor until his radiance made it all but impossible not to – only then did he move away and take his seat with his subordinates, still smiling and waving to most of the others as he sat himself down for the proceedings.

Almost as an afterthought, Arnulf Wode entered the council room. He, and the two astartes accompanying him, were wearing the service khaki uniform of the Pact, with full decorations and the yellow shield emblem of the Legion on their right shoulder, with field caps on their heads. Each of them wore holstered pistols on their polished leather belts, and their boots were shiny enough to see reflections clearly. In addition, they wore bolters, the metal clean, with the bolts locked back and no magazine inserted. Between them they carried a single Munitorum crate.

Wode saluted the podium where Malcador and the Emperor stood, then sat in the closest empty spot, scooting over for the Astartes officers he’d brought with him, who set down their weapons on the desks and lecterns of the seating area. The crate went on the floor, and was promptly pried open by one of the Astartes, who handed the other man and Wode bottles of cheap amasec, as well as packs of unfiltered cigarettes. The Pact had clearly come here because they were obligated, not because they expected to meaningfully alter the discourse on the Edict’s implementation.

Wode’s countenance was guarded, but the resignation and mild frustration of being at a meeting instead of immersed in his Legion’s endless work clearly bothered the 10th’s Primarch. He was eager to be shot of these proceedings.

Each arriving Primarch who greeted those at the topmost podium would be greeted in exchange by Malcador with a short nod. Once it seemed clear that no more would be entering any time soon, the Emperor and Malcador spent a moment murmuring to one another, before returning to their seated positions as Malcador began by addressing the crowd.

‘Welcome, gathered attendees, to the Conclave of the War Council of the Great Crusade, stationed upon the planet of Nikaea in Year 001 of the 31st Millennium,’ he stated dryly, his features barely showing his emotions in the moment. ‘As you are each likely aware, the primary purpose of this Council’s convening is to discuss the matter of the legal declaration known as the Edict of Tolerance, in broad strokes declaring that it is legal at the behest of an appropriate authority figure to induct suitable xenos races into the Imperium of Man as subsidiary members, provided they adhere to all necessary requirements on pain of eradication. With this in mind, there have been... objections to its continued implementation from certain parties.’ He smiled somewhat as he spoke this latter sentence, but muted his features after.

‘To that end,’ he continued, ‘any who wish to discuss the matter in detail may step up to the podium, in orderly fashion, and address those gathered here today with any arguments for, against, or otherwise neutral on the topic, as well as any further topics that would be suited for discussion in these halls, as a matter of settlement before the Emperor of Man’s departure from the Crusade proper. As a matter of formality-’ He gestured now to the various attendants and servitors positioned around the room, each equipped with quill and endless sheathes of paper, and primed to scribble intensely as members of each group stated their case. ‘-when you first approach the central podium, please state your full name, associated organisation, rank within such, and up to three most pertinent titles beside, in that order, before stating your arguments clearly.

‘Additionally, if you wish to discuss any pertinent topics with particular individuals present here, either prior to or following a case made, various side halls are made available to you to attend such matters as are relevant to the conclave proper.’ He gestured to the side doorways of the rooms, leading to additional rooms of increasing distance from the main hall, each staffed by yet more attendants, servitors, and other pertinent individuals as to the general functioning of the Council. ‘All decisions regarding these matters shall be declared, along with the final ruling regarding the Edict of Tolerance’s continued, discontinued, or otherwise modified existence, at the conclusion of the conclave.

‘With those matters addressed,’ Malcador concluded with a tap of a gavel, ‘I hereby declare the Council of Nikaea is in attendance.’ He folded his fingers together, nodding to the assembly as if to say “go ahead”.

---

---

A sigh escaped Micholi as he rose up, taking the step required to reach his own ‘private’ podium in front of his seating area as he took a deep breath. “Micholi Vakarian, 2nd Legion Night Watch, Primarch.” After all, Malcador had requested that they address themselves before speaking.

“Since the Edict of Tolerance is currently the status quo, I will respectfully allow those opposed to it to make the first statement. I request that you do not leave anything in the dark, for regardless of outcome I doubt any of us wish to see this matter fester more than it already has. In order for us to be united once more, now is the time for the depths of the divide to be revealed in the light of day.”

“Indeed,” came the rumbling of Sarghaul’s voice, the giant not budging from his place, yet his words clearly audible to all, “What is there to conceal? That there is no use to the Edict besides appeasing your whims? Your words speak to your arrogance. You have nothing to show for your handiwork but the taint of alien blood in our master’s Imperium, yet you stand as a pillar for others to challenge. Tell us, what has the Edict given us beyond the proliferation of vermin?”

As Micholi turned his head to look towards Sarghaul, there would have been a second where the other Primarchs present would have been able to see a brief flash of surprise cross his face. It faded quickly as he answered “You mean apart from having the Imperium avoid having to waste lives, time and resources on pointless wars that didn’t need to happen? After all, as surprising as it might seem, the Imperium does strive to be diplomatic.”

“That price is well spent for the conquest of order,” the Tartarean scoffed, scraping his claws against one another, “The Crusade demands sacrifices of us all. Those loyal to the Lord of Mankind pay them gladly. You speak of their offerings, but you distort their purpose and make a mockery of their service with your contamination.”

Augor Astren then raised a single plaintive bionic hand and spoke in turn. “I find I must speak at this juncture. Let it be known that I do not intend to speak against the most sacred and hallowed screed that is the Edict of Tolerance. I shall endeavor only to objectively address its utility, and the consequences of that utility. To which I much regretfully rebuke you, brother.” Augor turned his eyeless gaze to Micholi. “For let there be no doubt - it is threefold the purpose of the Imperium, as spoken by the Emperor of Mankind and the Omnissiah, as sung by the decrees of the Imperial Truth, and as enshrined in the doctrine of the Cult Mechanicum. The purpose of the Great Crusade is to reunify all of Humanity and to subjugate the entire galaxy under the sovereign dominion of mankind and the one who stands above all. This end is to be achieved by any means, with any measure of sacrifice and hardship. Diplomacy, while a viable tool at our disposal, will not by itself permit us to attain that vaunted goal, nor will it remain an option indefinitely. Any pretense to the contrary can only be deceit.”

As the main debate began, Sekhmetara remained quiet, her hazel eyes, at least when she did not summon up the blazing gold of her innate gifts, watching the proceedings carefully as she crossed one leg languidly over the other beneath the shimmering feathered skirt of her gown. She had taken a position away from the epicentre of proceedings for the matter, calmly leaning ever so slightly to allow her hushed words to reach the most proximate of her sisters.

“What do you think the chances are they might start hitting each other?” The onyx skinned Primarch spoke with the faintest hint of a visible smirk, which faded shortly as she regarded Daena with a more dedicated look, her eyes passing up and down her fellow primarch. “We have matters to discuss afterwards, I’m sure you can find my chambers here.”

Daena didn’t notice the critical inspection of her sister, the Primarch instead cocking her head at the argument brewing between their siblings. “Low, so long as they’re in front of Father. We might find them later on in the grounds, though,” she said with a shrug before taking a sip from her wine. After her stay with the Tears, she had grown rather fond of their potent brews, the Angel’s face slowly but surely growing flush. “And why? What’s wrong? Is there news from Praxia?”

“Nothing quite so pressing sister,” Sekmetara almost purred in a languid, near silent whisper, studying one perfect teal painted nail, before her attention settled on the debate once more. "That might provide some entertainment, if it wasn't altogether rather predictable."

Likewise positioned out of the limelight of the discussion, Ayushmatki silently observed the debate unfolding within the room. Her eyes, mismatched in color and make, darted between each speaker in turn, carefully noting down events as her cybernetic left eye recorded a detailed pict-feed of this proceeding and all others she would attend for the council. Every second would be made available to her Primarch upon their reunion. Until such time, she waited passively, chin resting upon folded hands. She could have almost been mistaken for a mortal follower of Sekhmetara’s, were it not for her different manner of dress than the other Mithran followers of the Primarch.

Turning his gaze away from Sarghaul for the moment to look at Augor, Micholi nodded his head as he acknowledged his Mechanicum brother before answering his claims. “I believe what we have here is a misconception. I have never claimed that diplomacy is the only means of uniting the universe, nor can it always be used. The idea of trying to convince an Ork warboss to commit to peace talks is utterly laughable after all. However... We are not Orks. We are humans and part of that legacy is a willingness to accept those willing to stand beside us and under the banner of bringing order and peace to a war torn and chaotic universe.”

He paused for a moment, before deciding to offer Augor an argument that he might struggle with. “After all, doesn’t it speak of the Emperor’s character that while other races mindlessly slaughter those different from them, he is willing to look past the mere coincidence of birth and instead respect loyalty to the cause above all else?”

“The legacy of Humanity is precisely and only what the Emperor of All Mankind and the Omnissiah decrees it is, and to presume anything of the Emperor’s character from the actions of others merely invites weakness and doubt. We have already received instruction as to how the Emperor of Mankind and the Omnissiah should be viewed and ascribed.” Augor replied flatly without missing a beat.

There was a moment where Micholi considered calling Augor out for the double standard of the Mechanicum’s stance on the Emperor and thus his statement, but decided against it, instead saying “Alas, we come to discussions about the Emperor from different points of view that make such discussions… difficult. We should get back on topic.” Augor looked for a moment as though he had a retort for that as well, but seemingly checked himself and folded his arms to cede the discussion.

Deciding to continue as Augor remained silent, he quickly explained “The goals you mentioned before are true. The purpose of the Crusade is to unite humanity under the Imperium and bring order and peace to a universe that had been plagued by the warp storms of the Age of Strife, hostile xenos races, monsters that come from all walks of life… alongside a thankfully small number of threats that cannot be classified as a ‘living creature’. The end goal being the Imperium stretching the galaxy and for those living under its protective flag to be able to live their lives as peacefully as possible.”

“The reason the Edict of Tolerance was created and accepted as Imperial law in the first place was rather simple. To be able to live peacefully without threat of being slaughtered by some outside, monstrous force was a desire that wasn’t just held by humanity... and that those xenos races that clearly shared those values and was willing to sacrifice and bleed alongside humanity under the Imperial banner to make that dream a reality could be brought into the fold instead of wasting time and effort fighting them for petty reasons when there were more worthwhile and important wars to wage to secure a peaceful future. How much harder would the wars against the Rangdan have been if the legions had been further split and scattered, fighting a dozen species that could have been swayed diplomatically across the stars rather than able to be called to deal with the real threat?”

"Once again, you have dared to speak as though your word was that of the Emperor!" Augor fired off at Micholi with an accusatory gesture. "You cannot speak as to the true reason the Edict was created because your will is subordinate to that of the Emperor, even if your writ is contained in the Edict's body! To continue to infer otherwise so irreverently would be treason for anybody other than a Primarch! Rest assured, I will not tolerate you doing so freely any further. I demand you recant the nonsense you dared to speak of as though it was his will!"

“Alright, I take it back,” Daena said slowly to Sekhmetara before draining the remainder of her glass. “I can’t say I’ve ever known Augor to be this emotional about… anything.” A servant swiftly refilled her glass, the liquid mixed with the heady alien concoction that could make even the Astartes drunk. “Even odds that they come to blows.”

"Do you notice how he does not snap at Sarghaul for the same fault? Truly the Cog-men are as susceptible to bias as the rest of us, they just beep more when they do it." Sekhmetara drank along with her sister, if not quite so earnestly as her eyes flicked between the three speakers, perhaps taking more enjoyment out of the proceedings than her more concerned sibling. "We may have to intervene at some point I suppose."

Micholi glanced at Augor for a moment, a small look of acceptance in both his eyes and tone as he stated “Augor, if the Edict and its intent hadn’t met with the Emperor’s approval, do you truly believe it would have existed at all? If the Emperor’s vision for the Imperium truly didn’t allow for the inclusion of allied xenos races and inhuman vassals, I do not doubt for a second that the Emperor would have killed me on the planet he found me on and carried on without giving me a second thought for threatening his vision.”

“That the Edict was sufficient for his purposes does not make them the same as yours and I will not continue to humor your treacherous implications to the contrary.” Augor practically hissed. “You have wasted enough of this Council’s time with platitudes you would baselessly have us believe are indicative of his will.”

From the sidelines, Daena had finally pushed aside her drink, the stoic woman now doing her best to retain composure. “Perhaps Father should’ve had more daughters,” she whispered under breath, pitched perfectly to be audible to her elder sister and none other. And then, in a thought she kept inside only to herself, the silent addition of, Or perhaps fewer zealots.

"You do not treasure each of our brothers dear sister? My, such treachery" Sekhmetara murmured back in private, if total, mockery of the term so loosely thrown around the chamber, her voice concealed even more so by the proximity of her goblet to her lips before taking a further sip.

“Both of you need to end this ridiculous tangent,” Usriel’s stern voice came, his mechanical gaze staring upon that of Augor. The Nineteenth Primarch spoke once more, “The Edict was written by both the Emperor and Micholi and thus is his will. The Edict would have not been created had the Emperor requested it so and has been in effect longer than some Primarchs have been in the Imperium. As such the Edict is his will, is such facts sufficient, Augor?”

The Primarch of the Twelfth Legion folded their arms and nodded stiffly, once, without replying - evidently placated for the moment.

“Excellent,” Usriel began once more before turning his gaze to Micholi, “However, I will state now that the Edict does directly go against the Mechanicum’s teachings, a fact that you should have looked into upon its inception, Micholi. I will allow Augor to elaborate more upon such things as he, unlike I, has been properly inducted into the Cult Mechanicum, but rest assured that you two do not speak words of treachery. That is all.”

“Did I ever tell you of the mess my daughters got up to at Ullanor?” Daena asked Sekhmetara, each word spoken with the careful enunciation of one who is quite aware that they are intoxicated. “Usriel impressed them greatly then, I think I’m beginning to see why.”

"No, although do feel free to share, I do not think we are going anywhere soon." The Mithran primarch's focus settling on the discussed brother as Daena's deliberate speech teased the tale. "I suppose the competition is quite lacking at the moment."

There was a quick, polite nod of his head to Usriel as Micholi accepted his words silently.

“Enough of this meandering,” Sarghaul cut into the pause that followed with a damp breath from his humidified respirator. “We would have prevailed against the Cerabvores all the same, Micholi. To doubt that is folly, and worse still is how you muddle the waters around our goal. Our duty is to fight and bleed for peace and order in the galaxy, yes. But you are deluded if you think that such things can be while the xeno lives. There can be no true quiescent dominion without a uniform genetic base. The flesh and the mind are one, so teaches the Imperial Truth. And so the intellect of the xeno is as aberrant as its body, an intrusion into any orderly system built by mankind. It will always bring strife and disruption. Whatever ideals the inhuman might parrot, it will doom the Imperium if brought into its fold. This is the truth of the unity of flesh and spirit.”

The levity on Daena’s face immediately vanished as soon as Sarghaul spoke, the Angel swiftly biting the inside of her cheek moments before resuming her typical grim countenance. Holding the glass daintily in her hand, she suppressed the urge to immediately stand. An urge that she did permit an exhaust valve to, the Primarch muttering, “Perhaps the Lurkers require new Iterators,” to herself.

“It is true, Primarch of the Ninth, that the Imperium would have sooner or later triumphed over the Rangdan and their empire. Of that there is no doubt.” Ayushmatki rose from her position, unable to hold her silence. “But you pay little heed to the even greater costs that would have been incurred by such were the Sixteenth Legion split up combating a dozen minor uprisings about the segmentum. Do you forget, Tartarean, the losses incurred not only by the Sixteenth Legion, but the loss of entire smaller Legions to the scourge from beyond the stars? Do you forget the worlds laid waste beneath them? Do you forget the worlds scoured by our own hand in their aftermath, to brook no chance that the menace could return? Do you forget the near elimination of the Twelfth Legion, the losses sustained by your own, and the permanent devastation wrought by such a foe? Do you truly believe that our victory would have been the same in such an event? It is fortunate, indeed, that my Primarch arrived at such a time bringing countless more soldiers from her empire. It is fortunate that we held the line against the scourge and held the tide that would have consumed ever more worlds and left naught but lifeless husks in its wake. The Edict, doubtless fraught with flaws, allows the Imperium to focus its might on the true threats to humanity, and not to waste not only time but valuable resources wiping out all that seems different from us by circumstance of birth. Your ‘victory’, Sarghaul, would have left the Imperium weakened further by the scourge. To suggest otherwise, to believe we would have triumphed merely because ‘we are human’ is the height of folly, underestimating such foes is what lead the original leaders of the Sixteenth to waste as many lives as they did.” She stepped in closer, inserting herself fully into the discussion, her expression twisting into a more mischievous one. “And while this may not be a scientific debate, your basic lack of understanding of biological principles betrays the inherent foolishness in your position.”

Sekhmetara paused practically mid-response to her sister as Ayushmakti spoke, as if having quite forgotten that beings not of the direct lineage of the Emperor could find their voice in such a hall. Far from reproach, the woman's response earned only a subtle smile of enjoyment from the primarch.

“We are more than human,” the Abyssal Primarch waved a talon dismissively in response, his head barely turning to acknowledge Ayushmatki, “To doubt our victory is to doubt the foresight of the one who made us such, and that is treason. But a false-Astartes such as you would know little of that, as one who believes in immaterial spirits would know little of the corporeal sciences. Do not-”

“Sarghaul.” Micholi cut in sharply. “She is right. Even if we had won against the Rangdan in your alternative reality, your ‘victory’ would have left the Imperium weaker for it… and thus left weaker still when the Kynazar invaded the Segmentum Pacificus. Each campaign and war after Rangdan would have been harder fought with fewer troops and resources. Ullanor might have been a harsher, graver threat then it already was. The Imperium will not die to a single war or disaster at this stage, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been bled dry from a thousand smaller cuts. Just because she is not an Astartes does not mean that she is not deserving of respect.”

“You think little of the might of the Imperium and of the minds guiding it, then.” The Tartarean rested the tips of his claws on the fore of his lectern with a sharp tap. “Perhaps you would know them better if you mingled less with the alien.”

Daena lazily toyed with her glass of wine while looking at Sekhmetara from out of the corner of her eye. “I have grown far too fond of the gifts you bring, dearest sister. Were I to stand now, I fear I might be far too honest,” she whispered, the ordinarily subdued Primarch speaking with the barest hint of disdain. “Speak for me, would you? I need a moment to compose myself.” A moment passed before she looked back up at her sister with one of her trademark, all too perfect smiles. “Ah, I had almost forgotten. I trust that arguing on dearest Micholi’s side is not an imposition upon you?”

"Our dear brother has many qualities of note, although dressing for the occasion seems not to be one of them." Sekhmetara’s mournful whisper at the shade of greys currently shared between Daena and Micholi amounted to her primary response, before she waved a dismissive goblet of wine. "I cannot say I possess either of your burning faith on the matter but I shall do my best to not have him flounder so." She accepted, but before the Mithran primarch could prepare herself to stand, another, harsher female voice rose in condemnation.

Nelchitl, reclined in her seat as she was, spoke with forceful annoyance, “Brother Micholi,” she began as she looked in his general direction, “you truly think that this Edict is so vital to the Imperium’s survival…” she shrugged indifferently at her “older” sibling, “For that I am sorry. For the fact that you honestly believe Humanity is better off with xenos in our midst, I mourn for your sanity.” The Primarch, still seated, leaned forward to give respect to her Father at the head of the chamber before turning back to Micholi.

“Our Father, matchless amongst all beings, did not find it prudent to incur xenos detritus upon the Imperium when He first set out to reclaim humanities birthright.” she raised her gaze to look at her brother more completely, “Do you mean to imply that the Master of Mankind had made an oversight in this regard? That He required you, His most timid son, to open His eyes to the so-called ‘benefits’ of allowing filth to mingle with the purity of Humanity? That it would somehow make us stronger?” Nelchitl laughed, a callous thing full of bitter loathing, “The Imperium, our Father, would have been fine were we without this Edict. I have no question in the abilities of Sarghaul and his Legion or the stalwart warriors of the Sixteenth, or of the courage of the Excertus Imperialis which shield humanity, and in the wisdom of our Father to have led us through Rangdan and your Kynazar debacle, without your pet xenos in tow.”

“Honored sister - you are claiming the Edict of Tolerance, in its body, is either unnecessary or perhaps obviated on its face. I would suggest that the Emperor of Mankind does not do anything without sufficient reason. Please, elaborate - why, or how, is the Edict without utility? Are we perhaps employing it incorrectly, or is there some other factor you are thinking of that eludes me?” Augor had unfolded their arms and placed a single bionic hand upon his own podium, a single taloned finger clicking habitually on the end as he spoke. His words were courteous, but from the stern set of his brow it was evident he was a hair away from taking the same issue with his sister as he had with Micholi.

Nelchitl turned to Augor to find barely a whisper of what she would have considered a Brother staring her down intently, mechanical finger tapping incessantly at the stand before him as he did. She knew she had misstepped in how she had framed her mind to those present and with a grin gave Augor a respectful nod, “Brother, I mean not that there was no reason for the Emperor to accept such an unnecessary screed as the Edict, or that he had no reason. As you’re aware Brother the Omnissiah makes no mistakes. He is perfect in all His decrees, His words sacrosanct.” she leaned forward, a true interest flaring in her eyes as she continued, “But nor you nor I, Brother, can ever know His true intent. That the Edict is law is fact, but why it is law is yet unknown.”

“If you are suggesting that the Omnissiah accepted the Edict of Tolerance for some ineffable purpose beyond our devise and external to its written body,” Augor nodded in acknowledgement to Nelchitl, the creases upon his brow visibly receding. “I cannot contest that - but neither is that a statement which can be evidenced without his word. Without offense, honored sister, your stance appears to be one of pure conjecture, if his will and intent cannot be known one way or the other.”

“I suggest only that the Omnissiah did what was necessary at the time. That he allowed his most cowardly son a moment of victory,” Nelchitl stood and turned toward Micholi, stopping briefly upon Aghnemir before resting her gaze on the Primarch of the Second Legion, “Our Father granted you a triumph worthy of praise to bring you closer to his bosom. To ensure your devious ways of war served the Imperium and Him rather than the whims of your Xenos passions.”

She turned back to Augor, “Our Father, our Omnissiah,” she intoned respectfully, “signed the Edict into law to unify the early Imperium, His armies had become unexpectedly led by a coward of questionable devotion to the Imperial Truth and this, the greatest undertaking in humanity’s history. He kept Micholi in check by allowing him his easily cowed playthings, his Xenos creatures of devious origin. Micholi’s stain upon the Imperium is no longer necessary.” she turned back to Augor, “It is this single fact that brings us here today, and it is this single, inescapable fact, that brings Micholi to defend his Edict even while defiling the wisdom and foresight of the Omnissiah.”

“Hm.” Augor resumed tapping on his podium again for several moments before replying. “Though I maintain this notion of yours remains conjecture to me, honored sister, I do confess it is compelling. Certainly the Imperium writ large has not yet grown any more accepting of xenoskind during the Edict’s tenure...as evidenced by the precautions that had to be taken to ensure the safety of our brother’s xenos auxilia during the Omnissiah’s most glorious Triumph. For the Omnissiah and the Sigillite to then subsequently and immediately raise this very Council over the subject would certainly suggest such an alternative motive - although of course, even this conclusion remains mere conjecture as well.” A faint smile broke across Augor’s lips as he nodded, once, to Nelchitl from across his podium before turning his sightless gaze to Micholi once more.

Deciding to ignore his sister’s immature ‘coward’ taunt, Micholi decided to let rational professionalism carry the day as he demanded from his siblings “Tell me… do either of you actually have an issue with the technical aspects of the Edict? Some evidence to suggest that at some point there was a mistake made and a species that proved harmful to the Imperium managed to slip its way past the standards and safeguards? Or are your objections purely emotional?” Micholi paused for a moment as he acknowledged with Augor “...Or in your case, motivated by doctrine. Because considering all the lives that this decision is dependent on, I think the peoples of the Imperium would be more comfortable knowing that it was made with logic and reason rather than an arbitrary ‘I don’t like those who are different from me’. It spits in the face of the values that the Imperial Truth is trying to promote.”

“The people of the Imperium will be comfortable with whatever decision is made here, by the grace of the Omnissiah. The normal, law-abiding citizen of the Imperium would scarcely even hear or know of our decision, one way or another.” Augor stated serenely. “The Imperial Truth embodies the necessity of the unification of mankind and their sovereignty over the galaxy - your Edict of Tolerance is not relevant to it and if the Emperor and the Omnissiah so decrees, it will be as dust - both in reality, and in the annals of history.”

Ayushmatki spoke once more. “The Imperial Truth is founded upon a basis of logic, scientific rationale, critical thinking, and the abolition of blind dogma. And yet, some of its most ardent proponents are merely that - dogmatic followers blinded by their own prejudice and biases. The very concept that xenos are to be eradicated is at odds with the foundation upon which the Imperial Truth is built. There can be no sound, rational opposition to the tolerance of nonhumans within our midst, should they prove beneficial. And yet it seems this inherent contradiction is lost upon many of those present.” She folded her arms, undaunted by the beings that surrounded her. “If the Imperial Truth is not dogma, a religion in its own right that brooks no argument or examination of its tenets, then the destruction of the xeno necessitates a careful examination. Free of the fallacies of those blinded by irrational thinking. Present, to all assembled, your rationale for the eradication of sentient life that could not only serve our cause but strengthen it, purely based on a difference in genetic material. I can see none. The destruction of the alien, for the pure sake of it being alien, is the pursuit of those who cannot see past their own preconceived, blind notions. And to carry out with such zeal a doctrine of this kind reeks of the same dogmatic madness the Emperor himself would see eliminated from the galaxy.” She looked into the eyes of the assembled Primarchs, “Practice the core principles of Imperial Truth, Primarchs, sons and daughters of the Emperor, and explain to us why humanity and humanity alone must rule the galaxy. Do not bore us with the same trite sound bites of the inevitable supremacy of humanity, for it neither answers the question nor follows the same tenets of logic, reason, and scientific analysis that the Imperial Truth is based on.”

As Sekhmetara finally rose from her seat, the light of the chamber cascading over the pristine shimmering skirt of her gown and its many feathers, she regarded the room with a cold detachment entirely at odds with the private mirth of her conversation with Daena.

“It seems I must apologize, dear father, for the insistence of my squabbling siblings to discuss such matters as your true heart while you yet sit among us.” Her eyes, the hazel of her irises now shimmering gold as the direct sight of her gene-father began to awaken the gifts of her bloodline. “They have spoken of your true meaning, made estimates of your mind, of your purpose, looked to define your great truth while still you watch upon us, as if you had ever intended this to be a matter of dogma, to bicker away like the foolish priests of Terra’s past, the very behaviour you shattered in all your wisdom so long ago.” The Mithran primach continued to address the Emperor himself rather than the other delegates, her eyes watering with sparkling tears as she beheld his perfection so directly for such an extended period, the emotion of her condemnation clearly writ on her flawless features. “We are gathered here to discuss the merits of the matter at hand, to listen to testimony, to provide reason and candour to this topic which has split us so egregiously, not pretend to know the mind of our father, to preach understanding of his action when he could, if he wished to, if that is what he wished us to debate, clarify such things in a moment. We have already failed him once by allowing such discord to grow among us, do not do so again.” Sekhmetara finally addressed the room as a whole, showing little concern for the onlookers of the debate to see her so resolutely stand against the entirety of room, in fact, her mote of gold rising alone seemed very much to be the point of the display, before she took her seat once more, a much quieter delivery to Daena beside her. “If you wish to salvage something from this, I would speak now.”

It did not go unnoticed by Kaelianos that he had gone unnoticed, not something he cared all that much about, but for the whole time of the 'discussion' he had been sitting silently and as still as he possibly could, a statue of flesh and blood both unmoving and with a facial expression void of anything other than a blank stare. In his mind meanwhile he had been as active as could possibly be, listening and absorbing the words of his siblings as a sponge might absorb liquid, yet slowly... so slowly... he was becoming tired and bored of this; he was a Primarch who could not cease moving, even as he sat there those of a more psychic bent may be able to see him shimmering for want of a better word, his aura certainly not remaining as still as his body appeared to onlookers.

Having eventually had enough, he lifted himself lethargically from his seat, stretching his limbs and frame in a most deliberate manner, taking a few steps more toward the central area of the room than he probably should have in the wake of the outbursts of both his actual sibling Sekhmetara, and that of the pawn that Eiosha allowed to speak as if she were equal to them all.

“Brothers and sisters... brothers and sisters...” He had began to pace now, looking to each of them in turn and giving each a smile, a smile which to a mortal may have them crying, but which to another Primarch would at least hopefully show them he intended only the best with his words, “this has gotten heated, has it not?”

Ceasing his pacing and planting his feet down, interlocking his fingers like a scholar before him, his face took on a much more serious expression that pinched the unmarked skin of his face somewhat.

“I have studied much, the Edict included, and a fascinating document it is! Oh yes, the ability for any of us to mark a planet for 'elevation' when the time and place is right, as well as the inhuman denizens of that world. Truly our brother has crafted a fine piece of legislature, one that would insure the security of those Xenos that he and those in support of the Edict find worthy.”

Keeping his hands where they were, he gave the slightest of shrugs, his wide shoulders barely moving as he cocked his head slightly to the side, giving his voice some volume as he drew in a new breath and expelled words in its stead.

“So many uncertainties though can come from this – what happens if or when that species decides it does not like living for all intents and purposes under Imperial rule? They think that maybe they could do better without us, or even against us. What if we are deceived, as I fear you could well be, sibling Micholi, and they simply grow like a cancer inside our Father’s great expanse, all the while you and those that support this Edict feeding and nurturing them as unruly infants... but they are not infants, they are not even human, no matter how much you dote on them or treat them as equals.”

Now he opened his hands in a placating gesture, showing his palms both to Micholi and the other Primarchs, rubbing a hand under his smooth chin momentarily.

“Do not misunderstand me, I am neither warmonger nor xenophobe, but – since we have been asked for logic and facts – then let refer to established knowledge in this; our Emperor declared a Great Crusade across the galaxy to unite the fractured worlds of humanity under his banner, the planets of our upbringings included. He forged a partnership with those of Mars to do so. He created our own sons and daughters in order to do so. Yet you stand here speaking of what amounts to the antithesis of that very goal, even after purging Ullanor of just one abhorrent group.”

After steepling his fingers to his mouth for a moment he allowed a loud sigh to escape his lips, spreading his hands palms upwards toward the sky, then allowing them to drop to his sides.

“I will say this, we were created to bring about the unity of mankind, to follow the Imperial Truth, and to serve as one blade against those that are not of us. There has been talk of wasted resources, yet what resources can be wasted if it means making a world ripe for human habitation and colonisation? Talk of the slaying of potentially useful races and worlds, of Xenos that could benefit our purpose. I say that any benefit goes against our purpose and that of this crusade, when the world can be taken and given over to our own. Will you propose High Lords come from these races next? Have your own legion taken away, that you might lead one composed of aliens rather than one that is far too human in makeup?”

Now he returned in the direction of his seat, pausing before sitting once more to say his final fill.

“I shall go by the final decision of this council, but I fear in the long term that – should it fall on the side of xenos collaboration – it will ultimately bring us to ruin one way or another.”

With that he settled himself once more in his seat, having vented somewhat if nothing else, but deep in his heart he could not help pondering whether – should it boil down to it in the end – would Micholi and his ilk fight against their own to save the alien?

At length, Daena’s befuddled mind finally recalled her sister’s instructions from so long ago, her jaw setting in what appeared a stern gaze as she finally forced herself to bite down hard enough to free a trickle of blood. More potent than any intoxicant, the surge of adrenaline that came with the metallic taste of her own lifeblood finally cleansed her mind of Sekhmetara’s ‘gift’, and she wasted little time. More than enough had already been thrown away on the frivolity of drinking, and a stern hand was required to bring order to this so-called council.

With a whisper of thanks to her sister Primarch, she strode from her seat to claim the podium at the center of the room. Wings outstretched to frame the Emperor sitting behind her in a fashion that would have perhaps once been called divine, she began to speak. But not for the benefit of any of her bickering siblings.

“Daena io Azrael, Legio XIV Doomsayers, Primarch, Angel of Death, High Oracle of Irkalla, Queen of Deathseers. The forms must be obeyed,” she said in a flat voice, the mirth of her private whispers with Sekhmetara fully banished as she overlooked the hall. “To rush forward without thought or rigor is to invite catastrophe - as so in deeds of war as in councils of state. Our Father, most beneficent, has granted us the tools to avoid such mistakes with the revelation and practice of the Imperial Truth. All superstitions and prejudices are cast aside, all dogmas forfeited. Yet, who here has championed Truth? The meekest of our number has been its greatest friend so far,” she said, pausing for a moment to nod at Ayushmatki.

“There can be no doubt that the galaxy belongs to Mankind, but this is no article of faith. This was not writ in the firmament by the hand of any God. Our destiny need not be believed for it is proven - this is the glory of the Imperial Truth. You shall heed, dearest brothers and sisters, that the Truth does not claim these stars have always been ours. It concedes that we once resided here at the mercy of other great and mighty races, but each in turn has fallen. The Eldar have descended into destitution and decrepitude from the height of grace, the Ork was too savage and fractious to achieve dominion even before being broken at Ullanor, and countless more have risen and fallen in the eons it has taken for Mankind to bring itself by fits and starts to where we stand now - as the worthiest to rule.”

“Any child can grasp the logic of these simple facts, trusting not in emotion but in the surety of proof. I speak now with that conviction, that so long as Mankind is united no alien force can defeat us.” She stood quietly for what to her felt as an eternity, gathering the wherewithal to drive the point home now that the foundation was laid. “Indeed, so manifest and obvious is this conclusion that even the alien may grasp it. Those too crude or too prideful to accept the inevitability of our dominion must be extinguished - such was our Father’s wisdom in refusing the Edict’s grace to the Ork and the Eldar. But any mind capable of reason, free of the shackles of xenos gods or unwarranted superiority, can recognize Truth. Are we then to blot out even those who know their place in the galaxy? Are we so insecure in our rule that we feel the need to exterminate any who might oppose us? Are we afraid? Humanity’s rule ill needs those who fear losing it so readily.”

“Well spoken, Daena,” came the voice of Usriel, a rare praise passing from him as he looked to the others and uttered words of agreeance with the Primarch of the Doomsayers, speaking to the council in general, “I agree with Daena, the xenos that have already been Edicted understand their place within human society. Their place is determined under process of whether they are compliant and able to work with the Imperium, as well as be able to work alongside and under the tenants of the Imperial Truth. In the end, it is about the furthering of mankind and its unification that those xenos now support.”

Nelchitl grinned to herself as Micholi brushed over her accusations, as he refused to even refute them. She made a mental note of her Brother’s lack of a response and shifted her attention first to Sekhmetara, her brilliance in the light and her dazzling oratory giving pause to Nelchitl’s thoughts of pressing Micholi further but only for as long as her sister held the stage. No sooner did Sekhmetara cede the stage was another vocal sibling seizing it and rekindling the fires within the Emerald Priestess.

She felt her grin widening as Kaelianos seemed to subvert the expectations of his own speech. At first he seemed to be a supporter of the Edict, only for his direction to change and his opposition to it became known. She nodded in agreement as her Brother spoke on the conflicting existence of the Crusade and the Edict itself. To expand Humanity to the stars was the ultimate goal, to seed new worlds and recover the lost member planets of old. To join hand-in-hand with Xenos to achieve this, had never been among the original goals of their undertaking. She was about to rise, to give her support to Kaelianos when Daena rose to take the dais.

The Emerald Priestess watched with trepidation as her sister, celestial as she was, seemed to frame their Father in the grasp of her wings. Internally Nelchitl rejoiced at the sight, for even her sour spirits over the talk of the Edict were not enough to depress her from the holy scene before her, but outwardly she remained tacitly annoyed.

“Though I am the youngest among us, I am no child Sister. I grasp the facts of the Imperial Truth as well as any.” Nelchitl began as she rose from her seat, “I do not speak from humor alone, though I cannot deny it’s inclusion. I speak out of fact as well sister, though you may choose to deny it. So long as Mankind is united it will never fall to Xenos incursion, of this we agree..” she turned to look upon Micholi once more, “But can Humanity truly be united with Xenos included among our kith and kin? Can we ensure the purity of man when the alien lives, breeds, fights and dies alongside us?” She turned back to Daena and continued, her anguish at clashing with her dear sister evident in her gaze, “The Edict is no longer necessary, our Dear Brother Micholi no longer a lone threat to the Imperium at a time in which our future was unclear. Surrounded as he is by true servants of the Emperor as those in this chamber, Micholi and his penchant for deception and tricks pose no threat to His plan anymore. To remove his playthings and cast these xenos among the myriad races that have failed to achieve what humanity is on the cusp of is the least we can do. That they not suffer as they gaze up in ignorance at that which humanity will have achieved where they failed is the ultimate coup de grâce we can bestow upon them. The most human step that can be taken for the inhuman.”

“I fear not the Xenos sister, of this there is no question. I fear only that we are undone from within.” she finished as she swept her gaze one last time over Micholi before taking her seat once more.

Before Daena could answer, a harsh tap sounded from the marble floor as a stout wooden cane struck its surface. “Twenty of you were made, each for their own purpose,” rasped a wizened and aged voice, the strange guest that Daena had personally escorted finally speaking aloud. “Do not doubt the intent your Father poured into each and every one of you.”

Her last word was almost drowned out by a watery respirator gurgle as Sarghaul inhaled to speak once more.

“Our master’s design is not to be questioned,” the Tartarean’s voice merged with the last echoes of his breathing coursing through his armour’s auxiliary systems into the crashing proclamations of an irascible sea-god, “Though the instabilities of the Warp may have engendered flaws in some of his works which persist despite their creator’s will. And it is ever manifest how the spirit is the outgrowth of the body. Your words are as confused as your form is mutated, death-speaker.”

Wode, who had been sinking further and further into his seat with despair at this entire procession, finally gave up, rolling his eyes and putting his cap over his face. The two Astartes with him seemed miserably embarrassed by the nattering of their gene-uncles and gene-aunts, busying themselves with… anything, really. One of them produced a pack of cards, and they set to laying out a favorite game of the merchant soldiers of Salient, Convoy.

“Just lay me down.” Wode said, his voice guttural, not caring who heard. “Lay me down and let death take me, rather than listen to this. Wake me up when you ladies are done arguing over your bridge hands.”

With almost startling ease, the Primarch of the 10th, in front of the Emperor and all his children, fell soundly asleep, making good on his hyperbolic promise.

The noise of wood cracking against wood cut the commotion in the room then and there, as Malcador brought his hammer down in staccato to draw the Primarch’s attention as well as those of the riled High Lords. Behind him, the Emperor shifted, but said nothing.

‘Enough,’ Malcador said, his tone unimpressed, but nonetheless firm. ‘It is clear this has gotten out of hand now, and that you each need time to consider your words before everybody loses their tempers.’ He glanced briefly toward Micholi, who he rather felt looked to be on the verge of exploding, before continuing to speak: ‘With that said, we have spoken at length of the topic at hand, and I believe many of our number would appreciate a break from proceedings,’ he considered, a thought which a good number of High Lords muttered their assent to. ‘This conclave is now in recess. We shall return to the main hall at the same time tomorrow to continue proceedings. Until then, if any present have complaints to be rendered or further points of discussion to propose, myself and the Emperor of Mankind will be available to record them, as will any Remembrancers present in our absence.

‘And to wit,’ he added, slightly more grave than before, ‘accusations of mutation or internal strife are not, despite the circumstances, the point of this conclave, and I would advise all and sundry to remember this for when we return.’ With that, he tapped the hammer upon his gavel again, and rose, leaving the room to its less meaningful conversations. The Emperor, for the moment, stayed seated.

---

[... End Log.]
[... Terminating.]
[Imperial Thought For the Day: Know thy place before thy betters, that thou shalt serve them best.]

001.M31

Spacehulk above the Imperial planet Casan.

During Day 1 of the Council of Nikea

The space hulk was a ruined mess, as was to be expected. Who knew how many ships had been smashed together while lost in the warp, and the various ‘improvements’ the orks had made. The rusted ship and jagged edges creaked and groaned under the strain of unnatural existence. The only light came from Kaldun and his Vanguards as they made their way through the space hulk. The Primarch’s unnecessarily loud voice echoed through the ship as he spoke to his First Company Captain.“Chandrian! How goes the evacuation of the crash zones in Casan?!”

“High Lord Boamiel reports that all civilians have been cleared out of the impact zones and that the Golden Corp is in the process of cleansing any ork infestation that may have clung to the wreckage. In addition, the Mechanicus is on its way to secure any viable technology that may be on this space hulk. They specifically request that we limit the damage that we do to the ship as we cleanse it of the ork infestation.” Chandrian replied in a quieter tone, carefully bringing up the rear of the group as they made their way deeper into the center of the space hulk.

Kaldun laughed. “They will make due with what we leave! Any damage that we do is unlikely to be the deciding factor after all! And it is far more important that we cleanse the ship, or ships I suppose, of any ork presence than it is that we preserve any of this rotten technology!”

The cleansing was going well. The orks were putting up their characteristic fight, but with a Primarch facing them and their numbers limited by the close quarters nature of the fight, the Golden Spears were having no problem methodically making their way through the warped mass of ships and burning away any trace of ork presence with flamer and psychic power. There was something at the center of the space hulk that was concerning, however. A pulsating psychic power that Kaldun and his Vanguards could feel in their very bones. It was likely the source of the mutations in the orks they had seen thus far, though that could just as easily be the fact that the foul creatures had traveled unprotected through the warp.

They traveled down the hallway in silence for a few minutes before Chandrian broke the quiet. “Once again, Kaldun, I must suggest that you return to the Conqueror’s Blade and hasten to the Council. It has already been one day and will take you another to get there. Surely you would like to add your voice to the debate about the Edict?”

Kaldun laughed, waving a dismissive hand in front of him. “It is a ridiculous debate! The Edict is necessary to continue the strength of the Imperium and my siblings will no doubt see that! The few who have issues with it are that abomination Sarghual, Usriel and Augor! The latter two can be convinced, and the former outvoted! I have no doubt that the matter was put to rest promptly and with little drama within the first day! Besides, I am no orator! I leave that to Sekhmetara or Micholi! They are both eloquent speakers! No, I am best served here! Spear in hand and protecting the Imperium from danger!”

An ork appeared as they reached an intersection, leaping at Kaldun and swinging an axe with a guttural roar. Before the crude weapon could even reach him, the Primarch’s hand shot forward and crushed the creature’s head in his fist. He tossed the body aside with another laugh, looking over his shoulder at Chandrian. The gore on his palm began to hiss as it tried to melt through his armor. He burned it away with fire, still laughing. “See?! I can’t do that at the Council! Valdor would be very upset if I tried to!”

Chandrian sighed. “Yes Kaldun. Though I must repeat that your presence there would only help rather than hinder things. The Edict cannot have enough voices in its defense.”

“You worry too much Chandrian! My siblings and the Emperor will see the righteousness of the Edict, never fear!”

If there were any doubts in the mind of the Captain of the first company, they had no time to be voiced as a chorus of growls and roars echoed through the ruined halls of the ship, seemingly coming from in front of and behind them. The first ork was only a scout. The rest were coming. Kaldun grinned, gripping his spear tighter. “Ready, Chandrian?!” The Captain smirked, turning around to cover their backs. “Always, Kaldun.”

They came in an unorganized mass, snarling and howling. Most of them only had crude melee weapons, likely ripped from the ship itself, but a few had actual weaponry. The bullets ripped through the air above the heads of the other orks, hitting a few that were just slightly too tall, and came to a stop in front of Kaldun’s face. He grinned as they fell to the ground, the Golden Spear’s bolter firing from behind him to answer the attack. He lifted his own spear up and pointed it down the hall. “I admire the courage of you orks! Even if it can be seen as stupidity!” The Thunder of Labrys shone bright gold and crackled with electricity as he channeled his psychic power through it.

With a thunderous crack the power was released and golden lightning ripped through the horde before him. Those that were hit directly by the lightning exploded, their mutated blood burning and melting the flesh of the other orks around them. Those that were beside them were thrown backwards and into the walls by the force of his attack. Their ears bled from the damage the sound had done. Behind him, Kaldun felt the heat and heard the screams as Chandrian burned away the ork infestation. A good idea, to make the job of the Mechanicus forces easier. Kaldun moved his spear in a slow line in front of him, leaving golden flames twisting in the air before him. As the orks before him struggled to pick themselves up and counter attack he stabbed forward with his spear in a quick gesture and a wave of golden flames erupted out before him. The remaining orks were turned to ash without even a chance to roar in defiance, and the hall of the ship was left glowing red.

Silence surrounded them as the last of the orks died. “Another successful battle!” Kaldun glanced behind him, grinning at his sons and Chandrian. Chandrian gave a nod and a smile in return. “We are close, Chandrian! Those orks came from the sources of that psychic disturbance, I know it! We will cleanse this wretched mass of ships yet!”

It didn’t take long to finally reach the source of the disturbance from there. They could feel it pressing against their skulls, like a knife being driven deeper in with each step they took. They began to hear a mechanical roaring as they drew closer, like metal being ripped apart. The ship around them seemed to vibrate with each roar and they finally saw what it was as they forcibly opened a rusted door.

It was a gagrant. The foul shape that was meant to honor the ork gods was unmistakable. A warboss had clearly been trying to start his own vicious campaign through Imperial space with it. But unprotected travel through the Warp was dangerous, and he had paid the ultimate price. The countless orks that had been working on the Gagrant had been fused into the machine itself during the travel of the space hulk. It was as much a creature as it was a weapon now, with various faces, limbs, and mouths appearing and disappearing in the writhing mass of the gagrant’s body.

The gagrant shifted and roared again. Its screams finally became clear now that they were in the room. “WAAAAAAAAAGH.” The familiar ork battle cry had a metallic screech to it, and the entire room shook with the power behind it. As Kaldun and his sons watched, the vibrations shook free dozens of globes of flesh from the gagrant that crackled with warp energy. The balls of flesh landed with sickening splats and shook before rapidly forming into new snarling orks.

“The big one is mine!” Kaldun announced, pointing the Thunder of Labrys at the gagrant. “And what are we to do while you fight it?” Chandrian asked, looking up at the massive creature.

“Simple! You keep the little ones from distracting me while I kill their father!” With that Kaldun was gone, charging towards the gagrant with an excited and bloodthirsty laugh.

“Ah yes, clean up duty.” Chandrian sighed before gesturing forward, flames already forming around his hands. “Well, come on brothers. We’ll kill the little ones while he deals with the gagrant.

With a great leap Kaldun shot himself into the air, and golden wings shot out from his back to keep him in the air. He flew until he was looking down at the gagrant. “Feel the Flames of Conquest!” He drew in a deep breath, golden flames sparking around the edges of his mouth, and exhaled a torrent of honey colored fire straight into the face of the monster. “WAAAAAAGH!” The gagrant screamed again in response, a limb flailing towards Kaldun. He ducked under, laughing, and breathed the flames again onto the gagrant. Another scream and a flailing limb, easily dodged by the Primarch. He breathed even more fire onto the creature, raking its body with flames.

“WAAAAAAAAAAGH!” The gagrant screamed in frustration, its entire body crackled with warp energy and a bolt of lightning shot forward at Kaldun. It slowed before it hit him, and Kaldun was sent a few feet back by the impact, spinning through the air. His armor smoked from the impact as he came to a stop, and he could feel the electricity still traveling through him. That had hur himt. He grinned at the realization. That had hurt him! “Ah! You can hit me! Good! That means you’re powerful enough to be worthy of my time!”

Another bolt of lighting shot from the body of the gagrant. This time Kaldun was ready, and he dodged out of the way. “All those minds and you can’t think of a better idea!?”

He shot forward with his golden wings, dodging the attempts at hitting him again with lightning and flailing limbs of the gagrant. The Thunder of Labrys grew to twelve feet and once again began to glow with golden energy and crackling electricity. As he drew closer to the head of the gagrant it began to grow brighter and brighter until it was painful to look upon.

He landed on the head of the monster and hefted his spear above his head with a bloodthirsty grin. “NOW FEEL THE MIGHT OF KALDUN, THE GOLDEN CONQUEROR!” With a roar of his own to match the scream of the gagrant, he shoved his spear down into the head of the creature and channeled all of his psychic power through it. The gagrant screamed in agony, golden lightning sparking across its body as it spasmed and flailed. Its body began to smoke and tear apart from the sheer force of psychic energy being forced into it. Kaldun threw his head back and laughed madly, exultant in victory.

With a final scream, the gagrant wildly swung its limbs at Kaldun. Distracted as he was, he was only able to pull his spear free and attempt to block the attack to no avail. He was punted down to the ground and through the floor to a lower level. His sons followed through the hole he had made, finishing off the last of the orks around the dying gagrant.

Chandrian walked over to the dent Kaldun had made in the lower floor. “Get up. You killed the beast. How are you feeling?” Kaldun sat straight up with a grin, spear hefted in the air triumphantly.

“Flush with the glow of victory! It was only able to shock me and break a few bones! Nothing my powers cannot fix! We have sufficiently cleansed this hulk of any threat to the Mechanicus! Gather the rest of my sons! You and I will head to the Council, while the rest prepare for whatever crusade my father will send us on! This was a glorious day Chandrian! And you wanted to miss this for some boring Council!”

---

The Council of Nikaea
The Complex Grounds
After First Session

---

Although the Nikaean complex had been designed and constructed expeditiously, the capable minds of the architects assigned to the task had ensured that the number and magnitude of its facilities were sufficient to the needs of the assembled potentates. While the extent of how much was necessary could not be calculated with the utmost precision, the builders had wisely decided to err on the side of caution and provide an excess of lesser chamber radiating from the main gathering halls. Some of those had, by their very supernumerary nature, remained vacant and unused throughout the proceedings, though still maintained pristine by dutiful servants in the event that they may after all be useful at some point.

The architects’ design was thus vindicated when, during a lull in the Council’s proceedings, one of the most distant reserve chambers resounded with the thunder of approaching steps. The room, dimly lit and empty save for a sober table and quartet of seats, was momentarily darkened as a towering bulk filled its doorway, choking off the lamps in the corridor that were the main source of its illumination. Light then flowed back into it in a surge as the Primarch of the Ninth passed over the threshold and stepped to the side, followed by the umbral figure of his Equerry. Turning his gaze to meet the one who had followed them to this remote spot, Sarghaul let out a watery exhalation, as if to prompt his speech.

“We are alone here,” he breathed, “Speak. What do you seek to know?”

The form that had followed was none other than that of the Nineteenth Primarch and a smaller one next to him, adorned in insignia that marked him as the Chapter Master of one of the groups within the Steel Sentinels. It was not Usriel that spoke however, but the smaller Astartes who spoke in a grim and focused tone, “I am Chapter Master Arikiba, Gene-Uncle Sarghaul. I had fought in a great many campaigns, Lord. Ullanor, Rangdan, but most importantly in the context of this conversation, which I assure will not leave this room is that of the Purging of the Soilis System.”

Arikiba nervously shifted as he looked between his gene-father and the other Primarch, continuing with his explanation, “I seek to understand what The Abyssal Lurkers were doing in the Soilis System, Lord. I recovered much evidence pointing towards experimentation but for what I cannot definitely say without speculation.”

“Soilis?” The Tartarean seemed puzzled as he mulled over the word, difficult as it may have been to discern beneath his unmoving helmet. “I do not recall that name. Where is it, Issnos?”

The dark-armoured Traal unclipped a dataslate that had been magnetically fastened to the belt of his armour and rapidly tapped across it with an ivory digit, before indicating a point among the flowing lines of light upon it to his Primarch.

“There ought have been nothing for us in that sector,” Sarghaul commented perplexedly, before turning his gaze back to Arikiba. “What did you find there that showed you my spawn’s presence?”

Arikiba brought out his own dataslate and tapped upon its screen before stepping over the Tartarean, holding the slate up so that he might be able to see, it was an image of the corpse they had found upon their initial landing at the outpost. “This armor, my lord. As well as manifests and reports from that very outpost of the Abyssal Lurkers constructing a base in the ocean. Before that we were attacked by Kynazar bio-forms that held remarkable similarity in appearance to the war forms that your forces bring into battle, Lord.”

“The Kynazar, you say.” Sarghaul craned his head to better look at the image, while Traal leaned in over his elbow to cast a glance of his own. “The last I heard of them was shortly after the invasion. We had few forces to spare between the Xenocides, but I mandated an investigation into what remnants had been captured. Find their weaknesses, the limits of their technology. Nothing came of it at the time.”

Correct, Traal signed in smooth Voidsys graph-binaric. As he did, the purpose of the bone talons on his gauntlets became clear - in the gloom, the polished white of the ornaments made his gestures easy to follow. Their biological forms were too diverse and adaptable. Their technology was too closely integrated with their bodies. Further research would have been expensive and not useful.

“Investigation was terminated then,” the Primarch reprised, “It was still the second decade of the last century. When did you discover this?”

“The exact year was 952 of the last Millenium, Lord,” Arikiba answered swiftly, pulling up the exact report on his dataslate to show Sarghaul. “We did not immediately report these findings to you as we were attempting to piece together what had happened and we did not want to distract two Primarchs from the crusade, Lord.”

“And you have not concluded much since,” the giant rumbled with a nod, “No wonder. I cannot answer this readily myself. There was never a second mandate for Kynazar experimentation, was there?”

No records of such exist, the Equerry confirmed.

“But there must have been requisition orders.” Sarghaul pointed at the dataslate with a massive claw of his own. “Your report is dire, Chapter Master. The creatures must have broken containment, slain the garrison and absorbed their charybdes complement. No force strong enough to do this on its own could have been at large by then. We must assume they were enhanced as part of the experiment. The supplies for that most likely came from Carcinus. What do the Apothecarion logs show?”

Once again, Traal busied himself with his dataslate, swiping and tapping with the outer curvature of his claws rather than their gouging tips. His motions were even and regular, until they abruptly broke off and his hand remained hovering as he stared at the pict-screen. After some moments, he motioned for his Primarch to give his findings a look, and the Tartarean himself could only slowly oscillate his head.

The documentation confirms, the Equerry at last signed, Orders for the requisition of Apothecarion supplies and their shipment to the Segmentum were filed around that time. Items include - He launched into a dazzling array of complex specialistic denotations, among which a knowledgeable audience could have discerned such things as “macrosteroids”, “neuromuscular coalescents” and “catalyst elixirs”, before Sarghaul motioned for him to stop.

“The implications of the Kynazar doing such things is a grim one, Sarghaul,” Usriel finally spoke, a voice most calm considering what was being stated, looking at his sibling with his mechanical, red glare. Usriel motioned to Arikiba before explaining further, “My gene-sons had also found that the body had a mixture of the Kynazar’s own blood intermingled with your fallen sons’ own.”

“If these beings can assimilate our kind into their genetic chimeras, we shall not have seen the worst of them yet,” the Abyssal assented, “Hope that your scions were thorough in eradicating them. And that this would suffice to cut them at the root, for there is more. The requisition orders were not an isolated case. More caches have been sent to the Pacificus over the last century, perhaps to more hidden sites. It is something I shall only know for certain once I have severed this sabotage, but that this should even be possible is good cause for alarm. If they can manipulate our own systems, there is no telling what more they might be capable of.” He snapped a claw. “We will need discretion before we can act. I trust you understand that.”

“The planet that had been originally tainted had been stripped of life in the following rebellions upon it. No life remained, we made sure of it, before we built a Fortress Complex there to watch over the sub-sector,” Arikiba stated, before continuing, “We maintain a garrison of one-hundred Astartes sworn to secrecy as well as many other Imperial assets, including the soldiery originally from the planet itself and supplemental mortals from current day Auxilia. I would have requisitioned one other asset but such clearance was not gifted to me and the knowledge of the one I hoped to have stations eludes the upper echelon of even the Imperial Bureaucracy.”

“What did you intend to requisition?” Usriel inquired.

“A hunter, of sorts. Dressed in all black with a skull and a strange weapon mounted to his head, he proved most useful in driving back the Kynazar forces but our Librarians stated him to be a Blank, an assassin likely sent to sever the synapses of the Kynazar before they called to their fleets,” Arikiba reported causing Usriel to look up to Sarghaul.

“Do you know of any such assassins, officially?” The Nineteenth Primarch asked.

The Tartarean heavily shook his head. “Blanks remain a mystery even to me. I have sensed their voids here, among our lord’s guard, and to have sent one to disrupt the xenos’ amalgam mind where it appeared would befit his blessed prescience. Beyond that, I cannot say. If the Emperor’s servants are indeed ever so vigilant, the situation may not be critical. Even so, it remains our duty to suppress the subversions of the inhuman. Ensure that no more of them arise upon that world, and I shall track the source of what restored them to strength once.”

“I will make sure that any such reports are suppressed, Sarghaul. I fear that if the mortals found these reports it may panic them and encourage further dissent,” Usriel stated, stepping closer to the Tartarean, further adding, “Should you require the aid of my sons in eradicating these creatures then you will have it. You will find in the reports how devastating my sons were against the Kynazar and their genetically modified mortals.”

“As they were made to be,” the giant inclined his gaze, “We are the sword of the Emperor, wielded to crush the foes of mankind. As long as we remember that, no foulness from the stars will stand against us. For your word, I give you mine - when you are in need, we shall come. Let the maggots break themselves against our iron wall.”

“Very well, I suppose this meeting is adjourned,” Usriel said, looking to Arikiba, “Be sure that there are no leaks and that these reports stay in the Legion, my son.”

“As you wish, father,” the Chapter Master stated bowing his head to the Nineteenth Primarch before turning to Sarghaul and bowing his head once more, “I bid thee luck in suppressing the mortals and xenos. Shall I make preparation to have the armor returned to your care, Lord?”

“Do so. The residues within it may lead us to the beasts’ tracks.” The Tartarean raised an outsplayed hand in salute. “Go with strength, scion of the Nineteenth.”

“Goodbye, Sarghaul. May the Omnissiah guide your blades,” Usriel said as Arikiba and himself turned away from the two Abyssal Lurkers, walking out of the room to rejoin the rest of the Council without any other word.

“And farewell to you.” As the Sentinels stepped out into the corridor and their shadows drifted out of sight, Sarghaul turned to Traal. Moving his heavy claws through the air with surprising grace, the Primarch began to sign in the esoteric code known to him and his Equerry alone.

Those shipments, are you certain? A continuous flow until now?

So say the records, Traal answered in the same occult signage, The last was sent only eighty-two year fractions ago. Destination in the Pacificus, again.

And that clearance, it is the reason I was not notified. From the highest instance in the Apothecarion. It can only be him.

You know Brother Terech’s zeal better than me, Progenitor, was all the Equerry could reply. He would not be stopped from seizing the xeno’s instruments by the fact that they are the xeno itself. The duty of the Fleshweaver consumes him.

That is laudable, as long as it does not eclipse his duties as warrior and human above all. Sarghaul clicked his blades in frustration. I almost fear to expect what we will find in Dis. This accursed council cannot end soon enough.

Sun and Steel

001.M31

Council Grounds

“Being a Transcription, Accurate & True, of the Meeting of the Masters of the 10th and 17th Legiones Astartes”
- Remembrancer Archives, M.31

“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves- in their depravity- design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”
- Assigned to a pre-M1 Terran remembrancer, identity unknown.

As the events of the Council wore on, Arnulf Wode, Lancer Primus of the 10th Legion, Primarch, Gene-sire, and other titles he had yet gotten used to, found himself returning to the sparring chambers of the Council buildings more and more. He wore no armor, not even so much as a refractor field. He was dressed in… well. His old tanker fatigues. The same rumpled boilersuit he’d worn during those twenty years of unification on Salient, obviously cleaned and pressed since then. It reminded him of simpler times, which is why he wore it when he was not at official business.

Something about the inactive hum of the idling trainer servitors helped him think, and quiet time for thinking had been at such a premium in the last few years. It hadn’t been hard to pinpoint where his internal disquiet came from - like all things in this new life he’d found, it had started during that run across the Southern Wastes that ultimately put him back into his father’s graces.

When Arnie Wode the soldier became Arnulf Wode the conqueror. He sighed, picking up a laughably primitive weapon from the wall, a stout wooden club topped by a sharpened steel spike. He turned it in his hands, his fingers running over a switch. He pressed it, and the steel cap of the weapon erupted in brilliant blue light.

Well. Maybe not so laughably primitive after all. That was another thing he’d have to get used to. Imperial war was so much more brutal, so much more up close than the sweeping actions of the Salient deserts. Even now, twenty years after that run across the Wastes, he could still see the yellow-armored form of the pre-Pact Lightnings butchering his human soldiers, their fists gripping hammers and chain-swords and bolt pistols turned so the grip could be used as a club, still see the explosive gouts of viscera as transhuman strength met human frailty at arm’s length.

He turned the power-goedendag off, and hung it back on its rack, clasping his hands behind his back and walking the length of the room, his thoughts adrift as he inspected each of the master-crafted wonders that hung about the chambers.

Close to dying from boredom, the master of the Seventeenth Legion stalked through the halls of the Council building with a small train of specialists in tow. A number of logisticians spoke in hushed tones of supplies and reinforcements, a gaggle of hooded adepts of the Mechanicum blared their cant at as low a level as their synthesizers and casters allowed, and even some of her very own daughters, Company Commanders all of them, talked quietly of training regimes and Neophyte readiness.

All of it was far too loud for the Primarch’s enhanced senses. All of it filled her mind with dizzying sets of data and lists, compounded by the fact she was needlessly translating the techpriest’s static bursts and adding their wealth to the monotony in her head.

As if by some divine intervention she saw her escape appear before her. So sudden was her stop that one of the hooded techpriests walked directly into her, his meager form rebounding off the armored form of the Primarch and falling to the ground with an inhuman burst of static. Paying no heed to the adept Nelchitl found a smile growing on her face as she peered into what she had thought was an empty sparring room.

As she turned to enter the chamber, her Captains took to her flanks and made it clear the others were not to follow as a single Astartes posted themself in the path of the rest of the entourage.

“The Liberator of Salient,” Nelchitl spoke excitedly as she came down the steps into the chamber and made her way to the racks of weapons arrayed for anyone's use, “the People’s Hero.” she exclaimed almost mockingly to him with a hand up in his direction as she ran the other across the top of a masterfully crafted power sword.

“You have saved me from the monotony of my lesser duties. For this I am grateful.” she hefted a sizable power hammer in a single hand, feeling it’s balance and weight as she swung it easily around herself.

“Liberator. More like the euthanist of Salient.” Wode said, pursing his lips at a weapon that resembled nothing so much like a coil of several steel whips. “That world was sick.”

He looked away from his ponderings to regard the newcomer to his makeshift fortress of solitude, his face lighting up in recognition. “Saints and Martyrs, that’s not my sister I see, is it? And divorced of your entourage, how’d you manage it? I’ve been trying to actually -talk- to any of my new siblings this whole bloody council, but I never could get close to any of them.”

Wode strode across the deck, stopping just out of range of any practice swings Nelchitl might choose to make. He stuck out his hand. “Arnie Wode. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, N… Nelchitl.”

He butchered her name, admittedly. The Serpents had names unlike anything the 10th’s master had ever pronounced before.

“Many planets require the Imperium to adjust them, lest they stray from our Father’s path.” she responded to her Brothers musings on his title. She continued her small swings of the hammer, each one tighter and faster than the last as she came to regard its nature.

Smiling she turned to regard Wode as he approached, near as tall as her and built like the famous tanks he so dearly loved. She grinned and shrugged as he continued to muse, “I have been busy for sure, the Crusade continues beyond Nikaea. Though,” her grin grew wider as she inclined her head to Wode, “I did manage to have a short exchange with our dear brother Micholi.” she finished with a laugh before her eyes set on Wode like a predator on prey.

“Sister is fine.” she added as she hefted the power hammer towards his outstretched hand. Not waiting to see if the Primarch of the Tenth would catch it she spun in place, grabbing up the power sword from earlier and igniting its thrumming energy field. As she finished her spin she brought the weapon around in a simple killing blow toward her new brother.

For a fraction of a second, Wode stood with the hammer in his hand, resembling more a carpenter than a warrior as the sword hissed through the air towards him. However, a primarch is a primarch, and his reflexes did save him what his instincts told him was a fatal blow. He lept backwards, dropping the hammer as he did so, the weapon leaving a dent in the plasteel plating of the floor as he skidded backwards. Wheeling his arms for balance, he snapped to his right, looking for something that’d give him a better chance against a sword. He was no expert, but someone like Nel could clearly cut him to ribbons before he’d even indexed the hammer for a swing.

He grabbed a longer blade, single edged, with no guard. He lit the power field, face locked in a feral grimace.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” He snarled, “Did handshakes go out of fashion in the Long Fucking Night or something?”

He charged forward, intent on meeting her, even if he was unsure he could win. He held his warbrand over his head in a telegraphed blow that an expert could surely dodge, but one that would no doubt be cataclysmic if it landed. If Nel let him, he would cut her in two.

Nelchitl’s eyes lit up as Wode dodged away, the hammer falling to the floor as her brother dropped it in favor of a better weapon to take on her own sword.

“What better way to introduce ourselves than this?” she exclaimed proudly as she slid out from under Wode’s falling blade while her own came up to meet it at an angle. Sparks lit the room in blues as the competing energy fields slid off one another in a wild display of arcing energies.

“Tell me Brother,” she brought the sword back out in a quick stab as she spoke, “tell me of you! Of your legion and their accolades!” she laughed as she pressed her assault.

Accolades could wait for a split second, Wode thought deliriously. He wrenched his blade around, clumsily deflecting the stab a little too low on the guardless blade, several of the leather wraps surrounding the grip falling to the floor.

“I’m Wode, I’m a soldier, and my legion are soldiers!” He bellowed, transitioning his blade to a single handed grip and swinging it front of him at waist level, hoping to drive her back. The power field made a beautiful arc in the air, thrumming as the ionizing field swooshed through the space between them.

You could really fall in love with a sight like that, Wode thought, before he spoke again. “Accolades are for parades, for liberty, and boxes consigned to attics! The only thing that goddamn matters is winning!”

Nelchitl smirked as her strike came up only just short, singed leather straps dropping to the floor as they continued to dance around one another.

“We’re all soldiers Brother!” she jumped back from his swing, “but tell me of the kind of soldiers you lead!” she pushed her question further. In a flash she brought her own sword to bear once more, the weapon reaching out toward Wode in a shallow slash.

“My Daughters are magnificent, they crave the field of battle!” she continued as their weapons flashed, “They do not want accolades, but I give them anyway, for how else do I keep tally of their deeds? How else do I show that I recognize their excellence?” she questioned.

Her slash met steel, Wode blocking the blow, notching his own blade. The impact was so strong it kicked up a circle of dust, the hammer-blow of it rattling the other weapons in their wall-racks. Even the idling servitors nearby briefly woke up from the dispersed kinetic force, querying the room with a menu of training regimens, but the two superhumans locked in seemingly mortal struggle took no notice.

Joints popped. Veins stuck out in Wode’s head, his teeth gritted so hard he thought surely one would crack. He met Nel’s gaze with his own, eyes locked, teeth bared, but something in his head changed. He laughed.

“My men, human and Astartes, ain’t glamorous. They’re tank men.” He spat, “They operate machines. And they don’t do much beyond that, but they’re the best in the goddamned galaxy. A hundred of them on their rides could take on anything, and I’d bet my life on it.”

He leaned forward, butting his forehead against Nel’s, pushing with everything his body had to keep from folding like a cheap table. “And I have bet my life on it. They’d follow me into hell and I’d lead them there.”

“Outstanding.” Nelchitl stated simply as their swords met, the space between them shortened to a far more intimate embrace of the demigods’ dance. Energy fields sparking as the two strained against one another, Nelchitl gave her brother a grin as he cracked his head against her own, a small mark growing on her skin just a moment later.

“I appreciate a good tank.” she spoke to him far softer than before, “I’ve seen destruction in this life, from the God Machines of Mars, and the most lowly mortal. Though the venerable super heavies have always held a spot in my chest.” she pushed back into his sword as she spoke before her eyes went wide.

Suddenly, he reared back, breaking forehead contact with his sister. Then, he brought his head forward again, so fast he could hear air whistle in his ears, a rhinoceros striking with it’s horn, a hippo trying to smash the lion that hunted it into the old Afrik plains.

Wode moved faster than she’d expected him capable of, his head smashing into hers with a resounding crack so loud it drew the attention of all outside the chamber. Her own Captains turned to regard the hit as they allowed the entourage to flow past them in a moment of awe.

Nelchitl slid away from her Brother, a hand clutching her forehead as she steadied herself against the floor with the other. She wiped a smear of blood from her cracked forehead, swiping it up with her tongue before she rose cackling, “You’re far more interesting than Micholi.” she mused.

Far more cautious, she began to circle Wode. The sword spinning idly in her hand as she passed a rack of weapons and took up a second power sword. Rolling both shoulders she regarded the Primarch before her, “If one's own genes refused to follow them into hell, would they even be worthy of the title of Primarch?” she asked before rushing back at Wode, both swords coming at him in a scissoring blow.

When Wode broke from their embrace, he came off far worse. The headbutt had mashed his nose, cut his scalp, and broke a tooth. It seemed everything on his head throbbed with dull pain, and he kept spitting gouts of rich, red blood onto the dented plasteel deck. He held his Faussart up in an unsteady guard, trying to track his whipcord-fast sister as she fell upon him with a blade in each hand.

In less than a second, the clash was decided. He’d play this combat out the rest of his life, marveling at how fast he’d moved and how it still hadn’t been enough. He’d batted one sword aside, but, the warbrand, no primarch’s weapon, shattered as he did so. The other blade, devoid of a weapon to block it, shot towards him, the other blade of the scissor he was caught in.

Lacking any other recourse, he caught the blade with his hand, groaning, then screaming with pain as the power field burned, cut through the thick skin of his palms, but he held it, arms shaking with fatigue even in one such as him. The blade was an inch from his head. He could see the patterning of the steel, up close, in micron-scope level detail.

“I may be interesting, but I’m out of tricks.” He said, his voice shaky, “I think… I think you got me.”

The room quickly filled with the smell of roasting flesh, a nauseating smell to even hardened soldiers, but Wode held the blade, not willing to surrender it fully until he was sure his sister wouldn’t strike his head from his shoulders.

Her brothers block breaking his own weapon and sending one of hers spinning across the chamber Nelchitl pressed in with the second. With a fervor beyond that she had shown through the entire spar, Nelchitl smiled at Wode as he caught the blade in his hand, energy field and all stopped by the superhuman physiology they had been gifted by Him.

The Emerald Priestess extinguished the energy field as a collective gasp went up through her entourage as they only now registered what had nearly taken place before their eyes.

With a swift pull she brought the sword back out of Wode’s grip, cutting further as she did before she brought it to her own palm. With a simple motion she cut her own palm, as deep and as completely as Wode’s had been, the energy field igniting once more as she did and then tossing it aside.

“You are more than interesting my Brother.” she beamed as she brought her hand up to shake his equally mutilated hand.

Wode grinned, the slightly silly, punch-drunk smile of a boxer beaten senseless over twelve rounds. He clasped his Sister’s hand, the blood mingling, the Pact sealed. “And you’re crazier than a Salient merchant prince, Sister, but you’re my blood. I love you, you crazy bitch.”

Nelchitl cocked her head in confusion as their hands clasped, “It is not possible for me to be a Prince Wode, I am not a man.” she retorted before pulling Wode in and clapping her free hand across his back, “My blood and my daughters would be honored to fight with you and yours.” she added as she broke the embrace.

As the embrace broke, Wode laughed. “Sorry, I can’t see all that well through the blood. If your Daughters fight half as well as you, then I want yours on the flanks of my battle line, every time.”

As if to prove a point to Wode, a large crash suddenly broke the moment as one of the chamber's servitors skid across the floor in shattered pieces. Gurgling oils and speaking in broken strings of random words, jittering as it died slowly.

“I apologize, Lords.” one of Nelchitl’s Serpents spoke as they leaned down to collect the shards of Wode’s broken warbrand. “It was going to recycle the fragments… For the trophy hall Lords, a most honorable duel, worthy of the annals of history.” they added as they bowed and retreated from the floor.

Nelchitl smiled at her daughter as only a mother does at a child who, though their intentions were good, had mistimed their actions, “Of course Captain.”

“Keep it. Of course.” Wode said to the Serpent, helping her pick up the shards of steel. When he’d picked up all the pieces he could see, he deposited them in the hands of the smaller Astartes with as much reverence as he could summon, despite looking like he’d been hit by a Cargo-12.

He dusted his hands off, looking at the destruction they’d caused. “I think I’ll get another blade like that one. I liked it.”

He looked to the stricken servitor, then to his Sister. “Don’t you dare ask me for a round two. I’m gonna be feeling this for weeks.”

Nelchitl watched as Wode helped pick up the shards of the sword, and felt another form of respect growing for him as he finished. “Whenever you think you’re able again, I’m always available for a spar with a sibling.” she joked.

“Oh sure, I think I’ll be ready in say…” Wode mimed thinking, “M.41. Sure, that sounds nice. Give me a solid ten thousand years and I might be ready for another go.”

“In ten thousand years.” Nelchitl agreed, the warmth of her new found camaraderie painting her face.

---

---

With the Council in recess until the next day, Micholi had quickly and quietly left the Council chamber and for all intents and purposes seemed to disappear off the face of the universe. He needed some time to himself in order to center himself after the frustrating and shameful display from his siblings on the Council floor; Even when they largely dressed it up in their language, fundamentally it had all added up to the same tag lines of ‘the xenos cannot be trusted’ and ‘to leave them alive goes against the whole point that the Emperor launched the Crusade in the first place’.

However, that was not what had caused his anger to flare up to the point that he had been about to storm the center podium to chew his siblings out. It was the personal insults that had done that. It was one thing to attack the Edict of Tolerance because he could acknowledge that it was a matter of policy and people could disagree with it but it was a completely different thing to attack the people who were defending it on a personal level, as if that undermined their points and made it invalid.

However, what made him seeth the most was that fact that he could admit to himself that he had made a miscalculation in regard to Nelchitl. Ignoring her childish insults had only encouraged her to keep going and her accusations had reached the point where they needed to be answered.

And so it was that the Primarch of the Second Legion sent a message to his sister of the Seventeenth. Short, blunt and simple because that was clearly the best manner in which to address Nelchitl so that she would understand. All it consisted of was a time and a place.

Every room of the building designed solely for the Council had been designed, constructed and maintained to a masterful degree, with a mind to the possibility of even the biggest of the Primarchs being able to move around within them with a great deal of ease. One chamber however had been designed for more than just being able to contain several Primarchs comfortably: It had been designed so to be able to survive a battle between two or more of them at a given time.

The room itself was largely barren of furniture since what was meant to happen within these walls was not meant to be witnessed by the more mortal races of the Imperium. At first glance, the room stood out due to the lack of decoration on the walls and how empty it was, but there was one thing that stood out above how devoid it was compared to the other chambers one could find in the palace of Nikaea: A large, simple circle that was engraved into the floor that contained most of the floor of the chamber within itself.

Waiting patiently at the center of the circle was Micholi, having abandoned the more formal civilian attire he had worn during the meeting itself in favor of a much more simple tabard with the bare necessary clothes for the sake of modesty.

Nelchitl had been handed the note, the invitation, from Micholi by a council servant. The poor mortal had obviously been distraught enough as he spoke to the imposing form of Captain Nenetl in her Terminator armor. To then be allowed through the honor guard to speak directly to the Primarch herself must have been a shock beyond measure. The menial had been quaking as he spoke in clipped High Gothic, his eyes cast down from the Primarch as she regarded him with disdain. She had taken the note from his hands with a practiced delicacy, the parchment not even creasing between the fingers of her power armour’s gauntlet as she read it. The menial had scurried away quickly as he was waved off with a dismissive hand, and Nelchitl had quickly forgotten about him as she reread the simple contents of the note.

She’d arrived at the chamber only minutes from receiving the invitation. Throwing the doors open with such force that they rang against the walls of the room as they struck, leaving cracks through the fine stonework. Nelchitl had quickly taken Micholi in, and within moments pieces of her armor were being released as she strode to meet him in the center of the room.

“Micholi.” she spoke as a gauntlet clattered to the ground.

Micholi politely nodded his head, his gaze locked on Nelchitl with an intensity that normally wasn’t there. “In hindsight, I should have interrupted you earlier when you started to attack me personally. I had desired to spare you the humiliation of being called out in front of our siblings, the High Lords and the Emperor himself for your petty, childish insults about my character, alongside avoiding wasting all of their collective valuable time by acknowledging your personal spat with me, but clearly all my silence did was encourage you to continue to run your mouth. For that, I am sorry.”

For a brief moment, a look of nostalgia appeared on his face before he shrugged and explained “Back when I was growing up, there was an incident among the pack of people who had adopted me. I won’t bore you with the details, but the short version is a man and woman were in love, another man developed feelings for that woman and kissed her and things got tense between them. My uncle stepped in before the passive aggressive insults and anger reached a point where they did something stupid and got someone injured or killed.”

“He took both of the guys aside and told them to fight each other barehanded with him as witness to make sure neither of them did something underhanded like pull a knife or something. After attempting to provoke them to each other a few times and neither of them wishing to start the fight, my uncle told them ‘If you’re not mad enough to beat the shit out of each other in a bare handed fist fight, then you’re not truly mad and you idiots need to sit down and talk this shit out now and save us all a lot of stupidity.”

“As much as I would like it if it turned out that you’re not mad enough to want to get into a bare knuckle brawl with me right now, I cannot help but suspect that isn’t the case. The choice is yours through. Do we settle this grudge you have with me with words, or violence sister?”

Nelchitl regarded her brother with bewilderment as he spoke of his strange little story as if it was going to stop what he had set in motion. She waved a hand dismissively at Micholi, grinning as she took another step, more of her armour dropping off of her as she moved to stand square with him in the center of the room, “Was that supposed to move me Brother? Undo all the treachery you’ve no doubt sown in our Father’s domain?” she laughed as she turned her gaze to the ceiling, her arms rising up to her sides as she continued, “An old tale of your ‘Uncle’s’ from before you were elevated to your status as Primarch? No Brother.” Her chest plate fell to the ground with a resounding thud and she relished the thought of what was to come, even making a silent offering to her Father of what she was about to do in His name.

“Words will not solve this,” she stated bluntly as her gaze lowered in a flash to regard Micholi, a speeding fist following in perfect concert with the words.

There was a minor look of sadness in Micholi’s eyes, even as his hand blurred to slap and push Nelchitl’s wrist to the side to redirect her blow away from his person… before his expression hardened as that same hand tightened into a fist to deliver a backhanded blow directly to her face. “No, I didn’t think words would.” He answered bluntly in return.

Nelchitl’s head rang as her brother's backhand connected, knocking her head to the side and causing her to take a step to balance herself from the impact. Her head snapped back up to lock her gaze with Micholi, not a look of anger upon her features but instead a wide grin and exhilarated eyes looking into her brother’s sad expression. She brought a fist up into his stomach as she came back at him in a blur, a number of crushing body shots connecting with Micholi, “This, Brother, is already more than I could have wished for!” she revelled as she shifted and placed a punch squarely into her brother's flank.

There was a short list of names of entities in the universe that could take a direct punch from Nelchitl to the stomach and A) Survive and B) Actually keep fighting back. Fortunately for him Micholi was one of those entities, but it was clear within seconds who the better melee combatant of the two were as he instantly went on the defensive to block and redirect blows while slowly giving ground in order to have a moment or two where he wasn’t in her optimal reach.

He wasn’t completely defensive, waiting for split second moments when Nelchitl’s assault created a weakness and gap where he could strike back and land a solid hit without her being able to dodge, block or counter… but this was clearly not a foe that a single, critical strike could defeat without that blow being of lethal intent… and despite everything Micholi didn’t desire an outcome that risked his sister’s life, even if she slipped up and accidentally gave him that opening to do so.

Nelchitl took every hit from her brother with a grin so wide none would be thought a fool to call the Primarch of the XVII insane. She laughed as her brother's hits struck her, savoring the feeling of an opponent that could stand up to her as she blocked and struck back in a fine display of speed and skill all the while letting several of her brother’s strikes through her defense to add more than a little excitement to the duel.

“More Micholi! More!” she bellowed as she hammered a fist down into his shoulder and struck him bodily with her full weight. She spit coagulated blood from her mouth and pressed forward once more as Micholi too came at her, the flurry of strikes and blocks coming at such a dizzying pace that even Astartes would have been left dumbfounded if they were to witness the scene.

While Nelchitl clearly fell into her love of combat, Micholi grew more detached and mechanical in his thought process as the storm of blows and blocks raged between the siblings. The pain of the hits he was forced to take registered with him, but was quietly compartmentalised; not affecting his performance but not ignored either so he didn’t oversistimate his own abilities.

With the duel how it was going, Micholi knew he was going to lose. Yes his blows were well aimed and were doing damage, but the simple math of it was that Nelchitl was getting more blows in and as time passed his ability to block or deflect incoming attacks would grow lesser which would compound the problem until defeat was certain.

As blows that could cripple or kill a mortal human continued to rain at a truly terrifying pace, Micholi’s inability to get his left arm up high enough fast enough to deflect or block attacks at head height became more and more apparent; Granted most mortals would be unable to take advantage of such a minor opening, but Nelchitl was of a different caliber altogether.

Nelchitl moved around her brother in a blur, hits from both of the demigods cracking off the others blocks and bodies as they jockeyed with one another for a finishing blow. Having noticed her brother's lagging ability to block, Nelchitl shifted herself close in to Micholi and brought a heavy fisted hit directly into the side of her brother's head. She relished the view as her fist slipped by Micholi’s guard with mere atoms separating them, his arm simply too slow to keep up with the Emerald Priestess.

With a sound like lightning splitting a tree the Emerald Priestess’ fist connected with the side of Micholi’s head with a crack of force that caused several of the recessed lights of the chamber to burst in their globes. She relished the view as the coward was sent stumbling away, a small bout of blood running down his face as he reeled from her hit.

Bringing herself to her full height she looked down on her brother with brown eyes full of disdain, “Yield, craven.” she spoke as she began to circle him, “You are bested,” her eyes passed over his own and noted the ruined remains of his left eye, glazed and bleeding, “unless you would rather I take both eyes Micholi.” she mused, rolling her shoulders as if ready for more.

There was always a risk when it came to giving an enemy an opening; It generally had to be tempting enough that they wouldn’t suspect it was a feint and thus, one had to gamble that they would do meaningful damage beyond what you were expecting. As half of his vision disappeared into nothingness and pain that was quickly shifted into its own little compartment, the sacrifice quickly proved to be on the more extreme of outcomes… but not an uncalculated and unaccepted one.

As his sister gloated the wound and her believed victory, Micholi struck without saying a word; A feint punch towards her face in a seemingly retaliatory blow for his lost eye to draw her attention before he delivered a swift but solid kick into her middle. Unlikely to do anything more then leave a bruise, but the weight behind the blow would easily be enough to push her backwards… and causing Micholi to offer her a small, earnest little smile as he clearly made a show of looking at the ground between them, a silent gesture suggesting that she might wish to do the same.

Right between them laid the line of the circle in which the dueling round was contained within… and only one of them was still within said circle. “I’m afraid in your desire to blind me, you lost sight of the arena sister. You’ve been disqualified due to ring out.” Despite the loss of his eye and the blood running down his face, the look in Micholi’s remaining eye showed Nelchitl a simple truth; He had planned this outcome from the moment the fight began.

The realization dawned on Nelchitl as soon as she had seen the line. Micholi had deceived her. “You treacherous little shit.” she growled as she took a step toward him, “Were I one to disregard the wants of our Father-”

“Forgive me sister, but I must disagree. After all, not everyone can be the strongest or the greatest in a straight up fight. Positioning and thinking ahead are just as important in combat as anything else… and I fail to see how letting you blind yourself in bloodlust to defeat you legally in a duel is treachery. But if it makes you feel any better…”

Reaching up towards his ruined eye, Micholi’s remaining one remained locked onto his sister as his fingers reached into the socket. With barely a wince, the ruined remains and jelly was pulled free and he offered it to her with an open palm. “All I did was win a duel. You’re the one who can walk away with a trophy.”

Still sore at Micholi’s underhanded win, Nelchitl scowled as he spoke, “Do not lecture me Micholi, you and your stories and wisdoms.” she reached out and snatched the eye from his offering hand, “Were you to put more time into the ring than you do some mortals words, or those xenos filth, perhaps you’d still have this.”

Without waiting for a response she turned and stormed from the chamber, the double doors parting before her as she did. Once outside she signaled for one of her waiting Serpents to come forth, anger painted over her face as the Astartes ran up to fulfill her Scion’s bidding.

“My Lady.” her daughter offered as she bowed her head.

“Take this and place it among the Legions battle trophies, ensure it is easily visible to all that enter the trophy hall. I have more important matters to attend to.” she stated as she dropped her brother's eye into the waiting armored hand of her daughter. With a curt response the Astartes was off at a jog for the landing fields and the Scion of the XVII was already headed off on a different task.

Watching Nelchitl leave, Micholi remained for a few moments to let his sister get some distance before he decided to calmly leave the chamber himself. His attempt to bond with his little sister and mend the divide between them had failed though… for the life of him he couldn’t really understand why. He would admit that honor duels weren’t something that he took part in or encouraged since they were generally a waste of time and effort, but by all means he had fought and won an honorable duel in a legitimate manner.

Maybe it was because he had won and she had lost and her cries and anger was merely that of a sore loser… maybe it was because he had been the one to defeat her that tainted things within her mind. Who could say?

As he stepped out of the door and one of his attendants came to him, Micholi couldn’t help but notice the look of shock on their face at the sight of him. Before they had a chance to ask, he stated “I am going to need something to cover my eye until a new one can be grown to replace the old. Could you please go and fetch a medical eyepatch for me? I have some paperwork that I need to catch up on.”

An Angel's Lament

Sekhmetara's State Room
Nikaea

---

---

The private chamber Sekhmetara had claimed for the purposes of the Council was chosen for its facing, receiving the greatest amount of natural light from the warm Sun of Nikaea’s sky. Large windows looked out over the terraformed world, taking in the great work of the Mechanicum in terraforming the world in preparation for the council itself. While it was no permanent abode, the trappings of the Primach’s stay were already clear. In place of the desk that some may favour, the chamber was dominated by a low table surrounded by seating for both the Primarch herself and any guests or important staff she wished to confer with. Each wall had been decorated with a banner associated with the Primarch, the Tears of Dawn themselves, but also of Mithra and House Khafre, the former holding pride of place in its positioning over the sun-facing windows.

"Out."

For Sekhmetara to be so bluntly direct with those serving her was unusual, but not so alien that her words were not immediately heeded, the spattering of administrative staff, diplomatic aids, and remembrancers who had only just finished setting up their stations within the room rising to leave the moment it became apparent the Primarch of the Tears of Dawn was quite serious. The only one who delayed, the Primarch's own sister by adoption, still rose immediately to her feet, her eyes wide as she regarded Sekhmetara.

"Is...is it true, did Lord Sarghaul really-" The look Sekhmetara's eyes gave her sister only deepened the look of shock, compounded by the vision of Daena following Sekhmetara a short way behind.

"My lady Daena, I am so sorry to hear, I do hope you know that across all the stars you are as admired as any of the sons and daughters of our noble Emperor." Isabis curtsied low before the winged Primarch, bowing her head as she did so. The display of deference from her Mithran sister softened Sekhmetara's expression somewhat, but still, the darker-skinned Primarch waved Isabis away.

"Kind words, Beloved-of-my-heart, but we must confer on the matter in private. Do not stray far, I will have need of you and your order soon."

"Of course, sister-most-loved." Isabis made the sign of the Aquila to them both, although the fingers of her hands splayed ever more slightly than was traditional of the motion before she swept out of the room. The Mithran noblewoman had almost as much dramatic poise as her Primarch sister, and the shimmering gold of her gown flourished around her as she did so.

Only when they were alone did Sekhmetara finally turn to Daena herself, sweeping her into an embrace, her arms holding her sister in such a way as to not tangle with her wings.

"Lies and falsehoods, of the worst kind." She breathed to her in a whisper, her touch gentle and affectionate, yet her tone quivering with second-hand rage for her sister.

Daena strode to the room with her daughters at her side, the robed women she had entered the Council chamber swiftly joined by armored Praetors as soon as they were out of sight of the horde of Remembrancers. Where their Primarch wore the perfectly still face that was her calling card, the Doomsayers had murder in their eyes, the Astartes encircling their gene-mother as they walked. Approaching their destination, her escort formed a none too subtle cordon about the entrance, those unarmored swiftly departing to correct that state of affairs.

Alone with Sekhmetara and her adopted sister, the Angel spoke for the first time since their gene-brother had defamed her. “My thanks, Isabis. You have always been most kind,” Daena said in a monotone, the woman permitting no emotion to taint her mind. Not yet. And then Isabis was gone, and they were truly alone with only the soft comfort of Sekhmetara’s touch. One by one she loosened the restraints upon her own mind, the divinity permitting herself to become human.

“Why?” she whispered, angelic frame collapsing against the far taller Primarch. The life drained out of her as the need for the act was finally removed, Daena’s irisless eyes staring up Sekhmetara’s with as much confusion as anything else, the woman still reeling at the fact that such had been said at all.

“Some of our brothers are weapons, nothing more. They were built to hurt, and nothing in their lives has taught them anything else.” Sekhmetara spoke gently to her sister, one hand reaching up to hold the back of her head, the barest stroking motion across her platinum hair. “But what we can understand, we do not have to excuse.” She spoke with greater fierceness, holding Daena for a few moments longer, before breaking away, moving to sit upon one of the present recliners, pouring a steaming Mithran tea into two cups, placing one towards Daena. “Wine can wait for now.” She spoke almost with regret, before leaning back and taking a sip of her drink.

“If it means much to you, it is likely such an outburst has hurt their cause more than it could ever hurt you. I do not have the enthusiasm for the Edict that you or dear Micholi possess, but I will not support the arguments against you for as long as they stand by those words.” Sekhmetara mused aloud. Through her two favoured sisters she effectively played both sides of the debate, but allowing either of them to suffer personal attacks threatened that careful balance, even to ignore the true emotion she now held for her winged sister. She would not have it said that Sekhmetara of House Khafre did not stand in protection of her family, even from itself.

“When you next walk out of this chamber you will do so with as much pride in yourself as any scion of our Father, which, firstly, we must get you out of these...robes.” Sekhmetara eyed her sister with something approaching disdain, although it was clearly directed to the grey material rather than her person. “You and our brother might play at being Administrators, but we are not. We are the Champions of the Emperor’s vision, and we should certainly look the part.” The Mithran primarch sipped her tea as she finished speaking, her eyes still watching Daena over the rim.

The Emperor’s Angel resembled more of a doll in those moments, Daena permitting her sister to move her to a seat as her mind grappled with the sheer surrealness of what had transpired. “We were made to be the height of mankind, not merely in might, but in nobility as well,” she murmured as she picked up her cup. “At least, so I was told,” she finished in an even quieter voice before taking a slow sip.

Sekhmetara’s latter comments seemed to take her off guard, the woman nearly spilling her tea as she realized just what her sister meant. “It seemed… fitting,” she said, defensively, though an analytical portion of her mind could not help but be grateful for the distraction. “This is no council of war, my armor would be out of place,” she said, only sounding half convinced herself as both knew what she wasn’t saying.

Through a combination of her sister’s silent gaze, and her own racing mind, the truth eventually came out. “I did not wish to draw attention to myself,” she admitted. “With that plan ruined however... Well, you’ve already seen most of the wardrobe I’m willing to wear in our Father’s halls. I do not think Irkallan fashion will have the effect you seem to desire for me,” Daena went on, anxiety flowing away as she let her thoughts wander. “What do you suggest?”

"That is how we were made, sister, but the circumstances of our upbringing were taken out of the hands of our father. It is not what we have all been raised for." Sekhmetara spoke with an almost mournful tone as she addressed her sister's recollection of the purpose of their creation, interposed the conversation with a sip of her own drink, before her eyes leveled at Daena once more.

"You are a daughter of the Emperor, sister. Even among other scions of his blood, you will draw attention wherever you go. Better to look the part while doing so than disappointing." The porcelain cup of her drink was set down before she continued, her palms settling in her lap across the shimmering feathers of her skirts. "I have heard much about the fashions of your homeworld, and while I find the matter fascinating and you will have to provide me a comprehensive study of them, for now, a skilled tailor of wider Imperial culture will do. Any will leap at the chance to dress one of the Emperor’s children for this event." Sekhmetara spoke with the surety of someone who had just experienced this reality. "We are champions in peace as much as we are in war, the galaxy will see that you bring far more to our conclave than a brute dragged out of the ocean in a lobster trap."

Nelchitl, with dried blood and bruises blooming over her face and fists and her body glove torn in several places, rounded the corner into the main hall that led to Sekhmetara’s chambers. Unsurprisingly, she found herself coming face to face with a formidable blockade of Doomsayer Praetors just before the doors. Her face was set in a grim scowl as she walked to them, waving a single hand for them to shift their wall out of the Primarchs' way. Her scowl only grew as she found that the wall of Praetors remained stalwart in their position. “Make way Nieces.” Nelchitl spoke bitterly as she kept her stride for the door.

Inside the chamber Daena let out a peal of laughter at her sister’s comment on Irkallan fashion, the stoic face she had worn finally melting fully away. Taking a far more confident drink, she slowly turned her head from side to side, reflecting upon Sekhmetara’s words - and the grim task which they were about to embark upon. “You know,” she said, fingers tapping against the side of her cup with a mischievous smile, “It was one of father’s tailors who was the last to see me garbed in such a hideous heathen manner,” she confided, pitching her voice down in imitation of the man.

“He made my dress. The one I wore that night above Praxia, with you and Nelchitl.” The thought of her sister caused her smile to fall, the demigoddess sighing as her gaze flickered down to her tea. “Yes, perhaps more outfits are in order.”

Without, Daena’s bodyguards remained resolute in refusing entry to that same sister as they silently stared her down. But the rage in their eyes was clearly torn, each woman there having fought and bled and killed alongside Nelchitl on 20-63. Among their number included those in whom their mother’s gene-gift had given them her very face, and the confused anger, the sense of betrayal, was strongest upon them.

Before emotion caused any to speak in haste to the Primarch, the sound of power-armored feet rang throughout the marble halls as the robed Astartes returned, now garbed for war. At their head was the Praetor Primus, Asha, the Irkallan looking at Nelchitl cooly. Trailing behind were a pair of short, silent retainers, children perhaps, garbed from head to toe in all-encompassing robes and each clutching a spear far taller than themselves. The gleaming truesilver lengths could be none other than Asha and Daena’s own arms, weapons designed to overawe as much as kill.

“For what purpose would Lady Nelchitl speak with our beloved mother and her most loyal sister?” Asha asked in a measured voice, speaking with formality well and beyond what they had become accustomed to in the fires of war. But this was a different sort of battleground, and it was clear the Doomsayers doubted that the Serpents of the Sun were among their allies upon it.

Nelchitl came to a halt as the strange reality of what was taking place finally dawned on her mind. Astartes were denying her order. She was about to speak again when the power-armored form of the Praetor Primus of the Doomsayers arrived. Nelchitl felt it best she not dress down the legionaries of another Primarch in public and was silently relieved to have Asha arrive to command her Praetors to part. Only she didn’t.

Nelchitl, blood still boiling from her bout with Micholi, turned to Asha, “You dare to imply I stand against your Scion?” she asked incredulously, heat growing in her as she continued, “Part now, or learn how little your armor and weapons mean Asha.” she stated with embers burning in her eyes. It was true she had been in agreement with Sarghaul over the Edict, but for any to assume that meant she agreed with what he had said of her dear sister was nothing short of seditious.

Asha io Qaphsiel quickly took Nelchitl’s measure, the young Astartes maintaining her gaze. “It is our duty to protect our mother from all harm. We have failed once already today,” she replied, unable to keep the bitter disappointment and smoldering resentment she felt out of her voice. “Already there are whispers, rumors. Only Sekhmetara gave her comfort leaving the hall,” she continued, her voice trailing off and her gaze finally faltering at her last words. “She is wounded far deeper than she will admit,” the Praetor admitted in a quieter voice, even as she gestured at her subordinates to finally make way for the Primarch.

Angry as she was that she had even been considered in league with Sarghaul over his words, Nelchitl’s anger melted away as her niece laid bare her thoughts before her. Reaching out, Nelchitl placed a bloodied hand on Asha’s pauldron as she gave her a small smile, “My heart aches that I was not able to be with your Scion immediately Praetor. I had another matter to attend to, but I knew your Aunt would be more than enough until I was once more free.” she spoke only loud enough for Asha to hear.

The Emerald Priestess’ smile grew wider, more sincere as she lifted her head to regard each of her sister’s chosen elite. Her voice became audible to all around her even though it remained in hushed and intimate tones, “The Emperor’s blessing is upon your mother. Of this I do not doubt. She is wise and gifted beyond all of the Emperor’s children.” she hesitated a moment before continuing, “And she is strong. Far stronger than even I. These gifts she has been given by Him for a purpose beyond understanding are proof of it. Your Scion will return far stronger than any could have imagined after the Tartarean’s shame today.” she smiled upon her nieces, a single hand gently tracing Asha’s cheek as she spoke even softer than before to all of the Doomsayers before her.

“You have failed no one today Praetors, so lift your heads, find strength in the purpose that He has given us all.” the Emerald Priestess comforted them as she lifted Asha’s gaze to meet her own, her seemingly gentle grip locking Asha’s face between her thumb and forefinger, “Never will I allow you to be so defeated in my presence again. Make it so Praetor Primus Qaphsiel.” she finished privately between herself and Asha.

The confusion and shame that had marred the faces of Daena’s bodyguards were erased in an instant, the women straightening with both newfound pride and relief that Nelchitl was as fast an ally on Nikaea as Praxia. All of them, at least, save for Asha. With the last whispered words from the Primarch ringing in her ears, the Praetor Primus responded with a curt nod to what was unsaid in Nelchitl’s words. Turning to regard her soldiers, she spoke with renewed vigor in her voice. “Lady Nelchitl speaks true. No Tartarean Lord is our judge, and we shall not glorify him by holding any weight in his condemnations. Who is the final judgment?” the Irkallan Marine finished, bellowing the challenge to the Legion’s old Terran cry.

“We are the final judgment!” rang throughout the hall, Daena’s daughters flush with pride as their furor was focused by their commander.

“Our mother would be gladdened to see you,” Asha said, turning once more to face Nelchitl.

As the matter outside the meeting room reached its crescendo, one of the armoured forms of Sekhmetara’s guards approached the primarchs within. While still gene enhanced and taller than a standard human, they entirely lacked the out-of-proportion build of the Astartes, their armour a hazel brown accented by the flowing orange of Mithra. The being, still helmed, bowed their head respectfully to both Sekhmetara and Daena, before speaking.

“Ezulkiyo, Lady Nelchitl seeks entry.” Addressed to Sekmetara, the unfamiliar title held little mystery as Sekhmetara nodded and smiled in turn.

“Of course, she is always welcome.” The Mithran primarch turned her features to regard Daena before the armoured figure had even moved, swiftly striding to inform the other daughter of the Emperor of her permission to enter, not that she had ever required such.

“We are greater than our differences, that is the true strength we have over the rest.” Sekmetara’s words were kind but forceful, seeking to ground Daena in the same thought.

Nelchitl released the Praetor from her grasp with a smile as the woman took to the business of fixing their damaged pride. Without a word she stood before the assembled Doomsayers as they found the sun’s fire in their hearts, as they embraced the strength that had always been there. “I am proud to call you my Niece.” she said softly to Asha. With a turn, Nelchitl left the Praetor Primus’ side and met the approaching Mithran guard.

Nelchitl nodded to the guard as he approached, “Emehlweni elanga, Qhawe” she greeted in practically perfect Mithran as she strode past the bowed form of the genehanced guard and through the doors from which he had exited the room.

She took in the sight of her two sisters, one sanguine and resplendent where she stood, the other drab and timid. She felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t spoken up after Sarghaul’s words, but she pressed the emotion away as she quickly crossed to Daena. Hands raised toward her sister and smiling, Nelchitl took her into an embrace.

“Of all the things I had thought could cause divide…” she started before pulling her sister into a near crushing embrace, “the Tartarean was never an option. I do not stand with his words, this I pray you realize Sister.” Nelchitl released Daena from her embrace, taking her firmly by the shoulders and keeping her at a comfortable distance, “I brought such hurt upon you, and for that I am sorry.” she finished, her tone sincere.

Daena gave Sekhmetara a nod as she took in her words, the Primarch making ready to greet their youngest sister. Yet even still, she was unprepared for the sudden crush as Nelchitl held her close, standing still in shock for a moment before returning the hug. Confusion was writ upon her face as they released one another until realization dawned upon her. “No, it is I who must apologize. My daughters distrusted you, did they not? Forgive them sister, and me. They are overly protective of me,” she said, but the Emerald Priestess had known the Angel long enough to be able to recognize when her sister was hiding her emotions behind her all too perfect visage. And then the moment passed as she looked her sister’s wounds over and then let out a deep sigh.

“Please tell me Micholi is still alive.”

Nelchitl’s smile grew wider as Daena asked of Micholi, “He sees half as well as before I started with him. But he still draws breath.” she proclaimed boastfully before her smile once more withdrew from her features, “But it is not me that I am here for, or our dear Brother Micholi. You hold back Daena, speak true.” she pleaded far softer than her earlier boasting.

The damage, physical or otherwise, that Nelchitl had done would have to wait - Daena somehow doubted her impetuous sister was in the mood to reflect on it at the moment regardless. Even the restrained woman would find it difficult under the best of circumstances to ignore such a plea, and these were far from the best. “Perhaps my daughters are more attuned to my moods than I would like to think,” she slowly admitted, sitting herself down beside her tea and gesturing for Nelchitl to join her.

“It is not the insult itself that stings,” she explained, gaze flicking from Nelchitl to Sekhmetara. “It is the who and the where and the why. We are be- we are meant to be better than this. But we clearly aren’t. And that fills me with the same fear I felt all those months ago, on the Ultis-Solis. Something is… wrong. Rotten.”

Sekhmetara allowed her sisters to discuss matters without interruption, watching the pair with no input of her own other than a few notes of laughter at Nelchitl’s humour over her recent brawl. Daena’s final words, however, drew her attention and could not be left to hang in the air, Sekmetara leaning forwards as she made to speak.

“Some of us, perhaps, dear sister, but we do not all do….strange things, to our own gene-children, nor attack our siblings when we should be trying to unify our father’s domain.” While her tone was still calm and considerate of Daena’s emotional state, there was something of an edge to her words now, as if something foul had occurred near to her that she couldn’t reference directly. “The matter will be addressed, and our father will, we hope, finally deal with his errant son properly.”

Nelchitl followed her sister to the cushions and listened as she spoke. Concern adding itself to her eyes as Daena spoke of her own misgivings.

“We bicker and we disagree. We fight with each other, we take eyes and call the others vile names and traitorous oafs.” Nelchitl paused as she realized just how much of what had happened was likely her fault, “But we are siblings, kith and kin. We will correct our paths as He demands it.”

She sighed and continued, “Daena we have gone over this once and I’ll do it again if I must. Your visions are nothing more than possibility, and I intend to cast these possibilities aside.” she stated seriously, “The Tartarean is an… abnormality… a necessary part of our Father’s plan. He is but a single pawn as you or I.” she shrugged and turned to Sekhmetara, “When the time is right, if our Father deems it so, I will correct his existence.” she finished easily, the idea of killing one of her siblings on the Emperor’s word came so naturally, it didn’t even give the Emerald Priestess a moment of hesitation.

Daena’s face warred with itself as she struggled to find the words for her fears without offending their youngest sister, the Primarch steadying her nerves by taking another sip of tea. “We, all of us, have already deviated from his plan. Swept away across the galaxy as mere babes, stolen from our cribs. Our Father’s plan has been broken for centuries now, and I wonder if it is beyond even his ability to repair. And do not think that this is due to my visions, sisters. I have seen the houses he made for us upon Terra, the homes in which we were to grow. Nothing has gone as intended.”

“Perhaps some of us are worse, but I believe others of us are greater for it,” Sekhmetara responded, sipping her tea with the sudden desire that she had selected wine from the outset. “It may well be a task too great for any one person to rectify, but our father is not alone, those of us who have risen higher than we could have done so in his shadow on Terra must now rise greater still, lifting our siblings with us where we can, and excising the rot when we cannot.” Much in a similar tone to Nelchitl, if perhaps lacking the overtly violent tone, Sekhmetara spoke her words with unquestioned belief and no hesitation, a slight sense of heat rising from her eyes as her innate gifts began to let themselves be known. “Do not fear, sister, all is not lost, the mountain is steepest before the summit, but we will forge the future together.”

Nelchitl sat and listened as Daena spoke. Some deep part of her ached at the missed chance to step upon Terra and wanted to agree with her sister that, perhaps, they had been too far scattered for Him to correct. But the rest of her wouldn’t have it. A fire built in her belly as she listened to the dejected conjecture of the Emperor’s Angel, the intervention of Sekhmetara the only thing keeping the Emerald Priestess from causing a second tragedy in the presence of the Angel.

“He knows what must be done. He has gathered us all, taught us the ways of war, armed us with knowledge of all there is. That we were once set wrong, we are now corrected. And if there are any that require further correction, He is aware of it no doubt.” The Emerald Priestess leaned forward and took Daena’s hands in her own, “Have faith in His plan sister.” she urged, the conviction in her words mirrored by the hope in her dark eyes.

Daena had seemed comforted, if not entirely convinced, by Sekhmetara’s voice, settling down to drink her tea with an expression which if it was not happy was at least not distraught. And then Nelchitl spoke, realization dawning upon the Primarch as she gazed upon the warrior. Her doubts seemed to vanish at a stroke, her pale empty eyes meeting the Serpent’s own. “Twenty of us were made, each with their own purpose,” she said, echoing the words that the strange mortal she had ushered into the Council chambers had uttered. “You are correct, of course, the both of you, forgive me for ever losing hope,” the Angel said even as she placed her cup down and clasped the Emerald Priestess’ hands in her own. “But what I would have given for you to have been found all the sooner,” she whispered, equal parts prayer, lament, and curse.

---

During one of the many interim breaks of the Council sessions hosted in the central chamber of the Nikaean Conclave, all of the Primarchs had relayed to them a message inviting them to attend a gathering in one of the many large side-chambers of the building.

...pray you shall attend in order to review and discuss a matter of import to the Crusade, pertaining to the species of xenos known to man as the Eldar. A great campaign against their kind within the Ultima Segmentum as has never been levied before is presently being formulated by the Astartes of his Omnissiah’s Twelfth Legion. All other legions are hereby offered the opportunity to lend their valued aid and assistance, as well as to evaluate and assess the scope and designs of the campaign itself. The Omnissiah, in his infinite reason and beneficence, has graced this campaign with his personal blessing. Ultimate victory, although preordained and inevitable, will still be hard-fought and worthy of the efforts of us all.

For the Unity of All Mankind, and the Sovereign Fate of the Chosen Peoples of the Machine God,

-Augor Astren
Primarch of the Twelfth Legion

Daena reviewed her brother’s entreaty from within the state room that she had sequestered herself with a dull look, tossing it aside after a long sigh. “Perhaps something can be salvaged of this,” she muttered to herself, turning her head towards one of her daughters. “Summon Ascania and send her in my place, I have no desire to see those who would be excited for such invitations,” she ordered.

“We shall continue with the preparations my beloved sister has advised,” the Mistress of the XIVth whispered, her attention focused on the furthest thing from a war against the Eldar.

---

---

The side-chamber in question that the Primarch of the Stargazers had elected to host his conference within was reasonably large, not altogether smaller than the main chamber of the conclave, with tremendous doors and ample space for the other Primarchs and their respective cohorts. The furnishings therein consisted of a single massive circular table that bordered the perimeter of the columned rotunda, with benches, seats, and a number of thrones all carved from the same dark wood the architects had favored lining its perimeter and facing inwards. In the large hollow of space in the midst of the chamber, a large pict-caster sat, presently displaying a holographic view of the Galaxy and its four segmentums. The device was attended to by numerous Mechanicum Enginseers, and standing abreast the columns of the room were a number of imposing Kastalan robots holding aloft crimson ceremonial banners emblazoned with the sigil of the Aquilla Mechanicum. Augor Astren himself already stood at the rearmost region of the long circular table, forgoing the use of any seating due to the bulk of his servo-harness. He spoke freely with the Archmagos Mephitor, who had taken the privilege of seating themselves in the throne Augor had declined to make use of. The Primarch’s Archmandriture Mercaerath Kyrius stood at the Primarch’s side, calmly surveying the room. No other senior members of the Stargazers’ Legion appeared to be present, save for Augor Astren’s designated honor guard and personal staff of Tech-Priests who swarmed and bustled about the far end of the table, pouring over data-slates and exchanging info-runes in preparation for the upcoming meeting.

The first to arrive was a single Astartes, the Master of the Forge of the Steel Sentinels, clad in his off-white tabard with two servo-arms protruding from him back as he entered the room. The gauntlets of his armor seems to be scorched, presumably from the plasma that the Steel Sentinels worked closely with. He was flanked by two other tech-marines of the Steel Sentinels, each with matching tabards, but heads bowed as they walked after Aschwin, the Master of the Forge.

“Greetings, Gene-Uncle Augor Astren, Blessed Son of the Omnissiah. I am Aschwin Von Braun, head of all Tech-Astartes within and the Steel Sentinels,” the Astartes stated in lingua-technis, his cogitators giving perfect pronunciation of the words. The Tech-Marine bowed to the Primarch for a moment, spreading his arms wide as he addressed him, “Father Usriel sends his regards. On his behalf I shall speak to you.”

Augor Astren replied in turn with a lightning-quick burst of Lingua-Technis in response, the cracking-static burst of conversation between the two transpiring in less time than it took for a pin to drop. “The favor of the Omnissiah be with you, nephew. May the blessed perfection of the machine free you of all frailty and uncertainty.”

Augor then reverted to normal speech in High Gothic. “I acknowledge your status as the proxy of the Primarch of the Nineteenth Legion. When you return to your father, be sure to bring with you a few data-slates my staff will provide. The most venerable Usriel Andredth has the insight and knowledge to make worthy contributions to this cause where others might not - and of course, pass on my regards to him in turn.”

“As you wish, Gene-Uncle Augor Astren, Blessed Son of the Omnissiah,” the Forge said, raising himself though keeping his head bowed as he, and his retinue stepped off to the side to allow for other Primarchs or their proxies to enter the room.

It was not long until the telltale echoing of behemoth footsteps made the wisdom of that evident. Wide as the doorway had previdently been built, its breadth was almost wholly filled when Sarghaul and the two Lictors at his sides crossed through it, the Terminators almost demonstratively bringing themselves abreast with their gene-sire so as to build a greater wall of umbral battle-plate. They remained half a step behind as the Ninth Primarch approached the table, raising a claw in a sluggish halfway greeting.

“Hail to you, Augor,” he rumbled, a shade of good humour palpable beneath the metallic tinge of his words, “Too long have the wraiths skulked outside our reach. It is high time we culled them as we ought all the inhuman. If that is your design, we shall stand behind you in force.”

“That is the expectation.”Augor agreed, oddly accentuating the third word. “These xenos shall find no respite where it does not service our purpose, and if the favor of the Omnissiah is with us we shall doubtlessly procure additional intelligence as to the locations of their insufferable worlds and…” He paused for a moment, then broke off. “I get ahead of myself. You and yours are most welcome at this gathering, Sarghaul, and with your might the wretched Eldars’ fear of us may soon grow to match their disdain. Please take your place, more are to arrive soon.”

“The closer it brings us to stamping out their kind, the better,” the Tartarean nodded, “But even crushing one of their nests shall be a victory.” With those words, he trudged aside, coming to stand beside one of the thrones and resting a hand upon its back.

Following the arrival of Sarghaul was a small delegation from the Night Watch made up of General Nelinho and two marines that were escorting him. While the 2nd legion were known for avoiding the pomp and prestigious displays of some of the other legions, Nelinho himself had opted to ‘dress up’ for the occasion, the servo harness he was wearing having not only been well maintained, but also bearing the weight of prestige as one of the first of its kind to be developed for usage by the first generation of tech marines of the legions.

Offering Augor a deep bow, there was a burst of Lingua-Technis as he announced himself “Greetings honored Primarch of the twelfth legion! I am Tech Marine Nelinho, General of the First Division of the Night Watch Legion. My Primarch Micholi requested my presence here due to him currently organizing how best to fulfil his promise and obligations to the Twentieth Legion. However, he will be here in person as soon as he can, because the Eldar are a scourge and this meeting holds great personal value to him.”

“The circumspect and skillful stratagems of the Second Legion will be invaluable in matching the recreant and elusive cowardice of the xenos, honored nephew. Your father’s expertise and scorn for the Eldar are both welcome in this gathering. Please, find your places, the briefing will begin shortly.” Augor inclined his head to the Tech-Marine in turn, speaking in plain gothic - presumably for the benefit of the others already present in the room.

Raising himself from his bow, Nelinho still offered a slight bow of his head as he answered in plain gothic “Of course.” before leading his brothers towards their seating.

Soon after, a single figure entered the room. Diminutive relative to the stature of the Astartes and primarchs assembled before her, the solitary form of Ayushmatki Nanavna izva Kuznekhtinsk entered through the door, dipping her head slightly in acknowledgement of the Primarchs assembled within the room and to Augor in particular. She made no specific greetings as she silently took her place, positioned out of the way on the far side of the room. As silent and unassuming as her entrance was, nobody rose nor spoke to her in greeting, and the only thing that marked her entrance and place was a single Servo-Skill that buzzed over to her end of the room, fixated on her for a single moment - doubtlessly taking a pict-recording of some sort, ostensibly to verify her identity - and then flew away.

It was a few more moments until another would enter the chamber, fresh from the hustle and bustle of the central Council Chamber, and more than ready to discuss something of actual interest to him - something beside the integration of alien species into the Imperium of Man, indeed this time it was to confer with his fellows about the very opposite… and Kaelianos could not have been more pleased, after all it was what he had been crafted for.

He came alone and without ceremony, as always was his way with etiquette and the like, his face shimmering with an inner energy that appeared to illuminate his outer self most radiantly.

“Ah, brothers!” He called with a chuckle, opening his arms wide and stepping forward to grin from ear-to-ear at Augor, his mechanical-minded sibling, and Sarghaul… his more… unusual one. Next he spun on one heel and gave a half bow to the gene-brothers of his own legion, those Astartes sent by their Primarchs in their own stead. Lastly, but certainly not leastly, his eyes moved to Ayushmatki Nanavna izva Kuznekhtinsk - this augmented being, furthest from the table and from all others within the room, no doubt wished to remain unseen, unfortunately for her Kaelianos was as observant as he was handsome.

“Hail to you, Ayushmatki, and to your Primarch who sends you in her place. Long may she serve and prosper.”

Giving a shake of his body, like a runner preparing to sprint the full length of a track, he instead strode with as much vigour as was always his to a spare seat around the rim of the circular table, making sure to note the banners, Mechanicum constructs, and Augor himself with a sweep of his aqua-blue eyes.

“I am pleased to welcome the most esteemed Primarch of the Eighth Legion to these proceedings, Kaelianos. All true servants of the Emperor shall flourish in the glory of this new campaign and I, for one, am honored by the prospect of being able to fight by your side in this ensuing conflict.” Augor directed a full, beaming smiling at Kaelianos.

Further by the table, the Tartarean motioned in greeting with a taloned hand, wheezing a “Well met, comrade,” as he did.
A golden mask broke open the portal into the room, the thin slits hiding the blue/green eyes. The mask's face was engraved, not into the look of a face but with flowing branches. Tears of red amber were dotted at the eyes going to the mask's square lips. Ahgnemir took long strides, his hands opening to the assembly, primarily to its host. He took a deep breath and smiled, "Augor!" bellowed out the man.
Robes of white, covered in red runes, fluttered through the air as two groups moved on either side of him. On his right, a circle of nine Astartes with a Hyena Banner. The bannerman in the center, the eight men on the outside, looked like ragged brutes and barbarians. Axes hung at their sides, as well as skulls and cloth papers with runes etched into them.
Four men stood in a square to his left, the first man on the left holding a banner of an Eagle swooping down as if it was about to strike its next meal. The four men looked beautiful, pomp and proud, unlike their kin on the right side of their primarch. The man on the right held a hefty tome, gilded in golden leaves and jewel flowers. The binding of it was beautiful, formed of dark leather. The front and back were black, worn, but perfect in all regards as they did what they were intended to do, hold the pages and the decorations
Silver lettering, in Chatti, wrote the title, but copper wrote the subscript and author's name. In all reality, the book was a history book, a compilation of the finest poems, plays, and literary works through history, including that of Shakespire, Gyrodon, and many others. The back was blank but for scriptures of family, history, and most importantly, the hope of humanity and its place in the galaxy.
The orbs behind the mask traveled to the kin around the room. "I am sorry, for I have only brought something for our host tonight… The book of the Emperor and the Anthology of Human Perfection Through History." This book was a religious text at the beginning and a cover story in the back. Taken from his homeworld's old faiths and the meeting of his father, his heart was spilled through it. However, the back did hold an impressive amount of beautiful works of literary art and history.
The Astartes turned and knelt as the book was held up above him, his gene-father lifting it once again and holding it high above his head before lowering it down. "This is no personal gift typical of me, and there will be several to be given to those close to me, and I implore you to continue to add onto it… Find works that are beloved by you, and add to it…"
Strides were taken by the Primarch of the First, the thick padding of his shoes leaving little to no sound as he made his way towards his brother until he was almost upon him. Then his head bowed, "Brother… this is nothing like a typical gift for you or our siblings, but it is what I have to offer."
“With awe in the face of your boundless generosity, I accept your gift and welcome you to this gathering, brother Ahgnemir.” Augor bowed his head faintly in veneration.

One of the Tech-Priests attending the holo-Caster in the center of the room abruptly turned, emitting several perplexed voxcoder grunts before murmuring - lightly but not so lightly as not to be heard - _{”The Twelfth does not even have eyes, what use is such a gift?”}

The same Tech-Priest was summarily smacked across the upside of his metal cranium and sternly instructed to return to their duties by the attending Magos, whose voxcoder blared at the offending Enginseer with a puttering whirr of static.

“You and your honored family are most welcome in this gathering. Please find your places - we will formally commence shortly.” Augor finished.

The thirteen Astartes Ahgnemir had come with did slowly file in, first the four on the left, then the nine on the right. They had filed into a small area that they believed would be suitable for the reunion of brothers and the ritual of giving gifts. The four stayed stoic, and they were graceful in their appearance. None were chosen, but they did show the beauty of the legion. The other nine chosen looked like beasts in the armor; thankfully, they were suited for war. They were ready to be given the order.

Ahgnemir smiled under his mask and left the book there as he retreated towards his men. When he was in front of them, he turned to his other brother and cousins. He was glad to see them all, and they were his kin, his blood, and beloved by at least him. However, he was hurting inside, even if he was happy with his brothers accepting such a meager gift. The fact that those of blood there were not going home with anything pained his soul deep down, and he hoped that it would not decay relations as he had seen between other siblings.

Another Astartes had taken advantage of the great mass of new entrants, though if her arrival was subtle her costume was not. Yekterina Ascania, Equerry to the Primarch of the Doomsayers, stood at the back of the room, near Ayushmatki . Where the XIVth had, to a woman, arrived at the original convocation dressed in the robes of officials of state she now stood resplendent in the armor of the Legion. As was the custom, her face was covered by a death mask depicting Daena in serene repose.

Since Malcador had called the grand hall to recess, the Doomsayers had as a body remained aloof and apart from all save their closest of allies and no exception was made here. Ascania greeted no one, intent on remaining nothing more than a mute observer of Augor’s designs.

Again, the portal to the room opened. If inquisitive eyes chose to look, they would see two large men, clearly Astartes, and one much smaller man, a baseline human, enter the chamber. All three of them wore a clean, pressed khaki uniform that were identical save for decorations, but it was the patch on the shoulder that identified them. They wore the yellow shield of The Pact of the Lance, one of the newest legions to have been brought back into the fold.

The first Astartes was a jovial looking fellow with a shock of frizzy, red hair that poofed from his scalp like an afro, the second bald, dour, with a mustache and an augmentic eye. The third man, the human, was clearly old, but walked straight-backed, with no limp, clearly a recipient of some kind of juvenat treatment. The Astartes with the red afro spoke for the party once they had taken up some empty space in the center of the room.

“Gene-Uncle Astren, our father Wode sends his regard.” The man spoke with a clipped, precise accent. “I am Praetor Liebowitz of the Pact’s 4th Army Group, the Geniuses. This is Centurion Howler, of the 3rd AG, that’s our artillery complement, the Redlegs, and Praetor Imogen, of the 5th AG, he handles personnel and training.” He pointed to the mustached Astartes, Howler, then the human, Imogen. “Wode apologizes for not being here, but rest assured, he has sent us to appraise your operation and offer what support we deem necessary.”

All three of them dipped their heads in respect. In truth, Wode, who was not present in the room, was not eager to delegate anybody to the grinding attrition of siege warfare, but, family being family, some effort had to be made to keep relationships strong, especially when the Pact was the unknown quantity.

“Please be sure to send my regards in turn to your most esteemed Legion-Master and Father on my behalf come the close of this meeting, Praetor Liebowitz.” Augor replied, raising a hand in greeting. “The Pact of the Lance will, I guarantee, find much opportunity to prove their worth and to claim untold spoils of conquest during this campaign. Please, be seated - I will shortly be calling this meeting into session formally.”

The Lancers chuckled at this, all of them taking their proffered seats. Howler spoke as he sat, pulling out a chair for Imogen, who sat next to him.

“We’d all love some trophies from the Eldar xenoforms to hang in the Veteran’s Hall on Salient, for sure, Lord Astren.” Howler rumbled, sounding like a diesel engine himself.

“Centurion, please.” Liebowitz said with a smile, “It’s not proper to -say- that’s the only reason we’re here so early in the meeting, come now!”

Praetor Imogen, for his part, looked into the middle distance. “Apologies Lord, I swear I beat manners into them durin’ trainin’, I did.”

“Soldiers will be soldiers, and all men possess their foibles Praetor. The want will not suffer for a lack, of this you may be certain.” Augor replied with a faint smile. “So long as those foibles are leveraged in the service of Mankind and the Imperial Truth, you and yours are welcome to such.”

The Lancers rumbled their assents, pleased with how the meeting was going so far. Sensing that they were about to come to business though, they quickly brought out datapads and set ready to take notes.

A few more minutes passed in the chamber, the sound of quiet, ambient chatter and the technical ministrations of the Enginseers commingling in the air in a manner common amongst speaking halls. Then, the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion made a gesture with one of his bionic hands. The lighting in the room dimmed, and three low electronic chimes were sounded from the vox-relays scattered around the room to call for attention.

“By the authority vested in me as the Primarch of the Emperor of Mankind’s Twelfth Astartes Legion, I hereby convene this gathering and call it to order. Once more, welcome one and all, faithful servants and champions of the Imperium who have gathered here today. The purpose of this gathering is to discuss a great campaign to be waged against the Eldar that the Twelfth Legion has formulated. Rest assured that this shall be no war against their far-flung and sporadic maiden worlds or their disparate and elusive raiding fleets - this shall be a blow to one of the pulsing hearts of the Eldar species. This shall be a campaign to lay siege to, and capture intact, one of the fabled Aeldari Craftworlds.”

He made another gesture, and the lights in the chamber dimmed even further. The holo-caster in the middle of the room adjusted and projected a large, full-color image of the Craftworld itself.



“This Craftworld, which we have Codenamed ‘Iris,’ is located in the Ultima Segmentum. It has run afoul of a singularly unfortunate turn of circumstances that has left it exposed and vulnerable to an amassed Voidborne assault.” Augor began. With a number of discreet gestures he began adjusting the holo-caster display to zoom out and display a regional map of the nearby sectors.

“It was first discovered by long-range augur probes and scans more than a century ago, not too far from its current coordinate position. It is speculated that its original region of prominence was in this zone, here-” The holo-caster oriented around a Dark-Space sector, which included a massive and evidently still-active Webway gate, large enough for the Craftworld to have slipped through.

“However, this region has been embroiled in a particularly fearsome and turbulent warp storm for the past seven decades and shows no sign of relenting.” Augor continued. He then adjusted the holo-caster again, pulling the view back to show other nearby sectors centered around the craftworld.

“The next nearest Webway Gate of sufficient capacity for Iris is more than 7,000 Lightyears distant. There is a closer one a mere 300 Lightyears away in Sector Phi-094-ka22, but it was notably overtaken and largely destroyed by an Ork incursion that stripped it for raw materials and scrap in 922.30m. Iris’ current heading has been calculated and devised, unchanging, for more than six decades now, and the Ordo Astranoma has taken great pains to surveil its movements, the movements of its defense armada, and the expanses of space surrounding it. For all intents and purposes, Iris is trapped in this reach of space and is a long way from the nearest safe harbor. As of 941.30m it has charted a course through a dense interstellar nebula as part of a regime to conceal its exact location and to service the activities of its defense armada, but as we were able to predict this course of action it has posed little obstacle to our surveillance and we were also able to thoroughly chart the nebula itself prior to its arrival. Our tacticians and Logi have given a 97% chance estimate with a negligible margin of error that Iris’ predicament is genuine and not some pointlessly esoteric ploy by the Eldar for one of their typically inscrutable purposes. Since 985.30m, the Ordo Astranoma has begun assembling a plan to lay siege to Iris and capture it intact.”

The holo-caster zoomed back in to focus on the craftworld itself. “The Mechanicum has, to this date, had precious few opportunities to examine and either sanction or consign Aeldari technology. The goal of this operation is therefore to take the Craftworld intact and undamaged as possible, to be thoroughly examined and eventually dismantled by the Mechanicum. The campaign is to be waged in six discrete stages.”

The holo-caster highlighted the craftworld’s massive fleet-portal situated on its ventral hull, and also began to display a number of Aeldari ship designs and formations.

“First, we shall assemble our forces and commit to a multi-pronged approach towards Iris. It has a significant defense armada and, as you all may have gathered, will likely call for substantial reinforcement through its own webway gate. We estimate its current defense armada to be equivalent to no less than fifteen Chapter Fleets in size, and projections indicate that number could potentially double. Approaching and subsequently cloistering the Craftworld proper is estimated to take between several months to years of fleet maneuvers, engagements, and skirmishes. What we can be certain of is that Iris’ defense armada will face total annihilation before they permit any of our craft within visual distance of the craftworld itself.”

The depicted Eldar vessels then vanished from the display to refocus solely upon the craftworld.

“Once Iris has been successfully enclosed and cloistered by our joint campaign armadas, contact will be established with the Craftworld’s high command and a demand for their unconditional surrender will be issued. This offer will be made solely on the remote and unlikely possibility that they might accept, allowing us to seize the Craftworld without risking any damage whatsoever to it. Our Logi predict such an outcome is so unlikely as to be all but foregone of course, and so once they refuse to submit themselves to the mercy of the Emperor, we will proceed to the next stage. We will consolidate our armada forces, identify and devise plans for a number of predominant points of entry and secondary boarding areas for the purposes of screening, and perform a number of focused breaching operations with the intent of establishing secure footholds and command posts within the Craftworld interior.”

Augor paused for a moment to let all he had said sink in before carrying on.

“The Ordo Astranoma, as part of its preparatory efforts for this campaign, has captured and interrogated more than four thousand Aeldari colonists, raiders, and fleet personnel from various ports and regions of the galaxy in order to procure intelligence as to what sort of environment to expect within the Craftworld. Little to no useful information was obtained during these efforts. The Ordo Astranoma’s armada had already been arrayed and outfitted to accommodate a wide breadth of possible interior conditions, but we will essentially be mounting footholds inside alien and completely unknown environs. A great deal of advance preparation and measures will need to be taken to make our initial beachhead operations secure.”

“Once our beachheads are established, we will then sweep through the craftworld and eliminate all Eldar and Webway apparatus we encounter. What areas of Iris cannot be seized and confidently held will either then be destroyed, or else rendered inimical to the Eldar to enter by the Ordo Astranoma’s esteemed Vanguards amongst other options of tactical denial.”

“Once we have established nominal control over the entire Craftworld and have affirmed that no remaining Webway connections onboard are active, a final series of sweeps to confirm and consolidate control will be made, after which several Ark Mechanicum fleets will arrive with requisite Mechanicum personnel who will then begin investigating and dismantling the Craftworld itself. It bears mention that the Emperor himself and his immediate staff have taken a great interest in the results and body of any discoveries the Mechanicum shall be making therein.”

Augor Astren then clapped his hands. The lights in the room returned to full illumination, and the image of the Craftwork shrank and lowered so as not to dominate the room itself any further.

“I now hereby open the floor of this gathering to inquiry, discussion, and direction upon this matter and all of its facets.” Augor Astren intoned.

Taking a moment to stand, Nelinho seemed to be the first in attendance to be able to have a say. “I have at this moment two inquiries of you, Primarch Astren. The first is in relation to that Webway gate you reported as being 7000 lightyears from the current location of Iris. What is its current status and plans related to it? The second is in relation to the offer of surrender to the Aeldari. Please believe me when I say that this is purely a hypothetical situation so remote that it almost isn’t worth the time needed to calculate the odds of it happening, but assuming that they don’t send an acceptance as part of a greater deception or trap, if they should just so happen to overcome their inane superiority complex long enough to admit to themselves that they are doomed if they don’t accept the offer and actually surrender in good faith… What is the actual plan to do with that scenario? After all, it would be in poor form for the Imperium to offer surrender terms it has no intention of honoring.”

“As to your first question, Tech-Marine,” Augor began, “That Webway gate is presently active and in a region of space controlled by the Eldar. It serves as a staging area for a number of their raid fleets, and they have made substantial efforts to deter and mitigate the approach of contesting elements in the area. It is our Logis’ estimate that they have likely been positioned there for the explicit purpose of safeguarding that Webway connection from any hazard such as what has befallen to the other two Iris might have once availed itself of. Our tacticians think it possible but unlikely that substantive reserve forces will emerge from that particular Webway Gate, as Iris itself possesses a more immediate and useful Webway connection of its own. By the time the Craftworld has been cloistered, it is expected all reinforcements with an inclination or availability to intervene would already have done so. There are no current plans concerning the extant Webway Gate and its forces. As to the, as you rightfully stated remote hypothetical of their genuine acceptance of our offer for surrender - the foremost purpose of the campaign is to capture the Craftworld intact. Honoring such a hypothetical surrender would service that end. It would also of course be, indeed, poor form not to honor the terms of proffering the Emperor’s Mercy to these xenos. In the event of their surrender, Iris’ populace will be transported to a penal colony on a predesignated world, where they will await the pleasure of the Emperor’s decree as to what is to be done with them. Their fate shall be as he wills it - much as it already is.” Augor concluded.

“Forgive me, I didn’t make my first inquiry clear enough.” Nelinho stated somewhat bashfully “I meant does the Imperium have plans for that Webway gate in the future beyond the capture of Iris, or will it just be a target to be destroyed when the time comes to deal with the fleas that retreat there for protection?”

“Not presently” Augor answered curtly. “Though if a compelling purpose for eliminating the extant Webway Gate is proposed, it could be accommodated within the scope of this campaign - though note that simply to deny routed fleet elements an avenue of escape is not something I consider a compelling purpose.”

His questions answered, Nelinho respectfully bowed his head to Augor before retaking his seat, allowing more grand persons the chance to speak. And, indeed, presently a chortling watery breath heralded the Ninth Primarch’s words.

“Your battle-plan is sound,” Sarghaul ground out, “But to sincerely offer Imperial mercy to those xeno vermin, unlikely as they are to accept it, is frivolous. There is nothing to be lost in deceiving the likes of them, who will always be our foes, unless our lord himself has commanded otherwise.”

The Lancers, the Astartes at least, talked among themselves, scribbling and erasing on their datapads as they hashed out troop numbers and force compositions. Imogen however, listened to the discussion of the meeting, nodding or shaking his head at the various points brought up, but not saying much. When Sarghaul spoke, the human offered a counter-point.

“P’rhaps, p’rhaps not Lord Tartareus.” Imogen said, “If acceptin’ surrender of the Eldar xenoform is on the table, though, it does us no good to deceive them if we receive a genuine surrender. Opting to use force after promising them succour like that will only make them fight harder than if we had elected to use force in the first place, no? Plus, no telling what the rest of the Eldar will think if we pull a nasty trick like that. If the xenoforms get word that Imperial terms of surrender are essentially slow xenocide, they’ll fight us tooth and nail every step, bein’ cause the only other option is death.”

He cleared his throat. “Not that I think it’s likely they’ll surrender an entire bloody Craftworld, mind, just cause we asked ‘em to. It’d be like an alien race showin’ up in force in the Sol system and asking us to give up Saturn or somethin’.”

“It is more like them asking for Terra itself, those worlds have different parts which could correlate to our own peoples homeworld. They are devolved and rely on these massive vessels to survive, it is their cultural home, their physical home, and if they did have a true homeworld, that is the closest thing to it.” Ahgnemir retorted. “The Eldar are decrepit in their tactics, graceful, but they rely on tricks, and tactics only rats can mimic.”

Into his ear, one of the astartes on his right whispered something, “Even if they are some devolved human form, a craft world will be something that will be like a mountain to the unstoppable tide of Humanity… Ulterior motive or not, something that harbors raiding fleets will likely have something larger, or at least can bring something larger back when it begins to call for help. And as much as it pains for me to say it, we should likely stick with war… anything that is destroyed can likely be made up for in the future, only reason I say that is because there is no compromise to studying them, while among them… just relocation and likely extermination at a later state, they know what we are.”

The four men to Ahgnemir’s left stood at an uneasy still, the only one showing a sign of still being alive was the one in the back right of the quad, who glanced towards the nine on their primarchs right side. Those on the right, looked proud of themselves, even though nothing of them showed, it was more like radiation emitting from them. Meanwhile their primarch seemed sure of himself. He knew what must be done, if his father willed it, he knew that there would be nothing stopping the legions, and it would take legions for this foe, and likely for nothing but small amounts of knowledge they likely knew.

Praetor Imogen nodded, at that. “Lord Ahgnemir’s right. If we’re gonna take a prize like this, it’s gonna be with the sword. And they’ll fight like devils, whether or not we give them the option to surrender.”

The human leaned back in his chair, flipping the datawand to his pad between his fingers. The other Lancers looked at him. Both had trained under the human during the Legion’s conversion from the Lightnings to the Pact, and had come to recognize that face. It was the expression of someone who was dealing with an issue that was far larger than he had prepared for, and now had to break new ground mentally to cope with its scale.

Imogen finally spoke up again. “Forgive me Lords, but I must express my hesitation. The Eldar are notoriously devious creatures. I’ve heard tales of them being able to… divine the future, far-see not just one outcome but many. I’ve never met them, on the battlefield or otherwise, but don’t the circumstances raise some kind of suspicion? They’re a desperate, failing empire that has to exist in the same space as our noble crusade. Would they not sacrifice a smaller of these… Craftworlds, in order to cripple us?”

Saul Imogen took a pause in his questioning to drink from an enameled hip flask. His voice was getting notably hoarse.

“I realize Lord Astren has taken great pains to make sure this is not the case, what with his interrogations and the like, but four thousand Eldar telling us all the same story, in a race known for its psyker abilities, I feel it would be far easier for that number of Eldar to get their stories straight than the equivalent number of humans, especially if they were laying a trap for us.”

“Allow me to allay your concerns.” Augor spoke in response. “First, rest assured this is no ‘minor’ craftworld we are discussing. Of all the known Eldar Craftworld which have been spotted and measured, Iris outmasses most of them. In terms of volume it is ahead of the known curve by 87%. The significance of Iris is also confirmed by the absence of the otherwise prolific hull-mounted void-sails used by Aeldari voidcraft and their smaller craftworlds - this one here is too massive to benefit from their use. Finally, the size of its defense armada is substantial relative to the forces speculated to be available to other vessels of its kind. Fifteen chapter-fleet equivalents of Aeldari voidcraft make clear that this is not some paltry backwater craftworld to them. As to the Eldar that the Ordo Astranoma interrogated - there was no story to be told. They simply claimed not to have any substantial knowledge of the interior designs or workings of a craftworld. Many of them claimed to be ‘Exodites’ who had not seen the inside of a craftworld. Amongst the raiders we captured, several indicated they were ‘Drukhari’ who resided exclusively within the confines of the Webway when they were not striking out from it in their fleets. Of the few ship captains we were able to question, they confessed to a lack of technical knowledge or precise memory of the layout of the craftworlds they had been on and the most reliable information they were able to provide were simply the Aeldari terms and names for certain ship sections and members of the crew. These Eldar were also seized over a fifteen year period from different stretches of the galaxy, isolated in chambers designed for use in Blackships, and were disposed of at the conclusion of each interrogation. There is simply no degree of contrivance on their part that could amount to a conspiracy in this matter.”

“But perhaps most noteworthy I feel - let us consider for a moment that perhaps it is a trap. This is a grand design, centuries in the making by the Eldar, specifically lain for us.”

Augor paused emphatically as he let the disquieting notion drift across the expanse of the meeting room.

“What of it?” He finally asked flippantly and with an equally dismissive gesture of one hand. “One thing the Eldar agreed on when questioned was that they would never risk the destruction of a Craftworld, small or large, for any reason. There is some impenetrable religious rot and connotation associated with the craft, they are - much as indicated by my honored brother Ahgnemir - nearly as venerated, each, as Terra itself is by us. They would not risk a Craftworld for any scheme where they thought it would be placed in genuine danger - and so the only trap they would dare to launch would be one borne of their own legions aboard the Craftworld, or by way of fleets they intend to move into position via its webway gate. We are already planning and moving forward on the basis that we would be encountering such trickery. If this is a trap? We shall reach into its very jaws and throttle it as we stab into its brain. If the Eldar are attempting to bait us, their plan must evidently have succeeded. Their vermin-trap is about to snap on an Eagle’s talon.”

The Primarch of the Eighth simply listened to all that had been said with his hands resting upon his lap, until that moment as silent as the mute observers of the Second and of the Sixteenth - who to him honestly seemed more like informants at this moment than anything else.

He had to admit that he was impressed with the business-like attitude of the Lancers, Astartes and humans both, as well as his brother Ahgnemir - as short and hairy as he was.

“Brother Augor,” inserted Kaelianos, joining the conversation at last, not rising from his seat but projecting his voice about the room with a smile, “I have little to say against your proposal, nae, I support it wholeheartedly in fact!” He gave the table top before him an open-handed slap, slamming his hand onto it and causing resting datapads to leap slightly, leaning into the movement so that all could see and hear him, “to this end I shall volunteer my legions pride and joy, even if it is simply used to hold these vermin in place - the Castrum Aeterna shall be prepared for combat and transit immediately, should you accept the help offered.”

A collective intake of breath followed by a sudden hush seemed to sweep across the room. The Tech-Priests managing the holocaster remained admirably focused however, and within but a few moments the vision of the Craftworld shrank and was displaced as the gargantuan image of the Castrum Aeterna appeared alongside it. A massive, mobile void-fortress the size of a small moon, the Castrum Aeterna was possibly the largest warp-capable craft in the entire Imperium. The armada that accompanied it in turn was likely more than the equal of the Craftworld’s all on its own. Although still dwarfed by the Craftworld itself in comparison, its inclusion would serve as the unstoppable hammer opposed to the immovable bulwark that was the massive Aeldari vessel.

“That is...admittedly quite the unexpected endorsement, oh glorious Kaelianos, for whose glory the stars themselves shine.” Augor spoke, seemingly genuinely taken aback - even visibly stunned by the proposal, if the uncharacteristically gracious flattery he had just uttered was not indication enough.

“This...changes things rather considerably. I will have to consult with the Logi, but our conservative estimates were that even approaching the Craftworld and battling through its defense fleets would take years. I can only imagine how much time and effort will be saved by the Castrum Aeterna itself serving as the tip of our spearhead. It is now plausible the advance itself will only take a few months!” The Twelfth Primarch then laughed jovially aloud, and leaned forward to rest an arm on the great table before him as though to support himself. After a few moments of contemplation as he gazed sightlessly at the holo-projection, Augor recovered and resumed his full stance.

“...Yes...I assume the fortress’ defense armada shall be accompanying it as well?” He inquired. “As for the Ordo Astranoma, I am committing both the Ineffable Artifice as well as the Light of the Omnissiah to the campaign, alongside twenty Macroclade Fleets.” He gestured, and the holo-display adjusted once more to depict the aforementioned assets - the instantly recognizable configuration of one of the Imperium’s Gloriana-class battleships, and the bulbous and tumor-like hulk that was the Ark Mechanicum Ineffable Artifice side by side. Both vessels by themselves would have dwarfed any standard Imperial craft, and the Ineffable Artifice itself doubtlessly would have been the largest ship dedicated to the campaign, until now. Compared to the Castrum Aeterna, both of the collosal vessels seemed like flies - and the holoprojected emblems representing the individual fleets of the Stargazers were pinpricks.

The voice of the Steel Sentinel representative spoke from his position, in a clear and concise voice, “The forces of the Steel Sentinels eagerly await to enact vengeance for our brethren that were lost on that most unholy world, Atis. I can confirm that Father Usriel will commit the near entirety of the forces of the Legion and its Serf-Auxilia, Lords. It would likely be the largest gathering of the Sentinels since the Butcher of Steel.”

Augor’s reaction was respectful if conservative. The size of the Steel Sentinels’ amassed fleets, though nowhere what they had been prior to Atis, were still considerable - especially in light of how numerous the serf auxilia and the nineteenth legion’s neophytes were.

“It would honor all within this room to seek and seize your rightful vengeance alongside the nineteenth legion, Forge Master.” He said calmly. “However, even in light of the contributions of noble Kaelianos, I would encourage you to relay to my brother in glory and blood, Usriel Andredth, the notion that he reconsider a full commitment of his forces. I am certain there are other campaigns, priorities, and responsibilities that the nineteenth legion should also see to. It would also be somewhat imprudent to commit the whole of any Legion’s forces, lest we expose the Imperium’s flanks.”

“The Fortress-worlds are secure at the present time and there is nothing that could lay siege to one even if it were left to just the Planetary Defense Forces. There are a great many other forces able to take up the mantle, such as the many forces of the Daughters of Iron who outnumber the Sentinels many times over,” the Forge Master spoke, his tone unwavering as he bowed his head to Augor. One more chime came from his mechanical voice, “Father Usriel would not have this chance of vengeance squandered, Gene-Uncle.”

“...I feel that I may have to speak with him in-person on this matter - but I will not deny him, or you and your brothers, of this if he and you are all of a single and resolute mind on this.” Augor inclined his head in response. He made another faint gesture with one hand, and the holoprojector image readjusted again, adding more than double the number of fleet emblems to the display alongside those of the Stargazers.

From his own seat, Nelinho rose again, if with a bit less confidence than the two Primarchs that spoke before him. “While I am empowered to speak for my legion in my Primarch’s stead, I confess I am loath to commit an exact list of assets at this time to this campaign. My Primarch is currently organizing another campaign that he has promised the Primarch of the Twentieth before you all and the Emperor himself that he will be a part of, and I do not wish to promise assets that have already been promised by my Primarch elsewhere. However, I do believe I know my Primarch enough to know that arrangements will be made to the best of his ability to support this effort, Primarch Augor. Even if his word means he cannot attend it in person.”

“So noted. Be sure to request data-slates with exact force allotments from your Primarch upon your return to him.” Augor replied.

From the Lancers, Imogen once again stood.

“Lord Astren, the Tenth sees fit to dedicate…” He pushed one of the dataslates from the Astartes in front of him. “The First Company of the 4th AG, nominally a combat engineering formation, but, in truth, they are our… asymmetric warfare specialists. They conducted decapitation raids during the unification of Lord Wode’s homeworld, and excel at pinpointing and exploiting enemy weaknesses. That’s about… say, a hundred, hundred and twenty Astartes, plus terminator armor and Land Raiders to ride in.”

He paused to take a drink and scroll down on his datapad.

“In addition, we can pledge a battalion of Bombard mortar carriers and Medusa siege gun carriers from the 3rd, to aid in clearing enemy formations, as well as a battalion each of Predator medium tanks and mechanized infantry. In total, about 3800 Astartes, and maybe three times that in Auxilia personnel, plus vehicles. The whole complement can ride in 10th Legion battle barges, unless you’d rather have them ride on ships you provide.”

“Your own battle barges will suffice.” Augor nodded as he gestured and had the emblems for the tenth legion added to the ranks upon the holoprojector. “I cannot promise that your tanks, siege guns and mortars will be of use within the craftworld given we have no intelligence as to how its interior is structured, but they will be no less welcome to the endeavor than the Ordo Astranoma’s Knight Legion. I am certain that even if the confines do not permit for the full might of the tenth legion to be fielded, the council of these experts as to the oblique tactics and strategems of the Eldar will prove invaluable.”

"At the worst, Lord, we can just be common bolter men." Centurion Howler agreed, "But you'd be surprised just where you can fit treads if you've got the know how, and we've got that in spades. In any case, it's academic until we can secure a beachhead to land our task force's elements, and that's a job for breaching teams."

Kaelianos knew well that even his prized flagship and additional craft would not be enough to best an entire space-borne planet-ship, but he drank in the unwarranted praise from his usually quite taciturn sibling, feeling more than pleased that - if what Augor said was true - it would cause the conflict to come to a close all the sooner; though his legion lived and breathed the so-called zone mortalis, he was no butcher, Kaelianos much preferring keep as many warriors and vehicles as intact as possible.

“Then I believe it is a good thing you describe my legion precisely, Centurion… Howler, was it?” The Primarch moved his eyes within olive-skinned sockets, the smile never leaving his face, as if it were a default position upon his face, “I shall make sure you get your beachhead.”

Howler bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of his gene-uncle. "You and yours will be first in, Lord? Then I'll be right there with you."

He grinned, his mustache lifting around his lip. "I'm a liaison officer by trade, a forward observer. A grunt with a radio, if you will."

"And the only Lancer proud of being a footslogger." Praetor Liebowitz spoke up, smiling at the 8th's Primarch and Howler. "He's a rogue spirit, like me. A Legion of tanks, and we're the only ones fool enough to walk."

Nelinho felt the need to raise a matter that needed to be addressed. “Excuse me but... I do believe there is a tactical matter I can address right now that might be of some importance.” Clearing his throat, the tech marine quickly explained “While it is true that most Eldar raiders lack psyker support… Primarch Micholi suspects it is due to most of the Eldar slavers in such raids being mass produced clones, but the Craftworld variants of the species tend to hold their psykers in high relevance. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but… with the Librarian Crusade being formed and its members traveling with my Primarch and the Twentieth legion there is a concern that this campaign might be lacking in those best able to counter such dangerous sorceries.”

“You need not fear for that,” Sarghaul interjected with a rasp, “A full Tempest of the Ninth shall join the assault. Its Heralds of Silence have honed their own psychic aptitude, and they shall see to combating the emanations of the xeno-mind. The wraiths’ aberrant forces will break against the stillness of a harmonic animus.”

Offering Primarch Sarghaul a respectful bow, General Nelinho did answer “That might be true… but maybe it might be wiser still to delay the experiment of the Librarian Crusade until after we have dealt with target Iris? After all, projections put this campaign at a few months to a number of years.”

Yes, Kaelianos certainly was beginning to like these tanker Astartes (and their mortals) more than he’d expected to… as for Nelinho and his Primarch…

“The Librarian Crusade,” the Sentinel Forge Master began, his mechanical voice straining to show annoyance to the notion of it, coldly stating “is nothing more than a volunteer force. Whether or not they would have any significant impact upon the battle would be one dictated by their lack of numbers. Chief Librarian Nodis also does not garner the same hatred many of us in the Steel Sentinels have for the Eldar. I would imagine Nodis’ force will only be a metric of no more that a company of Librarians, and poorly trained psychic mortals. They would be unneeded and a risk to the operation at best.”

“While I am certain the Librarians are fine warriors and highly trained,” Augor said, finally deigning to join the new angle of conversation. “They are still something of an unblooded force. I have to agree that employing them here, especially against Aeldari psykers, is probably not prudent until they have demonstrated their doubtlessly exemplary capabilities in their own crusade. The Ninth legion’s Heralds are specialized for this endeavor, and the Twelfth legion has built up a stockpile of mindscrambler and even a modest collection of psyk-out grenades that we shall be pleased to distribute amongst the other forces assembled. More mitigatory tactics and personnel in regards to Aeldari psykers other than the Librarians would of course be helpful and welcomed.”

There was a brief silence from the Lancer contingent. Howler, jovial from his recognition by Kaelianos, suddenly found his countenance grim. Liebowitz and Imogen exchanged worried looks. They waited a second before it was the human, Imogen that spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Lord Astren, but… psyk-out grenades? Mindscramblers?” He seemed incredulous. “That wargear is… heavily restricted, and for good reason. Irresponsible use, I’ve been told, can leech a man’s soul from his body. We only issue it to our elite combat engineering companies and only in the most dire circumstances. I believe the normal Legiones Astartes organization table sanctions it for Destroyer companies only.”

He coughed, then stated, “We do deviate from that hallowed text a great deal, mind, but my point stands, that is incredibly dangerous gear, not only to our Lancers, but to our essential Auxilia personnel as well. And… blimey, there’s no tellin’ what would happen if we’re slinging them around in a ship full of nascent and active psykers, which the Eldar all are. Unless we’re sending in only properly trained men I can’t sign off on this at all. Is taking a chance on the Librarius really so unappealing compared to…”

He sighed, his vocabulary failing him. “...soul-sucking grenades?”

“Would you prefer to be left to the tender mercies of an Eldar Psyker without them?” Augor asked with a pointed air as he deliberately directed his eyeless sight to Imogen. “They are particularly hazardous, this much is true. They have the marked advantage, however, of not inviting the perils of the warp into the materium. Moreover, I have not indicated individual legions with their own Librarians may not bring them - merely that it might be premature to invite the collective Librarian Crusade force onboard as part of our spearhead.”

“Or you use the Eighteenth Legion if you are so worried about witches and sorcery. I will gladly prove you and those grenades as useless to your fears. Let me loose, if you wish to have that craftworld, then let me loose. I will give the fleet of the bear to your war, and any others that you desire, but let me at them…” The Aghmenir growled, “Or give the Librarius their own test, give them their bloody baptism in fire, and when they fail, you will come back to me and ask me to lead the second spear into the heart of those you set me upon.”

“My people have fought the witch, my people have felt those Souls pressing against us when we left the runic boundaries of our villages. I have married thirty five lovely wifes and each one I walked out upon the ice flats naked alongside them, safe from that storm which engulfs my home… The answer to a psyker, is not another, but something stronger in will and power! I am speaking from my right side… and it tells me that I should be the one to lead this spearhead or see assets wasted.”

To Imogen’s credit, he did not shy away from the objections of two Primarchs, not even flinching when Lord Aghnemir raised his deep voice, but, a human was a human. He was cowed. The worried faces of the other Lancers abated somewhat, for diplomacy’s sake, but it was clear they were still uneasy.

“Lords… forgive me.” Imogen started, “I just don’t share the same confidence, but, an agreement’s an agreement. Threatening withdrawal of our modest force was…”

He sighed. “I guess you could say it was immature. That said, if we’re issuing psyk-outs, I’d like them only issued to our combat engineering personnel, who are checked out. The other Lancers will have to take their odds, even against the witchery of the Eldar.”

Howler and Liebowitz both nodded in agreement, despite Praetor Imogen’s seemingly callous wording.

“We would never presume to force you to make use of such armaments, of course - they shall be provided to the tenth legion, and all other forces for that matter, by request and only as designated.” Augor assured Imogen with a conciliatory tone. “They are there if you should desire to make use of them.”

"Then… there is no issue." Saul Imogen smiled, his face crinkling in an expression of genuine warmth. "I have no other objections at this point, esteemed lords."

Both of the Astartes with him nodded in agreement.

For his part, Nelinho added “Personally, the second legion has come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with an enemy psyker was to blow their head off before they even knew you were there. But Eldar witches are… difficult to get that element of surprise with. That being said, we’ll still manage. My concern was more about having those more sensitive and experienced with such powers in order to see such vile things coming.” The tech marine’s words weren’t that of fear or doubt, his tone suggested more that dealing with craftworld psykers was just a pain in the ass of a job that unfortunately needed doing.

“Well, there are still two Legions with representatives at this gathering who might have some measure of expertise to lend to our efforts.” Augor replied - before then turning his sightless gaze to Ascania and Ayushmatki. “Niece and honored guest - have you any insight into this matter? Or perhaps as to the remainder of this campaign? The fourteenth and sixteenth legions are redoubtable forces and I am certain all here in attendance would be honored to fight these most heinous of xenos alongside you.”

As one, nearly the entire room turned to gaze at the until-then silent pair of women who had thus far remained successfully unnoticed.

Ascania turned to face Augor, the peaceful countenance of her Primarch at rest staring back at him as she stared from behind the death mask. “Our attentions currently reside upon troubling prospects rimward and trailing, we had the utmost confidence in the furor of our most beloved Micholi and Usriel to prosecute this campaign along your side before yet more flocked to this banner,” she said in a voice that mixed her own with that of Daena. “Those Chapters in the vicinity of your forces will, naturally, join you and your cause. Yet more may arrive should our fears be put to rest, and you have our word that the Deathseers shall prise apart the skein of endings to chart your course.”

“I am sure Father Usriel would be most pleased to see the Doomsayers joining our crusade of vengeance against these abominations, cousin. My emotion cores return delight and I shall acknowledge it,” the mechanical voice of Aschwin came, as he waved a mechadendrite towards Ascania. The two tech-marines behind him nodded in agreement as the mechadendrite returned to its original spot behind the Forge Master.

The Equerry seemed to relax as she turned to respond to Aschwin, though her face remained hidden. “Your father has proven himself a true friend and caring lord, there is nothing more we desire than to right the wrong done to you and yours,” she said, melancholy coloring her voice. Much had been studied in the secrecy of the Legion’s vaults, and doubt gnawed at her mind whether Usriel would find the redemption he so desperately sought in the killing fields to come.

Ayushmatki had remained almost rigidly still during the long proceedings, her augmetic eyes unblinking as she recorded and made notes upon every single second of it. At the initial mention of the Sixteenth Legion, her posture had shifted almost imperceptibly as she refocused her attention upon the Sentinel speaking - though she did not respond, the conversation moving onwards before there was need.

But now she and Ascania had been addressed directly by the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion, and silence was no longer an option. She maintained her silence as Ascania spoke, nodding her head ever so slightly in response to her. When she finally did speak, it was with a measured, closely guarded voice, “The Sixteenth Legion is honored, Primarch of the Stargazers, that you would request our presence in such a significant undertaking.”

She inclined her head towards him as she spoke, her voice maintaining its clipped, reserved demeanor, “However, the forces of the Legion have already been issued their new orders for fresh deployment abroad after we have concluded our events here in order to continue the expansion of the Imperium’s borders and the pacification of those who would do us harm. While Eiohsa may not be here at present, for which you have both my and her deepest apologies, she has assured me she will arrive as soon as she is capable, as she wishes to take the chance for her Legion to meet and learn from the other illustrious forces of our Emperor - after which they will return to their duties. I and my comrades are greatly honored, but if in truth you are insistent upon us contributing to this venture, I would support the suggestion of the Forge Master of the Steel Sentinels. None of us would seek to deny them their vengeance upon a treacherous foe who has wrought such hardship upon the Nineteenth Legion, and in truth the forces already pledged to this grand undertaking are more than sufficient for a firm guarantee of success. With your blessings, lord Primarchs, we would continue the bulk of our operations throughout the Ultima Segmentum as planned. The incursion into Saravata by a previously unknown xenos empire is proof enough that the Imperium’s borders are not yet fully secure, and it is my firm belief that the bulk of the Daughters of Iron would be more gainfully employed in our current plans.”

After a slight pause, a smile came to her face, though one as close as Ascania might notice its artificiality. “Additionally, the interiors of a Craftworld are, I imagine, not as conducive to the tactics of the Sixteenth Legion as those of our kin. Should a detachment of the sixteenth be in the vicinity during this operation, they will of course answer the call to arms - but in truth swords and axes have never truly been our forte since the shameful days of the Wolves of Terra and their needless waste of resources, and it seems you have already received as much armored support as you could possibly need - though I confess I will be greatly intrigued to hear of the performance of armored vehicles in such conditions. I do, however, doubt that our artillery will be of aid in this battle, and our method of warfare is best suited elsewhere.” She finished with a nod towards the Praetor of the Pact.

Howler sat back in his chair, rubbing his mustache with his hand. “You’re right, Sister, but, even if we gotta pack ‘em in tread-to-tread we’ll do it. We lose a company or two of tubes to Eldar raiding parties, that’s fine, but from the reports me and Lieb read…”

He nodded to the fuzzy-haired Astartes to his left, “Eldar are fast. Some of them are almost supernaturally skilled. Skilled in a way that can’t be beat just going up at ‘em gun-to-gun or blade-to-blade. Infantry should be able to call for support if they get in over their heads, it’s that simple.”

Howler paused to collect his thoughts. Saul Imogen looked at him encouragingly. He patted the redleg on the shoulder, and that seemed to focus Howler, who continued.

“Maybe the environment isn’t ideal for a tank, or a gun carrier, but that don’t mean they can’t be put to use. I’d rather flatten a housing complex with a Bombard than clear it room to room, exceptin’ of course if there’s somethin’ we need or civilians, mind, and I doubt even the most hard charging Astartes in this room would disagree with me. The Pact’s method of warmakin’ - we hit ‘em with everything we got, as often as we can, even if they make it difficult. Our job is to make it just as difficult for them, and I’m sorry, but if it was my ass clearing a Wraithbone bunker, I’d want to be able to call in support, even if it means the artillerymen have to breath each other’s halitosis.”

Liebowitz, the 4th AG praetor, spoke up after Howler. “My centurion, bless his heart, failed to address your mention of combat reports, Sister Ayushmakti. Forgive him, he is exceedingly technical in nature. He’ll talk for hours about this stuff if you let him. We will, of course, make all Tenth Legion combat reports available to any other Legion who wishes to see them, as well as the illustrious Daughters of Iron. Lord Wode is always willing to work with his siblings, and we see it the same way.”

“I shall take that offer, Praetor,” chimed in Kaelianos, taking a little moment from his ever ongoing internal reveries, “we of the Eighth, and myself in particular, are always eager to learn from others ways of war. It is how we have operated since our inception.” For a moment he paused, then spoke up again, “I would be honoured to meet your gene-Father at a time of his choosing, for mutual benefit. Would that be possible?”

“I suppose it isn’t -impossible-, Lord Kaelianos, but our gene-father is notoriously difficult to make appointments with.” Liebowitz said, flipping a pen in his hands. “Well, at least for remembrancers. His siblings, though, he loves meeting them, but he’s a very hands-on man with his men. If you wish to speak with him, just showing up at our staging area here in the Council area should probably do it, he’ll make the time. He forgets, you see, to seek out companionship, he’s always losing himself in the work of maintaining, feeding, and training 150,000 Astartes.”

The face of the Primarch creased into an amicable smile, jovial congeniality oozing from every pore of the oversized demi-god, “a ‘man’ after my own heart…” his eyes moved over the Pact representatives again, analysing them in a glance much as a machine might, but with less brute force or even obviousness as to what he was doing, “yes, he must be busy. Thank you Praetor Liebowitz, that is all I needed to know.” Leisurely he pressed his hands back to his lap and waited for the proceedings to… proceed.

Augor leaned back away from his area of the table and swept his gaze over the assembled parties one last time as silence fell just in case any of the others had more to say before carrying on.

“Now that each of the Legions with representatives present have had the opportunity to pledge forces to the campaign, it would be prudent for us to discuss logistics, assembly points, and fleet groupings.” He began. “It is imperative that rather than building up forces gradually that all of our assets aggregate more or less simultaneously and in the same span of time, so as to provide the Eldar with as little forewarning as possible. Likewise, given the distinct possibility of Eldar farsight in this matter, the exact final configuration of which sectors we use to muster will be randomly determined shortly prior to assembly in order to deter the possibility of the Eldar laying any traps in the sectors we ultimately use. In order to facilitate this, a completed circle of waystations around the theater of the Campaign have been…”

What followed were several hours of dry bureaucratic management and planning. The consolidation and transportation of troops, equipment, ships, the scheduling and sectors involved, the measures being taken to facilitate the infant Campaign without exposing its existence to the Eldar, the nominal orders of battle and the establishing of a nominal chain of command between the Legion forces that would be present. Several of the attendees raised a few clarifying questions along the way, but little else in the way of true conversation was had.

---

---

Some time after his gathering had ended, the Twelfth Primarch strode down the halls of the Council building leading from the chambers where the Stargazers’ retinue dwelt, and down a less heavily trafficked secondary passage purposefully. Unlike before, he was bereft of his Servo-Harness and had once more adorned a simple set of Martian robes, a towering crimson-mantled, ashen-skinned specter passing swiftly through the halls. He was flanked by only a token number of escorts, two of his Legion Praetors who were likewise out of their armor and wearing ceremonial robes and tabards, the only true armaments evident between any of the three of them being the Omnissian staves they carried.

In a flash of motion, one of the Stargazers Praetors was splayed across the ground, his stave spinning with a droning whir over the armored hand of Nelchitl as it picked up speed. As the second Praetor, caught off guard by the abrupt violence of the Seventeenth Primarchs actions shifted to step in front of his gene-sire, Nelchitl brought the stave to an abrupt stop horizontal with the deck. With the butt of the weapon, the Primarch struck out. Pieces of the second Praetor’s augmetics shearing away as the staff smashed into something other than flesh. With the second Praetor immobilized Nelchitl dropped the staff where she stood and turned to regard her brother.

Augor turned, calmly pivoting on one foot to face Nelchitl, observing with a polite air of interest as Nelchitl disarmed and then disabled the two Astartes in scarcely less than two heartbeats. As she turned to him, he addressed her. “Tidings, honored sister. I regret to inform you that if you have come for my eyes, you are far too late.” The lids of his empty sockets raised and lowered once in emphasis. Despite the words, the Twelfth Primarch was smiling ever so faintly. “You may have to make do with my waggling tongue instead.”

“I do not seek either,” she laughed, “there is much to speak of Brother,” she continued seriously as she began to walk slowly away from the scene of violence, “this siege… I am uncertain of it.” she shrugged, the fact she had laid two of her brother’s finest so low and so easily not even a concern in her mind, “These questions I admit, were likely answered, and I did not intend to offend you with them again. But after the events of earlier I figured it best I don’t involve myself in such a large gathering of our kin.” she admitted.

“You need not have worried. My newly kindred brother in sightlessness was not personally in attendance, though the measure was doubtlessly still a prudent one.” Augor finally frowned as he turned his gaze down towards where the Praetors, heaving in pain and clutching at their chests, reached feebly across the floor for their staves while trying to recover from the sundering blows Nelchitl had struck them with. “You two, pack your belongings and return to the Ineffable Artifice. See that you recover swiftly from your humbling here, perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt from it.” He turned his gaze back to Nelchitl as the two Marines finally managed to haggardly pull themselves upright, dazed expressions on their faces - intermixed with shock and awe, neither of the Legion veterans being accustomed to being stunned or having stars pinwheel across their vision.

“I am pleased to clarify what I can. Since you were not in attendance - know that the First, Second, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Fourteenth and Nineteenth Legions have all pledged substantial forces and assets to the Campaign. Brother Kaelianos pledged the Castrum Aeterna and its defense armada. Usriel has, much even to my dismay, pledged his entire Legion, down to the last Neophyte. I did not expect to have to protest too generous a contribution to the cause.” He shook his head faintly. “...And later of course, during our sister Sekhemetra’s conclave of the College Titanica Princeps, I shall be endeavoring to secure the aid of several God-Engine Legios. Rest assured sister, even with all of this might, fighting the Eldar will be like confronting a nest of cornered serpents.”

Nelchitl nodded along as Augor spoke, a certain fire in her eyes growing as he listed out all those who had pledged to add their strength to his. “Perhaps they require Serpents to put them down.” she smiled, “I can’t lie and say I didn’t expect so many to be present,” she grinned as she kept going, “for who wants to miss out on the honor of taking down such a megalith as an Aeldari Craftworld?”. With a smile she turned to him and continued her line of questioning, “I’ve not had the chance to fight the Eldar before… Too long have I been in the galactic West, too far from where they are normally encountered.” she sounded almost somber as she spoke of the missed opportunity, “I’ve heard of them as fierce opponents, each nearly the equal of an Astartes on their own. But I’ve also heard of them as a surprisingly nefarious xenos race.”

She seemed to mull over her next words for a moment before she spoke again, “How can you be sure of the success of this campaign? The resources of nine legions are substantial, to amass such might for one objective is unprecedented as far as I am aware.” she shrugged, “That this isn’t some sort of ruse or false flag to draw in such might and smite it in one fell swoop… Do not misunderstand brother, I wish to commit as well, but the specifics of how we have arrived at this campaign evade my understanding.”

“There were likewise similar issues raised by the other Primarchs. Suffice to say if this is all some Eldar ploy the very universe and the warp have conspired to to turn it back upon them. Nonetheless such a concern is why I still hope to persuade Usriel not to commit his full Legion to the Campaign. His thirst for vengeance over Atis clouds his judgement in this matter I think, and could potentially leave the Imperium’s flanks exposed. The Steel Sentinels and their fortifications are the bastions that hold back the savageries in many regions of space.” Augor answered. “As to the Campaign’s success...the Logis are optimistic. Initial projections indicated the campaign would take years, perhaps even a decade. The swell of support from my siblings in this matter has changed that substantially. With so many Fleets, Astartes, and the Children of the Omnissiah himself present...Victory is preordained. Though the Eldar will doubtlessly make it a bloody, wretched victory if we do not respect them for their prowess and cunning. Needless to say, we do not intend to approach this matter recklessly. I will have a Priest deliver a data-slate with the details concerning the Craftworld’s discovery and its current predicament, which should hopefully allay your concerns.”

She could feel her mood sour as the conversation brushed over Usriel and his grudge against the Eldar. Once more she found her brother’s inability to let go of the past to be a tangible detriment in the present, and she did not appear alone as Augor expressed his own concerns with the Steel Sentinels Primarch.

“The Steel Sentinels will bay at the moon until they breathe their last breaths if it means they can get closer to exterminating the Eldar. A handful of my daughters reinforced Usriel and his wounded legion at Atis. What they have told me, from those who have survived long enough to meet me, are less than flattering accounts of our brother.” she replied as she mulled once more at the final words of Augor.

“You may deliver them to my General’s Staff, they will handle the proper scrutinies. Though I trust your word, I must be sure to have my own do their due diligence.” the Emerald Priestess continued as she placed a hand on the shoulder of her brother, “That so many of His children have committed should be enough for me to do the same, for it is as you say, there is not but the preordained victory before us with such allies.” she smiled warmly as they walked along the pathways, “Tell me Augor, how many more do you require?”

“The Devastator Squads of the Seventeenth will prove to be exemplary aids within the craftworld. As things stand, the Campaign is presently over endowed with heavy vehicular and artillery support and spearhead elements, with comparatively few specialized infantry wielding line of fire heavy weaponry. There remains the distinct possibility that the Craftworld may not have any of the open spaces that have been predicted and is just a tangled knot of arterial corridors and industries, like a Forge World, in which case those assets would prove…” He paused momentarily before continuing. “...Less than advantageous to employ freely. The Craftworld is immense of course, and to make a real difference against foes like these across such distances…” He tilted his head faintly up and to the side, doubtlessly running through more than a hundred different estimations compiled on the fly from various reports and deployment files that he had been supplied with. “...Twenty-thousand Astartes with commensurate fleet-elements would be the ideal to aspire to.” He finally settled on. “Though I understand the Serpents of the Sun have other pressing Campaigns and fronts they are presently embroiled in - such as the uprisings in Obscurus.”

Nelchitl bristled at the request of Augor. Some twenty thousand of her Daughters committed to his Craftworld, as much as she wished to assist, was simply too much. “You wish for a fifth of my entire Legion?” she scoffed incredulously, “You have the might of nine other legions committed already, why should I give you a fifth of my own strength?” she shook her head and sighed as they pressed further down the corridor, “It is a steep price brother. One I am unsure I can fulfill. It is true, my Legion is split between many compliance actions. Xenos filth rears their ugly forms in every corner that my fleets look. They are simply too committed to give so many over to you.” she paused, her brow scrunching as she thought, “I can commit half that. 10,000, all of them Devastators. With leadership capable of employing them. And I will give you three of my attached Solar Auxilia regiments. A handful of my very own elite. Light Infantry, well suited to combat in confined and open spaces alike.” she offered, reluctance evident as she gave up a significant portion of her strength.

Augor nodded, his expression unperturbed. “I have no doubt your daughters will startle, alarm, and strike terror in our foes - and awe amongst our own - in how swiftly even ten thousand of them will burn away the xenos as well as their treachery. Ten thousand is more than I thought you would be able to spare. I assure you that come the end of this campaign, even the common soldiery of the Astra Militarium will only ever speak of the Seventeenth Legion with awe itself dancing on their lips.” A bold claim indeed, given the soured outlook the Imperial Army generally held for the Serpents of the Sun.

Nelchitl laughed as her brother finished, “I do not require admiration Augor, only results.”

“Will you be able to lead your daughters personally, incidentally?” Augor inquired. “We expect many Champions amongst the Aeldari to come forth to serve as icons of defiance. Icons that might serve to diminish our foes if duly unmade in sufficiently spectacularly a fashion. Occasionally admiration itself may serve as a blade.”

“Though Praxia stands in compliance, a shining beacon to all others that wish to forsake the Emperor’s light, I have another front to attend to.” she responded, “Troubling reports of a new xenos threat reach my astropaths from one of my more distant fleets. They report…” she hesitated before continuing, a torn expression gracing her face, “they have lost several engagements with them. I intend to see to it personally.” she finished, anger and disappointment lacing her words.

Augor frowned. “What sectors of space were these encounters in?” He inquired. “Hearing of xenos that can defeat Astartes time and time again...it evokes darker times, sister.”

Nelchitl seemed uncomfortable as Augor searched for more information from her, a frown gracing her lips as she answered him bitterly, “Tempestus, coreward, uncomfortably close to Segmentum Solar and at the border of Pacificus. These xenos are unlike any I’ve yet to encounter, and the adepts of Mars attached to the forward fleet report they have no such record of them either.” she paused and shifted in her armor, “There is little more I am comfortable with divulging here Augor. These are things best kept from prying eyes.”

Augor nodded. “Sadly there would be little I could do to supply aid directly at this time at any rate. Half my Legion has been committed and the rest remains on guard at key positions. If there is anything I can do to assist your efforts by other means-” He began.

“I expect no such aid.” she replied quickly, “My Serpents will deal with this ourselves, of this I am sure. To dirty our honor anymore by accepting defeat without my own presence would only serve to further their current failure to levels I am not so accepting of.”

Augor nodded solemnly, his face turning to the side as he directed his eyeless gaze at some oblique angle. “I understand. I have no doubt you will cut to the heart of the matter.” He said. A brief silence followed before he then resumed speaking.

“In regards to Xenos generally of course…” He began, “I think we should momentarily discuss the Edict. I trust it did not escape your notice the murmuring and conspiratorial asides some of our siblings entertained during the discussion yesterday.”

Raising an eyebrow in confusion at her brothers next line of questioning she shook her head with an exhausted sigh, “I can’t say I know specifically which of our siblings you speak of,” she admitted, “and though I can’t say I listened to any of the more private conversation of the council, I am more than willing to hear what it is you need to say.”

“Although I myself am conflicted on this matter, it is at least evident that our father desires genuine discourse of some form concerning the Edict. Your opposition is unified and acting in concert, you and the others who would argue against the Edict are distant and speak only as individuals. Those Primarchs who are undecided or ambivalent as to the Edict will be better swayed if you conduct a more coherent campaign.” Augor spoke, his voice lowered faintly. “You should speak with both Kaelianos and Sarghaul as to this matter.”

“I’m uncertain we can change the Edict.” she admitted sourly, “It appears too well entrenched, too untouchable. By some fluke of the galaxy the xenos have not once misstepped once through it. In this regard it appears infallible. Though I am suspicious of this very fact and specifically of Micholi and his part in these records, I can not prove such suspicions.” she waved a dismissive hand, “Uniting the other two with me will barely matter if there is no evidence of the Edict's failure to prove it flawed. Of course many of the xenos have failed to make it through the process, but that is… the point of the process… to find those that are not worthy of the Imperium’s majesty before they are trusted to lay their fealty before us.”

“The document itself may well be infallible - unsurprisingly, as it was written by the Omnissiah himself.” Augor nodded. “Though that does not mean those xenos that successfully pass through its procedures are likewise infallibly joined to the Imperium. I recommend you attend the evidentiary hearings and comport a plan of action. Although I must refrain from being too partial in this matter, it would obviate the purpose of this Council if a cogent opposition to the Edict and the effects it produces, or may produce, does not materialize.” He appeared to hesitate for several moments before continuing.
“On a more personal note - you should refrain from referring to our father as the Omnissiah. Many are watching and taking note. You are not an Adept of the Mechanicum - and I am already pleased to offer you counsel without you needing to sway me over in such a manner.” He hesitated again before breathily murmuring, so softly as to almost not be heard at all, _{”...and it displeases our father…”}

“I have yet to be censured for my words in this regard,” she boasted, “so if it displeased our Father I would have expected Him to make such clear. He or the Sigillite. And what difference does it make that I call our Father the ‘Omnissiah’ or the ‘Emperor’ dear brother?” she paused a moment before continuing, “I dare say we share more in common than many may believe Augor. You and I both know of the undeniable providence of our creator, so why should it matter in what form I call Him what he truly is, especially when your form is… acceptable, by all writs.”

“True as it may be, he seems unconvinced of his own divinity...for the time being.” Augor managed to eek out with a grimace. “We must honor him as he demands, and his demand of those without the Mechanicum is that they shall not worship him in any form or fashion. Though if you wish to continue to test him and the Sigilite in this way, I will not stop you.” After a momentary pause he then continued. “Although pertaining to the Edict once more...Usriel would potentially be a great ally to you in this cause if you could sway him over.”

The Emerald Priestess laughed as her brother spoke, the idea that the Emperor wasn’t aware of his own godhood bringing a small tear to her eye. “He is aware, there is no way He can’t be. But it is the Imperium at large that is not ready for this revelation.” she gestured vaguely around them as they walked, “The mortals have their reasons to follow him, though quietly many feel the fact of his godhood already. Yet many more do not. He will come to see in time that He must accept it.” she finished before shrugging, a noncommittal thing even as seen through her armor, “Usriel appears in between the Edict indeed. Though I feel that he will remain where he is, despite his history with the xenos.”

“That is precisely why I feel he can be swayed, perhaps especially in light of what may be presented at the evidentiary hearings.” Augor agreed. “Though if you are content merely to bow away from the struggle merely because your opponent seemingly has the advantage for the moment, I suppose it would be improper of me to convince you otherwise any further - doctrinally bound as I am.”

“I am not giving up, merely stating what I see as the conclusion of this frivelty. Though I despise Micholi and the fractures his Edict have caused between us siblings… I can not continue to push the blade deeper between us.” she paused and seemed to think for a moment, “Not to mention I may need to leave this council before it’s conclusion. The reports from my daughters in Tempestus are rife with troubling news, and they come more frequently as of late, with more desperate need of reinforcement in each.”

“Were you not obligated by your doctrine, you too brother would make a fine leader for these talks of the Edict.” she countered.

“The Edict of Tolerance is the written word and will of the Omnissiah. It is, as you say, infallible on its face. To object to the body of that document would be heretical.” Augor replied almostly idly. “All I can comment on are its effects and material consequences - as after all, the execution of the Edict is an affair seen to by mortal hands and instruments. It is already something of a deviation that I am not compelled to speak in support of it - helped, of course, by the fact of the Omnissiah himself decreeing discussion over it.”

Frowning as her brother once more brought his dogma to the fore, Nelchitl slowed her walk as they approached an intersection in the hallway. Stopping before it she turned to Augor and clasped a hand on his shoulder, “I understand your inability to truly oppose your tenets and beliefs, though I fear I lose a valuable ally in that fact.” she shrugged and took her arm from his shoulder, “For now I will continue to oppose it, and I will count on your facts to assist me, though I understand they will not always be favorable to my own views.” with a sigh she turned to leave Augor, “Another time may have seen this Council play out differently Brother. But for now I must get back to my own duties to my Legion. The Emperor protects.”

“The Omnissiah enlightens.” Augor returned with a faint bow of the head.

---

---

A short time later, Augor - now bereft of his honor guard - made his way through the back corridors of the Council building and arrived at the temporary offices of the Night Watch. They were unoccupied and bereft of any furnishings save for the desk that Primarch Micholi Vakarian was ruminating. Augor approached him without any particular ceremony or pomp and addressed him as though his approach was merely by chance rather than having been scheduled in advance.

“Brother. I have come to discuss the specific allocation of forces from the Night Watch that are to attend the siege of Iris.” He indicated, hands clasped behind his back. His lack of eyes made reading his expression difficult, his lips set in an unassuming line that might have been appropriate either towards disinterest or irritation.

Glancing up from the data slate that he was gazing upon, Micholi blinked his currently singular eye at his Mechancium aligned brother for a moment before respectful answering “Of course brother. I had just finished overlooking the summary of target Iris and Nelino’s report of the meeting and was currently looking over what assists of the second would be best to offer to the campaign. Please, take a seat.” While the office itself might have been spartan of decoration, there were still several seats designed for different persons of differing sizes at the ready, including several seats designed to accommodate the size and bulk of a primarch.

The red-mantled Primarch declined the invitation with a perfunctory shake of the head, so Micholi got down to business. “I admit, there is a small part of me that desires to follow Usriel’s example and gather all of my legion to assist in this assault but… that is unwise. The siege of Laeran caused me to draw the bulk of the Night Watch to the campaign and thus the patrols and peace keeping efforts the divisions normally take time for had to be put on hold. I would rather not risk slavers, raiders, cultists and secessionists being emboldened by a lack of legion presence.”

“All that being said… While the second and fourth divisions tend to have more hands on experience with the Eldar in general, their experience is more related to the Drukhari subsection of the species rather than the craftworld variants. In truth, I suspect that the first division under General Nelino might be best suited for your campaign, due to their strong connection with the Mechanicum and their understanding of the tactics of the followers of the Machine Cult. This would include their imperial army regiments and whatever assets they have.”

What went unsaid was that the first division didn’t use xenos regiments, a fact which likely would assist in reducing… incidents.

“A substantial contribution nonetheless.” Augor nodded, his expression still noncommittal. “The first division’s particular expertise in common with the Cult Mechanicum’s shall service the campaign well. We will have great need for saboteurs and assassins who can either disable key Aeldari shipboard systems or otherwise eliminate key personnel. When it comes to Psykers sometimes even Sicarians are not always enough, but there are few forces that have the training and body of knowledge necessary to use the tools of the Cult Mechanicum for such tasks to their full potential. I look forward to meeting with General Nelinho in person, I imagine there is much for us to discuss concerning the order of battle and our deployment priorities.”

With a sharp nod, Micholi was more than happy to seal the arrangement. “Indeed. Though there is something about this campaign I would like to discuss with you Augor.” Putting the data slate down fully, Micholi took a quick moment to carefully select his words before he voiced them. “I must confess… there is another reason I am interested in this campaign and… honestly regret the fact that my promise to Sekh means I cannot take part personally.”

“My hatred of the Eldar is, I like to believe, public knowledge. However, I do have a favor I wish to ask of you in your efforts to rip their secrets from them. Above all else, I desire the secrets of the webway gates to be cracked.” There was a momentary pause before he explained himself. “Despite the efforts of myself, Usriel and the Imperium in general, the sad truth is that as long as the Drukhari and the Eldar in general can hide within their webway we will never be able to wipe them out fully. While my desired end goal would be for humanity to be able to control and access the webway so we can take the fight to them properly on their home turf, even if you could figure out a way for us to detect dormant and hidden gates would be an untold boon for us.”

“That much you can be assured of.” Augor promised, inclining his head ever-so-faintly. “Even if Webway technology is ordained to be Heretech - though I see no reason why it would be, mind you, given it is one instance of Aeldari technology the Mechanicum is already somewhat familiar with - the intent to create means of detecting and tracing webway connections and gateways is high on the list of priorities of the Explorator Fleets that will be dismantling the Craftworld. I have every confidence that even should nothing else come of our efforts, this at least is something we have to expect.”

There was a small snort from Micholi at the mention of heretech before he felt the need to explain “ Honestly, once the Eldar have been purged from it I foresee there being a great deal of upheaval within the Mechanicum between those wishing to better understand the technology to possibly make use of it and a combination of those factions who are truly zealous in their desire to destroy all traces of xeno tech and those magi who can be influenced by the Navigator houses who would easily see the threat to their own power and positions in the long term. If nothing else, I suspect another council like this would need to be called because I think we can both agree that it would be important enough for the Emperor to give it his personal attention.”

“At any rate, as long as the Drukhari are finally wiped from existence I cannot help but feel like that all our siblings, regardless of their views on the Edict and non-human life in general, would have to agree that the universe would be a better place because they’re not longer in it to plague life itself.”

“Victory of course, is preordained.” Augor intoned in recitation of one of his Legion’s common sayings. “And so it shall come to pass a day when the Eldar no longer plague the galaxy - though this campaign shall hasten that inevitability, which cannot come soon enough as we can both agree.” He inclined his head again. “Was there anything else you wished to discuss? I need yet to speak with Usriel regarding his perhaps overzealous contribution to the Iris Campaign.”

“A tall order but… I believe you might benefit from appealing to the same notion I am for not committing too much of my legion. Namely, that not having as active a legion presence around might embolden certain negative elements… including the very eldar slavers that he loathes so greatly. They are always looking for targets of opportunity for their raids after all.”

For a moment Micholi was quiet, before he decided to ask Augor “Just between the two of us brother. What is your personal opinion on the Edict of Tolerance? I know that it is considered holy scripture for the Mechanicum because the Emperor helped create it and to publicly speak against it would be… problematic for you to say the least. But just between us, as one of the driving forces for its creation… I want to hear your true opinion of me and my works brother. If only to know where we truly stand. Because I do like to think we get along, even if we disagree on some things.”

“I cannot hold anything but awe and adoration for the body of the document itself.” Augor indicated courteously. “Its effects, results, and consequences I may freely discuss, as those are all carried out, executed, and observed by fallible instruments and agents. Quite frankly those ends are repugnant, no matter how sacred the means. The practical manifestation of the Edict’s implementation is a concession to the corruptibility and weakness inherent in mortal men. It is perhaps the case that the Edict itself is being misused, or that it was never intended to be used, but to serve as an ongoing test - indeed, a testament - to the faithfulness of the Adepts of the Imperium. Or perhaps it is all a part of some grander design of the Omnissiah’s, obscured from our comprehension. Regardless of the truth of that matter, it is not something I am prepared to hazard with specificity, as that would impinge upon the inviolate will of the One Who Stands Above All. Much as you did so freely during the first day of open discussion over the Edict.” Augor’s tone as he spoke his last sentence was decidedly acidic.

A sigh escaped Micholi as he muttered “I admit, I shouldn’t have spoken for the Emperor’s motives for they are his own… even more so when he is in the very room and can speak for himself if he so chooses to do so. For what it’s worth… I don’t begrudge you your opinions. I know that the Mechanicum has a great deal of scripture related to a distrust of the xeno and their technology and… honestly I can see the wisdom in not trusting such things at face value.”

“That scripture, I will remind you, is the Omnissiah’s devise. It is his instruction, his exigencies that decree our abhorrence. Prior to the Treaty of Mars, the Mechanicum had no such aversion to the perversion that is Xenotech. It is by the grace of his will, his direction, his truth, that such a policy should be embodied and venerated within the Cult Mechanicum. ‘Our’ wisdom, as you so put it, is his. Question it and you question him.” Augor said icily. “If you are to feel anything of that at all, feel only acceptance. There is no other path.”

Micholi… offered a small, sad smile to Augor. “I’m afraid I do have to question him. After all, the whole point of the scientific method that the Imperial Truth promotes is that nothing can remain completely unchallenged. If nothing else, the fact that his wisdom can withstand questioning further cements it as the correct model to base things off of.”

“You are not a member of the Cult Mechanicum, so you are not bound in the way we are as his truest servants.” Augor aceded. “It is your privilege to question him. Such is the errancy of lesser minds. You would do well not to emulate them. In your place I would choose my words carefully come the next open discussion of this matter. There is a fine line where such privilege ends and treason begins - and my patience in this matter has already been sorely tested.”

“Of course brother. For what it is worth I am sorry for any discomfort and annoyance I have caused you. Even more so before you have to enter what has to be one of the strangest conversations I feel either of us will ever be apart of… talking Usriel out of committing forces to a military campaign. I don’t think any of us have ever needed to talk anyone out of committing resources to a campaign before.”

“Usriel and his Astartes are blinded by their need for vengeance, but they are otherwise sound of mind. They can be reminded of their duty to our father and his Imperium.” Augor replied. “I should hope, at any rate. Though the Ordo Astranoma is as certain as can be that this is not a trap or ploy, it might very well lead to one should the Imperium’s flanks be left exposed.” He made the sign of the Cogwheel to Micholi with his hands before turning to depart. “Until we are convened again, brother.”

Micholi respectfully stood up and offered a respectful bow of his head. “Until we are convened again, brother. For what it’s worth, your best bet might be to try and convince him that by having his legion elsewhere that it would interfere with other Eldar plans in motion. Because I dread to think of what prize they might be after if they’re willing to have a craftworld be bait to try and create an opening in our lines.”

---

---

When Augor had reached Usriel’s room, two familiar figures of the nineteenth legion’s honour guard with their plasma weaponry casting a blue haze upon the area stood guard. Their eyes followed the Primarch of the Stargazers, a red gaze matching their father’s, and as he approached they moved out of the way of the door. Both of them bowed deeply to Augor as he entered the chamber and left the two guards to resume their duties of guarding the entryway, the door sliding close behind the form of the Primarch. The room was dark, a low iridescent light only illuminating the state room and the massive form of Usriel seated neatly behind a blackened meeting table. The Imperial Aquila and the Cog of the Machine God formed a repeating pattern on the walls, coming together behind Usriel whose form contrasted the darkness as he was dressed in a simple cream colored tabard, a hood neatly brought over his head.

The rest of the room though was as bland as was the inside of his ship with little flare that many of the other Primarchs had in their room. Regardless of such facts, Usriel brought life to the room as he raised himself from his seat and threw open his arms with a howling laughter that was very unlike his character. His face held a smile that did not belong upon his features.

“Augor! The very man I wanted to see! I have received the details of this plan of yours and I must thank you for allowing me and my sons a chance of proper vengeance,” Usriel said in an enthusiasm that did not come from him, one that felt unnatural as his desire to redeem himself and his legion came to the surface of his emotion.

“A chance for a degree of vengeance, Usriel. Your final vengeance shall not be met until the scales are balanced to your satisfaction.” Augor began, signing to Usriel as he approached with the sign of the cog. “Will Iris alone truly fulfill the call for absolution that burns within you?”

“No, but it will be a great start!” Usriel laughed, stepping around the meeting table to approach his brother, his arms still outstretched as if he intended to give Augor a hug. However, the Nineteenth Primarch reeled himself in, a smile still plastered upon his face, as he put a hand upon the shoulder of the other, “But, a true thanks is in order, Augor. I am eternally grateful for this chance.”

“It is an opportunity that shall enrich the whole of the Imperium and the kind which I would be pleased to offer you until the end of days, brother.” Augor reciprocated the smile. He brought his hands before him and steepled them together. “And I would be honored to join you in your fated battle in the depths of the Webway to purge these Xenos from the veins of the galaxy, which may well come once this campaign has concluded.” He paused, appearing hesitant for a moment. “You say you wanted to see me?” He asked finally.

“I wanted to celebrate this occasion with you, Augor, for none are as deserving of recognition of the greatness of this plan other than you! I have requisitioned some of the finest cuisine to be sent here as a bit of a gift, so that we may celebrate to a plan well thought and to the hopes of ending more of those wretched xenos! The food has yet to be finished, but it shall be done soon!” Usriel exclaimed as he moved away from his brother and pulled out a seat for Augor.

Augor sat in the proffered chair, possible only due to both it having been designing for Usriel and the other primarchs specifically in bearing and sturdiness but also due to being simply adorned in merely his crimson cult robes.

“While we are waiting then, it may be prudent to discuss logistics.” Augor stated almost idly. “I believe there are twenty fortress worlds personally garrisoned and overseen by the Nineteenth Legion. All at key Imperial crossroads and sectors of imperative strategic importance.”

“This is correct, but I hardly see how those worlds bear relevance to this mission of yours,” Usriel stated, sitting next to his brother. The Nineteenth Primarch spoke once more, “If you are concerned of their safeguarding, I am sure the serfs there will be more than capable of holding them should my sons leave them.”

“Should?” Augor asked lightly. His sightless gaze was not turned towards Usriel, but staring blindly into the midst of the room as they conversed. “Have you reconsidered the complete commitment of your full Legion, then?”

“Of course not. My sons would be melancholic if they did not have their chance at vengeance, especially those veterans of Atis,” Usriel said, matching Augor’s tone as he too turned away from his brother's gaze.

“Hm. Brother, the Ordo Astranoma is as certain as we can be that this is not an Eldar ploy.” He finally turned his head to aim his empty gaze to Usriel. “But the Eldar’s territory is a cancerous web that underpins the galaxy, and they do not have to confront us at Iris, nor must they premeditate their raids and attacks against us. Rest assured, they have proven to the Imperium that they know of the Legions. They know our approximate numbers. They know of our fleets. They know of our worlds. This is granted even prior to the consideration of the machinations and visions of their Farseers. It is almost inevitable they will lash out at the Imperium elsewhere in an effort to divert our attention or in retaliation for the siege itself.”

The Twelfth Primarch shifted his entire body to face Usriel then. “Where do you imagine it will please them to strike out at the Imperium, during the midst of the siege whilst our forces are tied down?”

“Should they strike any of those Fortress-Worlds they will be met with death at the hands of the countless Serf Auxilia that reside there,” Usriel stated, letting loose a sigh as he continue, “My Legion is not even big enough to fully garrison each world effectively, Augor. Fifteen-thousand Astartes cannot man each planet in their entirety, and they ache for the sounds of death. The serfs will be enough of a bulwark to turn them away if they decide to act.”

“I speak to more vulnerability than merely that of your worlds, Usriel.” Augor replied calmly. “You are to be at the craftworld itself, and the Eldar already know well of you. They will behold you there, and with their treacherous and alien minds they will divine the most effective ways not only to battle you, but to torment and diminish you. Just as surely as they will myself, and our brother Kaelianos. What do you envision they will see, what they will devise to test your resolve? What news would you most dread and despair to hear blaring over the vox, whilst clashing blades with their warriors?”

Usriel fell silent, the jovial nature he had beheld evaporation as he leaned forwards in seat and crossed his hands in front of his face. It seemed that he knew what Augor was speaking of, but did not speak it, only allowing an ominous silence to overcome the room.

“Of course, I do not speak of the rationalized fear.” Augor carried on. “The sort of conclusion as might be drawn by the Admirals of the Navis Imperialis or the Generals of the Astra Militarium - the assassination of our father, an attack upon Terra or holy Mars - these are not honest fears, for within our minds graced by the brilliance of the Omnissiah’s design, these are ruled out as outside the capabilities of the enemy and although existentially more portentous, less likely than the apprehensions that will come more instictively. The sort of fears that will terrify us more even than the idea of the Imperium itself ceasing to exist, for we will know that they are infinitely more likely - and perhaps inevitable. Inevitable, perhaps, save for our capability to deny the Xenos the susceptibility of our flanks and the blindness lurking in our peripherals. It is but one of the many reasons I myself have not committed the full might of the Twelfth Legion, for other than the many duties and obligations they are entrusted with - there are many eventualities I fear might come to fruition in my absence that I trust only my sons to ward off.” He fell silent, gazing blindly but levelly at Usriel.

“Never another Atis,” Usriel muttered, almost incoherently silent.

“Is another Atis impossible should you bring your entire legion directly before the Eldar as one?” Augor asked, his tone still faint. “They are the most technologically advanced and psychically potent Xenos species in the galaxy. We shall be engaged in one of the most brutal regimes of attrition and asymmetrical warfare imaginable, fighting within their territory, where they can twist even the very fabric of the world to oppose us. All it would take is for them to discern that the entirety of your Legion is present - and they might conspire to evoke the dread of Atis and more, for they can strike both at the heart of what you hold dear as well as those places and holdings you have emptied of your sons to see to this campaign.”

Silence fell as Usriel seemed to blankly stare ahead of him, though it was easily discernible that he was reliving the event in his mind. Remembering the scores of his sons that littered the fields of Atis and the sons those that died in the destruction of the planet. “I cannot bear to see it again,” he said in another silent voice.

“And what,” Augor asked with an air of finality, “does your peerless mind, gifted to you by the One Who Stands Above All, tell you can forestall, waylay, or completely deter such a wretched possibility?”

“I know, Augor,” the other stated with a sigh, “I know. Perhaps it is my zeal that drove me to make such commitments. Maybe it is my need to atone for those who died, that I felt the need to try and prove that my sons can deal to the xenos what has been dealt to them. They and I alike crave an ultimate vengeance, Augor, but that is a chance that may never truly come like it has now.”

“Usriel, though this will not be the moment of your final vengeance, every desire you and your sons hold for atonement, to prove yourselves, shall be met and more here.” Augor’s voice began to rise oratorically, as though he were preaching a sermon - or foretelling a prophecy. “I swear to you, that this Campaign shall be to you as Vaomir was to the Twelfth. The Steel Sentinels, Legionaires and Neophytes alike, shall stride beneath the stars, beheld in awe and terror by all who look upon them. The thought of Atis shall never enter their minds, for it will have been driven out and crushed beneath the heel of the totality of your triumph here. They shall remember the dawn of the end of the Eldar species, when Usriel Andredth cast down the Craftworld Farseers and then turned his steely eyes into the depths of the webway - and the Eldar will behold you with only dread and know you as he who shows and bears no weakness, whose mind stood as a bastion that forestalled all of their wretched deceit and trickery.”

“And they shall know the name Augor Astren as the one who sent that them that dread,” Usriel responded, a smile coming to his face once more, albeit reserved as he turned to look at his brother. His voice picked up as his mind was brought back to his impending vengeance, “The Eldar shall know it was you that brought despair and they shall look to the stars and know that they gaze back. We shall bring holy wrath upon them, they shall know the fury of the Omnissiah and his creation.”

Augor smiled again and unclasped his hands, spreading them wide and splay-fingered. “Thus the Motive Force directs us, brother, and the circuit shall be one.” He lowered his hands. “I will give you time to consider what deployments you think will be most appropriate, and I imagine you may have to devise words to preserve the spirit of your sons who must be entrusted with the safekeeping of the Imperium in your absence.”

“Indeed, Augor,” Usriel said with a nod of his head as he turned away and leaned back in his seat, contemplating the interaction for a mere fraction of a second before suggesting, “Perhaps it would be best fitting for the veterans of Atis to attend. They have earned such rights to avenge their brothers, after all.”

“They would also have the most experience with combating the Eldar as well, one would suspect.” Augor suggested. “For the moment of course, I would be pleased to join you in this feast you have planned. I shall summon a number of my brothers as well, so that the spirit of this eve of vengeance may be held between us.” He rose from his seat and inclined his head faintly. “I will return shortly. I have need to speak with the Warmaster briefly, and my sons shall arrive by then as well.”

“Very well, Augor. I suspect everything shall be ready by the time you return,” Usriel stated, offering Augor a smile as he returned his gaze to in front of him to continue his contemplation of how best to handle deciding how much of his Legion should embark upon this new campaign.

---

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In the Office of Prometheus, Primarch of the Fifth Legion…

Prometheus sat at a desk, large and well made but simple, with tidy stacks of data slates concerning dozens of expeditionary fleets. It was impossibly complex work to balance the needs of the great imperial war machine but as Primarch it was his duty to do exactly that.

“Inform General Tullius that he will be receiving reinforcements but only Imperial Army, he is cleansing a primitive race of xenos. Savage as they may be, he does not need Astartes support.” Prometheus said to one of his many aides before he lifted the next data slate and began to read. Before he delved to deeply into the tablet an Astartes of his personal guard stepped into the room.

“My lord, Primarch Augor of the twelfth legion is requesting an audience.”

“Of course, see him in.” replied the Primarch, setting the tablet aside half read.

A moment later, Augor Astren was led into the room, dressed only in Martian robes rather than the full breadth of his armaments. He made the sign of the cog with his bionic hands and inclined his head. “Glory unto you and your sons, brother.” He intoned. “I trust your administrative duties have benefited greatly from our leave here.”

“No, stand brother I’ll not have a simple meeting soured with pomp and ceremony. As for these duties..” he gestured to the aides and stacks of information “I am suited well enough, but do relish and excuse to take a few minutes leave of them. Please” he said, leading Augor to a corner of the room such that they could sit comfortably as equals. As they sat Prometheus waved at the several aides and to leave the room such that they could talk in peace.

“Of course, brother.” Augor nodded as he took his seat. “I came personally to ask whether you or your Legion would have any interest in partaking in the planned campaign to lay siege upon and seize one of the Eldar’s Craftworlds. I convened a meeting to discuss the campaign and rally support for the effort prior to your arrival, and thought it only fair I bring word of the matter to you in person.”

“An Eldar Craftworld.” Prometheus spoke lost in thought. “Me and mine would make war on the eldar. Though I will have other duties to attend to. My first captain, Strategos Arghan and his forces however will be made available to you. I suspect I could also levy some additional forces of the Imperial army to your cause beyond that which Arghan would have.”

“That would be of great aid to the effort, Prometheus.” Augor nodded. “You mentioned other duties - what matters shall you be tending to during our campaign, if I may ask?”

“Other duties” he gestured vaguely at the desk piled with work for the Warmaster, “My work is never done. In truth there are some concerns brewing in the Maelstom zone that need attention. One of the fleets managing that region has been missing for some time. As most of our siblings are equally occupied I will deal with it myself. Or more likely one of my captains while I manage these onerous tasks.” He said looking balefully at his desk once more.

“It may not be my place to say, brother, but you are still a warrior and the Imperium runs over with capable Administratum Clerks and Imperial Quartermasters. Do what you must to install yourself in the apparatus and then return to waging the Great Crusade - for your peerless capabilities as a tactician and champion of Humanity cannot otherwise be replicated.” Augor ventured. “That, and the Maelstrom is likely a place that might well require your personal attention. This would not be the first fleet to be lost within it.”

Prometheus laughs warmly “Worry not Augor, I was merely grumbling at the innumerable tasks these clerks have for me. I will not spend all my time sending orders to logistic fleets. Unfortunately much of this is because I am still organizing the support infrastructure to manage it for me, a herculean task in and of itself. In all honesty I hope the fleet merely turned pirate or some Orks are poking about. I suspect however it will not be so simple.” he finishes, his jovial mood falling slightly.

“Ah, I nearly forgot. Strategos Argan, for your tally. He will have with him 10,000 Astartes warriors, and 100,000 Astartes Auxilia and however many Imperial army troops have attached themselves to him, doubtless a million soldiers if I were to guess.”

“Of course - rest assured, they shall not be wanting for battle or opponents, for nowhere else are the Eldar so numerous as within their craftworlds. They may well outnumber us in terms of active personnel, within.” Augor nodded. “I will be sure to speak further on this matter with Argan soon once the full order of battle has been finalized.” He made to rise from his seat. “Was there anything else you would like to discuss while I am at your disposal, brother?” Augor asked.

“Nothing of import, Thank you for visiting Augor.” Said Prometheus rising with him and escorting him to the entrance “and if we do not have a chance to have another discussion before you embark, may fortune favor you and bring you great glory.”

“I am certain that with ten thousand of the Knights of Awe fortune will have little say in the matter.” Augor said with a fierce grin. “Though of course, as my sons are known to say, Victory is Preordained. I leave you to your duties, brother - warmaster.” The Twelfth Primarch bowed faintly and then turned to leave the room.

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An aging Astartes wandered down the hall, aside three others, one slightly taller, and one more rotund and far younger. The fourth figure, was a woman, beautiful and delicate, strong and fierce. The first astarte in question was named Gohn, he was suited in a mock battle plate, the shoulder guards, legs, and the upper torso were there, but a robe of wound and woven tree bark acted as a dress starting below the breasts plate, going all the way down to just above the knee. Along his right knee plate, and his right shoulder, stood a beautiful tree enamelled in a gold trimming that offset the colors of the plate. His face was covered in a white make up, if one tasted, it was a powdered bone dust mixture, but beneath that was a bright red hand which shined through the layer of makeup meant to cover it.

“Mother…” Gohn said, “We know father has gone off for some time to contemplate, but should we not find him a room or a section to stake out for our own?”

“No… we travel where we are needed my child, my husband knows that, and all of his sons should, we don’t like to keep still unless if we are somewhere that feels like home… this planet, is nowhere near home.” The mother, Boudica, looked young and beautiful, it was surgery to rejuvenate the body, and she had lost her cousin at some party earlier, but that was likely to be something to deal with later, her cousin was likely having fun far from her homeworld, or making someone uncomfortable.

The figure behind mother, the rotund giant compared to all of them growled, his shoulder plate was covered by a bear, but around the bear was a binding of cords made from cloth and ropes, they hung down and wove under his arm to wrap around it. It was hard for most to deal with, but it was something of rank. The Captain of the first, Tenebrus opened his mouth before being hushed by the woman travelling in front of him.

“Stay quiet Tenebrus… you know what I say is true, even for your properness, you hate sitting still… and for a bunch of people who like laying for hours in the snow, one minute above ten degrees and you’re all jumpy. Now, cousin Tenebrus, what did you have to say?”

“Mother, I was g-.”

“I am not your mother boy…” the woman snarled back, stopping the four, “unlike my sons here,” she said gesturing to the two at her sides, “You and that old fool Librarian are not mine, you share my husband’s blood but you are not mine.”

“Yes, I am sorry my lord…”

The other astartes slapped Tenebrus on the back to get him standing straight, this one looked young, and to be fair he was new. He was Gorgion, in stark contrast to his father, he looked just about like him, his face broken, shattered and calloused. But beneath it, it would have been smooth, lovely, and beautiful as he had been in youth.

“We are together Tenebrus, here we are surrounded by family, friends, enemies, and nobodies… there are twelve reasons why you must call her Lord, or lady, or something other than mother… you are not from our world.” Gorgion leaned in, “but you’re still a brother to all of us, and behind that anger… you are a son.”

Boudica smiled softly. It was fake for the most part, but there was some truth to it “now… dearest children, we must go find something to do besides babble about and rant in the hallways… we look like bums doing this, now… I see that there are likely going to be ambushed by some fool looking to get power by flattering me, or getting an audience with my husband.”

“Mother?” Gohn asked, “at this place, this is not our ship, this is not the fleet or some compliant world, this is some terrible place of darkness and bureaucracy.”

“That is why, I don’t wish to be here any longer, I wish to be on the ship drinking with the bridge crew, or watching you lot getting your asses kicked by my husband. Actually… find us some place to hide, I don’t wish to be out here, you’re correct, we should find a place to hide, and settle… get out of watching and preying eyes…”

The Mother of the Eighteenth turned on her heels and started walking, those sons behind her all looked at each other puzzled, it was likely the heat. They nodded and continued their walk behind mother, Gohn running out in front of her as he lead protector. He was hoping that if they did run into someone, it would not be a bureaucrat.

Around the nearest corner turned the tall armored form of another Astartes - this one clad in the crimson and silver-blue trimmed armor and an ornate ebon-black embroidered tabard of the Twelfth Legion. At first he simply seemed to be another wanderer of the halls, but as he lay eye upon Mother Boudica’s retinue he seemed to snap from a relaxed stride to a more alert and measured pace. He directly approached the group and gestured to them with the sign of the Cog.

“Tidings to you, cousins and honored aunt.” He said with a faint inclination of his head. “I pray I am not intruding. I bear a message from my father, Primarch Augor Astren, for yours - Primarch Ahgnemir Thordemir. We have been unable to get ahold of him - could I trouble you to relay the message?”

The man in front stood his ground seeing the individual in front of him, realizing it was not a bureaucrat, he took a friendlier approach. He hit his hand against his chest, “Cousin.” the man said as he started to listen to what was being said. To which he took a step to the side so mother could listen.

“We shall join you.” The Mother of the Eighteenth said, “My husband is almost unknown to us as well, unlike him, we do not blend in well to environments we are not suited towards. So, in honesty he could likely be anywhere.”

The lead man turned his head, and nodded to Gorgion, “Yes brother.” was the only reply from Gorgion as he touched the neck piece inside the chestplate he wore, something was wrong the channel was turned off.

“Father has turned his communicator off, that means he is looking for something… his silence recently has kept him from acting out, so he must have known he was going to join one of his siblings. We shall tell him as soon as he comes out of hiding.”

The mother looked back at the Astartes of the twelfth legion, “Come cousin… let us go forward, Son Gorgion will notify my husband of the recent tidings and bring him along with us.”

The crimson-clad marine held up a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Though I would be honored to join you in your search, this was more of a chance occurrence. After we could not get in touch with him via his fleet officers, the message was disseminated amongst us to pass on - and as such I have other duties I must see to. I think it would be best if I simply conveyed my message.” He then reached into the folds of his tabard and produced a data-slate which he presented to Mother Boudica.

“As I understand, it is an invitation of sorts to discuss the particulars of the Iris Campaign to which the Sixteenth Primarch has pledged himself - but from the activities that have commenced at the Twelfth Legion’s offices and from what I was told, it is also an invitation to a feast.” He indicated. “Our father seems to have been quite touched by the gift your father bestowed upon him at the Campaign meeting.”

The woman smiled gently, turning her head behind her, “I am pleased to hear that, but a feast, that sounds wondrous. Besides that, I am sure something to drink will be in order, Cousin Tenebrus call the fleet at have something brought down for us all... “

The woman’s head moved, getting stuck about halfway through for a moment before resuming to it’s original position in front, “Your father and all of our kin, we will make sure to one up Lady Khafre’s party of the night, at least in quality of food and drink.”

“So, do you know how many are in attendance, and who all will be joining us tonight for the feast? If not, quickly, let’s move to find out to make sure everything is set in stone.”

“I believe that the Archmandriture-” The marine halted for a moment before carrying on, “...that is, the Legion Equerry will be in attendance - plus the good Baron Sigveyr Archarnon the commander of the Ordo’s Knight Legion, and of course the Commander of the Ordo’s Skitarii Legion, Andron Axaltus. Many of my less reputed brothers amongst our father’s Praetors and Consuls will likely be in attendance and I imagine they shall bring with them a number of their personal staffs. Altogether there may be about two dozen or so of your hosts. There is to be a diverse selection of food and drink present, as the Twelfth Legion rarely has opportunity to sample cuisine of any sort - if you catch my drift.”

The woman turned her head immediately towards Tenebrus, “FOR A WHALE!” She yelled out as she turned to look at the man, “Come now… to the landing pad, we must hurry before the fleet mobilizes the druids and the rest of my hooligan sons up from this.”

The man behind her looked terrified, but took a deep breath, and whispered into the vox link, hoping to give the vox operator a moment of peace before the ships in orbit that were assigned to the Eighteenth Legion turned into a circus of crafting, cooking, and livelihood. Stores inside the ships would be open, and the larger ships would reek of the change in opportunities. A need for culture, a lack of sampling cuisine from a limited area. This would be terrible for those ships which hate loud noises, and boisterous local vox channels.

“The beasts have been awakened, I hope you know what you have done cousin, because I feel as if this feast might encompass us all.”

A light on Captain Gorgion’s neckguuard began to blink red, “someone has summoned the Clan of Whales? Are they here?” asked a frantic voice, “Father is asking because our ships are on high alert, and all of the stores are being opened. Parettrigron is frantic to get the forges and halls ready. Things will be mobilized in an hour.”

After that, the vox channel was turned down, and Gorgion had left.

The Mother of the Eighteenth, walked past the Cousin, “What is your name, because you and all of your kin in attendance will be shown a true feast… You have awoken one of the few prides of the First, so be prepared to enjoy the consequences. Now come, we have a feast to start, have your Father meet us at the landing site above.”

“I shall convey your portents, honored aunt.” The marine inclined his head again respectfully. “Everyone shall assemble there within a few hours.” He then turned and departed at a hurried pace.

She looked as the Astartes hurried off into a direction, grumbling lightly, “I meant you come with us and tell him over a communicator, it’s not like the noise isn’t going to be heard halfway across this planet, even the Father will hear it, and I hope he partakes like he did long ago. Oh, and the Great Sigillite.”

“Mother, we must hurry, the exterior hall is being loaded now.”

“We are seven stories down, do you expect me to walk son?”

“Of course, you are faster than we are, now go, I will be slow preparing this with no time.” Tenebrus said as he was being overwhelmed with ships captains flagging for him, it was if was anything else, this was going to cause racket, attention, but it was what they wanted. Something besides this dramatic telling of hate, rivalry, and destructive attitudes. The party already unleashed upon this, although more in secret, and with less openness then the Eighteenth Legion.

But, this occasion has rarely happened, and typically only a certain clan is the prerequisite for this call to arms from an entire legions fleet, although all others could join in. This had been done many times, primarily to induct a new world or clan, in smaller format. But this was for a Whale.

“Tenebrus, flag my dear husband, tell him that his brother wants to speak, and then tell him that in two hours to invite his other siblings, even that gaunty sister of his Eiosha. Make sure it is from me, because she won’t dare show up otherwise. Hell invite the entire fleet, there is no way without those gluttons we can eat half of this, let alone anything from the twelfth if they bring anything, tell them to bring their homeworlds food. Even soldiers, bring in the lesser halls as well... This planet sickens me,”

“It is an important occasi-” Gohn tried to say.

“I don’t care, it sickens me, these people all sicken me, they look at each other like predators looking for the weakest meal. For the legions, outside of a battlefield or a cultural occasion, that is us. We have our tact in diplomacy and politics, but this is a game outside of our legions. We will play to our cards, and show them how a Chattian feast goes, that stateroom is full of bickering, it is time for fighting, for screaming, for dancing, for releasing emotions in full… they want to see barbaric, we will show it to them.”

The three would then proceed, silently except for Tenebrus and the vox communicator towards the surface, and landing area. Gorgion was left to mosey behind them, “Mother, you’re correct that this place is droll… but, you need remember that this is the fore-father’s ceremony and trial.”

“I do… but he needs to see humanity for what it is, not the inside of a stateroom. Father, is a man of truth, and with all of my life I love him. But it seems that those who seek the shadows are the ones who are gaining power, did you not see that last tournament within the stateroom. I would have believed a war was about to break out if it was not ended, you know your father would have stepped in if I was not there and prolonged it. In truth, I should have. But this, this will be that prolongment, where a legion, where all men, not just a few men will conduct themselves. Find a criminal, bring him as well for when those outside the twelfth are invited, show the rest what happens when you act out of boundaries for something like this.”

Up in orbit, the fleet of the sixteenth was shining lights in all directions, beautiful beams coming from it, those on the outside of the ship repairing the ships were now repainting the runes inscribed upon the hulls. Mainly those that ward from evil spirits, specially those of greediness. But inside those ships, every deck was bustling. Every cookery, forge, cafe, bar, cantine, was being turned out. For each clan of the legion, there was a different way to cook. For each squad, there was a different lineage of culture, and each man, wife, or astartes, there was a different tradition. Reaching all the way back to Terra with some of the older astartes, to those found only months before with some of the youngest, food would encompass every part of the ship. For these people, it was not just generosity, it was fear, and a competition at the same time.

The larger ships held large bulk carriers, each with its own prefabricated hall, or piece to one. This was a large occasion, so all were going to be in use. Typically, the top two layers would be used, for the Whale clan, and those unfortunate souls that have to go through the event. But all would need to be used to encompass an armada, and a planet. Though, the first layer, and the top layers, would be the most used by those of greatest class. The top, being for that of the fore-father, the father, the Emperor. It was the hall he had sat in long ago, and it would be the peak in the mountain of fabrication that would soon be a monument upon this planet. It would be made, for the sole purpose of bringing together as many people together.

“Tenebrus, you will take the second floor, Gorgion, the third, Tell husband we and the Blood Guard will take the first. Each clan will have their own floor, each one of the orders will have a floor. The army will have those near the top, the Scion Stormgah will have the top floor until the powers all arrive there. Make sure there is a lift ready for ascension to it. The mound will be perfect, and the hall will be beautiful… unlike those here, we do not dig ourselves a hole… we build ourselves up, and we will build this council…” The mother spoke.

“Gohn, when the first fabrication arrives, and my husband does, instruct the Brother of the Twelfth to it, I will arrive immediately after. Then oversee the construction, the metal lovers wont like this, and I doubt the Emperor's will as well, but to my knowledge, they are dealing with their own problems of children as I am, and if you lot are a pain in my ass, I bet they are a pain in his.”

“Mother, you expect me to deal with the Emperor if he comes up here to yell at us.”

“Of course I do, and tell him my reasoning for it, he doesn’t see eye to eye with me, and I am stepping over his parade, but, he knows how things have gone, or at least from my knowledge have gone. Then there is a need for an official change of pace… Now where is the boy from the Twelfth, I hope I did not scare him off.”

“Honored whoever-you-are!” came a shriek from over Boudica’s shoulder. Charging down the party was a hefty woman wearing a layer-white bodyglove and a heavy apron. She was waving around a fearsome-looking combitool implement with too many sharp edges and points, and was followed by a beleaguered parade of floating monotask servitors, a few agonized-looking Enginseers, and a single Marine of the Twelfth Legion keeping an awkward, leaning distance away from her.

“I am chef patronne Karlian, I am responsible for the transubstantiation of cuisine for the members of House Caelrulmoste within the Ordo Astranoma. I was just told the feast we were instructed to prepare for here-” She gestured vaguely around. “-has been moved instead to somewhere else. I have several metric tons of cuisine, cutlery, plateware, and furnishings we now need to move on the double, so you had best cooperate with me fully!” She brandished her combi-tool menacingly at Boudica’s face, evidently entirely uncaring of the small army of heavily armed guards around her. “So help me if any of the dishes are wasted or misplated I will serve your flensed and bloated head to the Primarch! Are we clear?”

“Honored aunt, please know this one does not speak for either the Twelfth Legion or the Ordo Astranoma. Her insanity is her own.” The accompanying marine called out distantly.

Gohn chuckled lightly as he walked past the group and he stopped beside some marine that was with them, “You chose a good candidate to match her, don’t worry about Mother… She has her role, as do I. I will be holding off the fore-father’s son’s, at least until Gorgion arrives, or Father does.”

“Karlain dear, do not worry!” the Mother of the Eighteenth mewed out in a thick accent, “but nothing goes wasted in the Eighteenth, now, if ya need a chef, real ones, not those dainty little mindless things. But, I’ll let you know, as all who will be welcomed, leave your lies at the door.”

She turned to look up as what seemed to be a lander with a large square platform being landed, and other one in high orbit which looked to be a part of a circle. “For in our halls, whispers and secrets will be heard across the floor. We don’t deal with those in the Eighteenth, I am glad for your honesty Chef Patronne, but you will also be enjoying everything you will see, it will not just be from Chatti, but from every place upon the stars you can see. Culture and humanity is our legions strong point, we may be barbarians to most… But we know when to treat people well, and we treat all, no matter how poor, or rich, strong or weak. Within my home that we see above us, we are all human... ”

“Now, before long my husband will be here… more of my sons will be here, the twelfth legion will be here, and before long this entire world will be here, as well as those in orbit will hopefully come to enjoy and partake in this.”

The Mother stared up as the first lander slowly planted itself in front of her, it was several miles away, but that can be rectified easily by transportation for bureaucrats and those who don’t wish to do something as dreadful as walking a shorter distance then it was to likely get from one chamber to the next.
The one thing that was landed in front of them was the middle lower section of the hall,it could be considered a massive square prefab that looked older in style, but you could tell that it would need other parts to be complete. But, for the first purposes, it would do.

Tenebrus turned to looked at the Mother, “soon Father and Gorgion will join us, he is coming back from orbit with Runepriest Mengahle.”

The Mother turned to the group, “Let’s go now, come before everyone arrives. I hope you each have empty stomachs, because there will be more than plenty.”

Some distance away, the Twelfth Primarch watched a pict-screen showing an exterior view of the grounds surrounding the Council building as the makeshift feasting hall was in the process of being assembled.

“Somehow,” The Primarch stated airily, his brow raised in a measure of bemusement as his empty gaze fell upon the view, somehow capable of perceiving the imagery even in the absence of battle-augments. “...I cannot help but feel that my siblings and their children regularly indulge in a degree of excess that our own relative austerity has not prepared us for.”

“If that is your way of saying that you were not prepared for this eventuality, father,” Kyrius remarked by his side, “I would encourage you to relax.” Although Augor lacked the necessary organs to effect a glance in Kyrius’ direction, a faint shift in his posture accompanied by an almost minute tilt of his head served as a largely similar tell of his being caught partly unawares by the marine’s words.

“This feast the Eighteenth Legion is now preparing - erecting, even - is being held in your honor to begin with. Simply arrive, preside over the hall, and do not worry over the prospect of reciprocation.” Kyrius elaborated.

“That seems a curious proposal to draw considering this.” Augor gestured at the pict-screen. “That facade being assembled is already almost half the size of the Council Building. It is an act of unspeakable hospitality and charity made all the more profound for that I have done little to deserve such effort by Ahgnemir or his children.”

“You have spent too much of your life in the void, father.” Kyrius replied. “Separated from your kin. Rest assured that I stake our bond that your brother and his children are not doing this for either prestige or in the hopes of some equally lavish reward.” He raised a hand and manipulated the view for the pict-screen to focus on the serfs and laborers of the EigtheenthLegion as they went about their work. Although their efforts were both efficient and swift, they were not particularly rushed - they seemed to somehow both be investing great care and consideration into the assembly of the feasting halls and yet relaxed, even taking moments to jovially convene and make merry with their fellows.

“These efforts of theirs, it is a reflection of their indulgent culture of origin. Even before they were found by our Father they were his servants, for they worshipped the glory of the Human aspect through celebration of the temple of the body. Grand festivities built around simple social engagement and kinship, the bonds of friends and family, and the salubrious essence of artfully prepared sustenance. There is no objective to be secured here except the expression of everything that connects them - and us.” Kyrius appeared to be carefully parsing his words, his gaze seemingly distant and lost in thought as he spoke - lost in distant, barely-recalled memories doubtlessly half-lost through the haze of his own Astartes Indoctrination - yet also focused upon an effort to convey the essence of the experience to the Primarch. Though Augor Astren had attended many feasts held in his honor before on myriad planets across the Imperium, they had always been affairs he was only marginally willing to humor and that he sought to excuse himself from as expeditiously as possible. Where he could not, he always felt compelled to retreat upon the more ceremonial aspects of the gatherings themselves as a means to retain his reserved countenance.

The Twelfth Primarch was wholly unaccustomed to the prospect of a gathering intended more for festivity than for ceremony - and faced with the notion of having to entertain his brother with less than a formal air, had become quite vexed.

Augor shook his head faintly. “It is all wasted effort and sentiment. There is no lasting strength in the humors or substance of the flesh. Even if this is intended to venerate the Human form, how can we be meant to follow suit? It makes sense for them. They have not been privileged with the knowledge of the higher mysteries and truths of my father’s truest servants. There is a stark divide between the prospect of a dozen or so consuls attending a closed feast and this. Well more than three quarters of those I could call to attend an event of this size cannot even partake.”

“You forget the breadth of your own family, father.” Kyrius said with a tone approaching admonishment. “That much may be true of our Astartes and Skitarii, but there are thousands of serfs aboard our fleet who would be more than pleased to participate if you grant them leave - and I suspect even those of your consuls who cannot partake still remember enough of their former lives to be able to be able to carry out the celebrations regardless. And as for the matter of the affair itself - the point is not the worship of the body, but of our shared Humanity. The flesh and victuals are merely the tools and medium used. Even when the flesh is excised and the Crux Mechanicum has been surmounted, what remains between the minds of our kindred souls goes on, the immortal spark of the soul in the machine. The Human spirit our brethren will cultivate here is no different from that of our own.”

Augor drew in a reticent and heavy breath as he turned his full attention back to the pict-screen.

“...It still seems somewhat excessive.” He observed.

“It is absolutely supremely excessive.” Kyrius agreed. “There is no accounting for the eccentricities of the Eighteenth Legion - but rest assured that the excess is most definitely a good thing in this instance.” He smiled wryly. “It is going to be one hell of a party.”

As the hours dragged on and the preparation of the Eighteenth Legion’s new hall continued, transports began shuttling personnel back and forth from the Macroclade Fleet of the Twelfth Legion stationed in orbit, relaying the families of Legion Serfs who served with the Stargazers down to the planet. On arrival they set to work assisting their brethren from the Eighteenth Legion in the construction and laying of the feast, bringing with them tools, ornamentation and furnishings of their own to add to the splendor of the assembly’s features. Soon, the improvised feasting hall was festooned with the mixed colors of both legions - abundant Black and Crimson, with hints of ivory and sky-blue silver, and gold. The serfs had broken out the stores of the most luxurious food they had hidden away and been able to preserve aboard the Mechanicum’s ships, and though it the tonnage of it was utterly dwarfed by the provisions the Bloody Hands hauled down it nonetheless added a barbed, striking variety to the dishes and drinks in their presentation. Barely ingestible Gorsk White still bottled in the original coolant flasks it had been distilled in sat insidiously next to handsome and proudly faceted bottles of Questor Raenka. Plates heaped with stacks of reactor-grown radbread pocked over by candied chunks of Grox-braised triglyceride jelly battled for prominence amongst the table spreads with multi-layered bacterial-sponge cakes slathered with faintly luminescent soylens of indeterminate origin. The cutlery and plates present became littered with suspiciously abundant emblems of the Cog Mechanicum and far more repurposed hand-tools than was strictly necessary. Servo-Skulls carrying drink trays and viciously assaulting plated food into discerning portions became an abrupt fixture of the scenery, while statues and busts interpersing the hall were further populated by the awkwardly towering forms of Kastalan robots trying and failing to remain as unobtrusive as possible, a number of the towering constructs having their incendine combustors appropriated for use to open-air cook a number of preserved carcasses, to the general applause and approval of onlookers.

Just as the last extensions of the great structure was fastened into place and as the preparations for the festivities themselves began to subside, a small procession of Macrocarids approached from one of the vehicle depots scattered around the periphery of the main Council building. Pulling to a stop before the entrance, a small token honor guard of two Legion Praetors - dressed only in ceremonial taberds and body-gloves and wielding only Omnissian staves - flanked the leading Macrocarid as the Primarch of the Twelfth Legion stepped out from within, followed shortly by the Archmandriture as well as by a Rune-Priest carrying a long, engraved ornamental metal case.

Kyrius tellingly leaned to the side and muttered upwards towards the Primarch. “Remember, adhere less to ceremony than would normally be expected. Move freely and think of it as building rapport with your brother and his family.”

“One will try, son.” Augor replied furtively. “I do have a task for you to attend to however - my apologies, this is something of an unexpected turn. I want you to stand by and watch over Andron-”

The Primarch’s words were interrupted by the clanking sound metal rapidly slamming into the ground. Andron Axaltus, Commander of the Ordo Astranoma’s Skitarii Legion, had just strolled out from his own Macrocarid alongside the Primarch’s and was busily in the process of dislodging the mud adhered to his bionic greaves by rapidly beating his feet on the long carpet leading up to the entrance of the Feasting Hall.

“So just to check,” His buzzing voxcoder loudly proclaimed, “This is an open bar affair right? I only brought large denominations with me. Not that I drink, but it would be a shame not to waste so much alcohol, and it would not do if we failed to appease whatever Machine Spirits abide such festivities by not intoning the appropriate cocktail jokes.” He then whirled around and seemingly leered up at Kyrius. “Just exaggerating of course, Lord Astartes.” He confided in a lower tone as he produced an ominous silver flask from within his robes. “I brought my own crude serum for the occasion, but I suppose I could nonetheless be compelled to share a little of it, maybe spike a few casks, put a little bit of rust on some chests. A healthy dosage of isotropic fuel never hurt anybody who could take a joke.”

“...to ensure he does not get into too much trouble.” Augor finished emphatically. Kyrius blanched.

“Why did you think it would be a good idea to invite him, exactly?” Kyrius whispered as the Skitarius turned on his heel and began swanning down the carpet towards the Hall.

“I did not, he stowed away.” The Primarched muttered back. “You had better get moving. He is getting away.” At which Kyrius scowled and began to hurry after the departing Praetor.

Ahgnemir stood outside in the weather staring at the other building which rested itself against the sky as did the one behind him. His looked like a massive mound, complied of many different parts, each one unique. But together, they looked like a massive circular mound, and crowned ontop of a plateau of buildings was a small building, one that many years ago a father and son once shared drinks in for the first time. The rest of the large mound was covered in runes, and not just for decoration but to ward off the witch magics of the Universe, most importantly telepathy.

But inside was a large hollow structure, small suspended decks, several fighting platforms, galleries, and gangways criss crossed the interior of it, and walls were widely not available except where it would be good placed for pavilions and seating areas. It was slightly more than just a place of festivity for a new world, it was one of the perks of being made compliant by the Bloody Hands, almost everything was prefabricated aboard the ships of the fleet up above, and ships would be ferrying to the plateau that surrounded the crowning structure to bring supplies and such down.

But the reason the full mound was built was not just for his sole brother and his kin, but for when the others were invited in order. It was meant so that no secrets could be shared, it was built to where a whisper could be heard fifty or so feet away, where any little sound could echo to the ears of a person on the far side of an extremely long table. It was made for speeches and truth, so no secrets could be shared, so interruptions could be heard and accounted for. It was a palace of comradery and kinship, for those inside are all kin, no matter how distant from each other they could be.

The Legion’s Mother stepped out and moved beside her husband, “You can feel him getting close, can’t you?” she asked placed a hand on the large open palm of her husband.

“I can see him in the distance, I don’t have to feel him, now. For those other plans you had in store… You know it will cause conflict when no one can hide from each other, are you sure that it is a good thing to have it as an open invitation until everything is settled?”

“Yes dear… Your father built his Empire across the galaxy, he helped build your kingdom in the stars, it is not just him in control, it is that council, you and your siblings, the governors, the servants, the factory workers, the metal ones. You know that this council is just lingering feuds being brought up, and the distaste of conflict is halting it. Let the crowd roar, like your siblings fight out their frustrations, let the people of your father’s empire sing, fight, drink, be happy, be apart of their empire. It is the Imperium of Man, not the Imperium of your father.”

“The Mound is meant to bring people together, it will separate them.”

“This charade of a meeting is doing that already, it is shameful the way it was ended the second day. Let me do the role you entrust me to, I am going to bring your sibling together, and when the Custodies show up will be how we lure the Forefather and your Uncle here. I bet they are planning to with the fucking mountain we built next to that damned hot house”

“It will not be good for us,” the primarch said, looking down at his wife with a smile.

“I know, but it is a sacrifice you and I are willing to go through to get something meaningful done. Plus, I swear to g… your father, if he and Malcador don’t cook something I am going to string them both up, because generic meats explained as exotic isn’t going to fool me again.”

“It was a grox dear, but Sigard I know is cooking those little prawn things from his homeworld. Oh, and Parettrigron figured out your plan in minutes, he is bringing the entire brewery to the surface. Gurtra and Lolnamia are also on their way as well.”

“Great, know anything about the other army commanders?” the woman asked looking back at the approaching individuals, “Not at all.”

“We have approximately a minute before they arrive, smile. ” Ahgnemir said as he raised his arms out to his sides, dropping his wives hand ready to embrace his brother.

As Augor approached, Ahgnemir was struck by his brother’s form - it was but the second time they had met in the flesh, and before at the meeting to discuss the Eldar Craftworld he had not gotten nearly so close. His brother, the Twelfth Primarch, looked like a hauntingly leering spirit from the glaciers. Skin the color of ash, unapologetically hollowed eye-sockets, a cranium criss-crossed with scar tissue and gloaming electric-blue electoo markings. Though he had eschewed his armor and was wearing simple Martian robes, the number of obtrusive bionics lining his limbs - from the capacitors along his arms and legs to his fully bionic and taloned hands - made him seem almost skeletal in countenance. Perhaps it was due to the frame of starlight as it fell across the Twelfth Primarch by Nikaea’s setting star, but in the moment he bore the appearance of a looming, malignant corpse.

“You look like death brother!” said the shorter Primarch, a smile upon his face. “But I expect nothing else, for that is the reason we will be meeting today. Now come, let’s get some meat on those metal bionics of yours.”

Ahgnemir pushed against his brother and slapped his back, “I swear, compared to my homeworld my siblings have the oddest qualities of any family I have seen, now… Currently brother, there are some fifty or so dishes laid out, it’s just the initial things prepared on quick notice. I plan on having this go for some time longer, and my wife wishes to invite all of the others once our dealings have been complete. Which, I would not mind at all, but as I will tell to all of my guests today. As soon as you enter, you are among kin, they may not be of direct bloodline as us, but all men are kin. In there, we are all equals, disputes are to be settled in the pit, no secrets will be spread, and only our words and truths will be told to each other, openly. I can tell you something from across the entire hall with a whisper.”

“Also, it is good to see you brother, I do not spend as much time with my direct siblings as I wish… Nor with Father, so any chance I have supporting my kin I will take. Or luring our father into something festive, and aside from his immediate goal.” Ahgnemir took a deep breath, “But, come… the first level is ready for us. My wives’ dishes seem to be fresh, so we mustn’t keep them waiting, lest I will not sleep for a fortnight.”

“The expeditious nature of this structure’s assembly has certainly been alarming enough that one of our father’s agents is doomed to intrude upon us shortly.” Augor agreed. His return embrace of Ahgnemir seemed perfunctory and stiff, and somewhat misaligned - as though it was a martial technique he had read about but never practiced before. “I hope my own serfs and their intrusion in the preceding hours have not proven unwelcome?”

“Bring what’s left of them in, they are kin to us all. I hope to invite everyone, from the lowest menial to, well, our father. It is the Imperium of Man, and here we are all equal… We may be some of the most powerful individuals, but we had a guideline…” Ahgenmir looked behind him at the short warrior queen, and held his hand out towards the woman as a presentation, “We are as human as they are, but gifted with the blood of our father.”

“But we have done similar things to this, not in grand of scale, but this is meant to fit an armada of people, hosting fights, bouts, breweries and cookeries. Typically it’s for the Whale Clan, their gullets need the extra protein and fat as they use enough of it in their duties. Or it’s to help guide a world into compliance. If the entire legion was here, it would be the size of my home mountain. But this mound will do, it’s perfect for the occasion. And once our talks are finished, we will take the crown for ourselves, and our siblings, our father, and uncle. If everything goes well, we can have some things sorted out for this council in a manner none of us can get away from. It will force an issue or two, and we will see where everyone lies within’ it.”

“Do you truly anticipate they shall come?” Augor wondered aloud. “Though I was told you had sent invitations to them at the onset of construction, the whole of the affair is as nascent as the unseen dawn - and as you have hinted, the resentment from the second gathering may well still rule the hearts of our brethren.”

“Once our meeting is finished I will send the invitations, and I am hoping that our father invites himself, or at least uncle. But to my knowledge the resentment of our siblings is not going to go away, and I know it will not. Our sister likely despises me because of my wives and my culture, and I still bear that. We fight, we are siblings… But, here, I hope to bring that out some. In a place where we are siblings. Not politicians fighting on issues, we drive each other apart with that, we fight, and scheme, and break each other's backs for something we want to happen. We stick to an idea, another sibling, and we fight for it with tooth and nail even if it harms another one of us. If father had not shortened the last session, I would have seen a fight, or caused it. “

“I am not a man of politics, diplomacy maybe, but not politics. This is the place where I know what I am doing, I am not in control, but here I am open. Free to speak my mind, and my words, in that session I held my tongue because I was going to snap at father for halting it right as a fight was about to break out. Here, that fight can happen, and it should, relief for us, we are warriors… We fight, this might be a time for our voices to be heard but it is not where we are suited best to. We are suited to a battlefield, and right now… we all need to fight on our own terms, also, it’s cooler in there, so hopefully cooler heads will prevail.”

Augor turned his empty gaze to stare almost blithely at Ahgnemir, silent in consideration for several moments as they approached the mound. Finally, he spoke. “Let us not unduly trouble our thoughts with such matters. This is a feast, is it not? A celebration. Come, let us attend to our families and dine - we can share the stories of our campaigns, and once all of us have had our fill of the first few courses we may talk of Iris and what lays ahead of us - but no sooner!” He gestured towards the mound. “And truly, it has been a time beyond reckoning since last I have sat with one of my brothers and discussed that which transpires within the Light of our father’s Empire. I have spent too long in the furthest reaches of the void, beyond the light of the Astrnomican. Come! Tell me of your glories and ventures!” He cajoled as the two of them strode into the hall.

The Bear chuckled lightly and nodded lightly, “I agree, and you must tell me of some of your recent ventures brother! We can worry about the hardships later, I agree… Boudica, send out the invitations, make sure Uncle knows, send one of my sons personally for him. We know the Golden sons of my father will be among us soon enough, so you start first.”

The woman nodded, before hurrying off into the shadows, and in through a small gap between two runes.

But, the large gates opened to the interior, and almost immediately the smell of a thousand dishes cooking, the barrels of brews and the bottles of wine hit them. A large table, tiny in comparison to those around it sat in front of them, large enough to fit at least fifty or so people. But the interior was massive, open, yet full of places to be, to sit, to stand, to converse and eat. To cook, and brew teas and drinks. To taste drinks brewed prior, such as beers, and wines, and the stills to refine them both to liquors. A single lift was in the center, which would eventually bring them to the crown jewel but for now this small table of fifty would do.”

“Mother will join us, now, my guest… my brother, tell me, tell those in this hall what you have gone through since you have last truly spoken to me.”

---

---

Some time after the first session of Debate...
Genetor of the Mechanicum Carnelian Solisios’ Audience with the Emperor of Mankind

Away from the main hall, the Emperor and the Genetor tech-priest headed onward. Further and further out, perhaps an unreasonable distance by some standards. Nonetheless, no pict-captures or servitors recorded their passage, and no living minds recalled them as they passed. Finally, they entered the room in which the Archmagos’ proposition would be made. Even this far out, many servants and slaves worked to maintain the building for its duration of use and beyond, members of the Legio Custodes and Sisters of Silence held their guard in the room, and many scribe-servitors scrawled away at their documents, though moments before the two’s entry all would mysteriously cease.

‘Leave us,’ the Emperor proclaimed quietly. As one, all others in the hall ceased their work save the Custodes, and filed out of the room, quiet until they found themselves working in the second-to-next room down the way, along with their compatriots from that room and the room betwixt. At the heels of their procession, a figure wearing the robes of a petty administrative adept, who seemed to have emerged from the very shadows of the corridor, slipped in behind the last servile. Unnoticed by all, the interloper, glimpses of her wan face and sunken eyes narrowly visible under her cowl, remained lingering by the doorway, feverishly tapping at a dataslate.

Contrary to the unknown skullduggery, other actors made their intentions to observe quite apparent. As the hall was cleared, four figures entered it, the resplendent figure of Daena foremost among them. At her right was the same ancient woman she had brought to the Council's opening, while to her left were one of her own Astartes and a man dressed in the uniform of one of the Emperor's scientists. "Grant me this indulgence father, my guest has requested she attend this audience. By your leave, I would have her remain with two of my own servants," the Angel said in a soft voice. After a moment of thought, the Emperor nodded, both an agreement and a dismissal of the Primarch. His daughter gave a low bow in return before spinning on her heel and leaving the chamber, leaving her three wards behind.

Within the audience chamber, the auramite-clad guards themselves found their vision of those who had entered blurred as if their images were smeared beyond recognition, and any sound from their meeting silenced in turn. They were necessary to protect the station - but nothing more than this.

His height matched to that of Solisios, the Emperor looked toward the artificed face of his petitioner and in inscrutable tone spoke thus: ‘Archmagos Biologis Genetus Veneratus Carnelian Solisios. At your request, I have made private this audience, that we might discuss the matter that you bring to me without interruption. And so I ask you now, with all haste to be made on the matter: what is it that you desire from me so sorely?’

The Genetor Carnelian broke convention with many of his brethren who had long ago crossed the crux mechanicum. Though there was no visible flesh on any part of his body, his appearance was notably trim and conservative. He possessed ordinary bionic arms and legs, and a smooth face-plate nearly resembling a death mask in its plainness with only a small, space-efficient vox-coder and breathing apparatus mounted over the mouth. He was dressed in well-kept and pressed Mechanicum robes in the traditional Martian red, the subdued and crisp electric blue trimming upon it the only outwardly evident signifier of his membership in the Ordo Astranoma. The only tell-tale concession to bionic excess apparent at a glance where the sheer number of mechadendrites he bore, easily numbering several dozen - all hanging like jungle creepers in a neat, curving line that fell from underneath the crease of the cowl about his body, reminiscent almost of a bulging Martian-ebon cape. They, much like the Genetor himself, were perfectly still and motionless at rest. He might have been mistaken for a statue, if not for his cloth garb. The only indulgence of form he had conceded to beyond the sheer number of mechadendrites that were draped upon him were four servo-skulls, their craniums plugged into the ends of four of the bionic extremities, which formed a neat square perimeter about the tech-priest.

He and his cadre of attending priests and lesser magi - most of whom conformed to the grotesque and bulbous excesses common of much Mechanicum bionic schemes - entered the audience chamber, silent save for the swaying of their robes and the metallic clicks of their multifarious and misshapen feet treading across the floor. Though they did not speak aloud, the Custodes' vox-systems were abruptly saturated with innumerable bursts of vox-chatter in lingua-technis arcing between the members of the procession like lightning. They stopped immediately behind Solisios as he came to a halt at the designated spot in the audience chamber, and as one, all of them prostrated themselves on the floor before the Emperor of Mankind - their Omnissiah. A resonant hum of vox-coder synthesized voices rose from their prone forms, a litany of Cant Mechanicum praising the Machine God and his mortal avatar. After a full five-minute long sonorous and dissonant wail of chanting from the mass, Solisios himself rose to his feet and began to speak. His voice, much like the rest of him, was subdued despite being wholly artificial. Calm and smooth, vaguely male reverberated words. Soft and lilting, but with a piercing volume that allowed them to echo throughout the chamber for all to hear without issue. His voice began the first of a series of many sermons, thankfully completely devoid of the normal crackles and static pops that would be expected of most other tech-priests.

Though the Emperor had little desire to hear the full seven hour segue of voiced sacred hymns and canticles dedicated to momentarily anointing mere Archmagi to even be doctrinally permitted to speak with him, he had nonetheless set aside a full hour for the verbal recitation of its core ritual invocation, during which he wordlessly reviewed several dozen holo-picts, doubtlessly using the opportunity to expedite a number of important Administratum projects he otherwise would not have had the time to address.

At the closing of Solisios' sermon, four of the attending priests near him rose and hurried forward, each carrying a number of ritual instruments. Two of them carried four brass amphoras, two of them empty and the other sealed. These were opened, and the stench that arose from them would have caused any unaugmented Human to retch on the spot. The contents were a ruddy, dark-crimson colored amalgamation of Human Blood and Martian Oil, the two otherwise immiscible fluids having been chemically bonded together with an emulsifying agent that was not-quite altogether able to stop the blood from slowly coagulating. The priests dipped their bionic arms in the gross hue, before manually daubing lines of it across Solisios' face-plate. He then raised both of his artificial arms on high in an oratorical stance, palms facing upward as the two priests tipped the filled amphoras over above him, the foul mixtures dribbling down to pool in his outstretched hands, pooling and then oozing around his mechanical fingers to then fall in doubtlessly calculated streams into the mechadendrite-secured secondary amphoras the priests had placed before him, not so much as a single droplet of the mix being permitted to touch the floor. The third priest made a series of sacred gesticulations of benefaction between his hands and mechadendrites, and once the two amphoras had been fully emptied of their loathsome ointment, the fourth priest punctuated the ceremony by raising an Omnissian cog-staff and slamming its end against the chamber floor, the shuddering metallic thud that followed seeming to boom and rebound across the entire chamber.

The tech priests withdrew, leaving behind the two amphoras on the floor to catch any remaining rudiments that dripped from Solisios' fingers as he finally got around to speaking in plain High Gothic.

“Since the early days of the Founding and the start of the Omnissiah’s Great Crusade, the Holy Synod of Mars and those of its many offshoots have been rife, plagued with doctrinal strife, dissent, and debate. Discussion which only heightened both in its frequency and vehemence with the ascension of the Second Primarch and the inception of the Edict of Tolerance. The Omnissiah is infinite and infallible in his wisdom, and it is the truth of time and of the Will of the Machine God that eventually all knowledge and information that comprises the infinite reaches of the universe will be encompassed and comprehended by its chosen people. Though this is canonized fact amongst the faith of the Mechanicum, there are yet many, even amongst our most vaunted and exalted ranks, who do not fully grasp or accept this simple truth. They do not understand the nature of the Omnissiah's inestimable and profound exigencies, and insist - in almost blasphemous tones - that they conflict and comport a paradox with the tenants and holy writ of the Edict of Tolerance. Though all true, wise, and loyal adherents to the Omnissiah already possess knowing of this falsity, much effort and energy is wasted amongst them and others of our brethren in reiteration of these very same arguments time and time again. Few have had the will, or the courage, to embrace the challenge, the sacred test, lain before us by the Omnissiah in the forms of his beneficent exigencies and the most hallowed Edict of Tolerance. A challenge of our faith, requiring dispassionate and precise postulation of solemn truth, and the truth alone, to fully realize. Any and all supposed conflicts between the bodies of the Treaty of Mars and the Edict of Tolerance were never designed in the infinite poise of the Omnissiah to oppose each other, but to direct the efforts of the chosen people of the Machine God in the proper direction, suitable for their eventual enlightenment."

Solisios made a discrete gesture with one of his mechadendrites, almost entirely for the benefit of unaugmented onlookers rather than any actual need to direct a visual signal. Two additional tech-priests rose and strode forward, laying a large portable pict-caster on the floor and beginning the Canticles of Activation.

"The two decrees were made to be witnessed, comprehended, and reconciled." An extra layer of reverberant intonation underscored Solisios' punctuating word as the pict-caster hummed to life and began to project a massive, three-dimensional holo-feed of data in sphere six meters in diameter hovering above the still-prostrated forms of the attending priesthood.

The depictions within the holo-feed were of multifarious lines of Genetic Code - evidently Human - folding and unfolding in and upon itself in some esoteric bimolecular reaction. Appearing alongside were numerous lines of additional genetic templates - clearly alien this time - being exposed to the same compounds as the Human templates, but instead of refolding, slowly dissolving into nothingness only to then be replaced by a new, different xenos sequence. A third section of the feed depicted a massive, scrolling chemical formula and instructive protocols that were all but indecipherable except perhaps to Solisios himself. Finally, in a fourth portion of the feed, a large scroll list numbered off what seemed to be every variant and abhuman strain of Humanity (which topped the list itself) - and which, at its closing, listed all twenty of the Astartes gene-seed strains in turn.

"It is the decree of the Omnissiah that all xenos artifice and knowledge is a perversion of the Machine God's infinite form and boundless wisdom. This is inviolate providence." Solisios intoned. "It is also the decree of the Omnissiah that xenos graced by the tenets of the Edict of Tolerance are to be accepted into the Imperium of Man. This too, is inviolate providence. It is the manifestation of the Machine God's Will, the flesh and body of the Omnissiah, and the tenets of his most revered Imperial Truth, which evidence that Humanity and Humanity alone, are the chosen people of the Machine God. That they and they alone shall reign sovereign and supreme, infinite in knowledge and grace, above all others in all of existence. This is inviolate providence. These are not mutually exclusive truths, but instruction from on high. The demand that these truths be brought and bound together as one. Which is what I, Solisios Carnelian, have worked and toiled tirelessly for one hundred and fifty two years, two hundred and sixteen standard Terran days, thirteen hours, three minutes, thirty-seven seconds, and nine milliseconds, to do. I have spent my years examining and cataloguing every extant and venerated race and peerless variant of Humanity, and more than forty thousand xenos forms and physiologies. It is now, finally, after these labors of faith, that I have arrived at my inevitable hypothesis: The truth embodied in the decrees of the Omnissiah, can now be embodied in flesh and the substance of life itself."

With the statement, the Emperor, who before had gazed impassively and serenely down upon Solisios as he spoke, evidenced the faintest of reactions. His eyes, almost imperceptibly, narrowed - though whether in interest or in scorn was unclear.

"I have determined that it is wholly possible, and within the realms of immediate feasibility, to disseminate across all of Humanity a blessing of the Omnissiah. A blessing of sovereign right and authority over all lesser forms of life. A blessing, that upon contact with any xenos form of sufficient complexity to possess perverse knowledge, will duly castigate and upbraid them, marking them as our chattel for all time. A curse, which only we, the Machine God's chosen people, shall be able to lift - but only in return for their unquestioning and proper subservience. All who do not yield to the Omnissiah's righteous and infinite authority will perish in untold anguish. All those who submit to his infinite compassion and mercy, shall be spared, to be brought into the fold of his children and to rejoice for all time as the servants of Humanity."

Solisios punctuated his segue by gesturing and enlarging the portion of the Holo-feed depicting the sprawling chemical equation alongside the list of known Human variants.

"This blessing, in its reflection of the unquestionable truth of Humanity's supremacy and designed using Humanity's own variant templates as its basis, would additionally safeguard the chosen peoples from perversion and distortion by xenos artifice and conspiracy. All those strains unclean, not sanctified and acknowledged by the Omnissiah, will both cease to exist and be forestalled from ever arising for all time - leaving behind alone the unblemished form of Humanity, immutable and unchanging in its beauty and perfection."

The Holo-Feed highlighted each Human and Abhuman variant in turn, coloring each of their proper High Gothic names in green light. Off to the side, a number of Mutant variants alongside hybrids created through interbreeding with certain xenos species, were highlighted in a virulent red.

"Of course, it would be presumptuous of me to conclude that my theological interpretation is as immaculate as the Will of the Omnissiah himself." Solisios carried on. "At this time, no samples of such a blessing exist, except as lines within cogitator archives. It is merely my devise, the conclusion of my great work, that such a blessing is possible to synthesize and rapidly disseminate amongst all Mankind. I will, of course, forward the composite structural information and formulation protocols for this Blessing to the Omnissiah's personal attendants for examination and due consideration. If, in the eyes of the Omnissiah, my fervor and work are found pleasing, I pray that he shall see fit to decree the immediate production of this sacrament and so ensure Humanity's dominion over all life in the galaxy for all time. If fault is found within my offering, I likewise pray that the Omnissiah shall be merciful in the recognition of my failings, and of my genuine and boundless contrition."

Solisios then bowed, low and long, prostrating himself upon the floor and taking care to clasp his oil-stained hands above one of the amphoras to keep from dirtying the chamber floor.

A distant vox-system buzzed to life across the upper reaches of the chamber, and the voice of one of the Custodes boomed through, though where the notion to make his announcement came from the Emperor only knew.

"The audience chamber is now deemed open to discussion and inquiry of this matter."

“You have spoken many words, young Genetor,” the old woman said, leaning with both hands on her cane as a coy smile appeared on her face. “But I think you have spoken more than you have said,” she added, eyes flashing. “If I understand you rightly, you wish to create a multispecies retrovirus to be deployed across the entire galaxy, intentionally designed to afflict all strains of the human geneline as well as all known xenos. Accepted variants on the human genome are to be ‘blessed’, and undesirable deviations pruned. Further, all xenos are to be ‘cursed’ with those following the Edict of Tolerance inoculated or otherwise rendered immune to the effects. Is that accurate, more or less? And do answer with a simple yes or no before expounding, child, my remaining days are few,” she finished wryly.

“Yes, witness for the Fourteenth Legion.” Solisios confirmed with a faint inclination of the head. “Your summary is essentially accurate. My only clarification is that the blessing is not precisely a retrovirus. It has more in common with a multi-molecular prion, although that too is something of a simplification. It is something new.” He waved another hand, and the pict-cast enlarged the section of the view that showed the structure of Solisios’ great work. Much as he had said, it seemed to be a clump of multiple molecular structures that clamped onto genetic templates. “Humanity alone shall control the cure, and regular doses shall be required for those xenos species under the Edict. The cure, I imagine, could be synthesized by our most dedicated of enemies - but it would take time, and infrastructure to produce on a meaningful scale. Logis calculations predict complete capitulation or extinction in 90% of projected contacts.”

The woman clicked her tongue to the top of her mouth as she examined the hololithic display. “I have no doubt your design is ingenious, specifics of molecular composition are not my present concern,” she said in a voice that made it very clear that the operative word in that sentence was present. “Describe your promised blessing and curse, there is woefully little detail on both.”

“The blessing shall be the simple introduction of the compound into the Human macrobiome.” Solisios began. “Within the Human physiology, it is harmless and incapable of interaction with our own genetic material. The compound suffuses the sebum, carbon emission, and waste produced, replicating itself by consuming and transmuting chemical cascade terminators so as to not unnecessarily impact bodily equilibrium. The compound readily aerosolizes in most atmospheric mediums, is adequately tolerant of extreme heat and cold, is reasonably resilient towards extremely basic and acidic substances, and denatures only at otherwise lethally high levels of exposure to ionizing radiation. When making contact with lower lifeforms - simple flora and fauna - the blessing is likewise harmless. When in contact with higher xenos life-forms, it will immediately begin consuming their biomatter in order to proliferate and saturate their bodies, producing initial symptoms of fatigue and weariness. The curse then begins - the compound enters a static period lasting exactly a year and a day. Once that period has passed, the afflicted individual dies as the compound’s hunger is unfettered, and it rapidly cannibalizes their entire body in less than twelve hours.”

“That does not sound like a blessing, Genetor. That sounds as if you wish to make humanity into a vector of your plague,” the woman said in a low voice, seemingly unconcerned by the far more gruesome description of what would occur to any infected xenos.

“It is admittedly only a blessing in that it shall be a tool with which to secure the chosen peoples of the Machine God’s sovereign authority over all life in the galaxy.” Solisios responded perfunctorily. “Great work and measure has been made to ensure it will not and cannot impinge upon the perfection of the Human form, and to dare to try and embellish upon that immaculate design would be blasphemous indeed.”

“Tell me, in how many of your simulations has this plague remained stable after being introduced to the human genome?” she asked, her grip on her cane tightening. “In the long term, such a project can have no outcome other than having every living thing play as host - by your own admission it is capable of not just infecting humans and xenos, but animal and plant life as well. What safeguards exist to prohibit catastrophic mutation?”

“A wholly reasonable concern. Understand that this great work has been studied, formulated, abandoned, and remade thousands of times. Many of its iterations proved, as you fear, to be unstable, particularly across multiple generations. Others proved too malleable to external manipulation, and others still too indiscriminate in their harvesting of foreign biomatter. This latest iteration, which has been the current model for the blessing for over thirty years now, has been thoroughly modeled against all contingencies. It has no genetic structure of its own to speak of and so is wholly immune to mutation. Like the prion, it is merely a collection of self-replicating enzymes. There are a limited number of chemical factors that are at all relevant to its functionality. The recognition and structural inability to clamp onto Human genetic profiles, and the ability to recognize elements of Factor-CRWE in xenos physiologies. Exposure to this factor is what causes the transformation from blessing to curse, in the absence of Human genetic profiles.”

“Do not underestimate the forces you seek to play with, you would play dice with trillions. All it takes is a misfolded protein here and there to create a cascade failure, the odds of such increasing with the number of hosts. It is even more concerning that this same pathogen is to work not just upon xenos, but aberrant strains of humanity as well, reducing the number of genetic markers that you could possibly work with in order to safeguard authorized genelines from your disease. And to engineer it to live within flora and fauna as well? Every new colony runs the risk of complete biosphere destruction even if it remains stable within humanity, for you can provide no assurances for genetic codes you have yet to sequence.”

“A clarification - while the blessing may pass to simple flora and fauna, in the absence of Factor-CRWE it shall diminish and eventually disintegrate,” Solisios offered with a conciliatory gesture. “Respectfully, witness of the fourteenth, these concerns of yours cannot be laid to rest with mere verbal inquiry. The Omnissiah and his trusted staff of the enlightened have all of the documentation and research pertinent to the blessing. It shall be their determination whether the blessing is sufficiently safe in regards to the future welfare of Humanity, or whether it entails risks too great to consider employing. It is my assertion that they shall find no functional reason to reject the blessing. If I am wrong, or if the Omnissiah finds the body and thought of my work displeasing, then of course it shall never come to pass.”

“You seem to put much faith in Factor-CRWE, and seem convinced that it exists only inside of humanity and higher order xenos. Yet, and I find this quite strange considering the length I have spent in my career, I am forced to confess I have never heard of such a thing in my life. If you answer but one last thing from me, let it be this - what features of Factor-CRWE make it so ideal?” she asked, looking at him quizzically like she was a girl returned to her studies.

“The knowing of the nature of Factor-CRWE is a Secret of the Throne. I too was ignorant of it in the distant past, witness of the Fourteenth. It was only due to my close work with the upper echelons of his glorious Omnissiah’s Administratum and his personal staff that I was privileged with the comprehension of it - but I am not graced with the privilege of disseminating such knowledge,” Solisios answered.

“A glorious privilege indeed,” she replied with a smile that did not reach her eyes, the ancient scientist falling silent for a moment to regard the Emperor. Whatever she may have wished to say to Him she ultimately decided against it, attention returning to Solisios. “Let us assume your assertion is correct, then. In such a situation there is, you say, no functional reasoning to reject your work. What nonfunctional reasons exist?”

“...A difficult question for me to answer, constrained by dogma as I am. I shall endeavor to answer your inquiry objectively, Witness of the Fourteenth - though I wish it to be understood, these are secular hypotheticals without basis within the body of Knowledge held by the Mechanicum,” Solisios bowed his head, faintly, to the old woman.

The old woman seemed to find that amusing, a rasping laugh escaping her throat. “We both know very well that the only concerns of merit here are secular. If the Omnissiah approves of your work, then it is dogma.”

“As you say, witness.” Solisios offered another bow, slightly lower this time. “There are, of course, the ethical and pragmatic considerations of either exterminating or subjugating all other forms of intelligent life in the galaxy. It may be to the Omnisiah’s preference that more conventional forms of diplomacy and engagement might be employed in unforeseen but plausible scenarios of contact with xenos species. Adopting this blessing would necessarily be mutually exclusive to such considerations. Once the sacrament has been partaken of, the only diplomatic choice that will remain to anything beyond Humanity will be to submit or die. It might also perhaps be the case that subjugated species, forced into such subjugation, would forever look upon Humanity as anathema and culturally embody in themselves the spirit of dissent and defiance. It would be the duty of the Administratum and other Imperial administrations to cultivate and reshape xenos hierarchies and societies in order to deter such an eventuality, which would produce an amount of unknown future strain upon the body and workforce of the Imperium. Then, perhaps of greatest concern, is how the adoption of such a sacrament may yet affect populations of Humanity that have not yet been rediscovered and rendered compliant with the Imperial Truth. It is possible exposure to and proliferation of the blessing may well endanger such populations prior to the Imperium’s ability to either protect them or to enforce their compliance. In the case of Human populations coexisting with xenos populations, this would likely result in a purge of the former - and of course, such xenos would then have ample forewarning of our reckoning and a predisposition of disinclination to humor demands that they submit. It likewise remains wholly plausible that sufficiently developed xenos polities, moving quickly enough and with the correct body of knowledge, could begin to produce the cure for the curse in industrial quantities, allowing them to wage war with the Imperium - and the presence of such infrastructure in turn, both amongst these hypothetical xenos aggressors and amongst the Imperium’s own planets, would necessarily reshape and permanently alter strategic considerations and military doctrine as are currently employed. Finally, though of course not necessarily the last of all possible considerations, is that it will become impossible for any new forms or variants of Humanity to exist without the same continual provision of the gift. Mutants, abhuman derivations, vat-grown specimens, perhaps even new forms of Astartes - would likely be identified as xenos for the purposes of the curse. Once the sacrament is taken, it will be impossible to meaningfully alter or redirect in its purpose except over the course of thousands of years. That, perhaps, is the greatest of considerations to dwell on - that the blessing and curse of this sacrament, in turn, will be widespread, permanent, and likely impossible to reverse.”

“Well spoken, Genetor. You have hit upon almost every mark. But there are two points which have eluded even your keen mind. I shall dispense of the more trivial of the two first,” she said, looking briefly at the Astartes who had joined her. “You would deny humanity conquest over any save their own kind, and wars of such sort are the most brutal. Perhaps mankind may grow docile in your engineered peace, but I have my doubts,” she continued, apparently finding some joke in her words. But then the levity drained from her face. “The second is far more dire. A xenos polity with the technological capability to render themselves immune to the effects of the virus may well be able to uncover its secrets and in a crude, grasping manner turn it against us. One does not need to learn the vaunted secret of Factor-CRWE to make use of this - they need to merely identify and remove the relevant proteins that render it inert in approved human genelines.”

Solisios stared at the old woman for several long moments before answering. “...Due to the secrecy of the topic I do not feel it prudent to refute your assertions at this time, witness. The decision is in the hands of the Omnissiah now. What he wills, one way or the other, shall be.”

“I shall take that to mean that the necessary safeguards are, themselves, secrets of the Throne,” she replied with a rueful smile. “So be it.”

The Emperor, tactfully remaining silent throughout the exchange of Genetor and scientist, continued examining the information gathered by Solisios even as he listened to their discussion, the many flaws picked out by the elder woman and the Tech-Priest’s rebuttal to such. No need to intervene when discussion flowed artfully, of course - but, the work performed on any piece of art must be concluded eventually, that it might be displayed in full, and it seemed the discussion had ceased to flow.

‘I shall consider this matter further,’ he stated calmly, ‘and I shall declare my final intent upon the conclave’s conclusion. Rest assured, both sides of this matter shall be fairly assessed; for now, consider the discussion to be at rest.’

"The audience chamber is now deemed closed to discussion and inquiry of this matter," came the sound of the Custode observer over vox-speaker. Like that, the Emperor left, striding from the room unseen, yet allowing the usual staff and servantry to return to matters within these distant reaches of the halls of the Council building as if they’d never ceased at all.

Between the lines hurrying back to their posts and the shadows of the hallway, a gaunt hooded shape slipped behind a dim corner, and was lost to sight without a trace in mind or memory.

Some time after the audience has ended...

“The sheer gall, to think such would be toyed with so recklessly,” the old woman murmured in a huff, walking through the corridors of the council with an unexpected vigor, each step causing her cane to sound against the marble floor. “He of all people should know better.”

“Have you met with Genetor Solisios before?'' The Astartes following her asked, genetically engineered limbs enabling her to keep pace with the energized ancient while keeping to a casual stride.

“She doesn’t mean him, sister, she means Him,” the human man supplied, his unaugmented form causing him to hurry in order to not be left behind by the Doomsayer’s guest.

For long moments, the only reply was a derisive snort, the scientist staring straight ahead down the seemingly endless hallway. “Perhaps we succeeded too well,” she whispered, the words almost drowned out by the rhythmic striking of her cane. “Or perhaps he has become comfortable enough playing god to take such risks.”

The human and Astartes trailing her, evidently brother and sister, shared a look with one another - the former having to crane his head up to look at the latter. At length, the Marine spoke. “Priests of the Machine-God true to their faith would never think to use sacred mysteries in a manner that may offend the Omnissiah,” she cautiously ventured.

“Oh yes, and his faith certainly overflowed,” the aged scientist said before letting loose a bone tired sigh. “Solisios seemed to think that he needed to explain what he had devised,” she began to explain, falling into the rote cadence of instructors from across all of human history. “That means one of two things. Either there was no particular goal when he was permitted to learn what he learned, or it was a carefully hidden one.” Her pace began to slow as she struggled with what to say next, the raps marking her passage growing quieter and farther in between.

“I am not sure which is worse.”

---

[...End Log.]
[...Terminating.]
[Imperial Thought for the Day: Many hands maketh light work. Stand beside thy kin and together ensure humanity's place in the galaxy.]

---

---

Again, the time came for the Primarchs and High Lords to come together in union, for the sake of discussion of the matter of the Edict and other such considerations. Much less dramatically pertinent were the arrivals of each Primarch and their retinue, and likewise those at the topmost podium, who took similar positions as previously, in particular Malcador at centre stage and the Emperor of Mankind behind and to one side of him.

Mixed in amongst those faces seen from the previous session of the Council, were some new arrivals. The Primarch of the Seventh Legion, Nimue Arcadia approached the hall, entering with a small entourage of varied followers and aides. With her mere closeness to The Emperor, the golden aura that silhouetted her form dimmed, allowing the view of her facial features - practiced and stern, the usual conceited smugness known to the other Primarchs absent in face of their father. She wore a peculiar mixture of armour and elaborate dress, mixing ornate jewelry, silks, ruffles, pleats and frills of a princess with the armoured curaise and segmented metals of a chivalric knight, the armours at times gilded and decorated in thorny roses, fleur de leis and symbolic etchings of bees, though the colours somewhat difficult to make out amongst the shimmering dim aura and sparkles of golden aether drifting away from her form. It was, in all honesty, not as outrageous as was the norm with Nimue - and some of her entourage in fact were dressed far more outrageous or provocatorily.

Nimue did not speak or announce her arrival. She gave slight nods to those Primarchs in attendance, even the target of her infamous rivalry, the Primarch Micholi. Some of these gestures were more genuine, perhaps. She held knowing eye contact with Sekmetara, and her nod was perhaps deeper for the Primarchs of the first and eighth Legions, and, to perhaps unusual confusion - even the ninth. At the end of this focal point of attention, Nimue drifted into a seating arrangement with her attendees surrounding her, and the procession continued as planned.

After the majority of attendants had arrived Prometheus entered the room dressed simply in a toga praetexta, a robe with a striking purple stripe over one shoulder. As Prometheus reached his place he waited briefly before speaking “My apologies to everyone. Certain duties needed attending to.” as he sat he gestured to Malcador yielding the floor “Thank you revered Malcador, please.”

While sat and listened however he frequently glanced at a data slate he carried and quickly typed brief messages, or whispering words to one of his attendants. While he was splitting his attention between the meeting itself and his duties elsewhere he could easily follow both.

‘Welcome back, once again, to the Conclave of the War Council of the Great Crusade, stationed upon the planet of Nikaea in Year 001 of the 31st Millennium,’ Malcador greeted, in a manner suspiciously close to the previous convening of the conclave’s members, dryness and all. ‘Now, I shan’t reiterate the purpose of this conclave over and over, and instead I will merely note in brief that we left off previously in discussion of the Edict of Tolerance, wherein certain attendees were somewhat sidetracked by matters that did not directly concern the Edict itself.’ He firmly looked over the guilty parties from prior proceedings. ‘Preferably, we would be able to keep our consideration of evidence on either side of the discussion statistically objective, rather than anecdotal and based on personal feeling - or, at the very least, pertinent to the given matter directly.

‘But you are presumably aware of this by now. Nonetheless,’ he continued bluntly, ‘we shall continue with the discussion of the Edict of Tolerance, as the primary topic of the conclave. I hereby declare the Council of Nikaea is in attendance.’ A tap of his gavel, and he let himself fall silent again.

A vox-cast system then blared to life, and the resonant, booming voice of one of the Emperor’s Custodes made a firm declaration.

”Now will follow a brief review of all evidence admitted before this Council.

Equerry Issnos Traal of the Ninth Astartes Legion as sponsored by Primarch Sarghaul Tartareus has submitted exhibits addressing the frequency of overt and covert defiance of the Imperium. They have observed that in the history of the Crusade, all Xenos near-peers have elected to wage war with the Imperium and that to date, the only Xenos species to be successfully Edicted have been primitives or nascent spacefaring powers. The Equerry also submitted the opinion testimony that Edicted Xenos species subjugated by the Edict do so only as a bid to undermine the Imperium from within. Additional details as to the presented exhibits have been distributed to all appropriate parties.

Doctor Ulrinne Rikhnar of the Saravata Ministry of Domestic Affairs as sponsored by Chief Biblitekaya and Equerry of the Sixteenth Legion Ayushmatki Nanavna has submitted a number of exhibits detailing the morphology and characteristics of several Xenos species and an associated model for analyzing and determining the relative cognitive and physiological similarities between Xenos Species and Baseline Humanity. The Doctor has also proposed that Xenos species with high degrees of similarity to Humanity according to this model are suitable for Ediction, and that there exists a high degree of correlation between successful Ediction and Integration of Xenos species within this range with equal living conditions and treatment under the law relative to humans. A comprehensive and detailed list of these exhibits has been distributed to all appropriate parties.

Primarch Ahgnemir Thordemir Ehgnarlothna Porganiga has submitted a number of exhibits detailing the morphology and characteristics of several Xenos species. A comprehensive and detailed list of these exhibits has been distributed to all appropriate parties.

Logis Karoa of the Mechanicum as sponsored by Primarch Augor Astren has submitted an analytical model indicating that rebellion amongst Edicted Xenos Species is inevitable across time, and that such Xenos are twenty times as likely as rebelling Human polities to form non-Compliant Xenos states. Human rebels, even in instances where they rebel against the Imperium writ large, are projected to become more likely over time to remain Compliant states post-rebellion.

Lord Marshal Troves of the Adeptus Arbites as sponsored by Primarch Micholi Vakarian has submitted expert testimony and statistical data indicating that crime committed by Edicted Xenos species relative to Humans is significantly lower in frequency, and in many cases the frequency of crime within a given planetary populace dropped substantially due to the introduction of Edicted Xenos species.

Data Scribe Tulaara of the Administratum as sponsored by Primarch Sekhemetara Khafre has submitted an expenditures and gains analysis model that describes the associated costs of rendering Edicted Xenos civilizations compliant and the benefits accrued by their subjugation to the Imperium. The model indicates that Edicting Xenos species is significantly more resource and time intensive than other avenues of recourse. The model also shows that Xenos species with minimal overlapping biological niches with Humanity demonstrate a substantial return on production efforts once rendered Compliant. Xenos species with significant fundamental overlaps with Humanity biologically were not examined for this model.

Adept Malthus Turth of the Administratum as sponsored by Primarch Nimue Arcadia has submitted a number of economic models and records detailing the production trends upon Imperial worlds inhabited by Edicted Xenos species. The models show that surges in regional production quotas due to Xenos efforts, although factual, universally come at the price of disenfranchising Human Adepts of the Imperium within the same fields of labor and expertise.

Doctor Mingzhi Seshat of the Departmento Xenos as sponsored by Primarch Daena io Azrael submitted expert testimony regarding the ideal conditions and circumstances of Xenos morphology and culture for the purposes of becoming Edicted subjects of the Imperium of Man. In addition to broadly outlining the discriminatory parsing of unacceptable xenos species outlined in the Edict of Tolerance, the Doctor suggested that multicultural or primitive xenos species are the most suitable for Compliance and susceptible to external societal manipulation, especially if client xenos rulers sponsored by and reliant upon the Imperium for their political influence should come to power. She also suggested that xenos monocultures and insular, stable xenos hierarchies are vastly unsuitable for Ediction due to their resilience to external manipulation and subterfuge.

Equerry Elizabeta Von Hindeburg of the Seventh Astartes Legion as sponsored by Primarch Nimue Arcadia has submitted an omnibus of Xenos popular media from various worlds, calling for expansions upon Xenos species rights in manner violating both the Imperial Truth as well as the Edict of Tolerance. The Equerry went on to suggest that the Edict of Tolerance, as a consequence of its enactment, undermines the Imperial Truth.

Logis Oja of the Mechanicum as sponsored by Primarch Micholi Vakarian has submitted opinion testimony that Xenos revolt directed against the Imperial Truth is likely tied to to the relegation of Edicted Xenos species as underprivileged subjects of the Imperium relative to Humans, and that more equitable rights relative to Humans could reduce the likelihood of rebellion and non-Compliant activities.

Professor Fijani Scotik of the Kayaamat University of Ihled as sponsored by Chief Biblitekaya and Equerry of the Sixteenth Legion Ayushmatki Nanavna has submitted a historical analysis of the 777 worlds of Sarvata prior to and after their Compliance by the Primarch of the Sixteenth Legion, concluding that equalized rights and nondiscriminatory policies of governance between Humans and Edicted Xenos populations has resulted in noticeable overall economic growth and improved living standards upon each world.

Professor Ardis Gebawin of the Senatorum Imperialis as sponsored by Primarch Daena io Azrael submitted a lecture on the historical implementation of chattel slavery and the conditions under which chattel rebellions ensue and are sustained. His findings indicate that most rebellions are either incited externally or borne of internal political instability, which in the case of the Imperium of Man are both evidently impossible. The Professor then suggested that the benefit of exploiting indentured xenos populations would always outweigh the cost of any attempts at revolt, even if inevitable.

Magos Biologis Khalima Zro of the Mechanicum as sponsored by Primarch Prometheus has submitted expert testimony that attempting to understand the minds and cognitive processes of Xenos species is futile and infeasible and that research and study into these realms is highly speculative in nature. The Magos also indicates that Xenos are therefore inherently unpredictable, and should not be treated as Human.

Investigator Serris Vera of the Departmento Xenos as sponsored by Primarch Prometheus has submitted expert testimony implicating the existence of stolen and smuggled Xenos Heretech and Heretek factions within the criminal elements of every Edicted Xenos species. The Investigator further asserts that there exists evidence suggesting the existence of large caches of hidden Xenos Heretek within each Edicted populace of sufficient size to merit possible Edict Revocation.

Chief Biblitekaya and Equerry of the Sixteenth Astartes Legion Ayushmatki Navavna, sponsored under her own authority, has submitted the observation that their personal Xenos retainers have not once betrayed her and that they have never known any Xenos retainer of the Sixteenth legion or of the territory of Sarvata to have once betrayed the Imperium.

Legion Mistress Vairya Kurus of the Fourteenth Astartes Legion as sponsored by Primarch Daena io Azrael submitted the observation that their personal xenos retainers have not once betrayed her.

Praetor Johann Kohl of the Tenth Astartes Legion as sponsored by Primarch Arnulf Wode has submitted a power spear. It is approximately 1.83 meters in length and in good working order. Demonstrably capable of shearing through the surface of a wooden podium 2.1 meters tall by 0.61 meters wide.“

Once the voxed summary had concluded, Augor Astren immediately strode forth towards the central podium from his usual position in the chamber and ascended it, turning to face the remaining Primarchs. He then began to speak in a clear, even voice, amplified by the voxcaster built into the podium.

"Augor Astren, Primarch of the Stargazers, his Emperor's Twelfth Astartes Legion. Fabricator Intendant of the Forge World of Last Light." He stated, following the protocol laid out by the Sigilite at the beginning of the first day of debate, now more than a week past. He paused for a brief moment before carrying on.

"Brothers, sisters, my fellow Primarchs. In light of the errant direction our last debate took and in the spirit of promoting productive and worthwhile discourse, it is my intention to begin this discussion by identifying and elaborating those points of this matter that each side of our debate agrees upon. A plethora of evidence has been heard by us and admitted to these proceedings, and though I imagine quite a few of us have a diversity of opinions as to the nature and substance of each exhibit of evidence submitted..." Augor paused again to smile knowingly at the Primarchs - less full and earnest than the few he had shown previously, being more of a toothy smirk than anything else. "...there were nonetheless a few common elements that the evidence broadly supports. As my intention to abstain from the closing deliberations of these talks is already well-established, I shall present these points and propose that we structure our initial dialogue around them."

Augor raised a bionic talon in the air. "Firstly - all sides of this debate, opposed, supporting, and neutral, through the production of both expert testimony and analytical models, have concluded the same thing. The likelihood that any given Edicted Xenos populace shall rebel against the Imperium of Man is inevitable." He paused to let the assertion hang in the air before continuing. "We have received opinion testimony that a number of Edicted Xenos individuals have not yet betrayed their masters or the Imperium. It is understood that these findings are not indicative of an inherent absence of loyalty or honor amongst the individual Xenos specimens, which brings me..."

Augor then raised a second bionic talon. "To my second point. Each side has acknowledged through the evidence presented, at least once, that the most likely causal factor that shall serve to spark these rebellions shall be conditions inherent to the imposition of the Imperial Truth upon Edicted Xenos populations. If certain evidence is to be believed, not only are Xenos far more likely to rebel specifically and particularly because of and over the Imperial Truth, but Human populations across time shall become less likely to do so and more likely to remain Compliant states post-revolt. This point is also supported by the observations of multiple of his Emperor's Astartes Legions from their many campaigns and efforts over the course of the ongoing Great Crusade: The Xenos species most preferable for Ediction are primitives, politically decentralized and unstable, or multiculturally diverse. Likewise, monocultures, developed and starfaring Xenos empires, and near-peer polities are seen as unsuitable. The only such Xenos polities to ever have been Edicted, in fact, are those that were already subsumed and governed by a Primarch. We are otherwise left with dozens of reports of uncooperative and defiant Xenos polities who have either utterly refused even the notion of Compliance outright even in the face of annihilation, or who otherwise endeavored to exploit it for subversive and hostile purposes. The root causes of this, once more, are inherently drawn back to the imposition of the Imperial Truth upon these populations - which brings me to my third and final point."

Augor raised a third bionic talon. "Each side of our debate, in the bodies of the analysis they have presented, have acknowledged the material and productive capabilities of Edicted Xenos populations. There has been some particularly varied data regarding this point, such as some statements that the superior productive capabilities of Edicted Xenos is either necessarily reliant upon the disenfranchisement of local Human populaces or otherwise requires factors such as non overlapping biological niches between the Edicted species and Humanity - despite this, all sides agree that the potential for materially useful and productive Edicted Xenos populations and efforts exists, and there is evidence to suggest this utility may even outweigh the associated costs of suppressing and quashing rebellion, however frequent."

Augor lowered his bionic talons and carried on. "It is with these three points in mind that I desire to present an inquiry directed towards those amongst us who would desire to support the Edict of Tolerance. Let us presume that all Edicted Xenos shall prove materially useful and productive for the joint purposes of the general enrichment of the Imperium and the facilitation of the Great Crusade. Let us also presume that this utility factually outweighs the associated costs and efforts of containing and ending their inevitable revolts. The very evidence presented to us that dictates what Xenos species are suitable for Ediction would also suggest that the inclusion of diverse cultural and societal Xenos elements amongst the Imperium of Man renders it susceptible and vulnerable to both internalized and externalized interference and subversion. Evidence presented by both sides of this discussion indicate that diverse multiculturalism renders a polity more susceptible to sophisticated manipulation and exploitation, and promotes or is otherwise indicative of internal political instability. Given it has also been stated that Human populations will become less likely over time to rebel due to the Imperial Truth or against it, it might be claimed that an equally rebellious but more ideologically consistent and Compliant Human population would be preferable to a more productive but less Compliant Xenos population. My inquiry is thus: How can it be proven or otherwise demonstrated that the short or even long-term material and productive gains of Edicting Xenos is preferable to the use of Human populations that are more culturally and ideologically cohesive? How can it be shown that Edicting Xenos will not create the very same societal and logistical vulnerabilities within the Imperium of Man as have been identified amongst countless Empires that the Imperium of Man has exploited in order to subjugate, particularly in regards to the Imperial Truth? The inevitability of rebellion and the associated costs of handling it is one thing to accept. It is quite another to suggest we should tolerate or even humor open dissent directed against the Imperial Truth, regardless of any related degree of material gain for doing so."

With that, Augor descended from the central podium. "I now relinquish the floor and my inquiry to the ruminations of my fellow Primarchs."

Prometheus rose first claiming the floor, “I agree with the question Augor.” He bows respectfully towards his sibling, “Though I would emphasize a part of it. Should the Imperium simply absorb the recurring cost of sequential rebellion. Perhaps the first rebellion does not cost the Imperium much in the way of lives or material, but the second? The tenth? How many insurrections will the Imperium bear? Furthermore will the productivity of the xenos outweigh this compared to the single investment of cleansing their worlds and resettling them with baseline humans?” he pauses but remains standing sweeping his gaze across the assembled Primarchs and lords of the Imperium.

“I would argue, any singular investment would be less severe no matter the size compared to a recurring rebellion. The Imperium is being forged to survive to the end of time, even one xenos rebellion per millennium would consume uncountable lives and materials. If one could pose a substantial argument to this, I am curious to hear it.” he finished grimly before finally taking his seat and yielding the floor.

Having let his brothers speak, Micholi finally rose to his feet and walked the floor to the center podium. Deciding to start with the respectable “Micholi Vakarian, 2nd Legion Night Watch, Primarch.” in relation to the rules Malcador had stated on the first day, the Primarch quickly decided to answer several points that had been raised.

“I feel I must take this moment to clarify a few terms that Primarch Augor believes this debate is about, if only so that they can be addressed with the right frame of mind. The first of course being the statement ‘any given Edicted Xenos populace shall rebel against the Imperium of Man is inevitable’. This is simply an incomplete statement.” Aware that there were some who might object, he got to the point. “All populations within the Imperium shall rebel against the Imperium at some stage. It is simply the price that we pay for not converting the vast majority of our population into unfeeling, mindless servitors. If anyone here has any plans for dealing with civil unrest and rebellions within the Imperium in general that we are not already employing that isn’t genocide and mass servitor conversion, please take the floor for we would all love to hear it. ”

“With that in mind, the same concerns about the loss of lives and materials in dealing with rebellions, uprisings and succession attempts stands true regardless of if those involved are xenos or human in nature. Logis Karoa’s data might have been focused on Xenos populations, but her findings confirm that humans in turn will strive for additional freedoms that the Imperium would deny them, such as freedom of religion… which is not related to the Edict of Tolerance but an issue that goes against the Imperial Truth.”

“I must also point out that the data related to those Xenos races that have been successfully edicted is also incomplete, due to the lack of the presence of human civilisations alongside. After all, the same conditions that seem to promote ideal candidates among xeno populations to come into the fold peacefully are also the ideal conditions to bring in human populations. Likewise, I do not believe we have ever encountered an advanced human civilisation that hasn’t attempted to maintain its independence with military resistance, even in the face of the Imperium’s overwhelming might and the possible consequences of losing after fighting a war, even if they do tend to be more… forgiving then the consequences presented to a xenos population.”

“Finally, as much as it pains me to admit, I am afraid that one of Primarch Augor’s statements is nothing but an outright lie. While it is true that some xenos races were already under the governance of a Primarch before they joined the Imperium, to my knowledge the only one of us to truly do so was Primarch Eiohsa. While it is true that during my days on the Reserve prior to my discovery by the Emperor I was seen as a leader of a mixed population, this population was made up of slaves abducted from their homes by human slavers. The Tur were an up and coming space power with several colonies while the Lek were a one world species who were often raided by several neighboring powers. In fact, the Nerub weren’t even Edicted by a Primarch at all, instead Edicted by Planetary Governor Kist after the Imperium had set up colonists on the surface of their homeworld after driving off the Orks that had controlled the system prior.”

Pausing for just a moment to consider if he had covered everything mentioned prior, Micholi finally decided to go on the offensive as it were. “There is also something of a flaw in the data projections of the opposition in relation to civil unrest in Xenos populations. A simple fallacy really… the belief that the core data doesn’t change in relation to how a given Xenos population is treated. After all, part of the spirit of the Edict of Tolerance is that the longer a given species remains by the side of humanity, the more trust is developed and the less they seem like the ‘Other’ that are often feared and hated. After all, is there any Primarch here who can claim that they would rather have an unproven Imperial Army regiment from a recently compliant world over a regiment from a world that has served them well and proven themselves time and again for decades, if not centuries? The Tur and Lek have proudly and loyally served the Imperium in both civilian and military manner for almost two centuries; They have served the Imperium and the Emperor longer than most of the people in this room! Unless there are some witnesses in the High Lord areas I cannot see, at minimum there are only five people here who have been a part of the Imperium longer and that is including the Emperor himself! Even if you cannot bring yourselves to respect them as people, their service and loyalty should be respected all the same.”

His words given, Micholi respectfully offered Malcador and the Emperor a bow of his head as he left the middle podium for the next speaker.

Augor Astren did not approach the central podium, but instead merely pressed the voxcaster switch on his own smaller side-podium to once more speak.

“You claimed part of what I stated was an outright lie.” Augor stated, his tone flat and clearly unamused. “Let it be noted that when I stated ‘the only Xenos polities to ever have been Edicted were already subsumed and governed by a Primarch,’ I was endeavoring to credit your personal history, though it also appears we have suffered a difference of opinion concerning which of our Edicted Xenos polities qualified as nascent or otherwise. In recollection of what came of the First Open Discussion of this topic between us all, I would encourage my brothers and sisters to think carefully prior to needlessly and baseless denigrating or accusing their fellow Primarchs of deceit under oath and before the Emperor of Mankind.” He then turned his empty, sightless gaze directly to Micholi.

“Secondly, the cause of this debate is not serviced by equivocation and reticence. I would implore those who truthfully support the Edict of Tolerance to answer the inquiry directly. Finally, Primarch of the Second Legion, Micholi Vakarian,” Augor’s Expression then turn hard, his lips turning into nothing less than a sneer.

“I warned you, multiple times, over the course of the First Debate not to impinge upon the Will of the Emperor, our Father, Ruler of the Galaxy and All Mankind, He Who Stands Above All. I then approached you privately in the intervening days and warned you, explicitly, not to do so during the course of this session. Yet here you have, with the first breath you have drawn today, dared to Impinge upon the Will of the Emperor in our presence. It is your privilege to question the Will of the Emperor, but as I have said before, there is a thin line where such privilege turns to treason. If you respond to nothing else that I have said here today, you would be best suited in listening to this single thing: Continue your current course at your peril.”

“When?” Micholi asked Augor in return, looking right at him. “When do you believe I muttered anything that impinged on the Will of the Emperor? If you are referring to my statement that the Emperor is the oldest member and supporter of the Imperium, that isn’t impingement, that’s just a fact. The Imperium wouldn’t exist without the Emperor masterminding it, developing the legions or having the drive to unify Terra or the greater galaxy.”

“I was not.” Augor replied, a dangerous and heavy divide separating the three words. “You are a Primarch. You know full and well what you said. It does not bear revisitation. You have been given your final warning. Let us proceed with our discourse.” His hand then retreated from the switch for his Voxcaster.

From the assembled observers, Ayushmatki rose to speak, nodding her head to those already upon the floor. “Ayushmatki Nanavna izva Kuznekhtinsk. Vice-Premier of the Grand Union of Saravata. Equerry of the Sixteenth Primarch, Eiohsa izva Bronakavh. Lady Rege-”

“Get on with it, mortal,” came the cutting voice of Usriel standing from his seat as Ayushmatki rattled off her titles.

Ayushmatki turned her attention to him after he spoke, her expression neutral. “If you wish to speak to those assembled, Primarch of the Nineteenth, you may do so after standing and declaring your name and titles upon the podium. Until such time, I retain the floor.”

“Speak. Your. Piece,” the Nineteenth Primarch commanded.

Ayushmatki’s expression remained neutral, and she paid no heed to the words of Usriel. “...Lady Regent of the Crucibles of Light’s End.” a ghost of a smile crossed her lips before she continued. “Primarch of the Second Legion Micholi Vakrain, Primarch of the Twelfth Legion Augor Astren, if you permit. It is my understanding that the Edict, as it is written, is not wholly the work of the Emperor himself. While, certainly, it has been penned in his name and enforced as his will, it was done so - well before most of those present had even heard of the Imperium - at the behest of his Primarch. He, to the consternation of many to follow, penned this legislation adjacent and in addition to his Imperial Truth permitting the integration of those xenos bioforms deemed suitable for coexistence with humanity - but he certainly did not do so without the input of the second Primarch. Were such the case, he would not have done so only upon his encounter with him, yes? It is therefore justified for Primarch Micholi to defend the intents behind the writing of the document - but we have in our presence our Emperor himself, and I shall not make claims beyond that which can be inferred.”

Augor treated Ayushmatki with a genuine and polite smile before he pressed on his own Voxcaster switch to reply. “As you have clearly listened and taken note of my own objections, Lady Regent,” He began, his voice the essence of courtesy, “...and as you have made this inquiry while taking specific care not to Impinge upon the Will of the Emperor, I would be pleased to clarify this matter. As this matter is wholly adjacent to the body and direction of our discourse here today, I would ask that after I speak on this matter we return to our properly mandated discussion as directed by the Sigilite in his role as Convener.”

Augor then cast his sightless expression towards the other Primarchs. “In acknowledgement that this session is and shall be witnessed by countless souls, I shall briefly summarize: The Emperor of All Mankind possesses several legal, formal, and ceremonial aspects. One of these aspects is his status and role as the Omnissiah, a figure of veneration and worship within the body of the Cult Mechanicum. This aspect is assigned and accounted for by the Treaty of Mars, which broadly and particularly describes and outlines its parameters. Within the Cult Mechanicum, the very written word, and therefore every document ever penned or signed by the Emperor, is considered sacred. His word is considered inviolate, sovereign, and absolute. Importantly, the matter of his Will, his Thoughts, his Intentions and his Desires are fully his own. They are not to be unduly ascribed or presumed. They are only and precisely what he declares they are, and beyond that his will is considered Ineffable and not to be impinged upon.”

The Primarch of the Twelfth Legion placed special emphasis on those words as he cast his empty orbitals directly to Micholi before carrying on. “I freely acknowledge that the Primarch of his Emperor’s second Astartes Legion, Micholi Vakarian, assisted the Emperor in writing and structuring the body of the Edict of Tolerance. As has been agreed upon by us previously in the first open discussion of this matter, and as should be self-evidently true,”

Augor again directed his empty gaze to the Second Primarch. “...the Edict of Tolerance as a document would not exist and would not have been decreed into law had the Emperor of Mankind not desired it. Beyond what the Emperor himself has elected to impart and personally clarify, we cannot ascribe any degree of intention or direction upon the Edict of Tolerance. It may well be true that the Second Primarch, Micholi Vakarian, possessed a very specific and particularized will and intention in his efforts to assist the Emperor in drafting and composing the Edict of Tolerance - but at the same time, the Emperor was the one who had final say and ultimate authority not only upon its effect, but upon its very shape. The most that can be said of the Edict as pertains to the Emperor or anybody else, beyond simple factual statements that he was one of those who wrote it, is that the body of the Edict of Tolerance was sufficient for the Emperor’s purposes, whatever they were and whatever they may be.”

He then turned to face Ayushmatki once more. “Those outside the Cult Mechanicum, of course, possess the privilege and right to question and infer the Will of the Emperor, as all true and faithful Adepts of the Imperium loyal and adherent to the Imperial Truth are not bound by the terms of the Treaty of Mars. However - the Emperor of All Mankind remains himself. Beyond a point, to do either of these things exceeds privilege and verges into betrayal - and this applies not merely to Adepts, but to all within the Imperium - including the Primarchs. The Primarch of the Second Astartes Legion, Micholi Vakarian, for reasons I hesitate to assign at the risk of denigrating his person, has continued to needlessly and provocatively probe and test this boundary of privilege - and I, Augor Astren, Primarch of his Emperor’s Twelfth Astartes Legion, do not intend to permit him to continue to do so.”

He nodded once to Ayushmatki. “That is all.” He raised a bionic talon from his Voxcaster switch.

Ayushmatki nodded her head towards Augor, “Thank you, Primarch of the Twelfth, for your clarifications. I am sure all in attendance will act in due course of the law and its mandate.” She remained silent for a moment, her expression remaining inscrutable. “If it pleases those assembled, I would continue in response to mention of the integration of xenos and xenos polities by the Primarch of the Sixteenth.” She waited a moment for response from the assembled observers, expecting to continue.

“The policies set in place by that of the Sixteenth Primarch, in the 777 worlds, are policies that cannot be accurately gauged by the Administratum. Your policies could have results that had been completely fabricated by that damnable and Mechanicum-devoid zone. As such, you, human, are not a reliable source and utterly moot in comparison to the information brought to the attention of this assembly. Perhaps, if the Administration had more freedom to do their jobs within your pitiful region, it would be trusted far more,” Usriel snarled at Ayushmakti, his red gaze never leaving her as he spoke in an openly hostile manner. The Nineteenth Primarch allowed a moment of pause as he leaned forward to speak more, this time looking between the Primarchs, “That region, whose name I shall not utter, is devoid of proper oversight by the proper Imperial or Cult authorities. We cannot trust such words from this human and I will not regard any policy as having true oversight.”

“Primarch of the Nineteenth, if you wish to speak you ought to announce yourself before doing so and take your place at the podium in turn, as you have yet to do so.” Ayushmatki began to respond, before being cut off again.

Flicking his vox switch into the on position, Micholi firmly countered “Primarch Usriel, your words are out of line! While Eiohsa’s domain might not have much in the way of Mechanicum influence, Eiohsa is a Primarch and thus it’s under proper Imperial authority.”

“A Primarch is not infallible, Micholi, and denying proper investigation by both Administrators and Mechanicum personnel is nothing short of suspicious,” Usriel said, turning his head to Micholi, “I am on the side of the Edict of Tolerance, Micholi. However, I am not going to trust the sources of Primarch Eiohsa’s appointed representative or even Eiohsa herself as we have little evidence past the words of that region as to how effective such policies are.”

“Primarch of the Nineteenth, if I may.” Ayushmatki spoke, directing her attention back to Usriel.

“You may not,” Usriel said plainly.

“I believe you misunderstood my intentions. I have full authority to speak my piece before the council. My words were a figure of speech, Primarch Andredth, not a request. Now I shall continue. There seems to be misinformation regarding the nature of the Compliance and integration of the worlds of Primarch Eiohsa. There is a misconception that seems rampant among the ranks of those assembled her worlds have no presence of either the Adeptus Administrum or of the Mechanicum. This is objectively not so. What the 777 worlds have is autonomy within the Imperium, as granted to the Primarch Eiohsa upon her reunification with our Emperor. Copies of a written declaration of such are maintained both upon Terra and Kayaamat, and I have with me the same material in digitized format should those present desire to confirm its contents for themselves. However, I will briefly summarize its contents, as they are not long. Each world has upon it the infrastructure of the Administratum, as well as Mechanicum. However, these worlds are primarily overseen by the internal ministries of the region, who then report directly to both these Administratum and Mechanicum bureaucracies. Though the Administratum and Mechanicum do not have commanding authority over the world, as such belongs to those given such power under our laws, they have at their disposal full accounting of all data assembled within. If such is required, I would be more than happy to provide documentation confirming the veracity of my claims and the identical contents of both our internal reports and those submitted to the Mechanicum.”

She looked around the room, pausing only for a fraction of a second before continuing, not wishing to invite further interruption. “Now if I may address my original point. It is true, there have been no formerly independent spacefaring xenos polities inducted into the Imperium aside from those already absorbed by my Primarch, however this does not negate that such is possible. We speak of the inevitability of revolt or the armed resistance of a people against the Imperium as if they are singular justification for the annihilation of their existence - but any would do the same. It is the natural impulse, of those who share a human adjacent way of thinking, to resist annexation by a foreign power, especially one bent upon the subjugation of their people to a servile existence stripped of their former glory. The same is true of any human civilization in turn. However, it can be done. While many of the xenos within Eiohsa’s domain were integrated well before her arrival, there is one notable instance wherein they were not. The Khirkre, specifically, are a xenos people who held a… small civilization, no more than a dozen worlds in total. If needed, documentation on their morphology and behaviour can be provided. Regardless, they were initially hostile to her conquests, but submitted after the capture of eight worlds. They have not been subject to purge or made second class citizens upon their own homeworld - and in turn, they have shown remarkable integration with our broader society. They can be found upon Kayaamat in the tens of millions, and their resistance to radiation has proven valuable upon the shipyards of Light’s End. In turn, humanity upon their worlds has flourished and thrived, for what technology and art they have brought to their homeworld in particular has resulted in their homeworld becoming a prized possession like no other.

“Properly sanctioned technology, I trust.” Augor commented. His expression was one of metered attentiveness.

“Naturally.” Replied Ayushmatki in turn. “Improved construction materials, building methods, agricultural and industrial machinery, and so on.”

“A full recitation is likely without the bounds of this council, Lady Regent.” Augor proffered a bionic hand and smiled again. “Please, proceed with the main body of your statement.”

“Of course, Primarch of the Twelfth. Should you wish it, a full documentation of such will be made available upon your request after this meeting has adjourned.” She nodded to him, before continuing. “To summarize briefly - this people, though initially hostile, combative, and dubiously compatible with human societies, has become nothing less than a cherished and incredibly valuable asset to all. Their contributions to engineering and the arts alike stand proud amongst all - and none of this could have been achieved had they been forced into servitude, stripped of not only their pride but their identities. Surely, many other species met their ends at our hands, and tragically or not, most such species will be unsuitable candidates due to extreme divergence from acceptable parameters. However, within those that do meet such parameters, they represent an untapped resource as valuable as any of humanity. Moral standings aside, to destroy a people whose minds could further expand the Imperium’s dominance in all fields is a supremely wasteful endeavor. We speak of the expenditure of resources to curtail rebellion - but we do not speak of the expenditure of resources to oppress and destroy the potential of peoples who could elevate us further.” She nodded to Augor and to the other Primarchs. “I yield the floor.”

Next, the glowing form of the Seventh Primarch stood, moving to take the floor. “I am Nimue Arcadia, Primarch of the Seventh Legion as you all well know. The Enchantress of Engraila”. She, upon announcing herself, held a tongue for a moment, gazing over the assembly, before resting her eyes on the representative of Sixteenth Primarch.

“You. Iron Daughter girl. You speak faithfully for your Primarch, correct? Her words are your words? Her thoughts are yours?”

“I cannot truthfully claim that her thoughts are my own, however I speak with her authority and with her full confidence.” Ayushmatki said in reply, keeping her voice even. “She will stand by me.”

Nimue nodded then, pleasantly. It was acceptable.

“Does your primarch truly believe that Xenos, those of whom have been edicted at least, are deserving of equality?”

Ayushmatki looked at Nimue with an almost unreadable expression, but one close by might have noticed an undercurrent of distaste in her eyes as she looked upon the seventh Primarch. “It is so. In this we are of one mind.”

“And so, deserving of this equality - Your Primarch believes that there is an inherent right for Xenos to be treated as humans would? Equally? So to live in coexistence with man?” Nimue’s voice was soft, pleasant even. It was devoid of the usual haughtiness expected of her.

“Should they fall within the parameters set forth within the evidence I have provided, that is correct.” Ayushmatki said in turn, “If it pleases you, Primarch of the Seventh, I can explain why at your leisure.”

“It is of no need, Child of the Sixteenth. I believe I understand. I have one last question for you. With these answers in mind, does your mistress, Primarch of the Sixteenth, apply these principles in her compliances of xenos with the Edict of Tolerance?”

“This is not something I can answer, Primarch of the Seventh.” came the reply, “The Sixteenth Legion is one not frequently deployed to such theaters. We were explicitly designed, as told to me by Eiohsa, to fight in high casualty combat situations. As such, we have never encountered a species that could have been grounds for Ediction.”

“Then what of her realm, her...” Nimue thought for some time, not particularly bothering to remember the name - “Sarvata?”

“It is Saravata, if you permit my correction.” Ayushmatki said, “Most of the species within Saravata had been integrated into human societies before the arrival of Eiohsa. Admittedly, many of these societies were conquered by her and had not before been unified within the region, but in most regards, including upon her and my own homeworld of Kayaamat, before her arrival they were universally treated as second class citizenry at best, or chattel slaves at worse.”

“And after her arrival, they are now equal, in Saravata?”

“That is correct. She instituted wide ranging, sweeping reforms governing economic policy as well as the elimination of social caste. This coming after her rebellion against its rulers and subsequent conquest of the world.”

“And so, returning to my original point, concerning the Edict of Tolerance - your Primarch, in her conquests of Saravata, made her xenos and human subjects equal?”

“This is correct. Yes.” Said Ayushmatki, “She abolished all forms of social hierarchy outside of the ranks of governmental service. In doing so, she created a system wherein the standard human, abhuman, and xenos populations live with equal rights and living conditions.”

“Thank you for your answers, Daughter of Iron”. Nimue said politely, very happy with the answers she was given. Nimue then turned, facing her hated ‘brother’ directly.
“Primarch of the Second Legion, Micholi Vakrain…” Nimue’s voice was polite and soft, as before. But the edge of intense dislike could not be hidden, and so merely came off as sly.

“Do you, Primarch of the Second Legion, truly believe that Xenos, those of whom have been edicted at least, are deserving of equality?”

Micholi’s eye narrowed slightly, clearly aware that his sister was up to something but not really in a position to refuse the question as he asked “Primarch of the Seventh, I grew up on a world where everyone, be they human, abhuman, xenos or mutant were all equally viewed as nothing by chattel to be hunted down for sport, training purposes or because the numbers to be sacrificed to the Eldar slavers were low. Of course I believe they deserve equality.”

“And so, deserving of this equality - do you, Primarch, believe that there is an inherent right for Xenos to be treated as humans would? Equally? So to live in coexistence with man?” Nimue repeated her question asked to the Daughter of Iron, now to the Primarch of the Second Legion.

“In time. Much like how a newly introduced human population needs time to adjust and to be brought up to speed on Imperial laws, the introduction of the Imperial Truth, et cetera. But I do believe that in the end equality can be achieved.” There was a brief pause before Micholi asked “I’m guessing this is the part where you declare I’m insane and why my position is completely wrong, Nimue?”

“Something like that, dear brother”. She smiled.

Remaining silent, Ayushmatki raised an eyebrow, folding her arms as she adjusted herself in her seat.

“Still, this line of questioning must be continued. Are xenos and humans treated as equal citizens within the worlds you govern? And if they are not, do you intend for them to be so - as you intend for the entirety of the Imperium to one day be, in some distant future?”

“They are treated well, in the sense that having been on the opposite end of the ‘slave, master’ relationship then yourself, dear Nimue, I find the practices of slavery abhorant.” He rolled his eyes as he added “Yes, I am aware of the fact that you’ve never owned slaves Nimue. But being worshipped as a goddess on your own planet by your people does mean that you have never been on the downtrodden side of a power imbalance.”

“It is only fitting that a Primarch be born to rule. It is our right, and destiny. We were not made to be ‘downtrodden’, we were made to be exemplars of the human race that all others may look up to and follow, dear Brother. You focus too greatly on the weak, on resentment - and not enough of inspiration, of leadership. I serve my people just as much as you do yours”. Nimue responded to her Brother’s petty sidetracking. She knew the responsibility of nobility.

“If we don’t pay attention to the weak, dear Sister… who will?” Micholi countered softly.

“Answer the question, Micholi,” the rumbling of Sarghaul’s voice clove in, “Do you desire a future where human and xeno are as one across the galaxy?”

“Sarghaul, to quote the representative of Eiohsa, if you wish to speak you really should announce yourself properly. After all, it’s Nimue’s turn to speak.” Micholi teased the Primarch of the Lurkers professionally, before turning back to Nimue. “To answer your question, I would love to create a universe where humans and xenos can co-exist peacefully with each other as equally and respectfully as is possible in our reality. I believe we have already made good steps towards this goal by removing the mindless and monstrous from the galaxy, but there are more steps that need to be taken.”

“I am certain. Thank you, Primarch Micholi of the Second Legion”. Her line of questioning for the Primarch and Equerry were completed, she began the next phase of her speech.

“Honoured Council, Primarchs. Emperor of the Imperium of Man” Nimue emphasized the last word strongly. “I would like to remind all those in attendance of the Imperial Truth, as decreed by our Emperor and father of all Humanity, from which forms the entire basis of the Imperium of Man and the Great Crusade persists”.

“The Imperial Truth decrees that the irrational, the superstitious and faith in those beyond to be mere terrors of the Old Night, to be discarded as ignorance. It calls for a rational and secular order to replace it. There would be no souls, no gods or sorcery. There would only be Man”. Nimue explained to those all present, all knowing what the Imperial Truth was.

“It seems however, that those present seem to always forget the second half of Our Emperor’s decree, the other, quite significant, element of the Imperial Truth… my siblings” Nimue said, glaring at Micholi.

“The Imperial Truth decrees that Man, and man alone, shall rightfully rule the galaxy. And the reason? Mankind is pure. Man’s physical form is pure, where the Xenos is not. It decrees that all other intelligent forms of life have tried - and failed, to rule a galaxy-spanning civilization, because of their lack of purity, their lack of human will.’

“The Imperial Truth itself acknowledges the importance of this! That it was mankinds ‘time in the sun!’, that it was more deserving of its rule than any other species. It is the predominant species of the Galaxy, and no other. It’s superiority will be made self-evident. The Imperial Truth undeniably states the superiority of the human race.” Nimue then remembered Micholi’s attempt at diversion.

“The Imperial Truth states that man is strong, It is, like the Primarchs, as a whole destined for greatness. It is not meant to be downtrodden, it needs not to beg and plead and compromise with the weak, and the failed, and the impure”.

“My Emperor”. Nimue said, turning towards the Emperor of Mankind, sitting silently in attendance. “Emperor, father, can you not see the absurdity?” Her sight returning to The Emperor, and away from Micholi.

“The Imperial Truth cannot possibly survive the Edict of Tolerance. Its very co-designer, by his very own admittance, intends to subvert it! The Primarch of the Sixteenth already flagrantly does so, her precious empire ignoring the Imperial Truth at every turn! They say that the Imperium cannot fall because its leadership is immortal, but what if the subverters are those very same immortals?”

“Why?” Nimue asked, far more emotionally than even she believed she would say. Rhetoric and fake passion was being distorted by real anger, that her siblings could willfully ignore what would see herself severely punished or censored. “Why, Emperor? Why can the Imperial Truth be so openly ignored by these two? What makes them so special, that your decrees on all others are mere ‘suggestions’ for them?

“The Primarchs Micholi and Eiohsa are traitors to the Imperium of Man!” Nimue finished.

Micholi slowly raised to his feet. Having given Nimue the floor for so long, he calmly stepped onto it and joined her rather than speak from his seat with the vox. As walked towards the Primarch of the Seventh, it was hard to say what he was thinking or feeling… but he finally stopped two meters away from her.

“Others have dominated the universe before humanity. Their times came and went with the ebb and flow of time. Before the Long Night, humanity had a golden age of its own, standing tall and proud in the stars… before the many terrors of the Age of Strife brought it down. Yet… humanity managed to pull itself out of the ashes and rubble of the old in order to reclaim its place in the stars. Do you want to hear the lesson I learned from the Age of Strife, dear sister?”

Nimue stared in disbelief as The Emperor refused to say or do anything. Allowing Micholi to speak for him. “Why are you silent?” She asked The Emperor again, incredulous. “Why will you not defend your own decrees from such obvious subversion?” She could not understand. Why would he create such absolute principles, and then say absolutely nothing in their defence? Not yes, or no. It was either silence or ‘fight it out amongst yourselves’.

Since Nimue seemed to be more focused on the silence of the Emperor… and to be fair, Micholi looked towards him to out of interest as well, but since neither seemed to be speaking he decided to make his point. “The humanity of the Dark Age of Technology didn’t fall due to weakness Nimue. In fact, it was rather powerful. It fell because it was cut off from itself. It’s planets divided, unable to travel or talk to ea-”

“Shut up, Micholi. I am not arguing the tenets of the Imperial Truth with you. You are not its creator. Its decrees only come from him.” Nimue pointed to The Emperor, still silent in attendance of The Council of Nikaea.

“Very well then. I can agree with you that now, if ever, the Emperor should make his opinion heard.” Micholi agreed, turning to look at their lord and liege.

Looking between Nimue and Micholi as they both turned to face the Emperor, and registering as they invoked for him to speak for the third time, Augor could not help but turn his empty gaze to the Emperor of All Mankind. The one figure the Twelfth Primarch had not been able to look at - almost as if out of fear, or shame. But now, as the attention of the entire Council Chamber began to shift and heave away from the Primarchs and their debate and towards the back wall where the Emperor was enthroned resplendent, he could not help but look up to him.

_{”...Omnissiah…”} He uttered in a hoarse whisper. He took to one knee on the spot, clasping a hand over his breast in the semblance of the cog.

_{”...Deliver us…”}

The Council was consumed by silence for the space of a heartbeat, but before it could drag on Prometheus rose speaking calmly and quietly into the silence. “Primarch of the Vth, Prometheus.”

His gaze locked onto Micholi and Nimue in turn “Both of you sit down and yield the floor to useful debate. Our father is not here to give his opinion, he is here to hear ours and forge his own. You embarrass yourselves and your siblings acting this way.” his focus remained on Micholi and Nimue fully prepared to accept their wrath.

“An Emperor should rule his Imperium, not sit idle”. Nimue glared at Prometheus, The Emperor still silent. If he was even awake, though his eyes were open, Nimue could not even tell.

Micholi turned to look at Prometheus… before a sigh escaped him. “Nimue and myself clearly have a difference of opinion on how the Imperial Truth should be applied, Prometheus. I believe that as the rulers and caretakers of the universe that Humanity, in our position of strength, has the right to decide to rule alongside those that it deems worthy, while Nimue disagrees in that humanity should stand alone. I believe requesting of the Emperor of which vision of the Imperium’s future he would prefer to see come to pass is not only relevant, but the very core of this debate in the first place. After all, our opinions do not matter in the end… only his does.”

Prometheus’ tone became an edge harder, but still at the same volume “Neither of you have heard my words, now you look as petulant children before the Lords of Terra, our Father and the Imperium itself. Micholi… I have been sitting in this room like everyone else. I see the bones of your disagreement, but as I said, The Emperor is here to absorb information and opinion to decide the best course of action. Besides, if your opinion does not matter why do you bother to speak? Or even attend? As I said, sit down and yield the floor before you make a greater fool of yourself.”

“Prometheus speaks wisdom, my children,” the Emperor announced, not even standing, yet his quiet voice burrowing into the minds of those present as though he were at their ear. “It is the greater picture I am concerned with, for both the Imperium and its many facets. I alone cannot challenge every individual foe of every army humanity may face - that is why the Imperial Army exists. I alone cannot defeat each leader and conqueror who might rise ten thousand fold across the galaxy’s breadth at any given moment - that is why the Legiones Astartes exist. And I alone cannot lead these forces and meet their many and varied needs across the full extent of our Imperium - that is why the High Lords exist, and why you my Primarchs were created.”

“If I did not wish for your opinion, this Council would never have been drawn. As it is, I know each and every person’s value, from the lowest menial to the highest marshal, and indeed to all in this room as I speak.” He paused as if considering this matter in brief. ‘Rest assured, you are all being heard, and you shall all be accounted for equitably when the time comes to offer my due.’

Lie. Thought Nimue.

A small part of Micholi was actually quietly amused by the very idea of someone believing he could still feel shame when he had long been the subject of jokes and hate from his siblings. But it didn’t appear on his face. Instead he politely bowed his head to Prometheus as he muttered “You are right, brother.” and then respectfully bowed his head to the Emperor before he turned to look at Nimue.

For the first time in… well, he suspected ever, he offered the sister that he was often at odds with an empathic gaze. “I believe we will have much to discuss between each other Nimue… but it will have to wait. The debate, after all, rages on and personal is not the same as important.” With that said, he turned to go and reclaim his seat in silence.

“So be it,” Nimue said, huffing, and returned to her seat.

Prometheus bowed deeply to the Emperor in thanks for his intervention and in part for his agreement. Prometheus’ voice returned to a soft and calm tone “Now, all this being said.. My dear sister Nimue does raise an important point. A portion of the Imperial Truth, the direct word of the Emperor indeed says these things. Both of these laws are contradictory, I for one heed the Imperial Truth over that of the Edict, if for no other reason than the Truth was written by the Emperor and the Edict wrought by Micholi.” Micholi the fool he seemed to say. Micholi the Primarch shamed for his foolishness. “However I would hear how these two concepts are compatible or how they are opposed.” As Prometheus returned to his seat he did pause near Micholi speaking loudly enough for all to hear. “And I would hear it from those who do not think me an inbecile.” He calmly continued and resumed his seat, implicitly granting the floor to all but Micholi.

“Brother.” Augor spoke after a heavy pause had descended across the chamber. With everyone turning to look at the Twelfth Primarch, his knelt posture and clasped hand spoke volumes - though the Primarch hastily rose and corrected his stance. “If the Omniss-” His voice halted, and he started over. “...As the Emperor has declined to speak on this matter, we can only be left with the conclusion that he permitted it to come to fruition for some purpose, even knowing that it contradicts the Imperial Truth. This is a certainty that his truest and most faithful servants within the Mechanicum have lived with since the reunification of the Second Primarch. Understand I do not seek to make light of your call or these deliberations, but to suggest that perhaps how the Imperial Truth and the Edict of Tolerance are meant to align, if at all, is not for us to know. Or perhaps we have been summoned here to this very Council in order to effectuate the final design of the Emperor as to this matter. Perhaps the Emperor has already made his decision, and this is all but a test of our resolve, our characters.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all of the Primarchs present.

“If I may, I would speak once more.” Said Ayushmatki, rising from her seated position. “If it is so that we are assembled here to debate the Edict of Tolerance and its relationship with the Imperial Truth, let it be so, and let us be to the point. It is my position, and the position of my Primarch that, if the Imperial Truth is truly based upon science, reason, logic, and the abolition of blind dogma - in the name of an enlightened future, then tenets of it must be likewise open to examination under such principles. The annihilation, or relegation to a position of chattel, of nonhuman species is certainly a defining tenet of the Truth. But why?” She looked around the room, silent for a moment. “If the Imperial Truth is not dogma, then this tenet of it must be open to examination and critique. Certainly, humanity will rule the stars - it is fair to say that our dominion over them is now almost total, in fact. However - that we must do it alone, destroying all else that is not like us - is such necessary?” She paused again, nodding to the Emperor, then to the rest of the room. “If we are to abandon dogma and embrace learning, then we must question all. And so it is that I question this. To those of you who oppose the Edict upon the grounds of the Imperial Truth’s assertion that the xeno is to be eradicated, why? For the mere reason that it is decreed as such? If so, it is little better than old religions of past years.”

The Council chamber suddenly boomed with acrimonious laughter. The Primarch of the Twelfth Legion howled with manic fervor, tears streaming from his hollowed eyes. Suppressing the outburst but still chuckling faintly, he then activated his podium’s voxcaster and spoke. “Behold and see my very speculations confirmed.” He chortled. “Not but mere moments after reminding the whole of this attending body of the purpose of this Council, another one amongst our number has turned whole to assail and question the Imperial Truth!” He let loose another gout of manic laughter, raising his head to the ceiling - and then abruptly turning his dead gaze to Ayushmatki, his expression wrought over with rancor. “It is very clear indeed. This surely must be a test of our resolve. Having received direction straight from the Sigillite as to the purpose for which this Council has been convened - to discuss either the retainment or the abolition of the Edict of Tolerance - those of us amongst our number, prey to the foibles of our own Human frailties and wracked with the most recreant and craven of tendencies - turn away from his very Will and instead cast doubt upon the very core and heart of not only the Imperium of Man, but the ethos of the Emperor himself.” He shook his head.

“You, Equerry, are out of line - and you will not live to see the Sun in Splendor ever again.” The threat flew through the air like a loosed arrow, visibly shocking and taking aback many of those in sitting in the galleries and observing.

“Augor, we’re not going to get anywhere with this discussion if every time we question the necessity of certain parts of the Imperial Truth you have to bark about your faith that none of the rest of us share, nor are allowed to be a part of. If anything, the fact that the Emperor was willing to make an exception to the Imperial Truth’s stance on religion in order to join forces with Mars at the start of the Crusade is grounds enough that he can change his mind on matters.” Micholi finally answered over his vox in a tired tone of voice.”Yes, the Mechanicum view is valid, but it is hard to have a scientific discussion when the documents you are discussing are considered sacred beyond reproach.”

“Your traitor tongue will soon join your eye-” Augor began.

“Augor,” Usriel barked, raising himself to discussion before his gaze turned to Micholi, “The Mechanicum may have been an exception to Imperial Truth at the time, however, the Mechanicum is human. Micholi, even you are considered blessed by the priests despite you now chastising them for their faith, not only in the Emperor, but also with the very sciences that keep a great many of the machines that all of our Legions use. Sciences that they continue to safeguard. Sciences that are endorsed by the Imperial Truth itself.” The Nineteenth Primarch continued after a brief moment of pause, “The Mechanicum’s basis is founded upon securing the knowledge of the Machine God, science. If you wish to plead for scientific discussion then the Mechanicum is one most knowledgeable in such things.”

“Usriel… you would defend this? This obvious treason, this breach of the Imperial Truth?” Nimue asked. “It so seems… To many here, or at least the representative of the Sixteenth, the Imperial Truth is negotiable. A truth that can be remade is no truth”. Nimue was laughing inside, laughing. The madness, the injustice. She would be condemned by those for her faith, for her love for her people’s faith in her - and yet here, a mere Equerry could spout treason directly to The Emperor without even censor.

“I defend the Imperium and the Mechanicum. As such,” Usriel stated in a cold tone, looking to Ayushmakti once more, “I would gladly deliver punishment for questioning His will, His Truth. However, she is not bound by the tenants of the Mechanicum, she is no priest. As such, she may speak her mind, no matter how much I desire to end her where she stands.”

“She is bound by the Imperial Truth! By her allegiance to the Imperium of Man and its laws!” Nimue shouted “Mechanicum or not!”

“She is bound by the Truth, yes. But tell me, Nimue, where in the Truth does it say that it cannot be questioned,” Usriel responded.

“By its enforcement! Those who break with the Imperial Truth are cast down into darkness, the Imperial Truth says this!”

“And has she yet broken the Truth?” the Nineteenth asked.

“Yes! Yes she has! She has already admitted to it! Did you not listen to her testimony earlier?!” The Seventh replied, enraged.

“No,” Usriel admitted, “However, if you cling to this with such zealotry then you have played into her point, Nimue. You wish for me to strike down a member of another Legion for merely speaking in a debate, one which would have come to the Imperial Truth being brought up. I despise to admit, it is she from the 777 worlds who would have the best objective view where I cannot.”

“You…. fool. It is not about what she has said! It is the greater meaning of its content. Eiohsa’s pet kingdom actively disregards the Imperial Truth, an astartes of her Legion actively calls for the abolishment of the superiority of humanity within the Imperial Truth, and all you do is protect her right to… ‘debate’? Could you imagine, if the roles were different? If this matter was concerning myself? No one would dare defend me”. The last statement by Nimue was, contrasting her shouting - much quieter. Resigned, sad even. She was witnessing the, in her view, injustice of the Imperial Truth, first hand.

The High Lords and other human representatives, for a time, were in quiet quarrel with one another over how, or indeed, whether, to interfere here. The tapping of Malcador’s gavel quieted the room outright, though.

“I see we have not, after all, progressed past our prior personal concerns,“ he murmured. “I believe an hour’s recess is in order; and when we return, it may be pertinent to select a fresh topic other than the Edict for a time.“ One more tap of the gavel officially ended the convening for now, but it was clear by his expression that he had yet to end his duty. “Augor, Nimue, may I speak with you in private?“ Even phrased as a question, it was clear this was an order of sorts. After a moment, he added “Usriel, if you might also join us, please.”

---

[...End Log.]
[...Terminating.]
[Imperial Thought for the Day: Suffer not the traitor amongst thy own. Tend to your own as to a garden, and cull that which is poison.]

The Llamrei hovered idly over the slowly moving mass that was the frontier world, Nikaea. The world that The Emperor had chosen for his Council on the Edict of Tolerance. The world, seemed to be chosen purely at random by The Emperor. Still, Nimue Arcadia, Primarch of the Seventh Legion, had arrived. She had missed the Triumph of Ullanor of course, but it was of no concern - really, if any of her daughters had taken part, it would have been a black-mark against them in the eyes of their sisters and certainly their Primarch.

While perhaps Nimue would have laughed at the comedy that was the numerous attempts to thwart the Second Legion’s disgraceful actions - she could not do so, not while that man was here.

The Emperor. She had not spoken to him in a great deal of time, and not for more than a few moments, moments to give new orders and reports of completed tasks. The last time that they had spoken at length was her arrival at Terra, before the Rangdan Xenocides. And before that… that day.

“My mistress” a voice softly said beside her, breaking her from her ruminations.

“The second session of the Council of Nikaea will likely commence soon. I am sure you have found the recordings of the first session most… enlightening?” the voice said. It was Nimue’s favoured aide and Equerry of the moment, Elizabeta, a daughter of one of the Autocrats of the Hive-World Krieg that the VII had made compliant.

“To be honest Elizabeta, little of what was said was anything I have not yet already heard or knew would be said”. Nimue replied.

“Then… surely this session will be more fruitful? My father has ensured me that his contacts have ensured a large pool of examples against the Edict… and that Adept with the models… And with so many of your siblings… Your father-”

“The Emperor”. Nimue cut her Equerry off then. She would forgive Elizabeta, as she was newer to her inner circle and so did not understand the complexities of The Emperor and the Primarch.

Her father, the one she loved and respected, was at Engraila still.

“The Emperor, then. Surely he will have to take this all into account?” Elizabeta spoke then, more hesitantly than before.

Nimue breathed in deeply, and was silent for a few moments, before finally deciding to speak again.“You will not repeat this, but I must inform you of certain truths. Micholi’s Edict… will never be dismantled. Presenting evidence to an emperor who certainly knows all the contents of the evidence already - who in fact is likely listening to this conversation as we speak, is futile. Nothing will come of this council. Micholi will speak of the Xenos as brothers, we will speak how we must suffer them not to live... The Emperor will conclude that we are both wrong and that of course it was always the purpose of the Imperium to make the xenos 'useful'. We will continue as the status quo".

“H-How could you possibly know this? Have you foreseen it?” Elizabeta gasped.

“One does not need to look into the threads of fate to see the outcome of this meeting. They only need to know the past. The Primarch of the Second Legion… is one of The Emperor’s favoured. He has been given more leeway and exceptions than any one of us, perhaps other than that hideously ugly thing they call Eiohsa. To remove the edict would mean destroying Micholi’s playthings… and even if the other Primarchs do not believe it, Micholi would fight and die for those things. He would choose them over us”.

“Then so be it!” The Equerry said confidently, having no more love for the Second Legion than her mistress.

“You forget, little one. This is The Emperor we speak of. He will not slay his favoured son over the complaints of us, any of us… let alone myself”. Nimue had no illusions to her own status amongst the twenty. That she was the least of them in The Emperor’s eyes. “We must sit, and perhaps rage against the winds, as Micholi makes a plaything of the Imperium” Nimue said, anger cold and restrained by defeat and resignation. “What would lead to my destruction in mere moments, the Emperor will permit his favoured many times over”.

“That is simply what it means to be a Primarch”.

A terrible and awkward silence followed, as the Equerry contemplated the words of her mistress, the hopelessness of their cause. From then, the Equerry and sevitor aids went to preparing for their appearance at the Council. The Equerry was present for her mistress’ changing, the Primarch demanding, as usual, that they dress her. She could certainly do so herself - but it was as tradition dictated. Usually they would talk idly of small matters, but after such a conversation this ritual was done in silence.

Nimue did not wear her usual translucent silks and jewellry. While her nakedness on Engraila as its Goddess or amongst other mortals was acceptable, as the engulfing light of her golden aura made her but a silhouette, amongst so many powerful figures beyond the scope of mere morals her aura would be significantly dimmed. She also did not wear the height of fashion as she would have otherwise wished to, something Sekhmetara would likely be disappointed in. Instead, she wore a bastardized fusion of a dress and ceremonial armour, decorative curaisse surrounded by frills and complex patterns of cloth.

The intention, at least, the Equerry theorised, was to convey the purity of her purpose: She was here for conflict, but amongst the elites of society rather than on the battlefield, where true Astartes armour would have been more appropriate. To Elizabeta, Nimue appeared impossibly beautiful in the ensemble… but then, to her, Nimue would likely be impossibly beautiful in anything.

Made ready now, the Equerry followed Nimue and a small gathered entourage for the flight down to Nikaea, and towards, what her Mistress believed to be a lost cause.

Year: 001.M31
The Homeworld of the Primarch Sarghaul, Carcinus
Eiohsa izva Bronakavh
Legio IX "Abyssal Lurkers"

---

---

With a shudder and a groan, the atmospheric transport pried itself from the floor of the hangar and lazily drifted out of the hauler's cavernous belly. It was an old, worn craft, crumpled like a carelessly abandoned piece of parchment on the outside and stinking of rust and moldy wood on the inside. Its engines sounded like they were about to give out in a whimper at any moment, and the whole metallic carcass creaked ominously as it plunged into the skies below, faintly warping in those corners where the outer insulation had grown threadbare dozens of entries ago. Yet it held together, whether thanks to the rugged strength of its construction or the little gilded icon that the pilot, in superstitious defiance of the Truth revealed to mankind, insisted on keeping in the cargo hold's most remote corner.

There was a resounding clang as the transport landed on firm soil, accompanied by a chorus of piteous wails from the battered craft. The sound of voices came from outside, an exchange of shouts which quickly descended to a distant murmur. The by now familiar speech of the Calixian haulers mingled with a new accent, a stream of long, drawn-out vowels punctuated by alternatingly explosive, hissing and guttural sounds.

Someone stepped into the dark hold, stumbled over one of the lower crates with a curse, then walked over to the rear doors and forced them open with an almost recalcitrant grinding noise. Fresh air streamed in, smelling of warm earth and sea, and with it a ray of blinding, unmerciful daylight - the dusty, brackish welcome of Carcinian summer. The day outside was clear and scorchingly hot, as though a vast crystalline focus had been placed beneath the planet's gleaming golden star. Faint, wraithlike clouds drifted far away in the distance, where the sound of rushing waves whispered from beyond a jagged line of squat sharp-leaved trees and aromatic shrubs. The landing pad was a rough square of dry earth surrounded by greenery, with only one side of the natural fence cut open by an unpaved road leading away towards a cluster of plain white buildings.

A young woman stood in the opening of the hauler, stretching her limbs in the glaring rays of the sun. She was of a tanned complexion, dark eyes scanning every inch of her surroundings with purpose, and dark hair that cascaded down her shoulders. She looked every bit the image of a Carcinian native - save for her clothing. Unmistakably clad in the attire of an offworlder, she needed to find some local clothing to blend in, in order for her mission to go successfully.

Eiohsa took a deep breath, allowing herself a moment of relaxation after the long trip across the galaxy, stowed away in hiding. It was not something she was accustomed to - or ever wished to become accustomed to. Hiding sat ill with her, and she would have far preferred to confront this world head on.

She snuck away from the hauler, doing her best to mingle with the crowd milling about the vessel. They were locals, with dusky skin and brightly coloured, coarse work clothes hanging baggily about their frames. No one paid her much heed, as just at that moment an alarmed murmur spread among them: “Governor’s coming!”

A group of four figures was approaching the landing pad, their size and the pace of their steps so incongruous with each other as to seem surreal at first glance. At their head was a short man, almost a head below his closer companions, hurrying ahead with a twitchy, impatient gait. His attire, though fine and well-tailored, was clearly trying to be sumptuous beyond its means: a relatively sober black silk ensemble was surmounted by an exaggerated, almost comically wide ruff around the neck, and his broad-brimmed hat was set with a green feather as long as his arm. The green kid gloves and rakish short cape behind his shoulders only added to the grotesquerie of this miserly display of excess. The face under the bobbing cap was thin and clearly aged, but fresh and combative, with sharp eyes over a hawkish nose and a slender mouth that looked ever ready to either curl into a sneer or break into a malignant smile.

The two following at his heels were far less striking. They wore carapace armour painted green and black, the colours matching those of their leader’s clothing, with visored helmets and regulation lasguns slung over their shoulders. Though the upper halves of their heads were hidden, their exposed jaws looked poorly shaved and far too pale to be Carcinus natives. One of them was smoking a drooping lho-stick.

The final shape loomed over the rest even as it lumbered in their tracks. It was a hulking ogryn, considerably fatter and burlier even than what was common among its gigantic kind. Its torso had been forced into an oversized version of the armour worn by the soldiers, but even its magnified proportions struggled to enclose the mass of lumpy sunburnt flesh. Arms like tree trunks erupted from beneath its shoulder guards, and where its abdominal plates ended a distended paunch wobbled outwards, barely contained at its base by a belt made from the grey hide of some huge sea creature. A monstrous ripper shotgun dangled from a bandolier at its side, as superfluous as any weapon would have seemed on the person of such a brute. The ogryn’s face was graced with a protruding lower jaw, crowned by an overgrown yellow tooth jutting out like a tusk, which gave it a peculiar look of dull ferocity.

The dockers recoiled as the short man stormed into their midst and cast an imperious glance about the pad and the craft’s interior.

“Well? What’s this? Was this scheduled?” His voice was unapologetically loud, snapping, as one could have expected from his features. The local Low Gothic rolled fluently in his mouth, but was overshadowed by a sour, grating accent.

“For the fields, Don Salluste,” the foreman ventured, shrinking more under the dignitary’s onslaught rather than the ogryn’s towering presence, “From the paper last fortnight.”

“Yes, yes, the fields,” Salluste scrunched his face without so much as looking his way, taking on a mock-lamentous tone, “I have nothing better to think about all day than some baubles you’re getting for the fields. I keep this whole sorry planet spinning on my old shoulders, and you ingrates expect me to know about the fields. What next, will you expect me to hold your hands while you till them?”

The murmuring crowd parted as Salluste and his cohorts made their way to the transport. Some had already begun to haul out the crates, but they were stopped by a gesture from the dignitary.

“Hold on, we’ll make order here,” he poked his predatory nose into the cargo bay and began to point almost haphazardly into the darkness, “That and that are for you, and that, that, that, and also that are for me…”

“Don Salluste!” one woman close to him exclaimed, “The town they’re setting up on Iirdna island, they’ll starve without this! What’s it good for to you?”

“I’ll sell it to them!” Salluste replied impassively, “If they need it so badly, they’ll pay well for it.”

“Pay with what?!” the crowd around the challenger parted, giving Eiohsa a better view of her. She was young, solidly built, and could have been beautiful even under her plain clothing were she not already worn by years of heavy labour. “They barely had a harvest this year and the sea’s full of lurkers, they haven’t two bones to scrape together!”

“Then I’ll make them pay double!” the governor grinned, “The poor are made to be very poor and the rich to be very rich, so there!”

The woman and a few others around her clenched their fists and seemed about to lunge at him, but a grunt from the massive ogryn stopped them in their tracks. The soldier who was smoking the lho-stick tossed it to the ground and emphatically ground it under his boot.

“What is it to you?” Salluste finally turned to look directly at the woman. She swallowed, but kept her fists closed and held the gaze of his glinting eyes.

“I’m from Iirdna. Came over the sea to make sure we take what we need.”

As she forced the words out of her throat, a man about her age, but a good deal leaner - he clearly had been eating poorly for some time - stepped forth from the group at her back and laid a calloused hand on her shoulder, as if to lighten the burden of Salluste’s prying gaze. She did not react in any visible way, but Eiohsa’s psychic acumen could feel a grateful warmth surging within her.

“Is that so?” the governor said at length, a mask of wicked desire spreading over his features. “Well, let it never be said that Marquis Salluste Leopold des Bazan-Saroyan is second to anyone in generosity, nay beneficence! I will cut the price by half, just for a small favour. Come along!”

With astounding swiftness and strength for his unassuming frame, he snatched the woman by her arm and roughly pulled her over. Her companion started after her, but Salluste made a grimace, and the ogryn lazily raised a hand and prodded the man in the chest with a finger, sending him sprawling on his back. He raised himself in time to see the woman shoot him a resigned glance before lowering her eyes as the two soldiers began to jostle her along. His shoulders slumped, and he remained sitting dejectedly where he was.

“Not you, you wouldn’t make the cut,” Salluste chastised him, wagging a gloved finger, before irately turning back to the staring crowd. “Well, what are you looking at?” he snapped, “Get on with unloading the goods, the way I said! If anyone lays a finger on my share I will have the lot of you flogged!” With a sweep of his cape, he spun about to leave the scene, but abruptly stopped still as his eyes fixated on Eiohsa’s figure at the edge of the clearing.

As she watched the scene unfold in silence, a feeling of utter revulsion crept over her with every passing second. To merely stand and watch mutely, to allow this to happen before her eyes, grated against every instinct she held, every noble aspiration she had held herself to through the years. This man, this thing in the guise of one, looked upon his own people with the rapacious hunger of a predator among sheep. Disgust at what she felt roiled within her, as did the urge to strike out and wipe him from this plane where he stood.

But she remained still, unmoving and unblinking. Eyes hard with burning hatred, she tried to shunt out the impressions he left upon her mind - it was imperative that she remain focused on her task at hand.

But as his gaze swept over her she felt it return with full force. Predatory hunger alighted upon her and roamed across her body. Surprise at the unfamiliar sight of her raiments. Germs of anger at this newcomer for not approaching to pay due tribute. Hunger - it was greater than some carnal craving to use the young people of his world for his own pleasure. It was bestial, feral - a starving beast that prowled among his own people, looking for the choicest cuts of meat to indulge in.

As his eyes met her, she remained still and silent, meeting his eyes that roamed across her hungrily with her own expression of purest revulsion.

“Who’s that over there?” Salluste pointed. The loaders around him shrugged. In a few trotting steps, he was before her, piercing eyes boring into her face from beneath his hat. “Where are you from? You don’t look like one of ours, not with that.” He gestured at her clothing, which looked starkly out of place outside the belly of a voidship.

“I am.” She replied. “Not all from this world are bound to it. I left years ago on a ship - much like this one.” She folded her arms, looking him up and down in turn. “I didn’t want to spend my life working some field. I’m sure you’ll agree, lord, that to turn down opportunity like that? I would have been a fool.” She gestured to herself. “And I was right! I’ve done well enough I came back to bring my family with me! Worry not - I can compensate you for your loss.” She forced a smile as she spoke, the tongue of Carcinus coming easily to her.

“Can you now?” Salluste arched an eyebrow. There was a note of suspicion in his voice, but he did not give it further course. “A bit of it goes by itself, you’ll have to catch up with the settlement tax… Your family is from these islands here, yes?”

She nodded. “Naturally. I left some fifty three years ago, now?” She grinned, “Rejuvenant treatments are a powerful thing! I barely feel a day older than I left. I know that those I left are surely gone - but even so those who live there now are still my family. I’d like to take them.” She gestured to a pouch on her hip, “I can cover whatever cost you need. If you could direct me to… whoever it is I need to speak to, for that? My humble apologies for taking up your time, lord.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” the governor crooned, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the nicely rounded satchel, “I will sort it all personally. We’re simple people around here, you know. Eh! Rejuvenat truly does work wonders. Come along, come along, we’ll see to it right away.”

He began to turn, beckoning for Eiohsa to follow him - and in a blink, with that same preternatural speed, his hand darted and pinched her appraisingly below the belt. In another blink he was already scurrying off with a sly smirk, the guards with their captive and the ogryn already on the path leading away from the pad.

Reflexively, she recoiled away from his touch, grimacing at the man. With a sidelong glance at those who surrounded her, and not wishing to cause a scene, she desisted from striking him in retaliation. And there was that… inexplicable speed again. That hunger with how his eyes prowled across her. It disturbed her - there was an inhuman wrongness that pervaded everything about the man, some alien touch that lingered on his person.

“Very well, then.” She forced herself to say, walking along in line with the other woman he had chosen.

The bare path through the stunty trees and tropical brush was not a long one, and soon the shining buildings were fully in sight. A small, but tasteful white-plastered mansion dominated from amid a carefully curated garden, lush with bright red and orange trumpet-flowers, with a pristine squat barracks not far away. A handful of figures in green and black uniform were milling about its entrance. On the other side of the road, a cluster of humble wooden houses, evidently belonging to the more well-to-do townsfolk, spread out in the direction of the distant ocean, growing increasingly poorer and barer the further they were from the governor’s demesne.

The group strode past the closest gate in the garden fence, previdently wide enough to accommodate the ogryn, and traversed a pathway paved in a mosaic of small polished stones and mollusk shells to the mansion’s doors. Salluste effortlessly pushed the heavy wooden panels open, ushering the group into an ample, well-illuminated hall with pale yellow walls. The Carcinian woman, who had kept a sullen silence along the way, raised her eyes and gave a scream as she stepped into the building, leaping back and ramming into the gut of the huge abhuman as he was struggling to fit through the portal.

Straight ahead, under the balcony of a converging stairway that ascended to the upper floors, a monstrous mass of spiny carapace loomed, scythelike pincers large enough to snap a person in half held menacingly open.

“Hah-hah! Recognize it?” Salluste chuckled, as the ogryn impatiently forced the woman ahead with a shove that nearly threw her face first to the floor, “Don’t worry, this one is dead. A gift from our illustrious patrons! They told me it was a true veteran who killed many hundreds of humanity’s foes. How’s that for you, eh?”

“A lurker,” the woman whispered to Eiohsa’s ear as she straightened herself, “A real plague around here. This must’ve been a servant of the deep children, Don Salluste made a pact with them.”

Eiohsa nodded, feeling her mind flooded with the terror the woman had felt at first sight of the thing. “I am familiar with them.” She said in turn, her tone hushed, but unable to conceal the distaste for the monstrous thing that loomed over them. “I had hoped that when I came home I would not need to see one. They are… as horrible as I remember.”

Trotting ahead of them, Salluste nonchalantly took his hat off and tossed it onto a chair. His head was mostly bald, but he was much younger than he had seemed from beneath the shadow of the brim, mature yet well within his prime. He opened a white door in the left wall and hurried the women through before shutting it, leaving the soldiers and the ogryn out in the hall.

The chamber the governor and his guests found themselves in was a good deal darker, being illuminated only by a narrow window set high in the wall. There was nothing within, not even a carpet, besides a simple wooden cot standing beside the entrance - and no other doors.

Without wasting time, Salluste began to undress. He snapped the ruffle collar open and laid it on the cot, then the cape, then the gloves, revealing crooked hands with hideously overgrown and filthy nails. Then he unbuttoned his black sleeved waistcoat and cast it off behind his shoulders in a grandiose motion that thrust his chest forward. Although he was manifestly in perfect physical shape for his age, the sight of his torso was a repellent one: a wide dark stain spread over the skin on his ribcage, scabby and rigid in a way that was nauseously reminiscent of insectile chitin. At the very center of this blemish lay a pendant of bone-grey stone, fashioned in the shape of an ornamental scarab and hanging from the governor’s neck by a thin silver chain. Unsettlingly enough, though the chain was plenty long, the jewel did not budge from its spot, as though it was glued to the diseased skin below.

The islander woman stared in mute disgust at the mark on Salluste’s chest, and thus she was caught entirely off-guard when he leapt upon her with tremendous vigour. They tumbled to the floor, the governor on top, the woman barely managing to avoid hitting her head. She tried to bring her hands up over her chest in vain resistance, but her eyes widened in surprise when Salluste ignored her motion entirely and clasped his gnarly fingers around her throat. Surprise turned to horror as he opened his mouth, wide, wider than a human jaw had any right to be. Though no true physical change had come over it, the creature crouched on top of her like an incubus was no longer the sneering, choleric nobleman she had addressed on the landing pad, but a nightmare of ripping nails, burning eyes and that mouth, a mouth that seemed to swallow the whole room into an abyss ringed with monstrously sharp teeth.

The feeling of the consciousness - of the soul of a man, no matter how twisted, being overridden by whatever strange alien works had twisted his body was a deeply repulsive one. It was as though some vile thing older than humanity itself welled up from within him, consuming him, enveloping his being and warping him into the horror that now crouched poised to devour the woman beneath him. Despite herself, a wriggling worm of eldritch horror planted itself in her mind at the sensations that assaulted her mind, and she retched, staining the floor beneath her as she fell to one knee.

This would not do. She looked up at the thing, Warp lightning crackling in eerie blue streaks between the fingers of the disguised primarch as she stood, appalled at what played out before her. This world… nothing was right about it. Nothing was as it seemed within Carcinus. The thing that wore the skin of a man hunched over its would-be victim, the gaping maw of nightmarish teeth and the rending claws. She had come to the world to stay hidden, to infiltrate it and to uncover the truth of what horrors she had been told of. But she could not stand by and watch - the blue glow grew as she prepared to incinerate the thing before her - but before she could, she sensed the approach of another. One of the Ninth Legion approached within the hall, the odious mindset of one of the Astartes from the depths of Carcinus unmistakable.

Swiftly, she changed her tact, summoning her strength and rushing forward to body slam the thing off of the islander woman. “Off of her!” She bellowed with as much volume as the lungs of a mortal woman could muster. “Get off of her you monster!” She grabbed the woman, pulling her to her feet and towards the heavy doors of the chamber. The aberration turned to her with a hissing screech and grasped at her shoulder, its nails tearing through her clothes and into her skin beneath.

The door slammed open, and the dull face of the ogryn guard peered in. The creature sprang to its feet, and all of a sudden the monster was gone. There was only Don Salluste, who winced in irritation and snapped at the intruder, “What? What now?!”

“Duh, big man’s here,” the ogryn mumbled in a cavernous voice, “Blue one.”

“Ah, peste! He just had to come right now!” Salluste bounded over to the cot and began to pull on his waistcoat. Without stopping to button it any further than needed to cover the deformity on his chest, he slipped on his gloves and hurried out of the room. “Watch these two!” was the last the women heard from him before he slammed the door shut and his footsteps skittered away into the hall.

Eiohsa waited scarcely a second before she turned to the islander woman - Alethia, her name was, checking her over for injuries. To her relief, what little there was was superficial and would heal quickly. She felt no serious pain from the woman, only pure terror and confusion. She knew she had been seconds from a grisly death, and she stared blankly back at Eiohsa.

“We need to leave.” Eiohsa whispered to her, pulling her to her feet. “I cannot yet, but you need to leave. Now.” She looked up towards the Ogryn standing out of the room, extending a finger towards him as she plucked the memories from the feeble mind within, twisting them within her grasp before she snuffed them from existence. “He will not see us.” She whispered, more urgently. “I do not know what is wrong with your planet, Alethia. But I intend to find out. Hear me now - whatever has corrupted your world will be brought to light.” She turned towards the hallway, pulling her along with her. “And certainly, I will not be leaving you here for that thing to devour.”

She stole down the hallway, turning around once to re-wipe the ogryn’s memory, before pulling Alethia to the side and into a small room. “Wait here, I will return for you. No harm will come to you, you have my word.”

The woman could only nod, evidently too stunned by what had transpired in the previous few minutes to so much as open her mouth.

Eiohsa nodded, giving her a brief pat on the shoulder before she left the room, ensuring it was locked from within before she crept down the hallway towards the signatures of the governor - the alien presence having retreated within him once more - and the Abyssal Lurker who had interrupted him.

She took a deep breath, before her form shifted around her, shrinking down to a tiny, miniscule creature that scuttled with supernatural speed along the floor towards its destination. She positioned herself in a small corner, out of sight, and listened.

“...in order,” Salluste was saying in a querulous voice, “I told you people that Major Juvier is your contact for the aspirant tithes, why do you keep coming here?”

“The Major is surveying the orbital stations this month,” an inhumanly deep voice, distorted by a heavy metallic helmet, replied, “You said so yourself.”

“Ah, yes, yes,” the governor’s tone grew irritated, anxious to sweep away his misstep, “So he is. Well, remember to ask him next time. That will be all.”

“Another matter,” the inhuman voice flatly interrupted, “The implantation stock.”

“That is not for me either!” Salluste became plaintive again, “Sergeant Moetz is the one you want! He was the one going around, gathering up all those orphans. Fie, but what a waste. Give them a few more years and they would have been paying taxes, good taxes…”

“The administration will be compensated as necessary.”

“Not for me, I tell you that’s not for me, take that to Moetz! He will know what to do with it all.”

“Then it will be done.”

There was the scraping of a chair against the floor, and the closest door opened. Salluste hurried out and up the stairway, still buttoning the ends of his waistcoat as he went. Behind him, twisting sideways to fit through the doorway, trudged a towering figure, encased in deep blue power armour like a crustacean in its shell. An Umbra-pattern bolter was clamped to its hip, alongside a combat knife that could have easily passed for a shortsword in lesser hands. The giant swept the hall with the inexpressive gaze of its helmet’s aquamarine eye-slit, the ogryn standing guard at the opposite end raising a clumsy military salute as it did, and strode out the door in long, perfectly even steps.

Eiohsa did not know the full context of what she had heard, did not understand the specifics of what it was that the Abyssal Lurker and the governor had spoken of - but she had heard enough. Enough to know that she would have to follow him, and descend to the depths of Carcinus herself.

Silently, still in the disguised form of a small creature, she followed behind him, keeping pace with the giant’s stride as she darted from cover to cover, waiting for the opportune moment to strike, when nobody could see.

She followed him out from the mansion and towards the oceans from which he must have come. Scurrying between rocks and foliage to keep herself concealed, her mind raced over the possible meanings of what she had overheard within the mansion. Implantation stock? Orphans being taken for such? A picture of the atrocities that must surely be taking place beneath the waves of Carcinus began to form within her mind, a picture she prayed desperately would not come to pass. To think that even Sarghaul could order such things, or tolerate them, was difficult to believe. Indeed, had she not stood in the presence of her daughter’s twisted form herself, she would scarcely have believed that such horrors were possible at all.

They were nearing the beach now. The vast, imposing sea lapped gently against the beaches of the island. Shores of fine, gravelly sand, dunes crowned with hardy grass and flowering thorns, stretched on to the horizon just as did the endless oceans of the world. To many it would have been a beautiful sight - but to one who grew to adulthood knowing only the twisting confines of the underhive, it remained ever a perplexing and baffling experience. That the Ninth Legion might choose to base themselves beneath it, deep within the crushing pressures of the depths, was more baffling by far.

With a glance about her, she was satisfied that they were well and truly alone. None would witness what was to unfold.

The Abyssal Lurker ahead of her suddenly halted in his tracks, frozen in place as if caught in still image. No matter how hard he would strain or fight against it, he was powerless against the sudden, inexplicable force that held him motionless in place.

Behind him, Eiohsa stood, returning to the form of a mortal woman she had taken on as a guise on this island. She walked around to the front of him, feeling his muscles straining and quivering against her psychic grasp. Try as he might, with the incredible power of Astartes muscle and power armor, strength that could lift small vehicles was powerless against the diminutive woman who stood before him, watching him with an expression of purest loathing. She raised her hand, and the clasps and seals that held his helmet in place on his armor began to release themselves one by one, water gushing out over his body as they did, until at last the bald, bleached head of the man beneath was revealed as his helmet fell from him. His face was that of a statue, blank and stolid, ageless.

A dull thud sounded as she forced him down, kneeling before her. Every fiber of her being was filled with the stale, oppressive sense of emptiness she felt from the man. Her lip curled in distaste, before she placed her palm upon the clammy, warm skin of her prey.

Memories flashed through her mind as she ripped them from his. There was nothing before implantation. A blank void that gave nothing and held nothing. Like most of the Legion, the man had been stripped of his identity, reshaped into yet another one of the nightmare spawn of Carcinus. The trials of the Abyssal Lurkers. Wandering through the depths of Carcinus, mapping its forbidden undersea landscapes. Wars with scores of monstrous foes that blended together in an amorphous, bristling cacophony. Flashing teeth and claws. The light of alien weapons gleaming through the dark as the Abyssal spawn tore them asunder with claw and bolter. Hearing of the conflict upon Pyotrskov. The arrival of prisoners of the Sixteenth Legion. Eiohsa’s breath caught in her throat, and she drew back temporarily, steadying herself.

The sight of her Daughters, broken, drugged, treated like mere animals, was a harsh one to bear. Golden tears spilled upon the sandy ground as she turned her eyes away from the stunned Astartes before her. The blood that oozed from wounds that would never heal. Hollow, tortured eyes. Many of them already showed signs of experimentation. Others showed the fresh wounds from geneseed extraction performed en-route...

She suppressed a sob, before turning back to the man before her, forcing her hand back to his forehead as she tore through his mind once more. Imagery flashed before her with lightning speed now as she ripped his being apart inch by inch. Flashing imagery of the warped frames of the daughters of the sixteenth. Foreboding catacombs of despair beneath the waves. Horrors beyond horror. Warped, crablike monstrosities that begged for death from Sisters who could not deliver them. Dissections upon medical tables. The tapering of supply, and the sudden influx of new test material. Orphaned girls from the surface taken in cages and forcibly implanted with the Sixteenth’s geneseed. Forced into the forms of Astartes, and then forced into the same experimentations as those who had become sisters. Her daughters. Cruel vivisections. Experimentation for inexplicable designs. The limits of human sanity and capacity for cruel discovery pushed to the breaking point. The smell of viscera and decay that permeated, mixed with the heady stench of utter, raw despair. The rows and rows of cages holding the men and women who had become Infestus, some of whom still retained a glimmer of cognizance and incoherently begged for death. Begged for the Emperor’s true Space Marines who would deliver them from this nightmare.

Eiohsa collapsed to her knees, weeping. Before her knelt the catatonic form of what had been an Astartes. She did not know how long she lay upon the sands, but it seemed to her as though the time stretched on ad infinitum. How could she have allowed this to happen? Her daughters - following her orders, fighting for her ideals. Forced into this horror? This fate worse than death? How horribly she had failed them.

At length, however, she rose. Unsteady on her feet, she refocused her eyes, red from tears, on the thing before her. She set to work, stripping him of his armor and stashing it where it could not be found. The husk that remained she killed with a simple movement of her hand, severing the arteries that fed his brain. The body was destroyed, rendered into a fine paste of meat and bone that she cast into the sea to be devoured by the things of Carcinus.

With a final shudder, she turned from the grisly scene - she would need to infiltrate the headquarters of the Ninth Legion itself. That much was evident. But first, she would need to rescue the islander woman - Alethia - from the governor’s mansion, and ensure she would leave the planet with her.

She crept silently back into the mansion in the guise of a mouse once more, making her way to the room she had left her in. Within she still felt the terrified presence of Alethia. Not wishing to risk detection before absolutely necessary, she crept beneath it in the same guise of a mouse, before returning to the same form she knew her by, raising a hand pre-emptively to silence any sound she might make. The woman stared at her with painfully wide eyes and made a quick sign with her left hand, but her mouth remained shut.

Eiohsa nodded gratefully. “I can explain fully. Every single question you have, and more, I will answer to the best of my abilities and more as soon as I can.” She cast her senses around her, feeling for anyone nearby - and sensing none. “But that must wait. I have a mission ahead of me, deep beneath the ocean. You will gather your family and whoever you wish to take with you from this world. Follow me.”

She stood, unlocking the door and pulling the terrified woman along behind her as she once more crept from the mansion and into the warm air of Carcinus. They slipped past a few soldiers idling about, whose heads would turn at the perfect moment to miss their approach, stole through the sparse groups of locals who ventured out in the afternoon sun, until arriving near the landing pads of what passed for the capital’s starport.

Eiohsa pressed a purse filled with currency into the hands of Alethia. “Like I said. Everyone you want off this world. Meet me here tonight. I cannot risk being found. Tell nobody of what you have seen. Only that great fortune has befallen you and you can leave for a better life, understand?”

“It’ll have to do,” the woman finally managed in a husk of her voice, before quickly nodding in gratitude and disappearing along the path that led to the clearing.

As she watched her go, Eiohsa silently whispered a traditional prayer for safe passage beneath her breath, before turning to face the oceans of Carcinus once more.

---

The island chain did not lie upon a single bank, but emerged from the waves of the boundless global ocean in sparse order, as the highest peaks of some immense antediluvian mountain chain whose slopes had never once seen the light of day in the world’s history. While few could have seen this from the surface, it became increasingly apparent as one stepped into the waters and waded away from the shore with the heavy feet of a bottom-dweller. The seafloor dropped sharply down in a series of narrow terraces, each longer than the last. Clumps of meaty algae clung to the sunken mountainside like alpine shrubs, sinking into a myriad cracks in the stony surface, and tall thickets of swaying reedy seaweed rose from the sand that had accumulated on the more even stretches.

All around, the ocean teemed with life. Every gently undulating stalk crawled with small carapaced shapes, almost invisible until stirred by a sudden current, or else almost provocatorily colourful in venomous tones. Every unsettled grain of sand seemed to reveal a segmented worm creeping along on dozens of hooked legs, or a cheerfully bright sea-slug, or a burrowing dome-shaped rock tick. Imposing spires of coral growth swarmed with a myriad self-contained miniature ecosystems. Clouds of shimmering plankton drifted overhead, festooned with garlands of needle-like silvery creatures frozen at an odd intersection between fish and mollusk. Huge, placid nautiloids sailed by like small moons crossing a starless sky. Indistinct shadows that could have been many times larger yet flitted by far in the distance now and again, and the jagged silhouettes of charybdes clambered up sheer inclines without regard for the blind drop below.

The form of an Astartes was always a strange one to take on, especially one not of her own blood. Somewhere between human and Primarch, a peculiar middle ground belonging to neither and existing as its own, distinct, unnatural aberration. The body of a man or woman changed for the purest pursuit of war. Shaped into a living weapon, an instrument of conquest. The body of a Primarch was a warrior, surely - but just as with humanity itself it was so much more. The Astartes were weapons, many like the Ninth wiped of all thought or memory that did not serve such a task. The unfamiliar skin of the Abyssal Lurker was as alien as the living fossils that surrounded her in the forbidden, shadowed depths of Carcinus. In this foreign body, filled fresh with the memories of a foreign mind, she was but one more supervenient insect crawling through the depths ignorant of what timeless horrors might lurk out of sight.

Wading ever deeper along the ocean floor, every step a struggle against the watery immensity, she could faintly sense, guiding her way, a growing signature of… souls. Deep within these frigid, stygian waters, she had held some subconscious notion that there could not truly be a fortress for the entire Legion. That these ancient, hostile waters would crush any impudent enough to think themselves fit to challenge its mastery. That the simple resource cost to produce such an edifice would dissuade them, and result in its construction occurring on land.

But, then, perhaps practicality was not the approach to take in regards to the Abyssal Lurkers.

Her mind swam with the horrific images she had ripped from the mind of the Lurker on land. Some part of her denied that it could be true. That not only could Astartes inflict such horrors on another, but that a human could do such to another living being at all. She knew, objectively, this to be fool’s thoughts. But she had lived her life in accordance with the values of mercy, understanding, peace, and prosperity. Those inclinations towards cruelty she had felt through life - her own and those of others - filled her soul with a green mire of disgust.

Upon Kayaamat, as she had studied, she had felt the completion of her soul in her hours of quiet contemplation. It was her duty to safeguard and to defend. To enlighten. To build up. Upon Terra, as she had studied, she had felt the Emperor’s impositions grating against her. It was to be her duty to subjugate and conquer. To destroy. To annihilate. She had warred within herself at this conflict, and had concluded the Emperor was both right and wrong. She would subjugate and conquer that she might safeguard and defend. She would destroy those who threatened enlightenment. She would annihilate those who sought to tear down what she had built up and what she would build up. In service to humanity and to all Good souls whose fate lay within the golden Empyrean, would she live her life.

And then she had met her Brothers. Fools, brutes, living weapons, or some combination of the three. Only a spare few among them had seen her for what she was. She had dreamed of knowing her Sisters - and known none of them until the trauma of the Rangdan had stolen the light from life. She had dreamed of knowing her siblings, the 19 other children of the Emperor - only to be met with barbarism. But none could surpass the Tartarean, the dreaded behemoth. Was he truly a Primarch, she had wondered, or some cruel facsimile clad in the skin of one, dredged up from the eldritch, menacing depths of long lost nightmare Carcinus. To be near him filled her with disgust and dread. To know of his word moreso. What ancient secrets lost to all but the most dreadful and dark of fevered dreams spoken of in elegiac Remembrances filled these waters? What further cruelties awaited the lost members of her Legion, beyond the horrors of human evil, could this infinite vastness steeped in long forgotten demoniac energies bring?

Her path, half-glimpsed along the rim of the descending sandy banks, half-reconstructed from the Lurker’s reflexive memory, far vaguer than true recollection, wound down along the side of the mountain and across what must have been a wide plateau stretching out away from the island and towards the open sea. Though covered in a shroud of creaking sand and millenary pulverized shells, the elevated rocky plain was far from even. Small hills and gulches cast fragments of oily shadow like black stains in the otherwise clear water. Lesser peaks broke past its surface here and there, stillborn islands that had failed to break free of the ocean’s crushing grasp.

Time flowed strangely in this silent world. It could have been little more than an hour, or perhaps several, when the visible path came to a clear divergence. One branch seemed to wind up the side of the closest colossal natural pillar, disappearing somewhere behind its bend, while the other plunged into a shallow crevice, surmounted by an irregular roof of jutting rock spurs. Most disorientingly, the already indistinct memory trail grew badly blurred here, and the spiritual beacon of the sunken fortress was yet too distant to clearly indicate a choice. Only a suggestion of deepening stripes of shadow seemed to hint that the second pathway may have been the right one.

Eiohsa spared but a moment to analyze the paths, the sudden divergence from the norm jarring her from the fugue that had been slowly building within her mind over time. She did not know how long she had been wandering within the catacombs of epochs past. The miasma of the deep permeated everything, and even to a Primarch these alien waters were horrible and forbidding.

She looked around through the murky waters of the deep, before setting off down the second path, picking her way gingerly through the crevice ahead. The yawning maw of jagged stone and eons old fossils enveloped her, and she continued on towards the fortress.

The crevice steadily deepened and widened into a gulch, then eventually into a small valley. The path was left clinging to one of its sharply sloping sides, veering sideways as it grew to a sizable circular depression that had been invisible from the mouth of the crack. It sank down to the right, almost perfect in its shape, perhaps a crater from the planet’s youth. Clusters of seaweed and coral dotted it as in a simulacrum of a true mountain vale. As if to complete the picture, a large metallic structure, clearly manmade, rested amid a wide thicket near the very center. Only the large black-striped fish, long and thin like animate flags, stridently broke through the similarity.

Near the facade of the building, a wide, squat complex of connected square structures topped with domes, a few dim shapes were rooting about in the penumbral murk. Despite the distance, Eiohsa’s transformed eyes, acclimated to the darkness, were able to distinguish some features. A grasping limb. A turning head. A chillingly human-like silhouette loping among the corals.

Eiohsa stopped dead in her tracks, watching the lurching form ahead in dead silence. A million hypotheses raced through her mind at the sight of it. Could it be one of the accursed infestus of the Legion? Some long forgotten thing that crawled and scuttled through these shifting undersea wastes in search of food?

She reached out with her mind, only to be surprised by its… unremarkability. The humanoid things that lurched around the building seemed to be, in what little they had for a mind, to be indistinct from the fish and sea life that surrounded them. In the warp their signature was faint, barely there - just one more facet of the terrible mosaic of Carcinus’ oceans. Nearby, she felt something different - more distinct, more intense. She turned towards it - before the jerky, sudden movements of the thing she had studied caught her eye once more and she cast her attention back over to it for a moment.

A wave of the hand, and the figure was grasped in psychic energy that pulled it inexorably towards the disguised form of the Primarch. She resumed her movement towards it as it neared, and near her head, a bright, glowing orb appeared. It cast a harsh, glaring light that cut through the gloom of the abyss, and revealed the thing in full detail.

A squamous greenish-blue shape flashed before her, a rush of long finned arms, stumpy bent legs ending in webbed feet, an elongated gibbous head, like that of a frog or a fish, with lidlessly staring glassy eyes.

Then it disappeared into a cloud of silt. Startled by the sudden glare, the creature twisted about, despite the invisible force still pushing it forward, and clawed at the seafloor under its feet. A rush of sand erupted around it, cloaking it from the unmerciful light.

Behind it, two other shapes were approaching in long, running bounds. The detritus they kicked up as they leapt concealed most of their bodies, but from the brief glimpses that shone through they greatly resembled the first being, though one of them was a far lighter shade of green. They brandished long, slender objects in their flabby hands - spears made from bamboo-like seaweed stalks, with sharpened stones or sea-beast teeth tied to their tips.

Eiohsa’s lips turned in revulsion at the thing, rubbery and loathsome in whatever evolutionary path had lead it to be like this. She cast it aside, pushing it through the water to where it had once been, and uttering a silent expression of her disgust.

Her eyes turned towards the new threat, and she raised her hand, halting them in their tracks and suspending them motionless in the water. Their spears were pried from their grasp as she trudged through sand and silt formed over millions of years to the strange entities before her. She racked her brain, searching through the blurred, almost inhuman memory of the Lurker for an answer - what were these?

The figments of the foreign mind did not yield much. Evidently, this particular son of the Ninth only had a superficial awareness of those inhabitants of the ocean. Mere half-remembered traces swam before her inner eye, sparse mentions of a supposed abhuman race, or even several breeds, native to the planet. Doubts on whether it was too debased to even be considered human to any degree. On its relation to pelagers and other similar strains. On its origins, calculated or accidental. Hypotheses of a rudimentary civilization in deeper abyssal caverns. Nothing definite, except an oddly salient thought that their natural lifespan was difficult to determine even with thorough dissection.

Eiohsa looked away from the repulsive things, crushing them to a paste with an offhand motion. She resumed her march towards the buildings looming ahead, making mental note to ensure a full investigation of this species. The thought that humanity might fall along such an evolutionary path demanded further study. But her mind was focused solely upon the task at hand.

She trudged along, eyes fixated upon her target. Soon she would discover the truth of what lay buried within these oceans.

The closer she came to the building, the more signs of age she saw over it. Though untouched by rust, its metal was stained and darkened, overgrown with tenacious algae around the corners. The domes on its roof were scratched, bent inwards by stones fallen from the underwater mountains centuries before. Large breaches ran through the wall that faced her, revealing nothing but darkness beyond.

Then something moved inside. The presence she had felt nearby had stirred upon the death of the ichthyoid creatures, and now it was rapidly growing larger, brighter. There could be no mistake - it was a great psychic force, perhaps one to eclipse even the disciples of a Legion's Librarium.

A hulking shape burst out from the cracks in the metal. Far larger than the form Eiohsa had assumed, it was akin to the marine beings, but swollen to grotesque size. Covered in glistening cerulean scales, it moved in a blur, its stooped legs propelling it through the water with impossible force. Its long ape-like arms ended in webbed claws, and as it leapt it soundlessly snarled with the enormous, toothy maw of an anglerfish below dish-sized inexpressive eyes.

The force of the current of water generated by the creature’s charge knocked the disguised Primarch to the ocean floor. She impacted with a thud, cushioned by the water as her fall was, and whirled to face the creature that had emerged. “Se spen a khutil!” She hissed, reflexively, pulling the large knife she had looted from the corpse of the Lurker, and charging.

The monster made no motion to turn aside her lunge, and as they collided in mid-bound the point of her knife found the underside of its ribcage. But it went no further. Under her blade, the being's scaly hide seemed to have hardened beyond tempered metal, so that even the knife's monomolecular edge could not penetrate it. The shock of the interrupted motion only had a moment to register, however, for the creature's hands came slamming against her head like clubs, preternaturally heavy and so fast they were a mere flash at the edge of her vision.

Even for the unnaturally swift mind of the Sixteenth Primarch, the thing moved with a speed and precision that seemed nearly impossible. The world swam before her from the force of the impact. She snarled, launching herself backwards from the thing as she summoned her psychic might, gathering it behind the cyclopean stones that had spelled ruin for the structure and pulling them towards herself - and the creature - at enormous speed. The boulders, eroded by age and shattered by the bygone collapse as they were, remained massive, and veritable storms of silt and startled fish whipped around as they were lifted from their resting places.

Their imposing mass did not go unnoticed by the squamous being itself. A spark of awareness lit up in its hideously large eyes, and in a moment it was hurtling away from Eiohsa and straight towards one of the rocks. The water began to churn around the great mass as an inexplicable reddish glow began to radiate from it, followed by a wave of boiling heat. Unflinching, the creature plunged straight through the center of the boulder, parting its softened bulk like a pickaxe, and in a leap disappeared among the swaying thickets of seaweed.

Heavy breathing followed its disappearance, Eiohsa’s eyes wide in absolute, total bewilderment at what had just taken place. It was not a feeling she enjoyed, nor the eerie, aberrant stillness that ensued hung over the scene in an oppressive cloud.

She pushed on warily, scanning the area surrounding her with every second that passed. There was no more time that could be spent trudging through this mire in blind pursuit of her goal. Psychic energy manifested around her, and she propelled herself through the water towards her target.

The metallic structure's wide front door was closed, the mechanism keeping it under lock still functional despite its long abandonment, but the numerous cracks and breaches in the walls - some bearing the signs of heavy labour ordnance - offered easy access to its interior. The fish-creatures had likely been there with the intent to ransack it, but whatever there might ever have been of interest within was long gone. All that remained was a bare, dreary maze of chromed rooms and corridors, with what furnishings had survived due to their steely composition being waterlogged and covered in barnacles. Amid the gloom and ruin, dead machinery had become indistinguishable from desks and lockers. Small crustaceans scurrying from one corner to another were the abandoned building's only masters.

Eiohsa examined the ruin with the dispassionate eye of the otherwise occupied. Ancient machinery, so corroded and lost to the ravages of time and decay that even she could not understand its purpose or make, blended with the remains of a long dead civilization. Perhaps, in a better world, this site would have attracted archaeologists and scholars, curious to unearth the remnants of the past. Now - it served only as the rotting, skeletal husk of better days.

She pushed herself out of the empty shell of the building, and set course through the water towards her main objective in the distance, hurtling through the water propelled by psychic energy. The other, true branch of the diverging path - for the dimmed memory had been misleading - climbed a high pass between two rising peaks and wound down, over a broad ledge and beyond its lip, further into the darkness below. It would have taken hours more of travel on foot, perhaps a day, perhaps even longer. At length the path became a curving protrusion along the sheer flank of an almost cylindrical massive. She followed its turn in a vertiginous loop, and at last, upon reaching the end of the forbidding wall of rock, she saw it.

In the archives of Terra there were records of an ancient city, since long vanished, by the name of Mediolanum. At its heart there had once stood a great temple of one of the old faiths, with a facade emblazoned with thirteen archways and crowned with well over one hundred sharp spires. The sight that now opened before Eiohsa’s eyes was in some ways reminiscent of the depictions she had seen of that venerable relic, but while the mass that rose towards her along the side of the mountain was less ornate than the great temple had been, it so dwarfed it in magnitude that the mind struggled to find a scale of comparison.

The basalt fortress of Dis sprouted from the peak like a black, spiny parasitic growth, resting its foundation on the edge of a wide shelf far below. The high-ridged enormity of its central nave, like the backbone of some impossible leviathan, scraped the lower slopes, and all about it, interspersed with the ungainly metallic tumours of surfaceward defense batteries and emergency void-shield generators, rose a forest of spearlike pointed towers. From her vantage point, Eiohsa could see that they were arranged along a symmetrical concentric design of rough nested circles.

Instantly, her mind filled with various plans of attack, analysis of the construction and layout of the fortress below, the design patterns and technical readouts of the weapons and shields arrayed below flashed through her mind, arrayed against a catalogue of known Imperial models. Despite her hatred for the Ninth Legion, she could not help but be impressed by the formidable fortress that sprawled before her.

The path now sharply turned down, along the cliff that ran parallel to the stronghold's elevation, and became similar to an alpine stairway, folding time and again upon itself. The walls of the closest outer towers became visible as she wound down along it, and she could see that they as well were encircled by a carved spiralling walkway. There was no railing along its exterior side - a misstep would have been a hopeless plunge from the vertiginous height. Facing onto it from the wall were innumerable doors, rings upon rings of them, featureless reinforced slabs with large gaps above and below for water to pass freely. Some of them were open, revealing spacious but bare windowless cells. Superhumanly large armoured figures sat in cross-legged poses inside, either asleep or absorbed in meditation. A few were directly on the walkway before the doors of their receptacles.

Further down, the grounds beyond the fortress began to slowly grow visible. The shelf was an even plain stretching away into impenetrable darkness, writhing with curious growths, algal trees and monstrous sea anemones. Fearsome shapes stalked across it on spindly legs. Even the wildlife swimming above it seemed hardened, vicious. Predatory seawurms with silky sails undulating along their tubular sides chased pale, barrel-like fish with atrophied eyes, and sinister bioluminescent lures flitted around like will-o'-the-wisps over a graveyard.

At last the cliffside ended, and the path disappeared into the soil. Close, to the right, there awned the gateway into the fortress. A cyclopic archway gaped like the mouth of a primordial cavern, great enough to swallow a Warhound Titan whole. Its tremendous doors, worthy of a spot on a warship's hull, were swung wide open. At its sides there towered two gargantuan charybdes, monstrosities mighty enough to tear a Knight Dominus limb from limb, with nests of autocannons, torpedo tubes and siege guns bristling on their backs. A score of legionnaires, themselves immobile as sculpted rocks, stood watch near them.

On foot now, she approached the mighty fortress. In spite of everything, she felt her jaw slacken slightly in awe within the now water filled helmet. The cyclopean citadel towered over her, an aberrant shard jammed into the carcass of an antediluvian past. She walked briskly towards the soaring megalith that loomed ahead, her feet treading heavily in the path worn over centuries by countless armored boots.

The dreaded Charybdes sent a ripple of disgust down her spine at the sight of their repugnant, warped forms. Changed, just as the Ninth had done to humanity itself, into twisted mockeries of what they once were. In service to the Great Crusade they fought alongside the most foul of the Emperor’s creations. She grimaced, and turned her attention to the Astartes manning the gate as she neared, stopping short of them as she awaited their response.

One of the sentries slowly turned his head by a fraction of an angle to look at her. His invisible eyes ran the length of her armour, a motion intuited rather than perceived. Then, his hands left the grip of his bolter, which drifted down to its magnetic clamp on his belt.

Your weapon is not adapted. His gestures formed into the laboriously recognized forms of the Ninth Legion's wordless code signatum. Not only was the rote, mechanical knowledge of that alphabet hazier than conscious memories, but the Lurker ahead of her was not deliberately stretching his movements out as for an outsider, but spoke to her as to an equal - briskly, glossing over some less vital curves. Some nuances were lost to her, such as the nonetheless easily guessed implicit question why?

That was, in truth, a further exacerbation of the same flaw. For any blooded Lurker, switching between combustible and gas-propelled round magazines when entering the water was more than an instinct - it was a reflex, never truly voluntary, but taken at face value the rare times it was noticed, like the act of breathing or putting one foot before the other to walk. In the barrage of sights that had assailed Eiohsa when she had first probed the mind of the body she now inhabited, such a minutia had been altogether invisible, and she had not inherited it along with the Lurker's thoughts and genes. However, it seemed that it was after all no less important than those two.

She watched the hand-signs and fluid motion of the Lurker ahead of her with a detached, analytical interest. Piecing together missing fragments of information drifting within the disparate threads of thought she had pulled from the Lurker on the surface.

A fool. She was a fool. Of course they would have had munitions for underwater combat. She became aware of them now, and of the conversion to the rifle he asked about. Silently, she cursed herself for such oversight. There was no easy route out of this - few explanations could suffice for an oversight that a full blooded Lurker would have never made. She would have to, once more, rely upon the powers of the Empyrean.

I encountered difficulties on my return to the fortress. She signed back, emulating what subtleties of the language she could. I expended a significant complement of my ammunition. She focused in on the one who had addressed her, summoning her psychic might once more. You see nothing wrong with this, she ordered. This is a perfectly unremarkable occurrence. Silently, she prayed that even with her inexperience in such, the empty minds of the Lurkers would prove susceptible to such interference.

The sentry remained staring for a moment, his expression, if indeed he was capable of one, unreadable behind his helmet. At last, he moved to sign in response.

Go to the armory for resupply. With that, he turned his head back to its original position and resumed his immobile vigil.

Eiohsa nodded to him, and marched through the looming gates above. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place, to flee from this asylum of madness and return to the surface with the evidence she needed. She searched the memories she had extracted, prying out every shred of detail about the layout of the fortress that she could - and the route to the laboratories of Carcinus.

Inside, the already stifling darkness became absolute. Only the eyes of an Astartes of the Ninth lineage, better suited to penumbra than to the light of day, could have navigated that maze of lightless corridors, blind stairways and sepulchral chambers. Often, however, even their unnatural sight proved insufficient, for there is no living eye that can pierce that which is darker than terrene night, and even nature itself concedes the struggle, leaving the inhabitants of the deepest crevices to be born into perpetual blindness. Then the sense of the shifting water became the only way to find the path ahead, and the rudiments of this skill honed over years left her stumbling.

The bowels of Dis were, however, not entirely abandoned to shadow. At the crossings of corridors, where they converged in wide circular spaces, and in the larger rooms, the walls were mottled with faintly luminescent excrescences, a sort of subaqueous moss, evidently cultivated for that purpose. Their pale green glow illuminated empty refectories with high vaulted ceilings and coarse stone tables, meditation and instruction halls where a few hulking shadows crouched in contemplative postures, and sometimes strange enclosed vivariums where charybdes scuttled among tubular growths swaying stronger than the light currents would have given them cause to.

At length, after a long time frightening in its implications for the fortress’ size, a broad stairway led her into a long, imposing hall with only another opening, a wide door at the further end. Large clumps of the luminous moss cast their ghostly radiance over it, revealing rows of crystalline vats and stasis cells arranged on shelves lining its vertiginous walls. Each held within it a hideous shape, frozen in time or fluid, with a tablet at its feet giving a name to the terror within. Here was a revolting, verminous mass, almost without shape, marked SLAUGHT; near it a three-legged, tubular biomechanical amalgam, SLAUGHT PUGNATOR, and in a huge tank an amorphous, sluglike mass, SLAUGHT MESSOR. Others clustered around, each more repugnant than the last. A towering, yet almost skeletal beast of an inhuman warrior, RANGDA; a tusked green colossus encased in rough, but barbarously ornate armour, ORCUS NOBILIS; a worm-like fiend with six bladed arms and a snarling chitin-crested head, KYNAZAR VORAX; suspended in a stasis cell, a wraith of iridescent vapour half-contained in a baroque carapace suit, PSYBRIS OSIRIANE; in another, this one surrounded by psychic sigils, a tentacled gelatinous hulk with spider-like eyes, KRELL; and dozens, perhaps hundreds more. This gallery of nightmares, she realized, was something between a trophy hall and a specimen room, a repository of the Lurkers’ most fearsome and bizarre foes contained for memory, study or other unknowable purposes. A chilling suspicion crept up to her that some of these horrors - how many? - might still have been alive in their eternal prisons.

The acrid taste of bile rose in her throat at the sight of these familiar monstrosities. Long since committed to memory she had hoped and prayed - and yet she was now confronted with them, face to face separated by the repugnant vaulted displays of the Ninth legion. She bit her tongue, forcing herself not to retch at the memories that floated to her conscience.

She wanted to smash this room. To turn it to rubble and let the foul abominations within decay into the empty wastes of the Carcinian underbelly. She could do it - she had the power within her, crackling at her fingertips. This entire nightmare assemblage of the Imperium’s most vile of inhuman foes could be erased from existence at her mere thought.

Slowly, the energy that arced in her hand subsided. With gritted teeth, she marked this grim nightmare down for later. This blight upon the galaxy would be erased, she was resolved of that much. When the Ninth Legion had been brought to justice for their crimes, when they stood before the Emperor himself and faced his wrath, she would right the wrongs she had seen upon this world.

With a final shudder of disgust, she pushed on from the grim display and deeper into the bowels of the fortress.

Beyond the door was another stairway, as ample as the last one. It was bathed in faint light from above, yet what was remarkable was that this glow did not issue from another of the moss-algae growths, but descended from above in refracted beams. Indeed, overhead the stairs ended not in another shadowy corridor, but a large square opening framing a rippling span of mirror-like water. A surface, here in the deeps.

Up the worn stone steps, and she was breathing air again. Her armoured boots barely made a clink when stepping onto the stone floor; the polished metal walls must have been inlaid with sound-dampening materials. Cold blue light weakly streamed from narrow, regular gaps in the ceiling and their burnished faces. However feeble, it was a relief after the umbral realm below. In the corners, grilled sarcophagus-like devices that must have been air recyclers stood silently.

Ahead was a chamber slightly smaller than the gallery and with a far lower ceiling, multiple doorways gaping in the metal at various of its ends. A few Lurkers busied themselves around its center, most of them boasting narthecia, servo-arms tipped with various menacing surgical implements and collections of vials and eye-lenses. The memories had guided her correctly: this was the lair of the infamous Fleshweavers. Three of them were circling a stack of massive crates, comparing the encoded writing on their sides with something in their data-slates. Another was inaudibly addressing a blue-armoured Astartes, with the markings of a simple legionnaire, who was strikingly missing his right arm: the pauldron had been removed, and the opening in his armour showed a sanguine membrane at his shoulder. The Fleshweaver motioned to one of the doors, and the mutilated warrior evenly marched towards it; there, another apothecary emerged to lead him further beyond the threshold.

“Brother.” After what seemed to have been centuries of silence, the deep, hoarse voice, deadened by the walls and distorted by metal, was startling, otherworldly. One of the Fleshweavers who had been examining the crates was approaching. The lack of additional limbs suggested that he held a lesser rank. “How is the implantation stock?”

She regarded the Astartes before her with an expression of purest loathing upon her face. The Fleshweavers, they who her Daughter had told her of. The vile changers of skin and flesh against their nature. After a moment, she forced herself to remain composed.

“I was redirected by the Planetary Governor to Sergeant Moetz, of the Planetary Defense Force.” She responded, nodding to him. “He informed me that the sourcing of implantation stock is proceeding well, and to expect the next shipment shortly.”

"Good. We will see to it in time." The Lurker turned and marched back to the crates without another word. Eiohsa was left standing by the descending well, with but a faint recollection suggesting that her way lay beyond the same door the wounded marine and his companion had gone through.

Casting a glance about the room, Eiohsa searched for any prying eyes that might bear witness to her actions henceforth. Seeing none, after some minutes of searching, she summoned her psychic might once more - casting a glamour over the armor she wore. To the eyes of any observer, devoid of powerful psychic abilities or the nullification of such, there now stood a young inductee of the Ninth Legion’s Fleshweavers.

With a deep breath, she pressed on through the door ahead, into the laboratories of Carcinus.

Warm, humid air wafted at her visor as she entered the first room. It was almost as large as the previous one, though lower still. The doorway opened onto a strip of rock spanning about a fourth of its surface. The rest was covered in a tide of red-pink sludge, quietly churning like mud over a geyser as air bubbled to its surface and mounds melted and shifted on their own accord. Scattered in that inchoate mass were macabre agglomerations of flesh, half-formed bodies with features obfuscated as if in a dreamlike haze. Legless, faceless torsos with slowly pulsating ribcages. Tangles of displaced limbs that seemed to grow directly from the sludge itself, or from misshapen mounds that bore nothing but an odd collection of extremities. Translucent domes of bone and unformed skin, filled with mismatched viscera like greenhouses with exotic blossoms. All of this was made yet more grotesque by its size, being large to Astartes proportions. The one-armed legionnaire stood waiting at the edge of the floor, while the Fleshweaver who had accompanied him waded through the charnel mire, careful not to step on any quivering amalgams, with a long one-edged knife in hand.

The next room was so immense it could have been an Aeronautica hangar. The lighting grew duskier as the luminescent gaps disappeared high above and away at great intervals. Nonetheless, the chamber was bathed in a sickly pale-green glow that radiated from its contents. Rows and rows of evenly spaced genetor vats, their elaborate tubes disappearing into the floor like roots, filled the entirety of it. It was impossible to say how many there were at a glance, though certainly no fewer than a thousand. Their ranks were lost in the depth of the hall. Inside each of the arabesqued containers floated a curled shape, suspended inside the nutrient fluid. Although they seemed superficially human, their segmented, hard-shelled bodies, clawed limbs and faces that were little more than a pair of gnashing jaws belied their mutant nature. A new horde of nascent Infestus slept its dreamless sleep in there.

Eiohsa walked through this nightmarish procession as if in dream. Dreams of long forgotten, immemorial catacombs of blackest night. Murky images flashed through her mind, dimly illuminated in the wan glow of a mind that does not wish to see. The sound of armored feet upon the hard stone provided the metronome at whose beckoning time passed in this disconnected, surreal reality torn from the fabric of the sane, outside world.

The sound of feet echoed on endlessly.

In the following room, the stone floor became a metallic walkway. Below Eiohsa’s feet, a square pit far smaller than the gene-vat cavern descended into a pool of clear water slightly tinged with green. A few young charybdes crawled around its bare floor, and at the center sat a Lurker with the shattered skull of the Heralds of Silence on his shoulder. He did not move, and the surface above him barely stirred with his breath. A psychic emanation lay heavy upon the chamber, the presence of the empyreal strangely tempered, almost mutilated. The shells of the crustacean beasts had a metallic sheen to them as they moved under the blue light.

It was beyond the next door that she found the trail of what she had been seeking. Here the walls widened into yet another hangar-like immensity, but the space was far better lit due to more frequent light-fissures and a lower ceiling. Columns of black stone propped it up at even distances. Along the walls ran lines of approximative surgical tables which somewhat resembled sacrificial altars, were it not for the racks of instruments and vials crowding around them. Most were empty, but around others work was boiling.

Tap… Tap… Tap…

Fleshweavers of all ranks, from apprentices in mostly unadorned armour to elders with a plethora of mechanical arms and gauntlet tools, busied themselves over the drug-paralyzed bodies of human and Infestus alike in various permutations of age and constitution, from children barely out of infancy to massive, ogryn-like abhumans. There, skin was folded open like a scroll, tendons and blood vessels were severed and sewn back together, neural fibres were welded in curious webs, bones were replaced and rearranged, intestinal tracts were stimulated to test the strength of their bile, carapace plates were fished out of murky tanks to be grafted into muscle in a vortex of surgical zeal that, dissatisfied with merely healthy bodies, could not restrain itself from improving upon them in some way. The dosages of the sedative concoctions were clearly not always uniform, and several of the subjects impotently stared with wide open eyes as their tormentors deftly set to work with their scalpels and injector needles. The Lurkers themselves were a far more diverse group than any Eiohsa had seen before. While some cut and pried with the cold, remorseless precision of machines, others gleefully twirled and flourished their implements like virtuosos celebrating a difficult passage, or gently daubed suture points like artists afraid to ruin their masterwork.

Eiohsa did not know what to think, understand how she felt. What did she feel? She swam amongst a sea of thoughts and emotions, alien and human, Astartes and mortal, the stray threads of the Daughters trapped within this swirling maelstrom. What was there to think? To feel? It was not the raw, unresistable assault of Exterminatus, nor the constant barrage of war. It was altogether worse, more personal, the horror at oneself she had felt little of before. The emotions that assaulted her mind were impossible to understand, to process, to comprehend and to rationalize. Raw, unfiltered horror and disgust. The semi-human cries of a thing that had been stripped of everything - humanity, identity, hopes, dreams, love, family. The sole vestige of what was a human that remained within was a hatred, a burning hatred of everything that surrounded it - and a hatred of itself. Longing for death, for an end to this impossible dream-world.

Tap… Tap… Tap…

About the central section the floor was pierced by a number of wide circular pits, about as deep as two Astartes-heights. They were arranged in a disposition that somewhat resembled that of Dis’ towers, though they were nowhere as numerous. While some were entirely empty, most of them formed each a microcosm of dread inside the maddening labyrinth of the fortress and its Apothecarion halls. Four Infestus snarled and tore at each other like gladiators in an arena, their growls and screeches deadened to spectral echoes by the dampening walls. A misbegotten simulacrum of a human body, like an approximation wrought from clay by a blind sculptor, lay half-submerged in the same bubbling organic slime she had seen in the first room. A charybdes slowly consumed a still twitching disfigured victim, methodically tearing off strips of their flesh with its maxillipeds and grinding them between its many nested mandibles. A nameless thing with irregular scraps of carapace over a body half-covered by white bony growths paced hungrily in circles. One of the pits was filled with water, and in it a swarm of large pale shrimps was picking clean a pile of bones and refuse. In another, full of a thick acrid-smelling yellow fluid, floated an indistinct shape, suspended from a score of thin tubes plunging into various parts of its body and running across the chamber to a set of vats and devices. A Lurker with strange red-rimmed armour and a mechanical right hand, three-digited, with fingers like long slender knives, watched over that nest of machinery. Dronemaw, flashed a shard of memory.

What was there to do? What could she do? Destroy this entire labyrinth of twisted mockeries of science and progress? Burn down this submarine hell, boiled up from the deepest bowels of some apophryca of the abyss? This waking nightmare that scarcely seemed reality as much a cruel parody of what ought have been.

Eiohsa cried.

Golden tears welled within her eyes. She was powerless, powerless if she wanted to end this abomination, once and for all. She bit her tongue, for she wished to lash out and destroy this grotesque carnival that surrounded her. She could do it, she knew this. She could turn the technology that ensured the survival of this place against its masters. Lead, under her hand, an armada of the Abyssal Lurker’s own weapons against them. Tear this cursed fortress down brick by brick and grind it to dust beneath her heel.

But to do so would solve nothing. Invite the wrath of the Emperor. Doom her Legion, and who knew how many more to the ravages of the Ninth. If she wanted this put to an end, it would be by the Emperor’s hand, and on her testimony.

And so she silently wept.

Tap… Tap… Tap…

In a shadowed corner at the far end of the chamber, beyond the last rows of unoccupied tables, a square opening awned in the floor. From above, it appeared similar to the one that led to the laboratories from the fortress below, but it was not as wide, and the dark, rippling surface of the water visible through it was lower, as in a shallow well. The sequence of recollections Eiohsa had been following surged up again - the path lay there below.

Like the dim light of a lantern as a guide from the depths of a swamp, Eiohsa followed the recollections of this strange, aquatic underworld. With only a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into the yawning hole before her, plunging deeper still.

Borne downward by the weight of her armour, she fell through the murky water for a time that seemed interminable. Around her, sheer stone walls, growing coarser and, strangely, older as she sank deeper into the stygian abyss. At a moment not even her superhumanly observant mind could place, such was the crushing monotony of the sightless descent, the levigated surfaces of construction blocks had given way to a tunnel carved into live rock. She was below the fortress, she realized, and still she fell, deeper and deeper.

At last, the walls disappeared, and for a minute or an eternity there was only darkness to every side. Then she landed onto something brittle and yielding. Some fragments of light must have found their way into that abyss, for soon her eyes could almost see again, her mind filling the shadowy gaps with flashes of recollection.

Bones. She sat amid a sea of bones of all forms and sizes, many of them human. Some coalesced into loose animal skeletons that seemed lost in this strange mortuary. The bones lay chaotically in heaps and mounds arranged by invisible currents, broken and corroded by age. How many were they? How old? Did they predate the foundation of Dis itself? Not even the laboratories above could have accounted for such a multitude, for those innumerable pale sparks in her strained sight. Swarms of shrimp and schools of ugly, toothy fish with shovel-like heads scattered around her, scavengers of the deep troubled by an apparition from the world of the living.

There was a path winding among the macabre dunes, remembered more than visible. It led, between some treacherous cracks, to the wide mouth of the ample cavern she had fallen into, the seafloor beyond rocky and uneven.

There were no words she could use to describe the sensations that filled her as she half walked, half stumbled through this catacomb. She could try, most certainly. Disgust. Sadness. Horror. Morbid curiosity. But what she felt most of all was… contempt. And hatred.

She hated everything about this planet.

Everything, from its rulers, to its fauna, to the strange phenomena that pervaded it at every level, to the Ninth Legion that had implanted itself as a fresh tumor onto this already cancer-ridden mass. She hated them with a fury she had not fully realized she could muster. A deep, personal loathing of them and everything they stood for. Sarghaul, the Tartarean, lording over this mire of death and despair in that cruel, inhuman manner of his. Every step through this Devan-forsaken labyrinth brought only fresh atrocity.

It was not the Rangdan, not the Ork, not any number of foes that threatened humanity and brought untold horrors. For none of them had been built to serve humanity. To aid humanity.
To protect and guide humanity. None of them had been created by the Emperor to be exemplars of humanity and of all intelligent life, and turned so willingly to such depravity. She swore to herself, as bones crunched underfoot, that when the time came she herself would swing the executioner’s sword.

Outside the cavern lay a rocky ledge, wide enough to tread without fear of being sent drifting into the deeps by an incautious step. The dark bulk of the basalt fortress hung straight overhead - the cavern burrowed into the stone cliff beneath its outer wall. The path now led along the span of the protruding ridge, flanking the side of the shelf above. A number of openings gaped in the craggy surface, many shallow, some stretching out into tunnels that wormed their way towards the heart of the peak. One such fissure, outwardly not distinguished in any way from the others to both its sides, was the next beacon to flare up in the murky trail of the Lurker’s memories. This was not a way he had followed in a routine that became reflex, but one visited far more infrequently, on irregular, almost furtive occasions.

The cunicle was wide enough for Eiohsa’s Astartes frame to step freely through. It twisted and wormed for a span, before abruptly ending in a sealed metallic door, invisible from outside. The obstacle had been firmly built into the passage’s structure, a portal fixed into the stone to prevent the leaking of water beyond it. Despite its sturdy appearance, it smoothly slid open after being pressed in a well-remembered concealed point near its rim. Water rushed forward as it swung inward, filling the space of a long plated airlock chamber beyond, closed off by a second identical door at the opposite end. As soon as the first door shut behind her, the water was drained once more with a gurgle, and the inner door was audibly unlocked with a click.

Behind it, the plated floor became rock again. Several tunnels, whose rough walls eventually gave way to artificially levigated surfaces, spread from an almost spherical chamber. A Fleshweaver with a long-drilled narthecium on his left gauntlet was conferring with two legionnaires by the far wall. Noticing the newcomer, he gestured to signal that he would address what he presumed to be his subordinate.

“Some waste has collected in Chamber Eta. Dispose of it in the chasm when you go through there.”

Eiohsa nodded to him, speaking with the unfamiliar voice of one of the Ninth. “It will be done.” She said, nodding to him. Her mind was focused elsewhere. She could sense them now. Close at hand. Her Daughters. Her breath came quickly now, as she pushed onwards. Soon she would know the full scale of the horrors beneath Carcinus.

The revelation did not let itself be awaited for long. In the first hewn pocket on the way towards Eta, a low, but wide roughly cylindrical space, a rough simulacrum of the stone tables in the laboratories above held upon it, chained and ostensibly sedated, a strange and hideous figure. In size and proportion it was broadly similar to an Astartes, if somewhat larger than was the norm for most lineages, but no Astartes ought to have had the signs of chitinous growths beginning to emerge from her skin all across her body. Peculiarly sickening was the fact that these aberrations showed no signs of being implanted, but sprouted in jagged, brown ridges from beneath the parting skin in a wholly organic way. The body’s face was covered by a metallic breather mask, connected by a thick tube to an opaque blue vat near the base of the table.

The stench of death, decay, and hopelessness roiled up around her amidst the nightmare scene. To exist before this dread cacophony of evil decay and degradation was purest torture. Eiohsa did not know, could not understand, how human hands could bring such to light. She stumbled through the chamber, half in daze, insensate to all but the wailing cacophany that resounded within her mind. Despite everything, she pushed on.

Tap… Tap… Tap…

The following chamber was smaller, but two opposite alcoves in the left and right walls gave it an impression of depth beyond its true extension. The air, already heavy due to the enclosed and poorly ventilated nature of the tunnels, became even thicker and damper here. Inside each alcove, behind a translucent pane, the lowered floor was covered in that nauseating pinkish sludge the Fleshweavers seemed so fond of, but what sprouted from it was even more bizarre than inchoate bodies. Something like a sanguine stalk, a small pillar resembling a monstrous blood vessel covered in a mesh of nerve links and capillaries rose halfway to the ceiling in the right alcove, and suspended from it like surreal fruit were fleshy sphericles, studded with golden membranous domes around their surface and clinging to the stalk with skinless tendrils. Progenoid glands. Whatever the blood-coloured pillar might have been, its blasphemous intent was clear - to do away with the intended cycles of Astartes life and prepare new genetic seeds with impossible speed and abundance. Fortunately, the sacrilegious experiment did not seem to have achieved its goal: the glands growing from the blood-stalk seemed pale, stunted and malformed in their unnatural gestation. A tablet on the glassy pane read “XVI”; in the opposite alcove stood a similar formation, only about as tall as a quarter of the first, hung with similarly feeble nascent glands and marked “IX”.

But it was beyond this receptacle of unclean designs that the reality of what was transpiring in those concealed passages fully unfolded before her. The tunnel widened into an ample circular lair, its squat ceiling supported by a broad stone pillar in the center. All around it and by the walls were parallel rows of surgical tables, in an approximate imitation of the great laboratory hall. While the surroundings were far more coarse, however, the bounty of those altars to the profane quest for mastery over life was decidedly more exotic. The muscular bodies of space marines lay over a number of them - or, at least, their remains, for the score of Fleshweavers roving among them were far from idle. Under slicing claws and severing blades, from salves forcing flesh to regrow into shapes it had never known, what had been devised on Terra centuries ago took on visages undreamed of by the Master of Mankind himself. Bestial carapace and segmented limbs were thrust upon the delicate balance of the human organism, the resilience of Astartes constitution tested to its limits as unfeeling eyes of aquamarine crystal watched it fight to integrate these intrusions, duped into mutating the very system it struggled to preserve. In many places, it failed - a great number of the horrid amalgams of skin and chitin were steadily approaching their death throes, bloody ichor seeping from the mouths of those that still had them. But the aquamarine eyes did not relent in their perverse curiosity, and again and again the blades fell.

Whence such a profusion of transhuman blood to spill, that precious fluid so rare that battlefields across the galaxy contended for the crowning honour of being watered with it? The answer lay mercilessly bared to the left side of the cavern. A young girl with the sun-touched skin of the planet’s surface-dwellers, barely entering adolescence by her appearances, was strapped to a table. A Fleshweaver loomed over her, monstrously large in comparison, and reached into her opened ribcage with a fine bionic talon, his own clawed hands too gigantically unwieldy to operate on such a small and frail body. One of them pinned her waist to the stone slab to stop her from wriggling, while the other was clamped around her crudely shaved head, holding her jaw closed in a deathly vice. This, then, was the implantation stock the agents of the Ninth had been so eager to secure.

Defilement of all things good and sacrosanct to humanity surrounded her, her mind under constant assault from the wave of that barraged her entire being. Utter horror, wordless screams that echoed and reverberated through her mind rose up, burrowing into her psyche as parasitic larvae that ate away at her mind. She tried to shut it out, to focus upon the task at hand. But it was hopeless, the miasma of oozing, toxic rot, the atrophy of the very souls of those around her, was too much. Only against the dreaded Rangdan had she felt such atrocity before.

She pushed on, struggling against that which assailed her. Her duty was to bring these crimes to justice. Nothing would stop that. Nothing would hinder this righteous cause. Marinated in the charnel morass of the chambers she forced herself onwards. Every step, every breath, was fought against millions of grasping hands that clung to her and dragged her back.

Even the mind of a Primarch struggled to retain a sense of self amidst this crushing wave of nightmare spawned human misery. What was she, one woman, against this? No other could feel it as she could. Each and every soul ensnared in the beating, fleshy threads of this ichorous web clung to her, slowly adhering to her. She screamed in futile resistance as oily black tendrils enveloped her mind and she was dragged into the sucking mire of black despair that surrounded her.

One of the elder Lurkers in the room, distinguished by his two servo-arms, beckoned Eiohsa over when he saw her disguised figure enter. He was standing by one of the expiring victims, a swollen chimeric mound with a multitude of arthropodal legs affixed to its sides that seemed to be breathing its last.

“Acolyte!” he spoke in a voice like the echoes of a subterranean gong, his array of five eye-lenses fixed on the newcomer, “Show me how well Khirex is teaching you lot. Can you tell why this one is a failure?”

Eiohsa barely registered the words even as they were spoken to her, her mind reeling from the barrage of emotion and sensation it was now subjected to. She stood in a daze, peering through kaleidoscopic imagery of deepest horror and despair at the man who swam before her eyes in a million fractal distortions.

From the depths of her mind she dredged up a vague simulacrum of an answer, silently grateful for the armor that concealed her distraught features from view. “I am too early in training to properly answer.” She forced herself to say, “I would welcome the opportunity to learn whatever you can teach of this work.” The words burned like acid on her tongue, and she forced back a sob as they passed her lips. This was wrong. This was worse than she could have possibly imagined. Every second within this miasma of despair and suffering was soaked through in the emanations of hundreds of souls, both her Daughters and natives of Carcinus forced into implantation, seeking an end to this suffering. Silently, she prayed her answer would be enough.

“Too early in your training.” The rumbling words rolled out from the Fleshweaver like boulders pushed, steadily and deliberately, down a mountain incline. Among the nauseous psychic cacophony that surrounded them, Eiohsa could make out the thread of his dismayed, even irritated surprise - and, strangely, a note of concern alongside it. “Even one of our mere battle-brothers should have been able to guess that it is a flaw in the subject’s keratoid transmuter.”

It was true, on reflection. The keratoid transmuter was a glandular organ in the anatomy of the Infestus strain, whose purpose was to rebalance and modify the endocrine directives of the keratinization natural in human bodies to redirect them into supporting the abhumans’ pseudo-exoskeleton. It was a detail that any member of the Ninth Legion was passingly familiar with, but at the same time the sort of trivial recollection that only occurred to most when they deliberately thought about it.

“But for one initiated into the mysteria of the flesh,” the Lurker continued, “It ought to be obvious that the strain on the transmuter due to the insertion of complex appendages,” he prodded at one of the segmented limbs, highlighting the area around its base - the shell plates there were brittle, broken and uneven, wholly embedded into the live flesh in some places, “Caused a wider disruption of hormonal balance, and from there a progressive failure of vital parts of the organism. Your lack of perceptiveness is troubling, acolyte. What is your name?”

Eiohsa stared at him, dismayed, for what seemed to her eons and eons as she scrounged for a name, any name, that would not arouse suspicion. “Ishmael Sarantakos.” She said at last, praying silently that the Fleshweaver who loomed over her now would accept her answer without suspicion. She said nothing else.

“You must be very new indeed,” the Lurker mused, “Elder Ormis must have his reasons for allowing you in here. Regardless, I think your spirit is still unsteady in the new regimen. Redouble your meditations for this week, then decrease them again evenly, day by day. Your focus should return.”

He turned towards the center of the room, gesturing at the expiring bulk on the table next to them as he stalked away. “This one is useless now. As your penance, bring it to the chasm and dispose of it.”

For a time, no response came from the disguised woman as she stared at the Fleshweaver before her, her eyes flitting between him and the prone, slowly dying form of her daughter. She was bathed in misery. Marinated in despair. She was surrounded by the imprint of suffering upon this accursed pit of hell, etched permanently into the very air she breathed for all eternity. Around her, perhaps hundreds of her daughters - those who had taken oaths in service of humanity, and young girls taken from their homes and subjected to this atrocity - had died alone, without ever knowing a chance of salvation.

Silently, she wept within the helmet once more, nodding tersely to the man before her and forcing a quick bow, before she walked to her Daughter.

Breath came in ragged gasps as the cruel mockery of an Astartes fought for life before her eyes. Eiohsa took her in hand, reciting the traditional prayer for the dying in a voice audible only to herself, and to the dying form of her daughter. Devoid of energy even to react, she felt a flicker of life within her, the familiar language rousing some long dead part of her soul as she was carried to the awaiting chasm, where she would be disposed of as so many had before. Words that she herself had never before uttered, for though she had followed her gene-mother into battle, she had never shared her convictions. And yet she knew the tongue, and knew the words by heart.

Eiohsa carried her Daughter with the weight of a trillion bodies upon her tread. With each step she took, the words came, and she felt the confusion of the dying marine slowly fade away, replaced with comfort - she no longer feared her death, she would not die alone, robbed of everything. She simply wondered.

Satisfied that nobody could see them, Eiohsa knelt in a bend of the tunnel, removing the helmet, and cried. Her features shifted to those her Legion knew her by, the kind face that had known every one of them by name, that had led them against some of the darkest foes humanity had ever faced. Golden tears spilled down her cheeks as she wept, holding the warped form of her Daughter close. “I am sorry.” She whispered, over and over. “I am sorry, Divya, that I could not prevent this.”

The husk of her daughter said nothing - for there was nothing she could have said. Rendered mute from the experimentation of the Abyssal Lurkers, Eiohsa felt only stunned silence from her daughter, and disbelief.

“Anastasia found me.” She whispered, her voice cracking as she struggled to contain herself. “She found me, I do not know how, and… I will end it. By the hand of the Emperor himself, I will end it. But… that will wait.” She told her of the events she had witnessed, since the conflict upon Pyotrskov. Of the triumphs and troubles of the Sixteenth Legion. Her Daughter, who had never once shared the faith of her Primarch, merely listened, listened to whatever poured forth from the mouth of her Primarch. Eiohsa held her daughter, what remained of her, for what seemed to be hours. In the deepest halls of her enemy, she held her daughter as she died.

She would not be consigned to the pit. Of that, she was certain.

After securing the body, she rose, shakily, to her feet - taking on the form of the Astartes she had impersonated once more. She returned to the chamber, shaky on her feet, and began to scan it for what she might loot from it, for her word alone would not suffice for the condemnation of Sarghaul and his Fleshweavers. Only evidence.

The Fleshweaver at the entrance, she recalled, had mentioned an accumulation of rejects in Chamber Eta. That waste, no doubt bearing sufficient signs of the unclean work conducted in the caverns, would not be missed by anyone present if it disappeared.

The way to Chamber Eta lay through one of the other corridors branching away from the central lair, and past another large grotto. A wide basin along its further end was filled with water, acrawl with spiny crustacean bodies. Young charybdes crowded over each other, as their kind were wont to do in constrained spaces, trying to clamber up to the sheer rim of the depression. A few stone tables stood along the lateral walls, surgical instruments and scraps of organic material scattered over them, as well as a number of the vessels used by Apothecaries to store extracted gene-seed. Some of them, Eiohsa noticed, were full.

In the middle of the chamber, a strange scene was taking place. A Herald of Silence stood with one hand raised, the cloying presence of his order's distinctive psychic field emanating from his figure. Circling around him was an outlandish creature. It appeared to be a grown charybdes, large enough to loom over the marine, but where the carapaces of those beasts were usually brown and jagged, it was black and smooth, like a corporeal shadow. Eight eyes stared from its approximation of a head, and instead of a single pair of clawed forearms it had two, emerging in parallel and snapping with agile ease despite their unnatural number. On its back, an autocannon was fixed to a set of cybernetic sockets, and it swivelled and clicked in blank fire - without any trace of a targeting servitor.

Slowly, a conjecture began to form in Eiohsa's mind. It was absurd, improbable, surreal, even; but no less bizarre was the sight of the mutated beast that was performing a drill before her eyes. Its coordination, enhanced senses, natural interfacing with machinery, even its clearly overdeveloped awareness, together with the progenoid surgery supplies, all pointed to an impossible conclusion. Through some obscure marvel of fleshcrafting, the Lurkers had found a way to transpose the foundation of Astartes conversion in a way that served to augment a body that was not human. Even an analogue of the black carapace could not exist in isolation. A complex that defied the laws of life both natural and not pulsed within the shell of that being, and as its foundation - the gene-seed of the Sixteenth, noted for its exceptional adaptability.

Fortunately, there were no more horrors between that grotto and her destination. Strewn about the ground of a small cavern was a bouquet of gruesome remains: another body that had been Astartes, plagued with continuous grafts, a small charybdes with some odd features, though nowhere as alien as the live specimen she had seen, and a trio of partially dissected Infestus carcasses. It was perhaps for the best that she had not had occasion to see why those were in this crypt of unholy innovation.

Time passed in a blur for her as she faded through chambers and rooms lost to any sane mind. She did not remember how she concealed the treasure trove of abominable waste from the depths of the Carcinian laboratories, by what unconscious psychic glamour she made it invisible to the Fleshweavers that haunted them like ghouls a crypt. Nor did she truly recall her feet carrying her out from the web of hidden tunnels, through the mazes and corridors of exquisite horror and mockeries of science. Once out on the sunken mountainside she pushed herself and her grotesque salvage through the water at speed, desperate to return to land, to return to some semblance of normality and sanity. Above the water lurked horrors of their own, but beneath those seas of long lost antiquity there was naught but madness from which she fled in desperation.

Her first breath on the surface in hours was one of the sweetest sensations in her memory. The clean, crisp ocean air filled her lungs, absent the stench of death, fish, and blood.

She dragged herself onto the beach, pulling herself free, piece by piece, from the armor of the Ninth Legion, casting the pieces into the sea as her form returned to that she had disguised herself in when first landing. Half stumbling, she pulled herself and her cargo towards the spaceport. Through the jingling of a heavy purse of coins, she secured for herself storage for the grisly items, securely locked and away from prying eyes. She would wait for Alethia until the departure of the cargo vessel she had stowed away on.

Dusk was beginning to descend over the landing zone, daylight giving way to moonless night, when the tall bushes at the edge of the beaten dirt pad parted with a rustle. Alethia was there, along with the man who had accompanied her that morning. Both looked drawn and if possible more haggard than before, as if after the exertions of a day.

"That's her, yes," the woman half-whispered as the two staggered out from the brush. They reeked of saltwater and various odorous grasses crumpled together.

"Is it true? That you're an ifrel?" the man quietly asked Eiohsa, making an inadvertently conspicuous effort not to look into her eyes.

“I am nothing of the sort.” She responded, shaking her head at the man. “I am, however, the woman who will save your lives. It pains me to do so, but the alternative is to abandon you here to death. I will answer all questions - any questions you have - later, when we are aboard my own vessel. We must stow away on this one first, however.”

The young Carcinians shot each other a perplexed look, but they seemed to understand the essence, if not the entirety, of the situation well enough. Stepping with exaggerated caution, they made their way to the transport - something they had seen before, but never so much as laid a hand on - and vanished in a corner of its bay. The pilot, who stood nearby smoking, did not spare them a glance.

Numbness.

That was what she felt.

A dull buzzing sensation that filled her body to the brim. Not unlike that which followed in the wake of Exterminatus. But different. More personal. It was not the trauma of battle, something she knew and reckoned with well. It was altogether different. A rotting, sucking despair that pulled at the fabric of the soul, stretched the mind like putty. Even now, she felt its cloying threads resting sickeningly against her being, remnants of a tapestry woven of the darkest nightmares. It scarcely seemed real. Some distant memory already.

But the containers that now surrounded her told her a different story. Within those innocuous sealed containers were the horrific things she had borne witness to. Within those containers were her daughters - or what had remained of them by the time she found them. Within those containers was the most grave transgression yet committed by Imperial hands, and, she prayed, the most grave to ever be.

Surrounded by a catacomb of lost souls, she sank to her knees, the memories joining in the ever-present choir of torment within her mind. She slumped against a container, energy spent, and cried.

---

[...End Log.]
[...Terminating.]
[Imperial Thought for the Day: The Malevolent grows like a cancer from the smallest corruption. Take up thy sword and cut it out, root and stem.]

For what it was worth, after he had left the Council Chamber, Micholi had sent a quick message ahead to his sibling Sekhmetara to expect his arrival...and a polite request that she have some of the wine she had produced that could actually affect beings of their genetic makeup on hand. He doubted that he truly needed to explain why.

It wouldn’t take him long to reach his destination anyway, but despite feeling… so tired of everything, he still felt the need to be polite and respectful enough to let his sister know he was coming rather than just barge in.

The hazel plate armoured guardians who flanked the entrance to Sekhmetara’s chambers bowed their heads at his arrival, stepping aside to allow him easy entry through the archway, their gene-enhanced forms bringing them up much further on the height of a primach than would be expected of mortal, while lacking the excessive bulk of the astartes.

As she would with any of her siblings, Sekhmetara proved more than willing to set aside the appropriate time, and beverages, to host Micholi in the quarters assigned to her for the duration of the Council. While she had been absent from the second round of open debate, already the occurrences had been whispered to her long before she had received the official report, the dataslate of which she currently pursed through. Reclining one one of the long divans of her chamber, the Mithran primach was garbed in a light gown of Khafre orange, the cloth bound together at her sides by golden chains. Few of her siblings had enough experience with true intoxication to have favourites, but the wine decanters she had arrayed on the low-table that marked the main gathering area of the room held vintage from across the galaxy, spiced with the Fenrisian herb which enabled the operative drug to impact their Primach physiology.

“Brother.” She spoke with a pleasant smile as he arrived, rising from her lounging state, the dataslate abandoned for the moment on the table, leaning in to kiss his cheek in greeting. “Please sit, you have more use for the wine than I, although you’ll have to excuse me also partaking.” She laughed a single melodious note, before returning to her previous position, although her eyes remained fixed on her sibling. “Do feel free to talk about it.”

Micholi turned his head to the side in order to make it easier for Sekhmetara to kiss his cheek ( the unscarred one at any rate) and muttered a tired, restrained “Sister.” out of polite respect despite the fact that right now he didn’t feel like talking to anyone at all. Walking over to claim a seat for himself… and the offered wine in question, he was silent as he quickly downed the glass without really giving himself the chance to taste or enjoy it. There wasn’t much of a point trying that under the best of circumstances anyway, but right now he didn’t care enough to put on the performance for Sekh’s sake.

Closing his eye after his glass was empty, he breathed deeply and waited a few extra moments in silence before he let out one last breath before his eye opened again. “Sorry about that. I know that wine is meant to be savored but… It has not been the best of days. Might I ask how much you’ve already heard and possibly where Daena is? I confess I assumed she was with you, since both of you weren’t present in the Council chamber.” After all, the recess was only for an hour or so. No point wasting her time with stuff she already knew about.

“Drink away, there’s plenty more to savour once it has dulled the pains of whatever haunts your mind.” Sekhmetara waved one hand dismissively, the other reclaiming the dataslate from the table, her own wine untouched for the moment. “She was with me, but for the moment she is flying, it helps her to think, or so she says. Even without being there, the news of the second debate wears heavily on her, if not quite as much as the first. You will have to settle for just me, for now.” She spoke with the tone that suggested she would never consider anyone to feel slightly by her presence on its own, even as she lent forwards to claim a goblet of wine, a Terran white, from the table. “I have heard everything by now, and likely more besides.”

Micholi… sighed again. There wasn’t much that needed to be said on the events of the day it seemed as he seemed to slouch in his seat. “Well… apart from the fact that I have likely isolated myself from the few Primarchs that actually care about the Edict beyond the fact that since the Emperor wrote it makes it holy and thus scrapping it would be heresy, pissed off Augor and likely Usriel and got myself chastised by our Warmaster alongside Nimue… who like Nelchitl has outright accused me of treason on the chamber floor… How do you think things went and what are your thoughts about today?”

The Mithran’s gaze upon Micholi was unbreaking, but neither judgemental or comforting, at least outwardly, allowing the man to speak in full before even considering a response, the end of his words and the beginning of her’s punctuated by a long, slow sip of wine. “What I believe, is any hope that this council might help ease our difference was already doomed from the start, this is only another writ upon the mortuary stone.” She could not deny a certain enjoyment in the dramatic displays of her siblings, it reminded her of court back home. Unlike on Mithra, however, the arguments of today were not forgotten by tomorrow. “Perhaps it was the Emperor’s aim to expose us all thus, I cannot say, surely that was successful, although to what end I could not say.” She sipped her wine again, she had a few thoughts on that matter, none of them comforting. “Do you seek solace, or advice, dear brother? I am capable of both, but likely not at the same time.”

Micholi did consider the question… alongside the idea of refilling his glass. While the recess was a short one, if he properly took his time he was somewhat confident that his senses would be accurate for when the council resumed. Sparing his sister and and of her staff that might happen to be waiting in the wings the effort, he leaned forward to half fill his glass with wine before answering her. “You know what? I believe advice would be rather welcomed. As tempting as solace is, I doubt it would be helpful.”

“Stop trying to placate the others, they have aligned themselves opposed to you, they are fighting this as they fight all their wars. With grit and hatred. Look to your allies, confer with them, convince the one voice that truly matters.” Her words were not without her usual soothing, Mithran tone, but they were stern all the same. “I doubt you will win many new friends, but you may just earn respect, and there is little enough of that around these halls.” She mused for a few moments, before adding in a disarmingly light hearted tone. “And the next time someone dares call you a traitor before the Emperor himself, take one of their eyes, you are in need of a spare.”

Micholi waved the last statement away. “I’m already having a new one grown to replace it. Besides, the loss of an eye is a small price to pay in order to be…” he paused for a moment as he was about to say ‘one of’ as he actually thought about it. “...Actually, has anyone else ever won a one on one duel with Nelchitl before? I confess that I don’t often pay attention to her rants about honor and glory, but I feel like an eye is a small price to have paid to be able to be one of, if not the only one of our family to do so. If for no other reason then the fact that it would irk her to no end.”

Still, the rest of her advice was rather sound. “I assume you speak of Eiohsa’s rather sassy representative… provided of course she hasn’t been executed or murdered yet. I admit my speaking to Usriel and Augor would be a… poor idea at the moment, because despite the fact that I know they would be in support of the Edict, it is purely for religious reasons. I suspect however that the fact that I have taken a somewhat firmer stance on xenos right might have just caused a rift between myself and Daena through… even if I don’t regret the decision and I have no intention of backing down now. I’ve made enough compromises just to get the Edict to exist in any given form, I’m not going to let it be brushed aside out of mindless hate.”

“Upon the nature of your beliefs, to the extent you do or do not share them with the others, I have little and less to comment, but it is beyond past the time you speak to each other outside of the main stage to come up with some cohesive approach. I would offer such advice to both sides of this debate.” The Mithran’s next sip of wine was even more lazy in its motion, one elegant hand slowly tipping the goblet to her lips, perhaps demonstrating her lack of optimism as to the recent displays of her siblings diplomatic ability. “There is a saying among the Northern tribes, make peace with wolves, so that you may hunt the panther at your throat.” Dipping once more into the wisdom of her homeworld, the Primach’s melodious tones became more distinct in the influence of her accent, before she once more smiled at Micholi. “Will that settle for advice?”

“Yes it will. Thank you Sekh.” Micholi offered politely before he started to sip from his glass of wine. “So… that all being said… how might I swing you to the side of being pro edict? Yes, I am well aware of the fact that you are largely neutral in the matter, but I don’t see any harm in asking what it might take to change your mind.”

With one eyebrow raised at the shortening of her name, the Mithran primach took a long sip of wine, before swirling the goblet gently, her eyes studying the liquid of its surface rather than her brother for a moment as she seemed to consider her options, or perhaps simply wished for the other primach to stew in the moments of thought.

“I have little experience with Xenos by the standards of many of us, although my daughters and my own limited experience has been largely negative, earning the faith of new worlds for the Imperium by defending them from rampaging hordes, exterminating orcs, running off eldar raiders.” She mused casually, reclining further back into the cushions of her seat. “But I am not foolish enough to entirely define my principles by my own experiences. The Edict is important to yourself and Daena, yet its removal is important to Nelchitl, and I value both my sisters dearly. Order is my concern, and so far neither side of this issue results in any great amount of that.”

For what it was worth, Micholi did look somewhat confused by his sister’s reaction. “I admit Sekhmetara, one would think that Sekh would be a natural nickname for you… but if you dislike it I’ll simply drop it and never bring it up again.” He clearly didn’t mean any offense by it and he was earnest in his offer that if she didn’t want to be called that again, he wouldn’t.

Leaning forward a little, he paused just long enough to consider his words before nodding his head. “I confess, it is a stance that I cannot help but respect, sister. While there were reasons that the savage Greenskins and the Eldar were rightfully excluded from the Edict in the first place, your personal experience has for the most part been negative but you’re wise enough to acknowledge that there is more to the matter then just your personal experiences. It’s a level of maturity of thought that one cannot help but wish others shared.”

Another split second of thought before he added “If I could run an idea by you. I was intending that, when the matter was brought to the table again, that it might be beneficial to start off by explaining why the Edict is the way that it is… the story behind how it properly came to be, an abridged version of where the Emperor’s experience and wisdom was made use of and what the long term hopes and goals for the Edict were because… as much as some of our siblings are utterly shocked by my view that some xenos races deserve respect, I was fairly open with the Emperor about my intentions. If nothing else, it would dispel the idea that I was trying to undermine and fool the Emperor because he was made aware from the start.”

“But while that sounds good from my perspective, I think now might be as good a time as any to seek out an outside opinion.”

“If you wish to make the statement for you own sake, to stand it as a record of your honour in this matter, then so be it. I have made clear my advice that I think little you will say will sway those set against you. Better to seek out your allies and unify yourselves so that you may argue your case to the Imperium as a whole. That is the mistake that has been made throughout this conclave.” This time, she did not interrupt her response with sips of wine, instead setting her focus until the last of her words were spoken, the goblet left dangling from her fingers.

“Oh, I’m well aware of the fact that the truth wouldn’t be enough to sway anyone who has quite clearly planted their flag and intends to die on the hill in defiance of the Edict. But if nothing else it would prevent them from being able to claim that I misled the Emperor or lied to him about my intentions.” Micholi answered easily enough before a sigh escaped him. “I won’t try and swing you to my side sister. I am aware that you have close relations with people on both sides of the argument and I can respect your desire to remain neutral on the matter. That being said, I’m happy to take your advice... “

His words trailed off as he glanced around, a small fraction of concern on his features as he asked “Sarghaul’s crude comment to Daena really upset her, didn’t it? I cannot help but feel like she would have returned by now otherwise.”

"Those are words which should harm us all, brother. A slight against one sibling is a slight against all." Sekhmatara's finger stroked the rim of her wine, the glittering gold of her nails sparkling faintly over the dark surface of the liquid within. "But I shall have to locate her, a protest is one thing, a delay is another." As she spoke, she stood, abandoning the wine on the counter as she did so, her features turning upon Micholi with a fair smile. "Alas, I must abandone my duties as a host on this task, I will inform out winged sister that you wish to speak with her." The Mithran primach lent down to press a diplomatic kiss to her borther's cheek, anticipating the same in turn, before the prepared to leave. "Good fortunes in the areana of debate, brother."

The empty hallways echoed with the hurried footsteps of Ayushmatki Nanavna izva Kuznekhtinsk. The chief Librarian of the Sixteenth Legion walked briskly, her eyes grimly fixated on a point directly ahead of her - one of the myriad side rooms of the chambers of Nikaea. She had made sure to arrive over an hour before the agreed upon time for the meeting - while she did not believe in the inviolate superiority of the Primarchs, it would do little for the crucial task with which she had been entrusted to be late.

Two members of the sixteenth legion followed her, their demeanor equally dour as that of the woman they followed. Upon entering the room, they unpacked various scanners and commenced a thorough sweep along with Ayushmatki herself, scouring every inch of the room for potential surveillance or other flaw that might risk the secrecy of what would be discussed here. Eventually, however, they were satisfied that the room was secure - and so they settled in to await the arrival of Daena.

The Primarch of the Fourteenth entered the room by herself, her guards and attendants left outside of the chamber. She looked approvingly at the precautions Eiosha’s Daughters had taken before shifting her gaze to Ayushmatki. “Beloved of my sister, what news do you have for me that requires such secrecy?” she asked, foregoing any formality or ceremony in this place. The message requesting her presence had been far too secretive and dire to permit the delays of courtesy.

“Daena io Azrael, Legio XIV Doomsayers, Primarch, Angel of Death, High Oracle of Irkalla, Queen of Deathseers.” Ayushatki calmly listed her titles, rising from her seated position as she bowed before the Primarch of the Fourteenth Legion. “I apologize for the impromptu and secretive nature of this. I deeply apologize for the lack of proper courtesy and procedure, for I understand your conviction that they be upheld - however, I myself have only just received word of the events of which we must speak. My Primarch, Eiohsa, has instructed me to speak to you as rapidly and secretly as possible. Doubtless, her absence has been noted, and my presence in her stead has been a source of great contention.” She frowned, “For that, I apologize. I myself was unaware of the reasoning for which she was so delayed, as I had been informed I was not to know, less it color my judgement and demeanor during these proceedings. I have, however, now been informed - it concerns secret actions by the Ninth Legion, Sarghaul and his ‘spawn’.”

After a moment’s pause, she continued, “The Sixteenth Legion is, as you are aware, at odds with many of its counterparts, and while thankfully this friction has rarely manifested in actual violence, there have been notable incidents where it has. Tell me, are you familiar with the events that occurred upon the mining world of Pyotrskov, in the Kreen Sector, within the Ultima Segmentum?”

“Kreen is a rather remote sector, I know little of it besides the fact that it was established by your own Legion prior to my own discovery,” Daena replied, inclining her head at Ayushmatki to continue.

“Correct. It housed a valuable mining world known as Pyotrskov, with heavy ties to Saravata due to favorable warp currents. The Sixteenth Legion had established a sizable garrison of three dedesay- companies, upon the world both to secure these valuable routes and to prevent possible predation on the world by corsairs or other forces.” She sighed, “Where are my manners, let us sit while we discuss this. Kumari, Devaki, you may wait outside. Thank you for your assistance.” She nodded to the two Astartes who had accompanied her, and with a sharp salute each, they swiftly exited the room.

“The events upon Pyotrskov are infamous within the Legion. A Tempest of the Ninth Legion in the area, we believe investigating or following the signatures of Eldar vessels, detected their proximity to the world in question. While the world did not interact with the Eldar, the Tempest in question carried out punitive action against Pyotrskov for their failure to intervene against the Eldar in question. Though it was a hopeless battle, our garrison upon the world took it upon themselves to fight anyway, despite being as outnumbered as they were. When relief forces arrived, they found the planet completely scoured. Not via Exterminatus, but by manual action. Approximately eight million Imperial citizens were killed with two million successfully evacuated, three hundred members of the sixteenth legion and all supporting elements including one strike cruiser eliminated by hostile action.” She paused, carefully studying the Primarch across from her, watching for any change of expression.

Daena sat across from Ayushmatki, her face entirely still as she spoke. Almost calm, but the Librarian was able to detect an undercurrent of disgust on her too perfect features. But not surprise.

“That, at any rate, was the official version of events.” Ayushmatki continued after some time had elapsed. “We assumed our comrades had been lost, and we were thankful that in making their stand, they at least saved some of the planet’s population. We did not pursue any action outside of this, not wishing to risk further escalation and loss of life, and it became simply another list of the Ninth’s crimes.” Finally, Ayushatki’s expression lost its neutrality, slowly twisting into one filled with pain and anguish. “However, my Primarch has now informed me that this was not the case.” Her fingers began to beat a steady rhythm on the table as she spoke, the calm, composed demeanor she had maintained throughout the Council slowly chipping away. “Approximately one hundred Astartes of the legion were taken prisoner in the aftermath, unable to continue offering resistance due to their injuries. These Astartes were taken to Carcinus. And…” she trailed off, her fingers ceasing to tap their rhythm as her hand balled into a fist. “Experimentation was performed upon them. Vile, horrific things. The ‘Infestus’ utilized by the Ninth Legion, we now know, are not beasts from Carcinus or other monstrosities scooped up from the stars. They are human beings. Corrupted and twisted by the hand of the Ninth - and these same horrors were visited upon the Astartes of the Sixteenth legion. This alone, in itself, is one of the gravest crimes imaginable, that a Primarch and Legion could perpetrate it makes it only worse.”

She gritted her teeth, silencing herself for a moment before continuing. “Among other experimentations, including those done upon the geneseed of the Legion itself, Eiohsa has reported to me that her Daughters were transformed into greater incarnations of the same Infestus, vivisected during various phases of mutation, implanted with material taken from the Charybdes, and more.” Her eyes blazed with anger as she spoke, but her voice remained icily smooth. “The geneseed of the sixteenth, as you well know, is uniquely malleable amongst the Legions, and it would seem that, according to the findings relayed me, some… unholy fusion of this and the Charybdes beings has likewise been performed. She tells me that she has documented extensive evidence and secured specimens from her infiltration of Carcinus. Unfortunately, I myself do not have these on hand at the present time. Thus, I ask that you trust me when I say I speak nothing but the unvarnished truth of the matter and will answer any questions you have to the absolute best of my ability.” She sighed, “You know Eiohsa. You know her willfulness, and the extents to which she will go. It is a trait she believes you two share, after a fashion. In a… turn of events I would not have expected from her, she requests you not only stand by her when she arrives, but restrain her. She has indicated the entirety of the Sixteenth Legion, plus additional units from Saravata, are with her. Her demands will be the execution of every single Fleshweaver of the Ninth Legion, and wishes to personally execute Ormis, the man heading the experiments. As one who has known her for centuries, I can tell you now that if the Emperor does not side with her, or one such as you does not calm her, she is fully ready to wipe out the entire Ninth Legion if her demands are not met.”

The Angel said nothing as Ayushmatki spoke, her face remaining so still one could mistake her for a statue. But there were still tells. Extraneous movements ceased, breathing slowed, and eventually even blinking stopped as Daena willed herself to remain entirely and perfectly still. Through immaterial sight, the lie was made clear, the woman a furor of activity. The temperature in the small chamber began to decrease as she went about her work, the Primarch’s psychic might turned upon herself.

When eventually she spoke, it was with a slow and painfully artificial voice purged entirely of emotion. “When will my sister arrive?”

Ayushmatki remained perfectly silent for a moment, carefully examining the Primarch before her. Though she was not Eiohsa, like all those who displayed psychic potential amongst the Legion, she had gained some small imprint of her ability. It was a common human trait to smother one’s own feelings on a matter, to project an air of indifference or neutrality in response to shocking news or to stress - but the Primarch’s psychic neutering of her own capacity to feel emotion was something she was unprepared for. When finally she too broke her silence, her own voice rang almost dead inside. It had been a herculean task not to lose her composure during her retelling of events, and she maintained that effort now. “Tomorrow. She entered a final warp jump shortly after sending me this missive. I predict she will be here by midday.”

Daena lurched forward as she released her control over herself, the Primarch taking in a gasp of air as the parade of forestalled emotions coursed through her mind and the room’s temperature snapped back to normal. Her perfect hair stuck, matted to her head when she finally looked back at the woman across from her, chest heaving as she recovered from the expenditure of psychic might.

“I will not permit such failings to destroy our entire endeavor. I promise you this, Ayushmatki.”

Ayushmatki nodded, “I thank you for this. The Sixteenth Legion and its Primarch thanks you for this. We owe you a debt of gratitude.”

Daena rose a hand, shaking her head softly. “Debts are owed when something of value is given. We can discuss gratitude and thanks after this storm has passed, not before.”

[...End Log.]
[...Terminating.]
[Imperial Thought for the Day: The defeat of the Malevolent is thy duty. Faith in the righteousness of thy cause, thy armor. Eternal vigilance, thy sword.]

The grand assembly of the Council had brought much cause for the great and good of the Imperium to gather in one place. Some were present to provide testimony and evidence, some to weigh their opinion on the final verdict. Many more were simply in attendance to partake in such an auspicious occurrence, even if just simply as an observer. Many of these guests could likely be dismissed by the scions of the Emperor should they wish to, but there was an elite cadre who could not be so easily dismissed or expected to bow simply to authority. The Titan legions’ independence from the rest of Imperial authority was as sacrosanct as could be found within the Imperium, separate even from the authority of the Primarchs and - for the most part - even the Mechanicum from which they hailed. There were few, of course, who would truly call upon the letter of the law in outright rejecting the will of the Primarchs, but it was good form to still pay lip service to such things.

In one of the many larger chambers of the conclave, the retinue of Sekhmetara had established a large dining hall for the occasion. Fresh from yet another day of debate and casework a more lighthearted expression of the unity of the Imperium was something all but the most conflict-craving of the attendants could appreciate and the invitation had been extended to all the members of the Titan Legions in attendance, from the noble princeps themselves to their gifted bridge crews. Several further invitations had been extended to members of import from other aspects of the Imperium, particularly those who had not yet fought alongside the Tears of Dawn and their Primarch. As part of the draw for those assembled, the heirs of the Emperor had, in full, been invited themselves, should they wish to attend.

The tables of the hall had been pushed to the side, bearing food and drink of the highest quality found across the Imperium, albeit with the particular flavours and spices of the Mithran Savannah, allowing guests to mingle, perhaps dance, in the great central space. At the beating heart of the social gathering was Sekhmetara herself. She was resplendent in such a way that was less formal than her council appearances, but no less poised. Her eyelids and lips were painted gold to match sub-dermal markings across her skin, her form clad in spun golden sink, threaded with cloth of red. While the front of the gown was distinctly two piece, behind her and threaded to her wrists it joined together, a belt of gold itself resting high on her form just beneath her chest, the centerpiece emblazoned with a large emerald cut into the symbolic face of the Panthera, her personal device. Each movement perfectly swept her gown behind her as she moved, the majestic figure currently speaking with another woman. While Sekhmetara was onyx, her companion of conversation possessed a complexion of a dusty tone, the authoritative lupine look she and her sisters were known for.

“Nee-Yar, Esha Ani Mohana,” Sekhmetara greeted the woman in the native tongue of the Legio Salara, craning down to press a kiss of greeting to her cheek. “It has been too long since your hunters walked with my Daughters.” While no doubt formal in their mannerisms, there was clearly at least some warmth of familiarity between the two women. Both were hunters of the greatest foes humanity had to face.

“Mholweni, Daughter of the Omnissiah. Each day that the Imperial Hunters stride beside lesser hosts we are weaker for it.” While Esha Ani Mohana lacked the semi-divine perfection of the Primarch now beside her, there was no doubt of her noble bearing and dangerous sense of beauty. The highest ranking of Mohana Mankata’s clone daughters, maturity and war had yet to play their toll on the Principes.

“A solution we can hopefully rectify sooner rather than later.” Sekhmetara mused with an almost mischievous look on her face, leaning back up as she took a sip from her goblet, satisfied with the raised eyebrow her words earned her from the Principes.

“I have heard rumour of where your attentions turn once the matters here are decided. Important work, but better suited to the scalpel that is your legion, than the hammer that is a titan legio.” The expression Esha Ani gave Sekmetara was polite, but the tone was not entirely hidden. Work beneath the auspice of a titan. There were few who could give such an expression to a primarch, but most of them were within the room.

“Matters are moving faster than is known, I promise that there is chance at glory, especially for those on the spearpoint alongside me.” Sekhemtara’s voice was low, not betraying the conversation over the din of the social gathering even if she naturally drew much attention, especially as the principes she was discussing matters with looked increasingly interested.

“Perhaps, but your siblings are gathering forces for a grand effort. Titans have never walked upon the surface of an Eldar craftworld, as far as I am aware, and the Mechanicum itself calls us to such glory.” Even if her words were reproachful, the princeps tone was clear. Convince me, that was certainly something Sekhmetara could do.

“That is true, but none understand the worth of the Legio Solaria better than I. The daughters of Mohana Mankata have long been sisters of my soul, you hunt as I hunt, even if you do so from within a skin of sacred steel. I long wish that I could have spent more time with your Mother before she was bound forever within Luxor Invictoria.” It was perhaps a little blunt for Sekhmetara’s taste, but she knew well the loyalty the heir had for the mother, and very few still living could claim a personal connection with the progenitor of the Imperial Hunters. “The foes we face will be many and strong, and unlike my brothers I will not make the mistake of favouring brutes over nobility.” She watched the expression on Esha Ani’s face sour with hidden triumph, knowing well that the trap had been set.

“The Legio Vulpa walk with your brothers?” The contempt bled into her every word, her form straightening at the thought of her house’s most hated rivals.

“A conclave of the Mechanicum has been called for a siege of unprecedented scale, who do you believe my less subtle brothers will favour in such things?” Sekhmetara’s eyes settled on Esha Ani’s own, studying the storm within. There was a personal rage there which eclipsed even the usual sense of hostility between the two legios. That was a matter she would have to delve into.

“...Then the Legio Vulpa walks with Sol Invicta once more, may our foes never see the bolt which strikes.” Her words were more tense than when they had begun, but still, buried beneath temporary offence was the desire to hunt, and to hunt beside kin-sisters. That was good, it would soften the blow when the extent of her machinations were no longer hidden.

“Even if they do, it will not save them.” The Primarch smiled, before drifting away, tilting her head as the comm-bead hidden in the gemstones of her jewellery crackled to life.

“How did that go?” The sing-song voice of Isabis sounded in her adopted sister’s ear from afar, the same teasing tone the pair always had in private no doubt whispered into a similarly hidden device.

“Good, are you with the Princeps Vulpa?”

“Oh, by blessed coincidence I am dearest-of-my-heart, how ever could you have known?” It took a force of will for Sekhmetara not to react to her sister’s response, the ghost of a grin tugging at her smile.

“How grand, please do suggest to the Princeps that the Legio Solaria are walking with the Tears of Dawn in Obscurus, perhaps they have sniffed out some hidden glory they’re unwilling to share?”

“Quite so sister, I can already hear him chomping at the bit.” Isabis laughed, no doubt publicly appearing to laugh at some socially appropriate point in wider conversation in her corner of the gathering, but privately to their combined plot. Two legios was a fair prize for five minutes of work.

A figure did stand out from the rest of the Legios, an obvious form that had entered the hall only to somewhat shuffle to the side of the room to try his best to not get involved with the festivities that were occurring. The man looked over all the other guests present and his white garb clashed with the walls themselves as his deep blue eyes looked around the gathering only to settle on the form of Sekhmetara, a seeming look of utter emotionless deadness staring at the other primarch. It may have not been immediately obvious, but the bald, pale stranger who seemed to wear nothing but a plain tunic was the form of the Lord of the Nineteenth, Usriel Andreadth was never seen without his armor even by the vast majority of his own sons. In his attempt to hide himself from the rest of the guests, it only made him stick out more and more as he was never found in such environments.

Sekhmetara’s secretive conversation with her sister was cut short as her eyes settled in turn on Usriel across the crowds of dignitaries. Her goblet of wine sitting, frozen in place, at her lips as she regarded the geneforged giant. While she had never seen her sibling out of his armour, it took her but a moment to determine who it must be. Her supernatural senses and perfectly crafted mind measured his dimensions against the rest of the Primarchs and drew no correlation but that. Still, she allowed the moments to stretch on, studying with curiosity, learning the lines of his face, the detail of his form beneath his armour. A moment of perhaps one sided intimacy between siblings. For that extended few heartbeats of her masterful form, nothing in the room mattered but them.

She was moving before the delay could even be noticed, finishing the gulp of her wine before setting the goblet down on the tray of a passing servant, the Mithran primarch sweeping through the throng of delegates to the far more mundanely garbed, somewhat out of place, primarch of the Nineteenth.

“Lord Usriel, come to walk among the few alive who might stand to hope to threaten those great fortresses of yours?” She spoke only as she drew close, motioning to the princeps around them. She had noticed her brother’s lack of familiar terms with his fellow primachs, and shifted her tone to exclude them. Perhaps an issue to be raised another time.

“I come in support of you, Sekhmetera, for volunteering yourself to take on the vision of my son, Nodis,” Usriel corrected, his face unmoving with the exception of his lips as he wrapped his arms behind his form and entered a stance of attention. His eyes traced her form momentarily, moving onto the princeps to absorb their forms one by one despite the attention that his sister was giving him in the moment. Returning his gaze to her once more he spoke again, “Truthfully, I am not as naturally fitting in this environment as you are.”

"If it helps, few are." Sekhmetara replied with something of a wry smile, her eyes dipping to examine Usriel once more, now in a more matter of fact manner than a familiarisation of his nature. While she had been intrigued by the sight of the Primarch out of armour, cheered by the opportunity to see her brother as something other than an armoured suit, it was indeed clear he may require some assistance with matters. "While we can never amount to being unimpressive. A more commanding fashion may help. Among people like this, they seek grandeur, akin to their own, to lead them." She tilted her head slightly as she watched Usriel, her expertise already calculating how best to enshrine him in grander attire. "Fortunately, I have staff on hand for this sort of thing."

Usriel’s face threatened emotion, almost showing a face of awkward discomfort as he looked down at his tabard before looking back up to Sekhmetara. It was clear the idea of having to be fashionable outside of his armor was one that was foreign to him, even in his many hundreds of years of life it was the motion of having to dress appropriately that seemed to knock him back. He uttered a statement, nearly in a stunned silence at his sibling’s suggestion of dressing him, “I do not believe that to be necessary, Sekhmetara.”

“Necessary, perhaps not,” The Mithran primach smiled in a manner approaching a grin, tilting her head again slightly as she studied Usriel up close, already the cogs of her mind styling the towering male more appropriately. “But we are among the few people it is actually worth impressing, and I would hate for you to fall behind some of the other gene-scions of the Emperor in such matters, the Titan Legions would surely compliment your sons well in your preferred styles of fighting.” Her smile eased slightly, becoming very much the picture of friendly decorum. “Please consider it an exchange of gifts, for trusting me so with one of your prized sons.”

Sekhmetara’s peer seemed to contemplate for a moment, clear that his mind analyzed the words that she had said and the idea of having those great machines of war aid in the defense of the Imperium. Usriel tilted his head upwards, before he reluctantly spoke, “I suppose you are right. I will accept this gift, perhaps even swaying a single titan legion to aid my sons would save many of them.”

In the hopes of avoiding a big diplomatic scene, the Pact delegation, three strong, slipped quietly into the proceedings. Wode, clad in the same rumpled service khakis he had worn during the day’s discussions, had in tow with him a startlingly ugly Astartes officer, and the diminutive form of Saul Imogen, the odd human in the Pact’s Space Marine command structure. A feast was welcome, certainly, but the Tenth was a legion uncertain of itself in the social battlefield of a diplomatic function, and the three of them did their best not to catch anyone’s eye as they chased empty seats.

“Think they got ambull ‘ere?” The ugly Astartes officer spoke up, his voice a diesel rumble. His face was a mess of augmentics, and from the clomp-thump of his walk, at least one leg was too.

“Ambull’s too rich.” Saul mused, his walking stick tapping on the polished floor. “We’re not gonna survive multiple courses of Ambull. Least I won’t, but I’d love some Grox wellington.”

“Sure, Grieg, they’ve got everything. It’s my sister, she’ll have butchered every blasted thing on four legs in the sector.” Wode growled, “Now, can you hurry your crippled ass up and find a seat? Even Saul’s moving faster than you and he’s got half the bloody stride.”

Grieg laughed, a wheezing, grinding sound, reminiscent of a transmission leaping from a stricken truck in suicidal glee. They eventually sat, at ideal seats in the far corner of the room, but not that far from the delicacies on offer. Grieg availed himself immediately, sating Astartes-level gluttony on fine Mithran cuisine, heaped haphazardly onto a plate that barely held everything he’d piled onto it. Saul looked on in dumb wonder at this, while Wode stared directly ahead, trying to tune out the sound of his Praetor chewing with his mouth open.

After the arrivals had settled in and the dull roar of the chattering crowd subsumed even the sound of Praetor Grieg’s feasting, yet another of Sekhmetara’s siblings made their entrance. Where Usriel and Wode had done their best to appear invisible and get straight to the business at hand, the latest Primarch had taken a page from the Mithran’s book.

Daena entered resplendent in a backless gown as dark as the void, studded with precisely two hundred diamonds, every facet gleaming in the light. Upon her brow sat a diadem of silver, made of two finely wrought lightning bolts wed by an upturned crescent, her raised wings framing her face as she made her debut.

With the entrance of her gleaming sister, Sekhmetara’s eyes widened slightly in enjoyment, watching her sweep into the room with relish, momentarily pausing her conversation with Usriel to admire the sight, before speaking more softly to the male primarch. “You see? Lady Daena has taken my advice from the week well, I doubt there will be a single Princeps present who does not court her attention now.” As she finished speaking, one of her attendants arrived, bowing to both Sekhmetara and Usriel, before offering to take Usriel aside to offer him the services of the Mithran tailors, even as the remainder of Daena’s retinue followed their primach into the room.

Trailing in their gene-sire’s wake were the Doomsayer’s Legion Mistress and Equerry, the genetically modified warriors far more uncomfortable in the finery that their mother had foisted upon them than she herself was. Both were Terran-born and had avoided the strange mimicking found among those of the Legion whose Daena’s blood flowed most strongly in, and so had retained the hard faces common to those who had survived and thrived on humanity’s birthworld before the coming of the Emperor.

The former woman was at least permitted the dignity of dress uniform, Vairya Kurus dressed in a black tunic and trousers cut the same way as untold billions of soldiers had worn before. A brilliant silver strand ran down the center and across her breast, illuminating a strand of gold braiding interrupted only by the weight of medals and honors as well as the silver sword and scales icon of the Legion. Her counterpart had no such martial glory however, Yeketerina Ascania wore instead a loose black dress with silver adornments upon the collar with a silver brooch shaped as a pair of wings in profile.

Rounding out the retinue was a mortal man in the formal white and blue dress jacket of an Imperial Engineer, the Legion’s icon placed directly under that of the Saturyne Ordo. So vaunted was his rank that the blue trim and adornments were interspersed with lines of golden thread and insignia denoting him as none less than the Doomsayer’s Lord Engineer, Gustav Hohenheim. Unlike his unflappable Primarch, or the stern-faced Astartes, he made no secret of his excitement to be among those who commanded the might of the God-Machines, and seemed poised to reintroduce himself to those Princeps who had Walked with the Legion before.

As if reading his mind, Daena turned her head to whisper to her three followers. “I would be greeted by my sister before we enjoyed ourselves. We have much to discuss.”

Just as the words left Daena’s lips, her angle of view and height gave her the perfect vantage point to behold as Augor Astren entered the chamber with his retinue. Although no longer adorned in his full armaments and servo-harness as he had been during the formal proceedings of the Council itself, his formal attire was nonetheless intended to humbly impress. Traditional long and flowing crimson Martian robes, trimmed with ceremonial designs in gold. Beneath the robes he wore a black body-glove with silvery electric-blue embroidery, his chest decorated with a modest number of badges and signs of office and with an ebon tabard and sash running from his shoulder down to the length of the floor, colorfully depicting a vertical storm-and-lightning filled diorama of the Vaomir Campaign. Mounted upon Augor’s back where he would normally have worn his servo-harness was instead a massive ceremonial Iron-Halo that framed both his head and shoulders, wreathed in gold and pulsing blue capacitor lines that illuminated the very space around his figure with a fulminous blue light. He had installed bionic eyes for the proceedings, likely for the purposes of endearing himself further with the Princeps - the right eye had built onto its exterior casing a partial face-mask that extending across the top and side of the twelfth Primarch’s face, terminating just beneath his thin and wry smiling lips. His left bionic eye had its own secondary ring of iron around its rim with strategically placed diodes fluttering with light, almost like its own orbital system.

To his right stood the Archmagos Mephitor, an almost expected presence at the gathering. In a blatant power-move, he was not even standing on the floor but was using his Abeyant to purposefully and evidently drift more than a meter off of it, extending his already exaggerated mechanical height to new extremes that brought him only somewhat short of even Augor’s height. He had otherwise retained his Omnissiah Axe as it served as the formal regalia for his office, but had added to several of his mechadendrites and sero-arms either ceremonial emblems or else censers emanating with effervescent and iridescent light.

For as deliberately overdone as the entrance of the Primarch and the Archmagos were however, their spotlight was utterly stolen - for Daena at least - but the comparatively diminutive and unremarkable figure of one Baron Sigveyr, the commander of the Ordo Astranoma’s Knight Legion who would otherwise have been recognized from his appearance aboard the Twelfth Primarch’s Ordinatus Barge during the Triumph of Ullanor. He wore a simple and elegant body-glove and long-coat as preferred by the nobility of certain Hiveworlds and bore a long ceremonial relic-blade in an ornate scabbard mounted across his back rather than at his hip. Beyond his left single bionic eye of subdued and practical design, the only abnormal quality to him was the fact that attending him was a single servo-skull with a neural uplink running directly from it and adjoining the base of the Baron’s skull. He filled the center of Daena’s attention.

Even as the Primarch and the Archmagos moved forward beside him, soaking up most if not all of the attention that might otherwise have caused people to take note, the Baron was walking with one arm propped out at the elbow, his head turned down and to the side as he murmured softly to the empty air. His servo-skull hovered scant centimeters away and below his own head, as if listening intently to him.

And as Daena took this in, she could truly see with the gifts she had been graced with by the Emperor what was there. The skull - it contained still some mind, unburdened of a body. Alive. Active. The mind of a psyker - a potent one. From the way the baron was posed and walked, it made clear - he was locked arm-and-arm with something, somebody, only he could see and hear.

As Daena realized this, she saw the mind turn its awareness to her. The Baron’s murmuring halted abruptly and he turned his one cool, slate-gray eye to her. His gaze had a dull, almost glazed-over quality to it, but his expression turned from casual to stern. The contours of his visage hardened, making clear that whatever Daena thought she saw, he was evidently neither afraid nor apologetic.

Though she had originally intended to seek out Sekhmetara, all thoughts of that had been forgotten as her mind’s eye realized the true identity of the Baron’s companion. Deciding not to draw attention to the matter, for she doubted he was the sort to appreciate it, she simply remained where she was, outwardly looking for her sister and host. Internally however, the first steps in establishing correspondence began.

Good evening, my lady. I take it it has been some time since you have been properly greeted.

For a moment there was only silence, although the presence seemed to shift in response to her words - and the Baron’s whirring servo skull seemed to rear back and orient its dead, hollow gaze towards the Primarch as the Baron returned to full and proper posture. Eventually, something approximating a response was returned - white noise, a hiss of tinnitus that seethed in Daena’s mind for several long moments until a faint, light and fluttering voice drifted through the static haze.

’Pardon me my lack of decorum, oh serene Primarch. Indeed it is…’

The voice broke apart in a wash of more static haze before resuming.

’...the case that for some time my one true love and master has been all the company deigned to take notice of me. I pray you will…’ Another burst of wretched static interceded. It was the first time Daena had ever heard a telepathic message with this sort of distortion to it - even astropathic messages from long distances tended to be clearer, albeit more cryptic.

’...forgive me if I do not attend to your personage, for I am joined ‘twixt the one to whom I am eternally avowed - and he had many duties he must see to. Though I am honored…’
Another sharp wheeze of static that seemed to drown out the other voice’s words, although it came back seemingly unbroken, almost as if the speaker themselves was aware of them.

’...to discourse with you, and the graciousness of your notice shall stay with me for all days.’

The Baron nodded to Daena in a perfunctory fashion, once, and began moving. He split off from the Twelfth Primarch with scarcely a word and began making his way towards a pairing of Princeps of the Legio Suturvora.

Daena returned the nod, making no move as the couple departed. This may be impertinent, but you make a fine couple, Baroness. And with that she too took her leave.

After minutes of listening to Grieg’s augmentic jaw process fine delicacies into paste, Wode breathed out through his nostrils, and stood up.

“Saul, keep fatass in line.” Wode said, straightening out his uniform with a single tug, a move that had become famous amongst the Lancers. “I’m going to properly introduce myself to my siblings. I haven’t had a chance to actually talk to any of them since I set foot at this accursed Council.”

“Sure thing, Arnie.” Saul said, quietly agog at Grieg’s feasting. “I’ll… make sure he doesn’t choke.”

With that, Wode strode towards Sekhmentara, cutting a path through the center of the floor like an Army battleship cutting through the Warp. The Lancer Primus of the 10th legion almost plowed through a remembrancer, the man only narrowly avoiding Wode’s stride by half-diving, half stumbling to the side, as he was fast getting inebriated on good Mithran vintage. This incident would later be immortalized in poetry, the limerick becoming a favorite amongst the more light-hearted stories that the Grim Crusade spawned.

“I believe I’ve found my sister,” Daena says ruefully as their brother simply forces his way through the crowd, the Primarch shaking her head with a soft smile. “It would not do to overwhelm the host. Come, ladies. Refreshment before the hunt,” she ordered in a quiet voice, turning with impeccable grace upon a heeled shoe with her retinue trailing behind the train of her gown.

“Sister!” Wode bellowed at Sekh, smiling broadly. “It’s a damn good night to be shot of those damned meetings, eh?”

“Brother!” Sekhmetara responded with only slightly less volume, the elegance of her poise and tone not quite matching the boisterous nature of her fellow primarch, but notably flooding the air with the same sense of familiarity, a look of joy on her features as he strode towards her. As she drew close, she leaned in, placing a kiss to the cheek of gene-enhanced male before leaning back, selecting for herself a crystal glass of sparkling Terran wine from a passing servant, handing one to Wode while sipping her own. “Indeed, were we to be solving matters in my way, we’d be having these every night.” She grinned, waving her hands around the room. Her eyes caught the sight of her brother’s own legionnaires and their complete lack of decorum, but far from being aghast, the Mithran primarch chuckles, her sing-song good humour dancing in the air around her. “I see your men are enjoying themselves, good, this whole affair has been rather too serious and without joy.”

Wode did his best to swallow his embarrassment, but his face did flush. Grieg, as if timed, chortled at some joke Saul had told, the metallic, ringing laugh echoing through the hall and causing many people to turn and look.

“Grieg, bless his heart, could enjoy sleeping in a foxhole half full of water if there was a meal after.” Wode mused, shaking his head. “I trust him with my life, but he’s coarse, like all the Tenth.”

As the primarchs spoke, another kind of brother approached Sekhmetara. Dressed in the robes of a Mithran tribal noble, rather than the dress uniform of the Imperium’s military, Kvasi cut a figure more intune with his adopted sister than the other delegates of the chamber, his hair as ever, styled into braids, although the beard he had grown for the campaign on Praxia had been trimmed into a smart moustache. Despite his native outfit, Kvasi stood into a brisk military salute to the pair as he drew close, before smiling with combined humour and awe at being in the close presence of two of the great beings, a powerful moment even for one who had grown up with a primarch for a sister.

“My Lord Wode, Sister; Twin-Of-My-Soul, your presence honours us all here, as ever.” As the leader of the Mithran Knight lances, he had a great deal of respect for the force of power Wode’s legion had been reported to bear, rumours that they might be involved in the campaign with the Tears of Dawn going forwards provoking his desire to take account of them in person.

Wode returned the man’s salute, then moving to shake the man’s hand, grinning. “You must be my sister’s brother. Well. Her… other brother. Heard you were the one to talk to about Knights, sir, I take it you pilot those noble machines?”

A small emerald light blinked from one of the several stones hanging off of the bracelet wrapped around her wrist, barely noticeable to any but her. She counted the light as it blinked two more times, the signal that it was her time to enter, and uncrossed her legs as she rose from the fine cushions she had been waiting on. Her steps clacking softly against the finely worked stones of the floor as she walked to the entrance of Sekhmetara’s stateroom, several heads of dignitaries and high-ranking Auxilia officers alike turning as she passed them by without even a glance.

The doors to the stateroom swung open silently as the genehanced Mithran guards, clad in their masterfully crafted armor wrought in gold and bronze accents acknowledged her approach and bowed their helmeted heads in dutiful respect as she passed.

Lady Catalina de Cadaval, Seneschal of House Cadaval of the Questor Imperialis entered the banquet. Her hair, curled and shimmering, lay across her back and just barely rested on the dress that was pressed over the breadth of her shoulders. The silk was dyed in the dark blue of the house Cadaval, a generous cut at the front framing a deep yellow gemstone, the second and final color of her House, hung from golden links between her appreciable form. Her dress, slowly at first, shifted colors like that of a calm wave, from the rich blue of the deepest oceans to the far softer tones of the emerald waters of the most splendid aisles, a clear show of respect to House Cadaval’s sworn ally of the Seventeenth Legion Astartes.

As Catalina continued forward, a silent servoskull floated in behind her. Two thin leashes of real leather and studded emeralds running from a mechanism within to a pair of foxes, their vibrant orange coats no doubt the product of generations of breeding by House Cadaval to create perfect images of their House animal. A message to all present of the cunning hunters that House Cadaval styled themselves as.

Making her way as if her destination was already known, Catalina crossed the banquet directly to the presence of two demigods and one achingly human form.

“We pilot those noble machines.” Catalina cut in to answer the Primarch of the Tenth. As quickly as she had spoken she offered a curtsy to Sekhmetara, the reams of her dress lifting just enough to expose her ankles and the beautifully crafted anklets with their hanging blue and gold emeralds.

“Lady Sekhmetara, an honor to once more be in your service.” she stated before inclining her head toward the other demigod, “Lord Wode, Lady Catalina de Cadaval, Seneschal of House Cadaval. At your service.” she finished and rose, positioning herself to stand slightly closer to Kvasi as she shifted in her dress.

Wode withdrew his hand, but only in the sense that Lady Catalina showing up allowed any greeting made before to be nullified. He raised his eyebrows, looking between the two Knight Princeps with his lips pursed in approval. “Hell yes, Lady Cadaval, it’s a pleasure to meet you both then.”

“I would never be so lofty as to call it service, my lady, but I will be proud to share the battlefield with you once more.” Sekhmetara’s smile broadened at the arrival of Lady Catalina, which soon broke into words of admiration. “And such a wonderful gown, you must be glad to have fought with us of late. My sister is many things, but appreciating fashion is not her greatest strength.” She laughed with no hint of animosity, her tone holding her great affection for Nelchitl even as she made a slight joke at her expense.

With a bow of her head, Catalina felt the Primarch’s words feeding her pride with every word. As calmly as she could she thanked Sekhmetara with a simple smile though her eyes gave away her awe at the being before her, “I find that though we complement one another in many ways, there are some pursuits we do not share. So indeed My Lady, I am glad that her sisters share such appreciations with me.” she joked as she followed along with the demigod, her heart racing as she spoke with such stunning familiarity to Sekhmetara.

While Sekhmetara greeted Catalina, Kvasi knelt down for the moment to greet the equally aristocratic animals who followed in their mistress' wake, the orange furred foxes responding to his slight fussing with restrained enthusiasm, such was the extent of their breeding. He stood as his sister finished speaking, smiling and taking Catalina’s hand in his own for a moment, pressing a kiss to her fingers. “My Lady, for once even my sister’s words do not quite do matters justice.” He smiled charmingly as he examined her dress, before turning to regard the twin primarchs once more. Drawn closer to him, Kvasi, in typical Mithran confidence, placed his arm around the Lady’s waist as the conversation continued in a hold that was proper in its elegance, but no doubt familiar.

With a practiced movement that spoke of her noble birth, Catalina allowed the rising Kvasi to take her hand, offering a restrained smile in return as he complimented her. “You’re too kind Kvasi.” she beamed as he brought his arm around her waist in a single movement. Tilting her head to the side she grabbed a passing glass and took a small sip from its bubbling contents before she spoke softly to Kvasi, “You yourself are looking fine tonight as well Lord.” she remarked as she took in the rich burgundy of his traditional Mithran garb, the fit cutting a fine form around the de facto Head of the Mithran Lances.

Wode smiled, face crinkling in an avuncular manner. He flagged down a passing waiter and removed a snifter of something bubbly. He downed it, then, nodded in approval, scooping the rest of the snifters off the tray in turn and downing them. The waiter was eventually sent off to re-up, his tray now emptied.

“So, I suppose you’ve heard of the 10th by now.” Wode said, “I imagine you all might have questions, especially since it seems my boys might be pitching in alongside the forces arrayed here. I’m getting just buzzed enough to answer them, if you’re curious.”

“My Daughters lack terribly in the field I believe your ‘boys’ to excel.” Sekmetara took the bait, even as her eyes drifted over Catalina and Kvasi, a slight smirk pulling on her lips, before her gaze settled on her gene-brother once more. “Although I suppose I can be blamed for that as much as anyone else. To me, war is the rush of flight, swift blows and screeching jets. I could not ask my daughters to fight in a way I would refuse myself. That does not mean, however, that I do not appreciate the strengths of such warfare, and that is why we shall be so deadly together, dearest brother, I doubt any foe can stand before our masteries combined.”

“I think you’re right, sister.” Wode nodded. “We don’t do a glamorous job, but it’s necessary. If an Astartes can be the best infantryman in the galaxy, he can be the best pilot, the best tanker, the best artillery crewman, the best anything. As long as he’s only asked to do one of those things at a time. The Emperor made us strong, but we only got so many arms, legs, and brains after all.”

Turning to the Seneschals, he said, “Of course, you’ve never seen an Astartes princeps, so there’s things even they can’t do. Cooperation between specialties, between legions, between experts in one thing working in perfect tandem with experts in another thing, that’s how we’ll win this galaxy. I believe that sincerely.”

“That, and neither we, nor our astartes gene-children can fit inside a Questoris throne.” Sekhmetara chuckled, smirking a little to Wode. “Believe me, back on Mithra they really did try, I had to resort to extreme measures to get them to stop.” Her good humour was mirrored by her brother, his arm still around Catalina, smiling to her warm words, before laughing along with Sekhmetara’s

“I believe they stopped, sister, because you pulled the arm off a Knight. It was a bit moot trying to force you into one after that.” He sipped his own acquired drink as Sekhmetara rolled her eyes, and laughed again, to his reply.

“Yes, I suppose it probably was that. But you are correct, brother, no wing of humanity, not even an astartes legion, can stand on its own, nor would such a thing be optimal. This is why occasions such as this are important, to bring us all together, not just in cause, but in spirit.” She smiled happily to her fellow primarch, again distracted momentarily with mirth as she watched Kvasi mumble something to Catalina. A private exchange that left a smile on her features. Distracting herself from her adopted sibling’s antics, Sekhmetara waved down one of the attendants. “Speaking of bringing us together….Please do locate our sister Daena and have her join us, I need to compliment her on an outfit well executed.” The servant quickly bowing their head before rushing to attend to the duty, only mid-act did it quite register they had been given the fearsome task of summoning a primarch.

A hand leaving her drink to cover her mouth as she let out a soft laugh, Catalina brought it down to Kvasi’s flank as he finished speaking, “The Lady Sekhmetara is irreplaceable, you and I however.” she gave his side a small squeeze, “I’ll take the honor and am humbled by it.” she admitted as she took another small sip from her glass, her restrained smile hiding the sheer overwhelming nature of what was taking place before her. Not only was Lady Sekhmetara showing a surprising amount of humility and understanding toward her and other’s worth in their great undertaking, but Kvasi had been far more forward than she had expected. Her meticulously planned entrance had been shattered with a compliment from a demigod so surprising as to be practically intoxicating, and Kvasi had followed up in perfect concert with his adopted sister. The Seneschal of House Cadaval realized with a laugh that it was her who was in fact being hunted here.

“Do you dance, brother?” Sekhmetara’s question broke almost out of nowhere as she sipped from her wine flute, her eyes resting on the wide open space of the cleared dining room where for now none had dared to actually begin much in the way of merriment. Her tone was pleasant, but in no way a true question, as she extended one hand to her fellow primarch. “If not, I’m sure you will be a swift learner. Much as I prefer the livelier celebrations of my homeworld, a Terran waltz is likely more at home here.” Sekhmetara’s gown shimmered as she moved, the red and gold cascade of silks down her moving with the perfect sculpture of her form, the light of the room catching on the gold tones across her skin. As her hand was taken, she looked over her shoulder to Kvasi and Catalina with a smile. “You both know the steps I presume? Do join us.” The Mithran primarch offering the honour of joining the pair of primarchs in the first dance at such a grand occasion as if she was merely advising on a new activity to while away the evening.

“I have never danced before, Sister, but I can start tonight.” Wode said, smiling, taking her hand in what he thought was a dignified way. “At least not a ballroom dance. If you lead, I’ll follow.”

“It is a waltz brother, you will lead, but I can guide you.” Sekhmetara spoke with a grin, even as the guests naturally responded to the two primachs drawing to the centre of the room, spreading out to accommodate them..

Next to Sekh, Wode looked plain, his uniform a ruddy khaki and olive green, but his boots were shiny, and his decorations polished. In a lot of ways he was the opposite of the stateswoman that was the Primarch of the Tears of Dawn, but in many ways, he was her equal as well, both siblings possessed of an unusual, room-dominating charisma and presence that came from different places but had much the same effect. Picts of the two accepting their dance became treasured pictures of this era of Imperial history, but that was a story for another time.

With a quizzical smile Catalina curtsied to the Primarch of the Twentieth, “It would be an honor to share the floor my Lady.” she responded. With a quick movement she placed the glass in her hand back onto a passing servers tray and shifted her hand away from Kvasi’s side, “Lead the way.” she smiled as she offered her arm to the Mithran, a soft blush filling the Seneschal’s cheeks.

Across the hall, the poor servant dispatched by Sekhmetara finally mustered the courage to perform their duty, marshaling the composure to guide Daena to her sister. The Primarch of the XIVth had already acquired a glass of wine, her subordinates having turned to the feast. Strangely, they seemed almost relieved to see their mistress depart to attend to the whims of their host.

“Sekmetara, my sun and succor,” Daena said as she greeted her gene-sister, looking over her companions with an appraising eye. Strangely, for the Angel at least, instead of her typical immaculately composed face, she wore an easy smile that for once seemed to be genuine. “And Wode, I have heard much of you. Some of it even good,” she joked, before surveying the scene while taking a sip of her wine.

“Well if it was good, whoever told you must’ve been a good liar.” Wode said, smiling behind a glass of wine, which he proceeded to down in one go. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you up close, Daena. I must say actually meeting my siblings instead of listening to them bitch has been very reviving.”

From another, the reminder of the Council meetings may have spoiled the Primarch’s mood, but Wode’s sheer lack of concern managed to buoy her spirits. “I do not believe Nelchitl knows how to lie, Wode,” she said, covering her smile with her own glass. “Though, it is very nice for you to admit I’m far more charming in person,” she added, sliding into self-deprecation.

“She doesn’t know how to pull a punch either, bless her heart.” Wode said, looking at the palm of his hand. His physiology had all but done away with the grievous injuries of before, but he remembered how she’d damn near killed him by way of greeting. He smiled. “Don’t get it twisted up now, I never said you were charming. Just that it’s nice to meet you.”

He punctuated his own joke with a sharp laugh, no doubt fueled by the gallons of wine he’d consumed during this idle chatter. He sobered up though, squinting as if re-thinking what he’d said. “Kidding, of course, I’m kidding.”

“I think brother, that of all of us, you are the most human,” Daena said warmly, appraising her brother with a peaceful look on her face, as if she had witnessed a miracle. And then the moment passed, and whatever fleeting sense of satisfaction she had felt faded.

“So, who am I to dance with?” she asked, turning her head to Sekhmetara. Her sister, for all her talents, was not particularly subtle.

Daena’s words brought an even greater smile to Sekhmetara’s full lips, immediately interrupting their progress to the centre of the room to press a kiss to both of Daena’s cheeks, without slipping free from Wode’s hold. “Dearest sister, you are reborn, truly we are each the diadems in the Imperium’s crown this evening.” She laughed, full of good humour and joy at the occasion. “Do watch that door, Sister, I have a surprise for you that shouldn’t be long in the making. We will wait for you to begin.” Sekhmetara motioned with her one free hand to the archway leading out to her more private chambers, where Usriel had been led away.

Kvasi took Catalina’s arm without delay and led her in the wake of the two primarchs. Even his steps and decorum, otherwise so intune with the typical nobility of the occasion, had something of a Mithran flair, the Huntsmaster appearing somewhat exotic among the wider arrayed crowd of Princeps who for the most part stuck closely to Terran and Martian culture. Once they reached the gradually clearing area at the centre of the room, their presence earned them almost as much attention as the two primarchs. Among the wider galaxy a lord and lady at the head of a knight lance would be an honoured guest, but there their knights were children among giants. To be given pride of place beside Sekhmetara and Wode in the presence of the greatest of the Emperor’s fighting forces spoke of how highly they were considered.

In time, the Primarch Usriel had returned to the event, this time not hiding his presence from the rest of the attendees like he had when he first arrived, seemingly invigorated by the prospects of garnering support from other Titan Legions. That said, his face still held a cold indifference as befit his normal demeanor as he walked back into the event. The outfit Sekhmetara's tailors had prepared for Usriel writ the dress uniform of an imperial office large, suitable for his greatly enhanced form. True in keeping to Sekhmetara's word, the outfit has been designed with pomp and circumstance in mind, but befitting of Usriel's much less extravagant nature. Cream of cloth detailed with lines of dark green, the high collar of the jacket was studded with two pins, one the Aquila of the Imperium, the other the sigil of his legion. Across his shoulders draped a dress-cape of the lighter green of the Sentinels' armour, completing the outfit in full.

Even though he had clearly been moved by Sekhmetara’s words, that did not stop him from promptly moving to the side of the party to merely look at those who attended with a cold glare. Such were the ways of the Steel Sentinels’ Primarch.

As his gaze roamed about the hall, it could not but pass over the party which just then came tromping through the doorway. A trio of Astartes filed in as if on a deployment march, their regular martial step clicking jarringly through the easeful rustling of the gathering. Although the full battle-plate they donned struck in itself a strident contrast to the parade of the other attendees’ ornate clothing, it was by far the least extravagant detail about them.

At their head came the by then recognisable figure of Issnos Traal, Equerry to the Ninth Primarch, who for once had left the looming shadow of his progenitor, as if to prove that he had not yet fully merged with it. The pair that followed him, however, was a completely novel sight to anyone who had never accompanied the elusive Legion on the battlefield. Rattling and clattering on limbs that were as much bionic as flesh, the two Expergefactors, adepts of the cryptic Abyssal Forge-Cult, scanned the celebration with the dully glinting lenses that coruscated around where their eyes ought to have been. Despite their station, most of their armour was painted in the Ninth’s dark blue, with only trims, stripes and iconography - including a curious symbol of three converging lightning bolts over a shield - shining in the distinctive red of the Mechanicum. One of them was conspicuously missing the best part of his right arm, which had been replaced by an outlandish bifurcated mechanical limb ending in two three-pronged grips, as well as the lower half of his helmet visor, whose absence exposed the vox-grille serving as his mouth. The other was not as outrageously mutilated, but no less bizarre - a swarm of lashing mechadendrites protruded from under the sea-blue and Martian-red robes draped over his shoulders, like a stirring nest of vipers threatening to emerge at any moment.

Pausing for a moment to sweep their stares around, the three Lurkers exchanged some bursts of gesticulation in their occult signage, before aligning their optics on a section of the tables. They began to trudge their way towards it, but all of a sudden deviated mid-stride towards Usriel, as if only then having recognised him. Their fists, or, in one case, manipulators struck their left pauldrons in salute as they approached, though with a subdued enough force.

Lord of the Nineteenth, Traal signed in greeting, A joyous occasion. My brethren wished to speak their gratitude to you and your kin.

“Expergefactor Iuvris,” the one-armed Techmarine introduced himself, metallic claws still held in salutation, through the scraping staccato of his synthesizer.

“Expergefactor Thenal,” the unexpectedly deep voice of his companion rejoindered, his visible mechadendrites coiling in reverence for a moment, “The husk your sons returned to us has been of great benefit for crucial data recovery, Scion of the Throne. We humbly extend the thanks of our fraternity to your anointed eminence.”

“Good day, sons of Sarghaul,” Usriel stated, bowing his head to each of his nephews, his stern look morphing into a one of nere serene calm with dealing with the astartes. The Primarch looked between the Expergefactors before speaking once more, a smooth voice coming from him, almost as if it was a parental coo, “I need no thanks, nephews. To know that my sons and your brothers may grow closer is all I need.”

We stand ever as one rank, the Equerry gestured, before the three bowed their helmets in unison and withdrew into the thick of the festivities. Traal’s unmarked carapace was surprisingly quick to disappear among the bright crowd, Iuvris ambled towards where the colours of the Legio Vulturum could be seen, while Thenal resumed his erstwhile path to the tables. Once there, he deftly caught hold of a capacious wine glass, dropped a haphazard assortment of berries, morsels of meat and pieces of fruit into it, then dipped a mechadendrite into the mix, which unfolded into a whirring circle of miniature blades. A flexible metallic tube snaked out from beneath the Expergefactor’s visor to dip into the blended slurry, and the cyborg clanked off to rejoin his brother, sipping at his meal as he went.

Daena had taken her orders to heart, and true to Sekhmetara’s words it did not take long for her designated dance partner to appear. Yet, so long did she stare in abject amazement at Usriel’s transformation that she was not the first to approach him, the woman taking the opportunity to finish her wine as she waited for Sarghaul’s Marines to tromp off.

And then her opportunity was there, the Angel immediately descending upon her brother before another could delay them any further. “Usriel, I see that our sister has sunk her hooks into you as well. Let us dance.” It was not a request.

Had Usriel even sought to deny Daena her wish, he stayed silent for the briefest of moments with his stern face coming back to him as he merely held out his hand for his sister. His gaze meeting hers as he spoke, “As you wish, Daena. Let us impress these Princeps.”

“Oh, Usriel. We both know it is not my wishes being entertained this evening,” she said slyly as she took his hand in hers and boldly ushered him to join their siblings and the true stars of the evening, the mortal man and woman for whom demigods prepared a celebration.

The primarchs, of course, stole the greater deal of attention, but the presence of one pair of mortals among them did not go unnoticed.

Even as the hushed mutterings began, Kvasi took several steps away from Catalina, bowing theatrically to her in a show of chivalric decorum, before closing the distance and taking her into a waltz hold, albeit with one hand a little scandalously low on her back. Risque as the Mithran might be, his steps were immaculate, and he began to lead Catalina with almost as much grace as his primach-sister guided Wode through his own steps.

Not allowing the weight of the moment to cloud her mind, the silk of Catalina’s dress rose as she curtsied to the Huntsmen before her. Her showing complete she rose to her full height as Kvasi came up from his own bow and crossed to her. With practiced ease she fell into place in his arms, one hand running the length of Kvasi’s arm before coming to slide into his own hand while the other came to rest atop his opposite arm as it fell into place a little lower than was expected. With a sly smile and a devious glint in her eyes, she allowed the Mithran to indulge himself. She quietly stepped with him as he began to lead her in their waltz. Her dress flowing around her like the lapping of the tide with every turn, the necklace and gemstone shifting slightly over her bare chest as her partner moved, her heels making only the slightest of noise as she stepped expertly along with Kvasi.

Wode, for his part, followed along, his movements mechanical, precise, but lacking in the grace and ease only experience with such things can provide. His face was alight with pleasure though, his stiffness easily forgiven by how much he was enjoying himself. His favorite was when he was directed to hold Sekh at arm’s length and spin her around, a move he never seemed to tire of.

His legionaries, Grieg and Saul, edged through the crowd to see this, not wanting to miss the chance to see their leader and gene-father, in Grieg’s case, actually enjoying himself. Eventually, not to be outshone, Grieg stepped out onto the floor, leading the much shorter, much smaller Saul Imogen in tow, where they both butchered the elegant waltz with childish enthusiasm, Grieg being far too clumsy and Saul being far too small to be an effective partner. The crowd seemed to like when the Astartes picked up the smaller man and spun him though, so their performance was at least spirited.

Daena and Usriel followed soon after, the Angel immediately realizing that her brother had never danced a Terran waltz and deciding to do something about it. Though what she did was far different from her sister’s deft guidance, the Primarch taking the lead instead of attempting to teach her brother as they went. “Perhaps you can show me one of your own dances later, but I believe we are meant to follow the script to begin with,” she said with a soft smile as she placed her hand upon the small of his back and guided his to her bare shoulder.

The Nineteenth Primarch’s features betrayed him for a moment, confusion taking hold as he had to for once let someone else be in control of the situation. Usriel tensed as his hand was led to his sister’s shoulder and he took in what could be called a nervous breath as he maintained sight with his Daena. In a moment he spoke, his voice still a stern whisper, “The dances of Vion 5 are the only ones I am familiar with and I have only done such once.”

“Once is more than enough for you to have achieved perfection, Usriel,” Daena said, her compliment lacking any of the subtle artifice of her sister. “I shall make you a master of this yet,” she added, heeled feet soon whisking across the floor with a grace that seemed to rival and at times even surpass Sekhmetara, the Angel appearing to literally glide across the floor. The fact, of course, was that she was, the Primarch seeing no reason not to use the advantage of her wings.

Usriel ignored her compliment, instead focusing on the dance itself with his feet - while still awkward and stiff by the standards of demi-gods - glided across the floor with Daena leading him around. It was likely that his partner could see the error in his steps, errors that he made up for by following her and keeping a steady pace. He was meticulous with each movement, that much was clear and even as he was getting the hang of such dance, an odd comment came from the Primarch who hid in fortresses, “This dance is too slow, Daena,”

“I agree,” she said, before immediately alighting three feet off the floor, hovering in mid-air to twirl the giant man by his hand then pulling him close once more. “The dances of court are nothing like those of my homeworld, or of my own daughters’ tastes. But just a moment more, yes?” she asked, turning her head to look at Kvasi and Catalina, the mortals at the heart of the constellation of Primarchs. “Sekhmetara will up the tempo soon enough.”

Usriel’s gaze did not falter from Daena as she looked to the mortals, his face letting out a sigh and relaxing from the stern look it had been giving a majority of the session. He allowed himself a moment free from his paranoia and planning, his body becoming one with the waltz of his sister as his blue eyes focused along the white of her hair. “Moving away from my awkwardness of the court, I will say that I have not danced since my upbringing. It brings back… pleasant memories,” he said in a bit of a melancholy tone.

Daena took an honest delight as her brother permitted himself to flow into the dance, the Primarchs making a show of their superhuman physique as she led him through the steps. “I suppose even the mighty lord of the Steel Sentinels was young once,” she murmured in a kind tone, her voice so quiet that even the ears of their siblings would struggle to hear the words. “Would you tell me of those pleasant days?”

Usriel was silent for a moment before he spoke once more, a voice more quiet than even Daena’s, “It was a time before Imperium, the time I spent with my mother and father, sisters and brothers, is a time that I have not spoken of in hundreds of years. I am sure it holds little relevance now, Daena.”

“Nonsense,” she insisted, slowing down their waltz and bringing the acrobatics to a close. “A part of me is jealous, you know. Such a life is one I never had. A mother, father, siblings… It was not until the Emperor found me that I had anything like that. So, tell me. Of the prize I can never win.”

Another beat of silence, Usriel swayed, stepping with movement as he allowed his memories to come back to him as he spoke, “They were days like any other who would live upon a forge world. I would meet my quota of production and head home and every day I’d see them come home tired and exhausted from work while I still had all the energy in the world.” He brought Daena closer as he continued his story, “My father and mother would always be there with us, they sat and sang while my siblings danced and I would stay seated for a small hab space is no place for our kind. Nonetheless, we always would have the best of fun with each other and we loved each other more than life itself.”

“I was cloistered away for as long as I can remember, I am glad that there are those of us who had mundane childhoods,” she said warmly, her irisless eyes staring up into his with a gentle smile. “But those happy days did not last.”

“No such days last, in the end those days we want are taken from us,” Usriel said sadly with a light nod of his head.

“Many of our siblings brought their found families with them. I take it yours were already lost,” Daena said softly, the waltz almost entirely forgotten. “I am sorry, Usriel.”

“They-“ Usriel stopped in his sentence as he felt the emotions of his memory come back to him, emotions he had not felt in a time almost before Imperium. The Nineteenth Primarch felt his breath hastened as his hand tightened around Daena’s own, yet no tears came. Whether those tears were being choked back or if Usriel’s body had forgotten how to use them was something unknown to any. A shaky whisper came out, one rife with pain, “I tried to save them.”

“Not even we can save everyone,” she whispered back, her wings descending upon them as she continued the dance by mere rote.

“I could have, but I was afraid. I did not know violence of such kind then,” Usriel shakily stated, before finally a small tear ran down the side of his face. He continued, “I failed them, just as I had failed my sons at Atis.”

“You are Usriel Andredth, Primarch of the Nineteenth, begotten son of the Emperor. But you are not God. There will always be those we cannot save,” she said in a tired voice, the weight of the bodies she bore suddenly visible upon her face as the mask of perfection slipped. “Teach others the dances your family once danced. Sing praises to your fallen sons. Remember and grieve them, but do not let that consume you. Life is for the living, Usriel. They would want you to live, for they know that you did not fail them.”

“I am but a creation of our Emperor, my creator would only look upon me and see a weapon to be used for the Imperium. I am nothing more to the him, yet when I try to be something more, I am shown why I am but a mere pawn,” Usriel stated grimly, his eyes looking past Daena’s own now as he took a sharp inhale of breath and returned his face to the one that Daena had seen when they first started the dance. It was one of disconnection, “They wanted me to live but so did I. My sons, my siblings, my parents… I should have saved them. Yet now, they are gone with the only things to remind me of them are memories that I cannot even bear to remember.”

“Who told you such things, Usriel? You are no mere weapon. You and your sons were made for far more than war,” Daena said, her tone almost chiding as she consoled him. “I have seen our father’s weapons, and you are nobler by far. It is hard to remember, but it is the only way to make them live once more. The memories of your family, those keep them alive. Do not consign them to oblivion.”

“If I am nobler than a mere weapon then why is it that the Emperor offered me no consul, no words to dictate otherwise. He gave me the Legion, but when I met him, it was nothing more than a superior talking to a common soldier,” Usriel said, now casting his gaze away from Daena, his voice not showing any signs of annoyance or animosity but only sadness. “If he truly is my father, then he would not leave me with the fate of bearing the losses I have endured.”

“Our father is… sparing with his affections, it is true. I do not think it treasonous to say that he is perhaps not the best father in the galaxy,” she said, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “But we are meant for so much more, he wished for us to do so much more, than fight endless war. So, Usriel. When this dance ends, shall we perform one of yours?”

“Perhaps, Daena. Perhaps,” Usriel answered, the beginnings of a smile crept to his face before his eyes went past Daena and turned his face to one of confusion. Silently the primarch spoke to himself, “Why has Belloris come?”

Daena casually spun the pair around, turning to see what had grabbed her brother’s attention and the sight was that of a woman in the armor of the Imperial Army that had been recolored to match that of the Steel Sentinels, blond hair cut short, with brown eyes that had seemed to have a purple inflection within them. Her face was one of silent fury as she glared at the white-haired primarch, a face that not many made to one of the daughters of the Emperor. Her hands were balled into fists, firmly tucked at her sides as she continued staring at Daena.

Another spin and her back was to the woman once more, the Primarch smiling coyly to her brother. “It seems that I am not the only one who desires your company this evening, Usriel. I think I would prefer to watch one of your home’s dances, rather than participate. Perhaps this Belloris of yours should have the next?”

Usriel blinked a few times as he looked back to Daena, confusion still clear on his face, “I am confused. Are you saying that Belloris wants my attention?”

“I am saying Belloris would like to dance with you,” Daena replied, shaking her head at him. “Are you sure Augor is the blind one?”

“Belloris does not need to dance with me nor do I care to dance with her. She is the Orator of the House and so has no business being here and neglecting her duties,” Usriel said, either ignoring or not hearing her question to Usriel’s shortsightedness.

“Oh Usriel,” Daena said with a soft smile, even as her heart ached for Belloris’ not just unrequited, but entirely unrealized love. “One day you’ll understand,” she promised, words that would take on a far different meaning in the darker days to come that were quite lacking in dances and joy.

The Grand Reception Hall, concurrently...

---

While the other Primarchs and their retinues retreated to the back area to dance, Augor Astren and his own companions had instead been sweeping amongst the ranks of the Legio Princeps attending the gathering - very few of whom had any interest in the indulgent levity the party of dancers were now pursuing. The Baron Sigveyr had been discussing at length, if in a somewhat somber fashion, with Princeps Maximus Horgoth of the Legio Suturvora, the Fire Masters.

“...I am open to being persuaded. I am not convinced the endeavor will be one worthy of the Fire Masters’ efforts, Knight Baron.” Horgoth rumbled. “You will doubtlessly be capable of swaying over many other Princeps and God Engine Legions to your cause. What would be left for our own glory?”

“From what I have been told, honorable Princeps, this Eldar Craftworld is the size of a small planet.” The Baron answered after having turned a faint, seemingly knowing glance to his servo-skull. “Although it is difficult to tell from pure remote augur readings, the Ordo Astranoma’s Logis are convinced there must be massive expanses contained within its interior - perhaps amounting to many times the surface area of any celestial body of equal size due to its volumetric architecture. Even if not, the exterior of the craft is considerable in size and there are many large Aeldari webway gates mounted upon the hull. It is almost a certainty that Eldar Titans will be present - in force.”

“Doubtlessly.” Horgoth agreed. “Though I still fail to see how battling them rather than embarking on another campaign is preferable for our purposes. The Fire Masters are a venerated and renowned Legion of God Engines, Knight Baron. There are many pressing, perilous, and glorious campaigns that call to us.”

“Well,” The Baron began with a faint smile, “Although I do not doubt that, consider these two points. Firstly, the Eldar are by far the most advanced and the greatest of those adversaries who remain to contest the control of Humanity in the galaxy. This craftworld of theirs - they hold it to be sacred, venerated much in the same way we venerate Terra and Mars. They will assemble their mightiest forces to defend it. Your opponents shall be amongst the most peerless to have ever been faced, and the glory to be gained through the conquest of their work shall be equally exalted.”

Horgoth stroked his chin thoughtfully at that, clearly won over despite his grudging attempts to appear unphased. “I see. The second reason?”

The Baron answered simply by taking a single step to the left and gesturing grandly towards the far end of the room. Several meters away, the Archmagos Mephitor was holding court with a flock of more than a dozen Princeps at once, clustered and clamoring about him. Counted amongst them were many of the College Titanica’s Legions that had retained their strong bonds to the Mechanicum - some even remained openly and unapologetically loyal to Mars and its principles. Though the entirety of the College Titanica was nominally an extension of the Mechanicum proper, its Legions were granted such tremendous autonomy and were often desperately curried with for favor that their actual priorities and loyalties tended to be diverse. Many of the Princeps of those Titan Legions that still held closer allegiance with the Cult Mechanicum than the Imperium Writ Large had already freely approached the Archmagos to pledge their efforts to his devises - amongst them were Princeps from the Legio Vulturum, the Legio Magna, and the Legio Kydianos. Even a few Princeps from Legions nominally more distanced from Mars, such as Princeps Indias Cavalerio of the Legio Tempestus, one of the Legions of the Triad Ferrum Morgulus, had approached and was listening in on the conversation intently. Also counted amongst the gaggle of Princeps was Tesarius Orcan, another member of the Legio Suturvora - who was already speaking animatedly with the Tech-Priest.

“Mars has just as great an interest in this campaign as does the Omnissiah.” The Baron voiced after giving Horgoth a moment to take in the scene. “And many of the most famed and celebrated of Titan Legions are expected to take part. To be absent might evoke the wrong sort of sentiment.” Horgoth merely nodded in response.

Augor Astren himself had approached an unlikely pair - the Princeps Tesarius Solomere and Raynal Hess of the Legio Lysanda. Their Titan Legion was one mostly known for its safeguarding of the outermost fringes of Imperial Space amongst the Eastern boundaries, and thus had few campaigns of glorious repute to its name despite its substantial size and exemplary service.

“The Stars themselves shine for your glory, honored Princeps.” Augor intoned, making a two-handed cogwheel gesture as he approached. The two Princeps exchanged a glance before Tesarius replied.

“Blessed be your countenance, Holy Primarch. Though we are honored by your notice, I am afraid the duties of our Legion-” Augor interrupted him by proffering a hand.

“You are correct.” He began. “Though the Legio Lysanda is more deserving than most of the glory and honor of the great campaign the Ordo Astranoma has planned, your steadfast devotion to your duty is more glorious and honorable still. Few know better than I the treachery and abominations that lurk in the furthest reaches of the dark, beyond the light of the Omnissiah. Fewer still know the horrors that your Legio have faced and thwarted, time and time again, rarely to receive recognition for your efforts. The Stargazers Legion has borne witness to your stalwart defense of the Imperium and to your peerless vigilance. Many times, you have been one of the only forces to come to the aid of my Children’s Macroclade Fleets, and many times have the Stargazers assembled and heeded your calls for aid in turn. I did not come to ask the Legio Lysanda to partake in the Campaign against the Eldar.”

Augor then bent low on one knee and inclined his head before the two Princeps, who stood, struck with shock before him - much as were many others surrounding them as they turned and noticed the unusual motion from the Twelfth Primarch.

“Know that you and yours shall always have an ally in me and mine, Princeps of the Legio Lysanda. Into the furthest and darkest reaches of space, we shall stand fast with you against all challengers.”

The Princeps simply stood, still too evidently sticken to reply even as the Primarch rose from his knelt posture, returning to his full stature. “I knew it would be improper of me to see to any other matters here before I had the opportunity to speak with you.” He stated in an exultant and serene tone. “If there is anything I or the Ordo Astranoma can do to service your own purposes, works, and holdings - do not hesitate to tell me, or any of my Legion’s Lord Commanders.”

“...That is…” Raynal Hess started hesitatingly before falling silent once more.

“...The Legio Lysanda does indeed have a rapport with the Stargazers Astartes Legion, holy Primarch.” Tesarius finally managed. “Moreso, I must admit, than with any others of the Children of the Omnissiah. Though we were unaware until now of the true extent of that rapport. It would be imprudent of us to make requests of you and yours given the scope of the campaign you are about to undertake.”

“Perhaps so.” The Twelfth Primarch nodded. “Though I can think of an opportunity that your Legio may find worth in. The so-called Librarian Crusade - it shall be venturing into the fringes of space in the Segmentum Obscurus. Many of the worlds there have recently fallen prey to externally incited insurrections. Their Compliance shall shortly be assured of course, but an adamant force capable of holding and keeping those worlds would be invaluable in the course of the Campaign, and many of my siblings would not fail to take notice of such efforts…”

Not far from where the Ordo Astranoma was engaged with the representatives of the Collegia, a smaller gathering had formed around the envoys of the Abyssal Lurkers. The spawn of the Ninth, utterly indifferent to the heart and splendour of the celebration, had set to assembling those who, like them, ruminated designs of bloodshed and destruction even on the brightest of days. Though the deep-dwellers lacked the sway that true adherents of the Machine Cult wielded among certain Titan Legions, there were those who, in memory of past campaigns fought at their side and for the amicable ties of the Dronemaw with the clergy of their native Forge Worlds, were disposed to lend them their ear for a spell. There stood with them Principes in the red and teal liveries of the brutal Legio Laniaskara, their features daubed with ritual paints whose designs obscurely encoded rank and accomplishment. Others donned the black and beiges of the impiteous twin Legios of Xana, Vulturum and Kydianos, not all of whose scions had gone to join Mephitor of the Stargazers. Their bodies were marked by a profusion of strange augmentics unusual for those of their station, and the quiet, oddly unassuming figures of their brethren of the House Malinax hovered ever nearby.

“...An enemy with glorious promise and hidden potential,” Iuvris was mechanically rattling to a semicircle of Xanites as Thenal sipped from his glass behind him, having already refilled it with increasingly mismatched bits and bites a few times, “We know they hold strange and potent technologies, but none such that they cannot be overcome. A golden medium. Once we strike at their parasitic domain, they will have no recourse but to meet us in the field, where their flesh may be worthy witness to the artifices of the Vodian savants.”

“That is all well and good,” the Princeps Ultima of the Gore Crows, Scrindus Tepfra, answered in harsh and haughty tones. Steely cords of bionic muscle rose from under his ashen skin where it was bared, and one of his eyes was a cybernetic speculum. “But pray tell, what sets these Nephilim of yours apart from the Eldar that some of our Seniores are already frothing to quash? They, too, will be driven to us by desperation, and so too they are fresh targets for the Legio’s arms.”

“Two things, regent of the God-Machine,” Iuvris raised his twofold arm, claws held up on each hand, “The Eldar are not armoured in pride alone. They are elusive like mercury, covered in simulacra and shields of unholy invention. It might be fascinating to record how the wrath of your engines would collide with their defenses, but true impacts upon the reviled xeno form would be all the rarer. Elimination is our final goal, not merely to sweep aside illusory wards. Let those less dedicated to the true depths of battle do away with them.”

Tepfra narrowed his one eye as he crossed his arms. “And the other?”

“Unlike the Eldar, these beings rule over the lost and the condemned. Supplicants perverted by communion with the xeno, eagerly bearing the yoke that binds them. A blight on the face of mankind that must be cleansed. Only a truly devoted spirit could summon the humility to scourge the chaff once the blade of the enemy is blunted, but I know for a fact that our company is not lacking in such paragons.”

The Princeps Ultima inclined his head, his eye still squinting with suspicion, though a shadow of a grin seemed to briefly dance at the corners of his mouth. “That might be, Expergefactor, that might be. But I know just as well that the Archmagos-Procurator would be greatly displeased if we did not lunge for the chance to temper the Crows’ talons in the blood of prey as formidable as Eldar,” his voice briefly lowered, taking on a confidential tone, “To say nothing of Magister Scoria.”

Iuvris seemed about to reply when Thenal spoke up from behind him. “The Third Tempest would hold it an honour to march alongside the hallowed regents in the sack of Iris. Yet, surely it would be to the Vodian Consistory’s satisfaction if his wardens could assay both the Eldar and those world-harvesters at once.”

Tepfra stood pensive for a moment, before beckoning one of the Kydianos Principes to the side and quietly conferring with them, their voices lost in the pervasive murmur of the crowd. In their absence, the Expergefactors turned their allurements to the younger Xanites.

Over behind the Techmarines’ backs, Issnos Traal was trading signs for the Laniaskaran Principes’ words. A few of them kept appraising gazes glued to his bone talons, apparently more intrigued by the nature of the trophy than by what the Equerry was spelling out with it.

“Why call on us for this then, blood of Carcinus?” a wiry Valian by the name of Aleyte, half her face covered in a jagged pattern of ceremonial crimson paint, was then asking, “If these parasites you hunt are not great enough to cut down with our blades, if their machines are too puny to face us foot to foot? What use do you have for our packs?”

The xenos’ war machines could prove great foes still for all we know, Traal gestured in reply, There is more. Have you ever struck down - his motions became slower, but sharper and more deliberate, as if he were making sure he would clearly convey an unusual meaning, - an edifice that lives?

“A living building?” Aleyte exchanged puzzled glances with her fellows and shook her head, “We Impalers have bled dry beasts that might as well be fortresses, and we have shattered engines that moved whole citadels to battle. Do you mean something that’s neither of those?”

Indeed, the Equerry signed, once more at his usual pace, We have seen their cities only from afar, but our scans have found vast presences inside them. High towers of metal matched to strong flows and surges, psychic force. We do not know if they truly live, but they were built by predators of the mind.

“That would be something for the priests to figure out,” the Valian shrugged, “What is and isn’t life is a question of doctrine, not for us to solve.”

Nor for us, Traal convened, Our duty is to conquer. Only sometimes the galaxy surprises us with some freakish new obstacle.

“And what wouldn’t many give to be the first to spill new blood,” Aleyte nodded pensively.

Time passed, the Princeps and the retinues of the Primarchs all commingling amongst each other as vows and promises were exchanged amidst speculation and intrigue. Nearly all of the Princeps at the function knew of each other by reputation if nothing else, and drew to each other almost instinctively - and around their would-be patrons and allies or otherwise. All save for one.

Princeps Calvar Ibranum of the Legio Xestobiax felt almost as if he did not belong in the stateroom. The God-Engines of his order were few, their accomplishments unsung in anticipation of their occurence, and the Princeps’ robes unadorned and practically spartan in decorations and honors. As the Legio Xestobiax had only just recently been declared Officio Fidelitas, Calvar had barely even managed to secure admittance to the event. Three quarters of the Administratum drones and clerks he had been forced to confront had never heard of him or the Legio Xestobiax - even those who made it their business to know of the Titan Legions.

It thus came as something of a shock when he heard his own name volleying towards him from both sides as two strangers seemed to erupt outwards from the surrounding crowd with scarcely any warning.

“Princeps Ibranu-” Baron Sigveyr paused, coming up short with his servo-skull pulling an equally abrupt braking-maneuver in the air as he came face to face with the comparatively towering form and unsettling voice of Thenal of the Ninth Legion.

“My apologies, Lord Astartes.” The Baron eventually managed with a clipped tone as he recovered. “In my haste I must have overlooked your approach through the crowd.”

“Trouble yourself not, illuminate,” the Expergefactor raised a hand, along with a cluster of mechadendrites on the same side, in a conciliatory gesture, “Chance has a way of levelling us when allowed to run unbridled. Regent,” he nodded in greeting to Calvar, before returning his gaze midway between the two Throne-pilots. “The paths of causality appear to have crossed at your feet.”

“I would do well to aprise my master of the notice of the Ninth Legion, Lord Astartes. We did not expect much-” The Baron’s gaze turned to Calvar and his voice halted. After a momentary pause and a motion to clasp his hands behind his back, the Baron resumed. “I take it the Ninth Legion sees potential in the Legio Xestobiax, then?”

“It is the custom of my brethren to plumb the most occult deeps, and never to dismiss the promise hidden in the youngest of growths,” Thenal replied, four of his flexible metallic limbs bending into the shape of a helix, “But alas, rarely do they turn such patient looks upon the works of the machine. It was the initiative of my own order to probe the talents of the Legio, that we may determine if they could flourish in the shadow of a rapport. Do our kin of the Astranoma have a design of their own for their and the Xestobiax’ mutual enhancement?”

“Less a design and more of an opportunity, Lord Astartes, one which I imagine we are all well-informed of. It would likely be best if you made your proposal first so that we might spoil the good Princeps for choice.” The Baron turned a wry smile up to Thenal. “And I confess I have an interest in what you might wish to discuss with him in turn.”

“So be it,” the Expergefactor nodded and turned his helmet to the Princeps. “Regent, by the will of the Ninth Legion, be it known that we offer unto you and yours a chance to unveil your might to the Imperium on fields of little risk and great reward. Once this conclave is sealed by the Omnissiah, our brothers will strike against the xeno-dominion of Melchior. It is not a threat we estimate to be formidable, for great forces will march alongside us, but it offers ample bloodshed and glory in the eyes of our allies and mankind at large. If the duty of battle calls to you, you will find it a worthy anvil to forge the first syllables of your name.”

Calvar nodded in response. “A sound and prudent offer. Though it begs the question of what opposition you are expecting that your campaign would benefit from the intercession of the Legio Xestobiax’ god engines, Lord Astartes.”

“The full extent of the hostile forces is unknown,” Thenal thrummed, “We have reason to suspect that Melchior may be but the latest conquest of an expansive xeno empire, and that it is defended by potent weapons its rulers do not deign to unveil for lesser skirmishes. The presence of your consecrated eidola may prove a great benefit if harsher resistance should arise unaccounted-for, and there is fame to be gained in thus braving the mysteries of the galaxy.”

Calvar then turned to look at the Baron. “I trust it is no slight to presume you intended to invite my engines to join the order of battle in the siege to be waged against Iris.”

“Indeed. That is very much what I came to offer to you.” The Baron admitted. “I will not lie to you - the adversaries we shall face will be some of the greatest the Imperium has ever known, but you would not be fighting alone. A number of other Legios shall be present as well, amongst many other allies.”

Calvar appeared to mull this over for a moment before speaking once more. “Lord Astartes - as your counterpart indicates, the forces of the Eldar are quite formidable - but they are, in this circumstance, the devil we know, and were I to commit my engines to that campaign I would have the support of other Legios as well as the opportunity to establish rapport with them. Your campaign, while intriguing, promises a great many unknowns - some mysterious far-flung xenos influence beyond the pall of what is known. Why would you prefer the Legio Xestobiax in this scenario, as opposed to a more blooded house?”

“The god-engines of your host would not march alone,” one of Thenal’s mechadendrites pointed up, “My brothers are working to sway the wardens of Xana and Valia-Maximal to those undertakings. The attendant clergies of their cradles are accomplished, and to forge bonds with them on the battlefield would be a rare privilege.”

Calvar’s frame seemed to go rigid at the mention of the two names. “I see.” He said, his tone suddenly frigid. “I will have to give this matter some thought - I will let the both of your legions know of my decision before the night is out, of course.” He nodded to both the Baron and Thenal in turn, if somewhat stiffly. “If you will excuse me.”

The Princeps then broke away from the both of them and headed directly into the crowd of guests - and if it appeared to the Baron and Thenal that he was heading rather deliberately towards the congregation of Princeps crowded around Mephitor, neither of them made mention of it.

“I suppose we are left to await his word then, Lord Astartes.” The Baron directed to Thenal in a tellingly consolatory tone. “Though you have piqued my curiosity in the meantime. I have heard rumblings of the xenos in the Melchior region - these so-called ‘Nephilim‘’ myself. The Ordo Astranoma has had a number of notices concerning the possible turning of Genetors to the formulation of a new pogrom plague - but I did not known that campaign had risen to the level of multiple Titan Legions deigning to involve themselves.”

“Nor has it, illuminate, or not insofar as I am permitted to know,” the Expergefactor seemed unconcerned by the display of Calvar’s departure, the serpentine hive of his appendages shifting and stirring at ease, “I have heard of them fielding strange and unholy mechanisms, devices and biomorphs that reduce entire worlds to servitude, but for all their impure artifice they have thus far not shown themselves able to overtly match the true gifts of the Machine God. Yet the forces of our Legion will be divided in their sacred task. Where isolated Tempests may prove insufficient against the multitudes of the inhuman, the god-engines will find ample chance to cover themselves in blood and glory. Man and machine complete each other, a truth that our leaders have been regrettably slow to acknowledge.”

He made a curious sign with his hands - almost a Cog Mechanicum, but strangely sharp and convoluted - before glancing down at the Baron. “Were it that all could be as enlightened as the revered Lord Astren.”

The Baron seemed lost in thought, almost perturbed, to the point where the flattery flew completely by him. “Word of such profuse and particularly blasphemous Heretech is worrisome - and with such rotten timing as well. Ordinarily I would offer to arrange for a number of the Twelfth Legion’s Macroclades to join the campaign, but with this Craftworld Siege we are stretched precariously thin. Those fleets of the Ordo Astranoma not being committed to the Iris Campaign are being consigned to indefinite regional patrol or custodial watch over particular sectors. Even my homeworld of Caelrulmoste, which is in the Dominion of Storms - a figurative stone’s throw from Last Light itself - is going to have to fend for itself for the duration of the campaign.”

“No doubt the Lord Primarch will have accounted for the particulars of such a distribution, though even the sharpest minds can be hampered by the limitations of the tools at their disposal,” Thenal nodded, “The Dominion of Storms marks one of the outermost boundaries of the Imperium in a region I know of as turbulent. Are there truly so few concerns about incursions from those fringes that have yet to be annexed?”

“There are plentiful concerns, Lord Astartes, but Caelrulmoste is a Questor Mechanicum world. What little infrastructure is present there has bite enough to swallow any reavers that would venture there.” The Baron appeared to hesitate as his servo skull drifted in close and almost seemed to murmur in his ear conspiratorially. “...Though there has been trouble in that region that we were not able to investigate or deal with in a timely fashion prior to the arraigning of the Iris Campaign. There was even an entire Aspirant Mechanicum Colony on the world of Altus Ferro that had to be abandoned recently due to reaver intrusions threatening the security of the region.”

“An Aspirant Colony.” Thenal’s upper mechadendrites rose in a quizzical curl like so many stirring cobras, “What sort of marauders could be dangerous enough for a settler force of the Cult to withdraw entirely, illuminate? Voidfaring xenos or nomad fleets?”

“The latter - their fleets have had encounters of some varying success with the Imperial Navy of course, but peculiarly every report of their confrontations with the Imperial Army upon any planetary theater claims they are nearly unstoppable. They have some nebulous and allegedly indestructible form of warmachines they are reputed to use, but intelligence is contradictory and unilluminating.” The Baron waved a hand in a gesture of vaguery. “But the region has always been a low priority - filled with nothing but barren planets and uninhabitable sectors. Even Altus Ferro is an ice world - or it perhaps has frozen oceans, I am not certain which. There were always more pressing fronts of the Great Crusade. So when word came that the same reavers were threatening the area and that there were no nearby fleets to safeguard the nascent Forges…” The Baron shrugged. “The Tech-Priests there did not have the resources or forces to withstand even a token invasion force, let alone one with an unbroken record of ground victories against the Imperial Army.”

“Hostiles with middling naval strength and planetside superiority fall within the category of threats the Legiones Astartes are most efficient in eliminating,” Thenal mused, “And such potent war-machines bear investigation by the Cult Mechanicum. It is unfortunate that this presence should have remained below notice until a time when the focus of mankind’s strength is directed elsewhere.”

“As you say, Lord Astartes.” The Baron agreed. “It will likely be prioritized once the Iris Campaign has concluded, or perhaps some other Legion will chance nearby and elect to deal with them, though personally I doubt it. There is nothing in that drift of space of much interest to the Legions other than Altus Ferro itself.”

“That may be so, but much is concealed from our imperfect sight,” the Expergefactor folded his fingers together in contemplative posture, “This reaver activity might be a portent of a greater menace. They could have planetary holdings in the uncharted zones of the Drifts, perhaps a supply line or even production facilities. Numerous organised territories subjugated during the Crusade were initially misidentified as populated by nothing but irregulars. Even if that were the case here, a demonstration of force is warranted after their encroaching on an Imperial colony.”

Several of Thenal’s mechadendrites pointed forward, and downwards, in the Baron’s direction, even as his hands remained joined.

“You scarcely need to tell me, Lord Astartes.” The Baron stated confidingly. “According to the Ordo Astranoma’s Logi, 98% of all Imperial space and territories remain unsurveyed, and more than 95% remains entirely unexplored. I cannot count the number of marvelous and malign surprises in those dark sectors of what is supposedly our own realms the Ordo Astranoma has uncovered - not that we receive any recognition or respect for it, as even some amongst the sacred Children of the Omnissiah have made more than evident.” The Baron seemed to cast his gaze in the direction of the open-floor when the Primarch Sekhemetara held council of her own, but just as quickly he shook his head and turned his notice back to Thenal. “I speak out of turn, of course, and you very much have the right of it Lord Astartes. The days of the marauding reavers in that stretch of space are numbered, though this period would evidently be the figurative Summer of their endeavors.”

“The way of our Orders is often a thankless one, illuminate, even among those we would call our brothers,” Thenal assented with unexpected wistfulness, a tendril subtly nodding towards where Traal, the Equerry, still gathered together several Principes, “But from the weakness of the mind the anima delivers us.” He made another sign, this one even more arcane and not quite comparable with anything in Martian liturgy.

“As steel we must be resolute in our calling. My voice is merely that of one adept among them, but my brethren of the Ninth may judge the invasion of Altus Ferro worthy of their intervention should they learn of it. I shall inform the Imbrifices. Let it not be said that we have not done what we could to ensure that order reigns in the Omnissiah’s domain.”

“If anything comes of your word in this matter, do let the Twelfth Legion know. I am certain the Mechanicum would be pleased to go where the light of the Omnissiah’s Legions are carried and I suspect they would be generously disposed towards whomsoever manages to retake Altus Ferro, and we would be pleased to convey your word to those orders that were displaced.” The Baron bowed his head to Thenal. “If you will excuse me, Lord Astartes - I imagine we both have business we should continue to pursue.”

“Duty is eternal, illuminate,” the Expergefactor replied, “May the spirits ever be propitious to you.”

With yet another esoteric sign, he turned and heavily stalked away into the crowd amid a scraping and clattering of metal.

The Council of Nikaea
Interim
The Great Reception Hall

Almost silently, three more figures entered the room. Two Astartes of the Daughters of Iron, headed by the representative of the Sixteenth, made their way through the ornate doors of the chamber and took up positions near the wall, mutely observing the proceedings. They were bedecked in raiments inspired by traditional fashion of Kayaamat, preserved and cherished even through its many wars and the degradation of its natural biosphere. Ayushmatki, standing well below the heights of her two companions, wore an elaborately embroidered dress that hugged her form. Intricate layers of silken thread in a dazzling array of reds and blues, golds and silvers snaked their up to rest upon her shoulders and hips in a low cut, provocative display of bare skin and ornate tattoo work. Behind her trailed a strip of the same fabric used to secure the garment around her waist, its painstakingly woven patterns forming a shimmering trail that seemed almost as a living river of stars when she moved. The Astartes, her bodyguards upon Nikea, were clad in similar attire. Their heads and bodies likewise adorned with the same unusual swirling tattoos, and the distinctive hairstyles favored by many in the far distant stellar empire were striking to see worn by the Astartes of a space marine Legion - a tribute to the origins of the first inductees to the Legion, drawn from the underhive gangs of Kayaamat on which the Primarch herself had built the foundations of empire.

Though they had come dressed for the occasion in such ostentatious outfits, the three seemed visibly ill at ease. Ayushmatki had set herself a mission that night, a mission in blatant disregard for the orders of her own Primarch. Instead of lying low and in wait, she had donned the most flamboyant of clothing in hopes to seem as if she belonged at the party - keenly aware as she was of the growing resentment of her presence in the absence of Eiohsa. As well, Saravata was a region that had seen the near annihilation of its noble classes - and with them, high society such as this. Regal clothing, opulent rooms, such were utterly foreign to the women from Saravata, and Ayushmatki alone seemed comfortable with even the clothing she wore, let alone the sights now arranged before them and the task at hand. As such, Ayushmatki and her guards, Kumari and Devaki, remained almost motionless against the wall, seemingly hoping to blend in and go unnoticed.

For once in his life the Primarch of the Eighth sought to match those representatives dispatched from the Sixteenth Legion, entering the hall of light and sound without fanfare and indeed without his usual boisterousness to go before him.

As was his wont he had come alone - his subordinates having better things to do with their time than attend functions - his olive complexion nonetheless offset by a knee-length tunic of the purest white, edged at cuff, collar and bottom with a shimmering cerulean blue, his upper body meanwhile encased in what his people termed a lorica musculata, an armless cuirass formed into the shape of the Primarchs own torso bearing upon its silver-faced surface scenes of battle and victories in miniature. On his head remained perched the laurel wreath, a sign of his legion and his people, while his feet continued to be covered by a pair of sandals sized for his towering personage.

Moving into the room at a pace and speed that likely seemed somewhat overactive to others, though perfectly normal to himself, Kaelianos plucked some Mithran dainties from a nearby table, smelling them and then allowing them to circulate within his mouth for some moments before swallowing, all very much to his taste he had to admit; a goblet of something found its way into his other hand, and upon further inspection he found it to be a wine not too dissimilar from a vintage found on his own homeworld! A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

Grasping a few more pieces of food, he proceeded to take a seat not completely out of the way, but instead from where he could observe everything…

There he could see dancing couples, a number of his siblings included, while his brother Augor availed himself of a select group of rather important individuals, and Ayushmatki continued her duties of apparently doing very little but remaining still… no, that wasn’t right… she and her sisters were doing much the same as he now did, watching and noting everything.

Popping another foodstuff into his mouth he momentarily forgot to consciously keep track of things, even if his subconscious still continued to run and absorb as it always did, finding that the food here was delicious and that he would need to acquire more than one recipe before the gathering was over.

The crescendo of the first waltz of the evening ended with as much flair was one could expect, the elegant form of Sekhmetara tuned into another spin by her brother, longer then the last with the shimmering cloth of gold of her gown catching the lights about her, before she fell sideways, carefully choreographed so in the moment, into a catch from the other primarch, the Mithran primarch laughing and patting Wode’s arm at the success of the dance.

“Well danced, brother, though I shan’t keep you forever, I would not like to risk Nelchitl’s claim of having the most noteworthy dance of the council.” She chuckled, returning to her full height, just as the momentary lull in music was replaced with a voice she knew well, but never grew tired of hearing in song.

Wode took a step back, and bowed to his sister, a gesture that was as sincere as it was consciously poorly executed. “I don’t believe you about not wanting to risk that, but, dissemble if you must, Dear Sister, I know the truth - you’d love the attention either way. I’m going to make sure my boys aren’t trashing the place.”

Sekhmetara was silent for a moment, regarding Wode before she drew in closer again, her voice a pleasant, but dangerous purr. "We all want it, we were born for war and glory, some of us just feign ignorance." As she pulled away from her brother-primarch she placed a kiss to his far more grizzled cheek, drawing away with both warmth and a strange sense of menace. In another blinked was moving away, the long trail of her gown shimmering behind her.

He laughed, striding away to where Grieg was attempting to climb a table, Saul egging him on. The smaller man was wearing an empty punchbowl, and the Astarte’s service khakis were smeared with the sauce of god only knew how many dishes. Wode’s laughing turned into berating, shooing them away from their hijinks the way one might shoo a cat.

As the dance had reached its crescendo another pair of dancers moved in fluid motion, from skill of movement and learning rather than the gifts of superhuman ability and recollection. Even as Wode had spun Sekhmetara, Kvasi led himself and Catalina into a true waltz spiral, their feet gliding around each other in a motion which turned ever faster. While his hold may technically have been bad form, that had been entirely deliberate and in all other details he performed as well as any High Terran noble. He released her only right at the end of the dance, coming apart to bow to Catalina, right at the heart of the presence of the dancing primarchs, even as the song of his true born sister began.

The excitement of the moment, of sharing the dance floor with such divine beings as the Primarchs, would have been enough to drive any Terran High Noble to tears where they stepped. But Catalina was not Terran born, and she was no regular noble. Rather than collapsing into a puddle of shear emotions like most mortals would have been liable to do in her position, she summoned up the same mental shield she used when she piloted her exalted machine. A shield of her own soul, strong enough to keep the murmurs of the minds of untold pilots that had piloted her Knight before her from devouring her mind. Though only this time she used it against beings of such dazzling existence it was nearly not enough.

As Kvasi spun her faster and faster, she began to lose sight of the demigods surrounding them, though the feeling, and the knowledge that they remained proved nearly as dangerous as the sight. With a start they came apart, her dress whipping around her as she came to rest bowing her head to her partner. Lifting her gaze she couldn’t help but to smile as she huffed for breath, the beauty of the woman before Kvasi, though far outscaled by the beings surrounding them, was undeniable in her radiant smile, the brilliant sparkle in her eyes and the rosy red filling her cheeks.

"I hope you know a faster dance, my lady, I do not think my sister would summon my other to have her sing the drawl of a Terran waltz." He grinned, resuming his hold of her, his fingers tracing softly down her back rather than simply resuming their position. "Although you do dance as dangerously as you hunt." He spoke with a grin.

“I can dance more than a waltz Kvasi.” she grinned as he came back to her, his hands proving to be even more scandalous than earlier as he spoke. With a laugh Catalina took herself out of his hold and hooked an arm into his own before leading him from the dance floor, “I’d love to continue our dance, but I must admit, I don’t want to share the floor with the two of them dancing together.” she inclined her head to the forms of Sekhmetara and Daena taking the floor. “I’m afraid we could never compete with that, my beauty and your charm notwithstanding.” she joked as she grabbed a glass of something bubbling from a passing server.

For the first time in a considerable while Kvasi’s attention drew away from Catalina as she motioned towards the twined night and day of Daena and Sekhmetara. Even with the familiarity born of so much time with his adopted sister it was not a sight a mortal being could shake off easily and he was a moment behind Catalina in recovering as she stepped away. When he did turn to follow her, a warm smile had spread over his features. It was good to see his sister enjoying herself in the company of her other, grander family.

"I don't disagree that this is no longer the arena of mortals, but those are two things I could never discount." Kvasi grinned as he returned to her side, lifting a glass of amasec from a different tray as he did so, sipping the drink as they came back together. As if not time had passed and they were still dancing, one hand of his hold returned, as low as before, pressing to her well into the steady transition to emerald upon her dress. "One could suggest that if mortals have no place here any further, it might be our duty to find somewhere else to be."

Her drink swaying slightly in her hand, Catalina regarded the demigods taking the floor with a wistful envy as Kvasi returned. His hand slipping back into place she could practically feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as he spoke, “Surely you’ve misspoke Kvasi.” she said quietly as she pressed herself more into him, “You mean to miss such a spectacle?” she teased.

“When you spend much time with Sekhmetara, you begin to learn that every moment is just another spectacle waiting to happen. If you don’t find the time to find your own distractions, you’ll spend your life gawping at her.” Kvasi grinned, his whole form drawn close to Catalina as he sipped his drink, moving the glass languidly slowly as he did so, his eyes not meeting her’s, but instead nakedly moving up and down her form as he examined her as to the point of his words. “It’s a relief, in a sense. In their presence, we can do what they want, and no one will even notice. It’s rare people like us get to feel that freedom.” Even as he spoke again, his words were punctuated by sips of his drinks and further enjoyment of her appearance, his hand squeezing gently as he continued to hold her close, exhaustingly so in the crowded confines of the ball.

“So it would seem.” Catalina agreed as Kvasi came in close, all the tradition and decorum she’d been raised on simply melting away. Her hands moving to clutch at him as he spoke. Far faster than Kvasi, the Seneschal of House Cadaval finished her drink and planted a light kiss on his cheek. “So Huntmaster,” she began as she traced her fingers down his flank, “ let he find somewhere else to be.” she agreed with a laugh before she took the lead for the first time that night, her hand clasping his as she pulled him from the dance floor and toward the exit with a grin.

Before Isabis had taken up a greater role in the organisation of her fellow remembrancers, she had earned her particular fame through the art of music, composing songs that enshrined the great works and conquests of the Imperium. She did so on the merits of her own voice, and it had proven too great a waste for Sekhmetara to bear to not have her perform in some way. First her voice stood alone, a flowing song which shattered the usually rigid and archaic nature of the High Gothic she sung in. Then the instruments of the evening kicked in, and Daena’s prediction about Sekhmetara’s plan for a higher pace of music proved correct, even as Sekhmetara approached the lady in question.

“Lord Usriel, Beloved Sister, I trust your dance was not too much to bear?”

“I will say that I enjoyed it, despite my lack of knowledge of such dances,” Usriel answered, his face as stern as ever as he turned to face the Mithran Primarch.

“Our brother is a splendidly swift learner,” Daena praised, favoring Usriel with a smile. “And he even indulged me in my excesses,” she added, turning to Sekhmetara. The thinnest amount of power bridged their minds, the two sisters continuing the conversation privately. A discordant haze of amusement, frustration, and a flurry of images ranging from a martial parade ground to a pile of shorn rose petals flowed between them, resolving into words. One of his auxiliaries has eyes for him, the situation has developed more than he seems to realize, she thought to the Mithran, letting her eyes guide their mutual gaze towards the glaring form of Belloris.

How terrible for her, all this time and yet I am the one to peel him out of his armour. Sekhmetara fostered Daena with a wry grin as their thoughts shifted through the air, a practiced display of imagery that became words only through the depth of their bond and power of their geneforged minds. Despite her mocking tone, the Mithran primarch looked thoughtful for a moment, full lips pursed as she no doubt incorporated this new information into the web of social connections in her mind. I hear from Nodis that he will be attending us on the return to Obscurus. She mused to Daena, but did not add further to their psychic connection before she smiled to both Usriel and Daena, speaking again in the physical sense.

"I am glad you were both such good company to each other, although I do hope you won't mind me stealing our lady Daena, Usriel. She did make me promise." Sekhmetara spoke with unbridled joy and no little amount of mischief as she offered one hand towards her sister.

“I’m afraid she speaks true,” Daena said, smiling softly as her attention turned away from Belloris. “Even I can be moved to jealousy. It would not do for only one of the ladies of Praxia to have a renowned dance after all,” she explained, inclining her head towards the distant figure of Wode, who was arguing, loudly and with much profanity, with Grieg about the merits of sickle-pattern versus box pattern bolter mags.

“As you wish,” Usriel said, bowing his head to Daena before speaking directly to her, “I pray that all our future meetings be as pleasant as tonight’s, Daena. Now if you will excuse me, I must deal with my serf.” With those words, the Primarch stepped away from the two and made his way to Belloris, arms crossed behind his back.

“He will need to handle that, one way or another,” Daena said with a sigh, shaking her head at their clueless brother before finally taking her sister’s hand. “Now, what was that compliment you paid to me?” she asked in a far softer voice, her other arm pulling Sekhmetara close as the two moved their way to the center of the dance. “If the sun and moon each rule their own sky, then together we are sure to blind them all.”

"On Mithra it is known as the Kupatwa, when Sun and Moon dance, sisters who can only embrace after the turn of centuries, for mortals to look upon it would blind them." Sekhmetara spoke with both reverence and mischief as she drew closer to Daena, melding into her hold as the music swept through them, her adopted sister’s voice melding with the dance of her gene-sister. The pace was too fast for the formalised waltz, the music chosen to bring the guests together in a way they might refrain from usually. Sekhmetara and Daena needed no aid however, their closeness born in more than proximity. As they danced, Sekhmetaea found herself, in her mind’s eye, on Terra once more. When it had just been them, that was all that mattered. Despite her greater height, Sekhmetara allowed herself to be lead as the submissive half of the dance for now, her sister's wings more than making up the difference. She remembered well, Daena smiled far more often back then. When she gazed at her sister now, she felt a spark of joy as the ghost of that lost sister returned, inhabiting the mournful soul her sister had become. "I must give you something bright before all this is over sister, a piece of me to take with you, even when we fight apart." She laughed softly, just between them.

The sisters' thoughts remained in tune even with the closing of their psychic connection, Daena’s mind following Sekhmetara’s own. “None who have gazed upon the face of the sun can forget it for so long as they live,” she replied, her wings slowly lowering her down as they melded into the flow of the music, lead naturally passing from one to the other as her own memories of their time within the Palace welled up inside of her. “Do you remember our debut? Your first dance, with one of father’s generals. He had to conquer worlds for the right, such is Sekhmetara. So tell me, what gift could possibly compare to you?” she mused, by now having settled firmly upon the ground, forcing her to crane her head up to look into her sister’s eyes. “Not that I’m saying no,” she finished with a private laugh of her own.

“And how many worlds have you conquered since sister? Father sold me short.” Sekhmetara’s response mirrored her sister’s laugh, her form easily stepping into the role of the leading party, her hold easing the strain on her sister to remain looking up to her as they moved together, becoming the mote of motion upon which the other dancers turned.

“Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?” Daena teased, relaxing as lead was passed from one to the other. “Father did give you the right to request who you wished to dance with, rather than giving it as a prize. You would never though, would you? You were ever the dutiful daughter, all too attuned to the needs of politics and court,” she added wistfully.

“You speak truly, but gifts are not replacements, they are icons. A standard of affection to bear. That is a much harder spoil to win than a dance.” Sekhmetara turned Daena into a graceful spin, before pulling her back to her, with enough grasp of her muscular arms to shudder the motion even through her fellow Primarch, but never enough to disrupt the fluid rhythm of the music and dance. “I preferred the nights we ran off into the city. Now those Terrans knew how to dance.” She laughed with mischief, a noise that would no doubt be described as a private giggle was it not reverberating through the gene-forged perfection and grand scale of a primarch.

Daena remained silent as Sekhmetara spoke, resting her head on her sister’s shoulder after being pulled back in. Memories of their wilder days put a smile back on her face, the shorter Primarch beginning to glide and skip across the floor as her wings slowly came back to life. “Of course you only remember the nights, and not the mornings afterward. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Malcador so upset since, you’d think we had found something they were ashamed of,” she said coyly. But all of that only served to build her confidence enough to ask a question she had yet to voice. “Tell me though, what is a fitting icon for the sun?”

“Only because we were his favourites.” Sekhmetara spoke softly, in a conspiratorial whisper, a theatrical grin on her features as her lips brushed by Daena’s ear, as if they were all children hiding secrets from each other, how they should have been raised, together. “I think he feels a lot of pain for what Terra has become, something lost from the time of his own youth, or perhaps one of his visions.” She mused softly, their dance turning more gently as they discussed personal matters, the Mithran primach’s thoughts turning to the rarely considered emotional soul of the man who sat at the right hand of their father.

“That is the problem with suns, we are incomparable.” Sekhmetara’s whisper became playful once more as she answered her sister’s question. “On Mithra we have many symbols for such things, maybe I can make a gift of one of those for you.” Her tone suggested she felt that idea a little uninspired even as the turn of the dance continued, Sekhmetara stepping in and out of the trail of her own gown to cause the light of it to shimmer around her. A lesser being would surely simply tangle themselves, but the primach created a sea of silk and gold around herself with ease for a moment, even while holding her sister.

A distant part of Daena’s mind, ever thinking and ever calculating, worked unconsciously to weave her own body such that the light from Sekhmetara’s gown caught upon and reflected from the diamonds studded upon her own, the Primarch making sure to put on a worthy show even as the sisters whispered to one another. “It should remind me of those days,” she responded in a soft voice, her own mind focusing on the closest thing that they had to a shared upbringing. “When we were together, at home.” She made no attempt to hide the yearning in her voice, the desire to return to a when that never was. “Give me something to remind me of how things should have been, Sekhmetara.”

For a moment her words were delayed, not from a need to focus, but a desire from Sekhmetara to be in the moment, to watch her own light shine from her sister and to take in the admiration of those around them, before she drew close again to speak. "What should that be sister? A scornful portrait of Malcador….a recreation of those radbikes we stole….the entire contents of the Lex Imperialis as we read each day?" She teased, but not cruelly as they spun. "Maybe I shall conquer a world for you, all to build a house upon a lake so that we can be alone, together, again. Just us." She mused for a moment, before adding. "And maybe a select few others." As her good humour remained however, she took her sister’s request to heart, already deciding what the gift might be even as they danced together.

For a moment Daena too said nothing, exulting in a precious moment in which she could forget the horrors of unending war. The smile on her face only grew through Sekhmetara’s incessant teasing, fond memories coming to the fore with each one. “I’m sure that you can think of something,” she said offhandedly, too caught up in her own reminiscences to give a proper reply. As she did, the height disparity between the two seemed to vanish, the Angel shamelessly taking advantage of her affliction to glide off the floor and look her sister in the eye. “Do you remember the day I finally agreed to take you flying?”

The Mithran primach laughed softly as her sister took wing again, and her joy only extended at the question, her eyes settling evenly with Daena’s, "I remember more than that, I remember the struggle to convince you. For a while I thought you might be the only person who could refuse me something for so long." Sekhmetara’s eyes gleamed with a victorious mischief as she spoke. "Tell me of my final victory."

Daena rolled her eyes at her ‘older’ sister’s impertinence, taking a small measure of revenge by stealing the lead. The Angel twirled her sister about, her feet now freed entirely from the ground, as she relented. “We were supposed to be studying, but you had insisted we could do so just as well in the gardens,” she said in feigned outrage. “You somehow managed to convince me of that each day, and each day you somehow managed to find a different garden. But I remember the one we were in on that day. It was open to the sky, and you saw… how did you put it? ‘A mountain that yet defies me’,” she continued, her voice dropping into Sekhmetara’s huskier tone. “I have no idea why I agreed to take you there,” she admitted with a small shrug, rising even higher as she did, the floor becoming less firm underneath the Mithran’s feet. “Perhaps I was born to see you conquer.”

As Sekhmetara left the ground, the trails of her sleeves and gown descended, like swirling ribbons of golden silk trailing from her. With pinpoint grace, she allowed one hand to trail away from her sister, framing the swirling sculpture of their dance while her sister’s genehanced ability enabled her to hold the other primach aloft with but one hand. “There is none other with a better view, than the one who does so by my side.” She smiled, closing her eyes as she gave into the motion, her mind’s eye filled with an observer’s view of the two turning together, the psychic impression of the whole room washing over her as a tide of emotion. “There was no mountain on Terra that was worth conquering, only you.”

Outwardly, the mechanical motions of keeping Sekhmetara aloft as the living centerpiece of the celebration proceeded with an almost mechanical precision. Such was the importance placed on the performance that Daena compartmentalized the act itself, leaving her mind to deal with her sister’s incessant teasing without impacting the show the two were putting on for the entire galaxy. “Sekhmetara the goldentongued,” she murmured back, attempting to regain her mental footing as their physical rapidly receded beneath them. “But you’ve gone too far this time,” she added in a sudden teasing voice. “What glory is there in a provincial heathen oracle more accustomed to barbarians than courts?”

"There is glory in everything I do, dearest." While her expression remained serene in the outward performance of their soaring dance, Sekhmetara’s tone was full of the usual smirking grin such a comment would be accompanied with. With languid grace, the Mithran primach arched her back, one arm outstretched, she plucked a glass of wine from a passing tray from above, downing the contents in a manner which still someone expressed elegance before setting the used goblet down on another passing gilded tray.

With a deft agility belying the greater size of a Primach, Sekhemtara seemed to spin and turn back up her gown to Daena’s hold, one hand touching her cheek again. “No court that would reject Daena io Azrael is worthy of Aurelia, none of them have wealth richer than the blessing of Onwa.” The name of the Mithran Moon goddess slipped from her lips in a particularly conspiratorial whisper, before the true grin finally returned to her features. “Let me go, Sister.”

For those with the eyes to see through the blazing light of sun and moon entwined upon one another as they neared the hall’s vast ceiling, a faint blush was visible upon Daena’s face. Stunned into silence, or perhaps merely choosing to remain so out of prudence, the Angel obeyed her sister’s wish. Eventually.

Higher and higher they flew, the light emanating from and enhanced by the Primarchs growing ever brighter as they neared the grand chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Only then did she obey, Daena spreading her arms wide as she released her grip upon Sekhmetara. Remaining within the air, wings splayed, the Emperor’s Angel could only watch as the huntress pounced.

Sekhmetara spiralled through the air, the height to which her sister carried her before releasing her hold allowing her to turn over in a full rotation before she landed. The sight would have been dramatic enough for such a gathering on its own, but the Mithran primach was not content with athleticism and grandeur alone. The soft silk of her gown seemed to ignite, shifting on her form. A mesh-weave underlayer forged by those of technological worth with enough whimsy to entertain such an idea springing to life, reforming the outfit in the time it took Sekhmetara to turn over and land on the dance floor.

As the weave swam over her form, gold shifted to a deep blue, the silken cloth becoming more akin to the more structured outfits of the Imperium. When she stretched to her full height once more, Sekhmetara appeared clad in an outfit of red and night blue more akin to officers of the fleet, or indeed the titan princeps, writ for her larger form. A hushed mumble rippled through the Princep onlookers who recovered their senses from the display fast enough. While more intricate in detail and ostentatious than any true uniform, the shades of the outfit were unmistakable to those familiar with titan heraldry.

Mortis

Sekhmetara glanced up over her shoulder. to her sister above with another grin. All matters of larger metaphor aside, the outfit was very much closer to her flying sister's own sense of dress from the evenings aboard the Ultis Solis, and Sekhmetara was not above enjoying the comparison. With a dip of her head to her dancing partner, she was back among the crowd, as much as a Primach ever truly could be.

Some distance away and to the side from where the Primarchs spoke, Saul Imogen and Grieg both recovered from their antics by the buffet table after having been dismissed by Wode for their revelry. The rest of the guests at the affair were giving the two a wide berth - between the Princeps and the retinues of the Primarchs, the most consideration the pair were afforded was a blind eye at best and dismissive scorn otherwise.

And then out of the crowd emerged the comparatively unremarkable Baron Sigveyr. He appeared to be having a quiet if animated conversation with his own servo-skull hooked to the base of his spine by a bionic tether. as he moved between the huddled crowds of attendees, but when he saw both Saul and Grieg standing off to the side of the chamber of their own he halted in his tracks and almost seemed to glance hesitating towards the skull. After a brief moment of indistinct murmuring he then approached the two, and despite the evident refinement of his own garb he seemed eager to converse with them.

“Hail, Lord Astartes.” He inclined his head to Grieg, seemingly not even remotely offput by his otherwise astoundingly grotesque visage. “And you as well, Adept.” He addressed Saul. “I am Baron Sigveyr Archarnon, a pleasure to have found both of you in all of this.” He gestured emphatically to the surroundings. “Forgive me if I am disrupting you, it is just as far as I can see we’re the only three proper soldiers here and I could stand to get away from all these Princeps and Priests and the like.”

When the newcomer had approached the Lancers and greeted them, Grieg almost lept out of his chair at the baron, his coal-train face in a rictus of anger. He’d opened his mouth to correct the man, but Saul, smiling faintly, placed a hand on Grieg’s chest, stopping the Astartes as surely as if it were Wode doing so.

“C’mon Grieg, no one gets the rank right the first time.” Saul said softly, “I’m, what? One of two humans in all the legions with Astartes rank? It’s a pleasure to meet you Baron, I’m Saul Imogen.”

“Grieg.” The Astartes said, calming somewhat and sitting back down, “Of the Tenth.”

“And I mean, I wouldn’t worry about disrupting us, sir.” Saul said, looking up at the man. “We’re mostly here to disrupt everyone else, it seems, but one weakness of the Pact is that we’ve put very little thought into diplomatic reception, unlike… well.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the beautiful, peerless figure of Sekhmentara. “It’s not Lord Wode’s style, nor mine, if I’m being honest.”

“It is a little bit more mine, as you can see,” Sigveyr indicated his immaculate bodyglove and long coat, “...but after I left Caelrumoste - my planet of origin. A Questor Mechanicum world - that sort of thing just...lost all real meaning. This is the first real social gathering I have attended in decades.” He treated the two Astartes to a morose smile. “What about the both of you? How has the voidborne lifestyle been treating you?”

Saul smiled back, and Grieg seemed to soften some from his initial hostility. It was still Saul who spoke, though. “I can’t lie, friend, it’s not great. I never did much spacing - in fact none - before ah… before Arnie met his father, I guess.”

“Gives me gas.” Grieg said, chuckling. “And a headache fit to split my skull in two.”

“Yea, that.” Saul said, laughing. “It’s not agreeable to my system. Some people were just meant to live on the ground I guess.” He cleared his throat.

“You said a Questor Mechanicum world, that’s…” Saul furrowed his brow. “That’s the High Gothic for the Knight walkers, right?”

“Yes - though not to be confused with the Questor Imperialis.” The Baron added hastily. “I am a pilot myself - although before that I was a muckslogger. Knight worlds are not quite so backwards as reputed, but we do indulge in a plethora of ancient traditions. Including amassed cavalry charges and bayonet lines.” His look went distant and his smile turned from morose to fond briefly as he recalled something before reorienting.

“Right. Right so it’s the Questor that’s the important part.” Saul murmured. He continued. “I mean, they can’t be that backwards, right, if there’s battle walkers like that walking around?”

Grieg chuckled, his ugly, diesel-engine laugh. He’d clearly had more experience than the human Lancer in that regard, but said nothing, letting the derisive response speak for itself. Saul rolled his eyes at him. He spoke again.

“We’re learning, at least I am, that some forms of war thought obsolete on Salient, that’s where I’m from, mind, live on in other parts of the Imperium.” Saul continued, “Am I to take it that you rode a horse before a knight? Or were you leg? Ah, I mean… infantry.”

“Both. I was originally a spearman - not even powerspears like that Praetor of yours presented in that one hearing, just sharpened Adamantine alloy believe it or not.” The Baron nodded. “Back before our Compliance they were made of some common carbon-based metal I forget the name of and somebody like me would have rode an actual horse - I understand they use actual horses on Questor Imperialis worlds. On Questor Mechanicum worlds, or at least mine - I hail from Caelrulmoste by the way, although I doubt it is well known enough for you to have heard of it - we ride on sulphurhounds. A gift of sorts from our patrons in the Mechanicum. Ever seen them?”

“Presented.” Grieg smiled. “I spose that was a word for it. I heard Kohl drove the damn thing through the lectern he was given. Doesn’t like speaking tours, that one.”

“Does anyone in this mob?” Saul asked, though the question was rhetorical. Grieg simply shook his head. He took in the Baron’s explanation of his world, shaking his head to confirm that he had not, in fact, heard of Caelrulmoste. That was no great insult in the Imperium, as the Lancer was fairly sure Salient was similarly backwater.

“That’s fascinating, Baron, and yes, I have heard of the sulphurhounds. We actually had some on Salient, though we called them ah… auto-horses, if I remember right. A lot of technology like that survived on my planet, though somewhat degraded through years of copying and iterating away features we couldn’t understand. They weren’t as hardy as the ones you rode to war, the rich mostly rode them in the streets as a sign of status.” Saul laughed, “Ground cars weren’t flashy enough, I suppose.”

“Salient!” The Baron snapped a pair of fingers. “Yes, I suppose you would have to be from there - pardon my saying so. The name was eluding me, but that must have been Primarch Arnulf Wode’s planet, yes? I hear he rode to battle with the Omnissiah himself in his tank. Any truth to that?”

Saul blinked, not quite prepared for someone to recognize his planet, but, then again, he kept forgetting Wode was a lot more than just his friend and fellow officer these days. “Right, I’m still not used to people recognizing the name, sorry. I’m gobsmacked.”

“I can tell you one thing, sir.” Grieg spoke up, “He sure fought like a fury. Atop that old Baneblade of his. Never missed a shot. Killed the old Legion Master in his first shot, he did, passed right through his Predator like it was so much tissue paper.”

‘Yes, you must be talking of the Return to Sender.” Saul said, “Wode’s personal tank. It’s an old, old tank sir, I’m told it’s had quite the service life. It was ah, passed down in the merchant house army we served in since the Long Night as I understand. Destroyed when the Emperor found us, of course, but Wode had the thing repaired when the Lightnings became the Pact. I’m not sure how much of the Omnissaiah lives in such things, I’m not very spiritual in that regard, but it’s a relic all the same.”

“A relic baneblade. I’ve only ever seen the standard patterns in picts.” The Baron shook his head in wonder. “Can’t even fathom what his must be like…” Abruptly, a sly and mischievous expression flashed across his face. “Say, I do not suppose your Legion has any of its tank detachments down here in the depot area?”

Saul smiled. Ah, now he knew where this conversation was going. “Oh, of course. We’ve brought a surprising amount considering the diplomatic nature of the Council, but the plan was to bundle it up for transport once… certain deployments were confirmed. We’ve got the Sender here, as well as the Fellblades of the First Company here, along with a great deal of our Predators, our Sicarans, the gun motor carriages…”

Grieg cut off his friend with a hand on his shoulder. “He’s tryin’ to say we got a lot of it, if’n you wanna see. Includin’ the Baneblade.”

“I would be honored.” Sigveyr treated the two to a modest bow of the head and chest. “And, if you would be so interested - the Ordo Astranoma also has a full Knight Lance planetside if you have an interest in seeing them in return. Perhaps we could even bring a few of our officers with each other, have them broaden their horizons a little?”

“I think that would be lovely.” Saul said, standing up to shake the man’s hand. “You might even draw Arnie - Lord Wode, I mean, out of the depot if there’s a chance to see a Knight up close. He’d never admit it but he loves those machines, the way a child obsesses about prehistoric carnosaurs.”

“Carnosaurs - I don’t suppose those are like Wyverns, or Drakes?” The Baron mused as he gestured to the side, and the three of them began walking towards the exit, his words getting caught up and lost in the murmuring of the crowd.

A lot of murmuring. Too much, in fact. The Baron could only stop then, along with perhaps all others idle conversations, as the loud blaring of trumpets engulfed the hall.

Total silence followed, only broken by again another blaring string of trumpets disrupting the dancing again. The great hall’s main doors were swung open, and a teeming ensemble of characters - a combination of shining armour and bright colours, had ordered and filed themselves on either side, forming an arch aboves themselves with halberds carrying flamboyant colours and iconography.

Thorny Roses. Fleur de lis. Bees. The colours of maroons and pinks against backdrops of greys and bronzes. The Primarch of the Seventh Legion, Nimue Arcadia, the Fay Enchantress and Damsel of Engraila with golden light preceding her... had arrived.

Her arrival, far, far too late to be fashionable or appropriate could only be balanced out instead by the sheer outrageous audacity of it all. Free from the Emperor’s immediate gaze, Nimue could return to her usual, smug, all-attention grabbing self.

After-all, while regrettably perhaps she was too late for the dance and to greet Sekhmetara on more polite terms, it was never too late for a party-crashing.

The trumpet blew again for good measure.

“Yer right, now instead of this pomp and pageantry filled mess we can get a real event going now. Should we call her out on it and see how it goes now wee muffin?” the bear of a primarch growled out with a toothy grin down at the warrior woman beside him.

“Hail Nimue!” shouted the mortal guardsmen in unison, probably IA elements of Nimue’s own troops, as the Celestial Inheritor’s Primarch passed under the arch of polearms - more pikes really, so to actually form an arch above her superhuman height. The Primarch was still wearing the attire that she had attended the second session of the Council of Nikaea in, only it seemed that the armoured segments and curaisse had been removed and replaced with yet more frills, cleavage and a gleaming golden corset-bustier like combination designed to be as attention-stealing as possible, aquila birds engraved into the bustier so to deliberately draw attention towards them. This was Nimue in full “yes, Sekhematra, that piece is such a lovely design” modus.

Nimue, and the four Astarte retinue that followed, each with their own uniquely glossy, gaudy or provocative appearances, passed now into the hall proper. Nimue was glad to see the murmurs became nervous whispers or hesitant bows and curtsies. The Primarch and her retinue then quickly turned to scanning the hall for the Primarch of Tears, whom Nimue had her business with. Finding, somewhat irritably, that her elder sister was not immediately present, she instead drew her attention to the few mortals that moved themselves to the front of the throng - confident, rather than hesitant in her presence.

‘Salutations, good sirs and ladies’ Nimue said, more specifically to those confident few, but in politeness to the rest of the crowd. ‘I must beg forgiveness for my interruptions of this fine event’ she said, with little to no actual remorse aimed at the attendees. ‘Carry on if you will’. Even though she said these words, none continued, except a few at the back and, somewhat unsurprisingly, one of her sibling Primarchs who continued his dance.

‘Honoured Primarch, welcome’. Announced one of those who brought himself to the front of the throng. It was a man with well-disguised augmentics around the back of his head and wearing fashionable and ornately regal highborn attire - the colours, she knew, marked him as a delegate of the Knightly House of Devine, a house closely linked to her own Legion. She recognised this man, even, after some brief moment. The irritated heir, angered by her stealing his beloved half-sister and, as part of Molech’s customs, sister-wife for her own Legion.

‘It is a splendid sighting that you are present, Sir Raevan. I would have you know that your sister and Adoratrice Drakina of Molech, Lyx, is well and serves with glory and honour as thy own right-hand. It is unfortunate that she is not present here, however I assure you that this tragedy may soon be resolved in some manner…’ Nimue suggested, indicating her intention to assemble further Devine resources for her campaign, including perhaps Raeven and his Banelash Knight Errant.

Other than the Devines, and speaking to her sister concerning the matter of Augor’s contemptible lieutenant… She also intended to gather resources for her upcoming campaign against the Intcomese, Mitu and the mysterious Benefactors. Specifically - she required a Titan Legio, something that this party was, after all, designed to facilitate. It was for this reason, even as she spoke with the Heir of House Devine concerning the well-being of his sister-wife, she had psionically commanded her Equerry Elizabeta to seek out representatives of the Titan Legios so she may speak with them. Of those she sought, the most desired was the Legio Defensor, who she had worked with before during the Kynarzarid Campaign. She had, to some extent, fond memories of the Princeps and Ordinatii of that particular Legio, her talks of religious principles and philosophy with The Princeps Guillame Ferre being comparable to similar talks she had with The Sol Invicta while Nimue was on Terra.

Clad in her reforged outfit, Sekhmetara made her way steadily towards Nimue after her arrival. Unusually for her, she remained mostly hidden, quite willing to frustrate her sister's efforts to find her using the architecture of the room, and the forms of her own siblings to do so, given the remarkable inability of any of the Primachs to hide in crowds of the rest of humanity. Still, once her fellow primach was allowed to bask in the presence of the peacock-like Devine for a few further moments, she approached, moving into view with a smile that was both warm and edged with mischief.

"Sister I would bemoan you for lateness, but your timing is fortuitous, I was almost bored of the room's whole attention," It was of course a lie on multiple fronts, but the pleasant feeling behind it was true as she closed the remaining distance to Nimue, leaning to press a kiss to each cheek of the paler primach before leaning back, her eyes moving up and down the presented form of her sister, at first with a look entirely of appreciation before her eyebrow raised at the particular use of the aquila.

Nimue, too, having all but forgotten Raevan Devine's presence with her ebony sister's approach, smiled, and engaged the greeting kisses - her face showing somewhere between a self-satisfied smirk and genuine cheer. It was the shared expressions that the two sisters knew of each other well. They were... close friends and yet rivals. Companions of years on Tera yet always measuring each other's greatness against each other. Advisers and confidants, yet holding many secrets. Helpful, yet competing.

"Darling-Sister, you are looking marvelous as ever, and 'very' patriotic." The personal sigil of the Emperor was, of course, a great honour to bear, one that the Primachs themselves would fight over. Sekhmetara couldn't quite decide if she felt excited or slighted by her sister's choice for the party. She decided on the former as a slight smirk graced her features. "Such an honoured place they sit, too." She laughed slightly, almost a girlish giggle as one onyx-skinned finger traced over one of the eagles, albeit just shy of truly touching. "I am glad we could meet again without the room being filled with angered yelling, at least for now."

'It is as I have always said, Beloved Sister' Nimue announced, shifting into a pose, easily swayed by appeals to her vanity. 'That we should express our love of The Imperium just as its people express their love of us. Though, as much as it honours them... I would have you know that it honours you too' if Nimue was speaking of the Aquila or other things now, she did not elaborate. As she spoke and observed her Mithran's sisters' own eye-movements with a self-assured sense of superiority, she too made similar - if yet unspoken, judgements. She eyed the details of the golden markings across Sekhemetara's skin. While she did so, her mind's eye sifted through the crowd of onlookers, gauging them, measuring, to see who's attention their eyes fell more between them. It was how their game was played. Who’s name was more gloried, whose dress drew more eyes, even who’s bustline was more impressive, it was these infantile fights that characterised their sisterhood - and truthfully, it was one of the truer, humane relationships she had with her Primarch-born siblings.

‘’Yet still, indeed. I too am glad of this… good fortune” Nimue said. Her words were pleasant, but also conspiratorial. She glanced slightly and knowingly to the Primarch Usriel, who was doing his utmost best to ignore Nimue’s presence entirely. ‘I will deign to keep this peace, as it is not my intention to breach it here, not without cause certainly’. Nimue’s ‘peace’ of course, did not include her sudden and abrupt assault on the hall’s ears.

"Peace, sister? Never that, this is just a more civilised kind of hunt." Sekhmetara laughed quietly. Before her change of attire, while remarkably different, her outfit had been of similar approach to Nimue’s. Revealing yet grand had been the theme. Now she struck something of a contrast with her sister, the sleek military-lite look of her clothing against the more direct ostentation. In many ways, the contrast did more to highlight their similarities than conceal them, particularly as Sekhmetara slipped her own arm within Nimue's, standing together as she surveyed the room alongside her, allowing her to mutter an even more girlish, teasing comment, "The Emperor’s Eagles are noble indeed, they carry a great burden." It was evident in her tone that far from making fun of her sister but instead playing to their shared sense of mischief. She allowed the good humour to remain for a few moments, before speaking more seriously.

"You have something to say, Fairest, you were looking for me and much as we both appreciate a good entrance, there is much going on, do speak freely." Her tone remained friendly as she moved on to the nominally more important matters, even as her fingers squeeze Nimue's arm in a show of familiar affection. "Time to heed the wisdom of Sekhmetara once more? Or a more direct request?"

“It is, as you expect of course. While I would certainly never seek to miss a talk of beautiful things with the Mithran Sun... unfortunately, I come to speak of far uglier things”. Nimue glanced towards her sister’s eyes, giving a brief pause so that her sister would understand and brace herself. Her expression was still bright, the self-satisfied smile drawn but diminishing from Sekhematara’s particularly unique form of playful observations. Those who surrounded them and the few that dared try to pry knowledge only saw two demigoddesses, arms intertwined and likely reminiesciening of the past. But to those in the know, Nimue’s eyes squinted ever slightly in disgust, the slightest pull on the corner of her lips. Her pose no longer self-aggrandizing her chest but more neutral. It was a similar pose she took when speaking on ‘best behaviour’ in the presence of the likes of Micholi.

“Would the name Corneceus Sicanus mean anything to you?” Nimue asked, the words spoken polite and formal to nearly any observer, but the sheer fact that it lacked her usual signature hauteur or gloat told the sole true recipient of the seriousness of her question.

"The Stargazers apothecary?." Sekhmetara’s voice did not drop any quieter, already a conspiratorial whisper, however her tone shifted from jovial teasing to the rather more serious matter of political intrigue, a battleground in which she had few peers. "I cannot admit to knowing such details about all legions, but that one has made quite the stir. Not the most popular of names. He is present, or so I have been told."

The intricate web of informants the Mithran had woven could do far more than pick out individuals at so grand an occasion as the council, a web whom the majority of actors did not even know they were a part of, tugging on the strings. "Do you have further secrets to spill?" The slight tease of her voice return now, a hint of a smirk as she drifted yet closer, more intimate, to her sister. Nimue was a capricious creature, and keeping her mood light would no doubt help to keep her own improved.

“It is quite simple, really.” Nimue suggested firmly, though her slight relief at being acknowledged apparent. “The man’s acts are abhorrent to any who hold values beyond those of mere utility. My daughters who were butchered by his grotesque meddling need be avenged… but you would know well that I cannot simply take this matter to Augor, for he surely must defend his charges as strongly as I must mine… however, nor can I bring this matter to The Emperor,” a brief pause, the aftershocks of the second council meeting, certainly “for reasons you, Beloved Sister, have likely heard of by now. For this reason, I wish to petition you instead, to speak on my behalf.”

"My my, sister, it is not like you to be shy." Sekhmetara jabbed, if gently, her lips practically at Nimue’s ear as their hushed conversation continued, before she craned back a moment, her face a picture of consideration even if her answer was nere truly in doubt. "It was a matter I wished to bring to the Emperor in any regards, although I would have otherwise left it to those more directly affected by his overreach. It is a matter I will seek a short end to." She nodded at last, further allusions as to the idea of her false choice, made well before Nimue had even spoken the suggestion.

“My desire is a duel against the man, Sicanus - so to teach him respect” Nimue finished, hand clenched into a fist for dramatic purposes.

At the suggestion and the gesture, Sekhmetara laughed with enjoyment, the gently pleasing notes of humour drifting much wider across the room than their quiet conversation, looking at her sister with genuine appreciation of the theatrical. "You do not need the Emperor’s permission to seek redress of honour, I am sure, but I will ensure that he does not seek to halt it for matters of unity. More pressingly, I will make sure he impresses upon the Stargazers this is not to continue with or without their chief stitcher." As the Mithran primach finished speaking, her fingers shifted to grip a drink from a passing tray, now a red wine, spiced with the modifying Fenrisian herbs, to which she took a drink, holding the servant in place with her half-attention so that her sister could claim her own should she wish, only to find that Nimue too had already taken a wine from the servant, the glass held dainty in a hand that had only moments before been clenched in righteous indignation.

"Is that all or must we ‘main severe all evening? I am in the process of teaching the joys of pomp and circumstance to our siblings but they still wilt in comparison to us, we must try to at least have some fun while duty permits." She laughed again, quieter this time and with no true suggestion that she did not equally enjoy the matters of dramatic justice they had been discussing.

With the matter of Sicanus now given certainty in the eyes of Nimue, as quickly as it came, the edge of seriousness vanished, sated with the promise of soon to be delivered justice and the further tasting of wine. “That will of course do, Dear Sister… though, perhaps, I question your endeavours here then, for our Siblings would always wilt compared to us” Nimue then joined her sister’s laughter with her own haughty peal, their arms not holding glasses of wine still intertwined, Nimue then redirected their gradual steps towards the general location of some of their siblings “but even if they cannot be taught, certainly, it is always an opportunity to demonstrate” Nimue shared.

"Sometimes there is honour to be found in struggle, even if the goal is ever out of reach." Sekhmetara flittered one eye in a wink to her sister as they moved about, arm in arm. The Mithran primach made sure to note any of the particularly important Princep guests as they passed, although the presence of these two particular Primachs had an impact on the wits on even the augmented minds of the titan legions. Nonetheless, primachs were not difficult to find in a crowd, and the pair did not have to hunt for long.

After their dance had concluded and Daena had done her part in Sekhmetara’s designs, the winged Primarch had retired to consult with her own lieutenants. Shortly after the trio had been dispatched to consort with those Princeps the Angel found most amenable, she had the peculiar fortune of raising her head to regard her two siblings sauntering towards her, arm in arm. Raising herself to her full height, she girded herself for the most formidable combat yet.

“Darling sisters,” Daena said as she approached, her voice more guarded in tone than its contents, “‘tis like we are back in the Palace.” Nimue’s pomp and ceremony, and her provocative dress, did little to upset her calm composure - it was, after all, expected. “I trust our host has been a fine escort?” she asked Nimue politely.

“Ah, Daena! There you are. I almost didn’t notice you” Nimue’s tone was saccharine and cheery, as Daena stood out obviously amongst the collection of Princeps. “And yes, of course, Sekhmetara has always been the most gracious of hosts…” Nimue then however looked over to her side, glancing to her arm-entwined sister.

“Though, if it were truly just us three once more, I am sure our sister would instead be hosting us to another of those ‘adventures’ into sewers and what-not, rather than the Palace”. It was, while less considered, a matter of fact that Sekhematara’s Terran adventures did not always include merely dragging along Daena.

"That is either an admittance that you enjoyed them, or that you were willing to do something purely because I wished you there. I will take either." Sekhmetara grinned to Nimue as she spoke, before addressing both of her sisters. "If only we could, much as that might be a tradition of ours to finish off a gathering in such a manner, I feel we would only find smoking rocks and primordial wasteland here. A stunning view, no doubt, but hardly one to replace what we have here." Her latest glass of wine was already finished, her now freed other hand adjusting some of the long sweep of her dark hair. "If I could go back I would instead suggest we go on a greater number of escapes from the Palace. Our lessons could be learned at any time, we had such a finite time, the three of us together."

“Perhaps another time then, when present concerns are less… explosive,” Daena said cautiously, taking her own glass from a passing servant. “I do hope that you’ve been enjoying yourself, I know how keen you are to make an impression,” she added, turning to Nimue. “Is there anything else that could make your time more pleasant, sister? I would like to think that we can be civilized.”

“Dear sister, your presence here has made this festivity pleasant enough already… although, pray tell, I did notice both your absence during the last session of this… spectacular Council. You two were up to something… civil… I hope?” Nimue asked with a quizzical narrowing of her eyes, and the motion of her pointing and middle fingers to her lips.

“Far more civilised than what occurred within the chamber no doubt.” Sekhmetara replied with a similarly mischievous expression, her eyes alight with taunting enjoyment. Rather than delve further into the issues, the digits of her fingers squeezed Nimue’s arm gently, as the Mithran primach nodded towards the general crowd. “On the note of civilisation and our great charge to spread it, we should certainly make sure you do not leave tonight empty handed, Busithanda.” Sekhmetara’s spoke to the sister she was linked with, the sweet Mithran delicacy something of a pet name for her elegant sister, her eyes already moving across the crowd in search of a prime target. Much as Nimue had predicted before, the evening continued with Sekhmetara dragging one of her sisters away, although this time back out into the crowd of the party, her warm smile a parting gift for her winged sister.

It would be impossible to say the sisters prowled through the crowd, the towering figures of the extravagant demigods entirely unable to hide among the shifting groups of those invited, but certainly a hunt was on. With a momentary pause, Sekhmetara’s focused narrowed on a small group of the more impressively dressed mortal guests, red and black dappled with yellow. The representatives of House Ignatum. They had few rivals and were largely uncommited thus far, a situation that had interested Sekhmetara greatly untill her as-yet-unrevealed master stroke. More importantly, however, they would be entertaining.

“My Lord Princeps.” Despite their scale, Primachs could move with quiet grace when they needed to, and with the help of the noise of the crowd and music by the time Sekhmetara spoke the pair where behind the Ignatum representatives as they spoke and laughed with those of lesser houses tied to them. The principle repressentative of the Legio, a not entirely unimpressive man by the name of Enkir Morova turned hastily at the sonorous tone of Sekhmetara’s voice. While no doubt used to a rather diffferent dynamic in social interactions, even a Princeps was stunned to engage with the sight of a Primach so close and so suddenly, let alone two, let alone these two.

“Your….. My Lady Sekhemetara Khafre, My Lady Nimue Arcadia, to what do we owe this honour of your company?” While his words momentarily failed him, his actions did not, the well kept posture of the man dipping into a smart and formal bow as he addressed them, taking after the fashion of Imperial nobility over the Martian Priesthood which some Princeps favoured. Sekhmetara smiled a little more kindly at that, a habit of greeting she much preferred, dipping her own head in a far less sweeping motion.

Nimue however, in typical Nimueian fashion, did not bow, rather she placed her hand out lazily towards the Princeps, her palm facing downwards.

“Why you, of course” Nimue said, gesturing slightly to her outstretched arm in expectation of subservience.

Nimue’s actions earned another grin of amusement from her sister, even as the Princeps, only slightly shaking, digits took the Primach’s in his own, tilting her hand towards him before his head bowed to place a kiss to the alabaster of her skin.

“A man like you, unclaimed? The indignity. I am sure I could put you to.. Far better uses” Nimue gently breathed, the meaning of her words muddled, perhaps intentionally, by the odd phrasing the Primarch used. This would hardly be the first time.

The unclear meaning of Nimue’s words no doubt passed through the mind of the Princeps like a thunderclap, a moment of doubt as to whether the situation could even be real. Nether the less, a mind built to withstand the rigours of bonding with the ancient machine gods was quick to recover, a gentle, if proud smile spreading across the man’s features.

"Our Legio fights upon as many fronts of the Crusade as any other, and we earn glory and honour upon each, but it is true, the maniples under my direction have yet to swear ourselves to any new deployment since Ullanor, although we are now once again at fighting strength." As with any of the greater titan legios, their order of battle was impressive even in the realms of demigods, and a princeps of his caliber could not forget to mention this, even when under the crushing attention of two scions of the Emperor. "Should we be assured that our talents would be put to good use, it would be our privilege to be directed in how we might do so by the Jewel of Arcadia."

"I just knew you two would get along." Sekhmetara practically purred, giving Nimue’s arm another playful squeeze as she spoke, her eyes drifted across the other princeps of the Legio that waited as their commander spoke for them. "And fine company to, I am sure."



"This is a breach of the covenenant, we should not -" The voice of the Moderati Primus was cut off by a dismissive noise from his Princeps. The command crew of the Dies Irae waited beyond the main hall, the decorative attire of their ceremonial uniform gleaming with the honours earned by their Titan and Legio, yet their mood was sour.

"Enough, Aruken, the time for such protests is past, we will not allow them all to see any weakness." Princeps Turnet did not turn to look upon his seconds as he spoke, adjusting the the line of allocades on his chest before resting the spoke of his cane upon the stone floor. As with any Princeps, his mortal body was weakened with every communion with the god-machine, and no more so than the enraged call of the Dies Irae. To be forced to walk the world in a fragile shell after spending so long joined with the ancient being of an Imperator Titan was particularly galling, and no amoung of music and fine wine could entirely distract from it. "We have earned honour upon honour, and will continue to do so."

"No Legio of our history has ever been assigned wholesale, we are supposed to be allies, not servants." Despite the warning, the Moderati continued, if only to be interrpted a second time by his peer rather than superior.

"Have you behled a Primach, Aruken? A moment in their presence and you will find it laughable we could ever see ourselves as equals." The pair were close friends, but in many ways could not be more different. Ambition against duty, Mars against the Imperium as a whole. Still, their differences aligned to create a perfectly functioning command team in the roar of combat. With a dismissive sigh, Princeps Turnet looked to his personal chronometer, before signaling the pair behind him with the tap of his cane.

"It is time."


The entrance of the representatives from the Legio Mortis would normally have sweapt through a gathering such as this, of prime power and influence as they were. In this chamber, however, it was many moments before they were even noticed. The pull of charisma, personality and sheer physical force that the primachs represented allowed for the entirity of the room's attention. Eventually, however, the whispering began as they neared the epicentre. Where the primachs forged space without effort, the space cleared for the Mortis crew to move with ease through the revelling throng occured through reputation alone. The Legio Mortis had vassals and rivals, they possessed no peers.

In but a few moments the trio had reached their destination, coming to a half in the presence of Sekhmetara and Nimue as they spoke. The Mithran primach had but a moment to smile to her sister, knowingly, before untangling her arm and turning to face the group face on. In direct comparison it was all the more obvious that the outfit the Primach now wore was akin to those of the titan crew, writ large and stylised by her form and preference.

"Lady Sekhmetara of Mithra, Honoured Primach of His Majesty's twentieth legion, The Unconquered Sun." Princeps Turnet spoke with genuine respect, dipping his head. The withered man had remarkable stoicism in the face of one of the Emperor's scions. The rage of his god-machine burned in his mind and purged him of doubt. Whatever punishment the folly of his superiors had brought upon the Legio, there were few Primachs with the scope of conquest Sekhmetara could claim.

"Honoured Princeps, I welcome you to our father's halls, for there are no stauncher allies of his crusade." The Mithran did not bow her head, but the warmth of her smile still washed over the command crew, as she outstreched one hand, palm up, towards the Princeps.

Without hesitation, Turnet moved to place the cane he held in the enlarged palm of the Primach, who's elegant digits soon closed around it. There was a long pregnant pause as the identity of the rod became evident. The command scepter of the Legio, writ with the emblazoned skull of Mortis' heraldry. "We do so pledge our service to your fleets, your enemies shall be our enemies, your allies our allies, and none shall stand before the fury of our wrath."