Chapters Eight and Nine

	The hatch slowly started swinging open on the first pod as the second landed.  The point man let the hatch open only a few inches before moving.  He fired a frag grenade from his combi-attachment into the pod, and a jet of flame belched out of the crack, propelling a cloud of Glasian organs and feathers.  The second pod’s door started opening, then one of the Honor Guards slid the tip of his combi-flamer attachment in and held the trigger down for a moment, then kicked the hatch shut again.

	Arden scanned the skies, but there were no more pond landing in their immediate area.  He saw seven more descending on the far side of the parking lot, however.  “Well done.  Relocate,” he commanded, and the Honor Guard moved.

	The point man cleared the corner and leveled his bolter, then waved the others forward.  They were within sight of a trio of Glasian sentries now, who were ignoring their area in favor of devouring a hapless human body.

	Arden tightened his jaw at the sight.  “Neutralize on mark.”  Three other Honor Guards levelled their pistols.  “Mark.”  Three clicks of triggers, three hisses of propellant, three flat cracks of detonation, and the human was avenged.  Arden surged forward, energizing his Power Bastard as he did.  His secondary heart started pounding, and time seemed to slow.

	Ten feet ahead, three Glasians, corkscrew rifles.  He shifted his combi-pistol and triggered the autogun underneath, killing one with a neck shot, then his Honor Guard got the other two.  Twelve feet left, six PDF behind sandbags, firing SAWs and Razors to suppress Glasian transport.  Disregarded.  Twenty feet right, two stories up, Glasian sniper in pile of toppled building façade, training a rifle on the PDF.  One autogun round through the rifle, it fragmented in the xeno’s hands.  Neutralized.

	Arden didn’t stop moving.  When his senses and helmet scanners told him somebody was seeing him, he would shift his footing and suddenly be moving his center of mass in a different direction.  There, two Glasians with shoulder-mount Ruin Guns, taking aim forty feet away on a toppled statue of Corax.  A squeeze of the Conflagrator trigger, a wave of killing heat, and the Glasians were dead.

	Beyond, the transport loomed.  There, a team of four PDF Killteam elites, carrying Cognomen Hellguns with grenade launchers.  They saw Arden coming and turned their backs, laying down a wave of fire to cover his approach.  Four thuds.  Four grenades blossomed against the neartest four portholes on the transport.  Four clouds of frag and smoke.  Arden was past them, the lasers stopped.  He raised his Bastard Sword and slashed with all his might, and a barricade evaporated.

	He was through.  He swung the sword in his left hand in a flat arc to the right, then raised his pistol beneath the arc and fired the autogun twice.  Two big, slow slugs ripped through the air and caught a Glasian infantry unit by surprise, blowing through and killing the next one behind it.  Red dust kicked up into the air as the tread of Arden’s Power Armored boot ground brick underfoot.  Arden sprinted forward another step, not a fraction of a second had passed.  He finished the killing arc of the sword.  It lodged in a startled alien and neatly bisected it.  Arden let the tip of the blade catch for an instant on the hard alloy hull of the transport and levered around it, wrenching his bulk around one foot as a pivot.  Some of the nearby Chaos-crazed aliens hadn’t even noticed the barricade vanishing yet.

	A plume of smoke erupted at the other end of the transport as the PDF mortar team kept up their shelling.  With two eyeblinks, Arden brought up their location.  His voice flattened from adrenaline and stress as he tersely ordered their cessation of fire.

	He cut the channel with another blink.  His body had moved as if out of his direct control during the brief moment of talking.  Arden’s hand came up and sent a wave of Conflagrator energy into a flipped civilian groundcar in his path.  Its fuel cell touched off and sent a fireball into the air above, scattering two Glasians sheltering behind it.  Arden whipped a frag grenade behind the wreck and pivoted on his left boot, spinning into a one-knee crouch and levelling his pistol.  Right on time, two of his Honor Guard vaulted over the barricade into the packed ranks of Glasians whose attention he had thoroughly diverted with his entrance.

	Lightning Claws whipped across armor and flesh as the first Honor Guard across the barricade landed among the corrupted xenos.  Arden fired his monster autopistol into the crowd, downing the first Glasians to react to the sudden intrusion, then the grenade went off.  Shards of the burning car flew everywhere around the packed aliens, scything several down.

	Of course, even seven experienced Space Marines couldn’t lock down the flank of a transport the size of an Imperial Prometheum tanker.  Squawking, shrieking alarms went up along the length of the barricades, and Arden spotted nearly two hundred Glasians, some already horribly wounded, lurching from their positions.

	The first of the seven savior pods touched down, and more aliens trampled out, some looking dizzy and ill.  The odds were not shifting in the Daggers’ favor.

	The PDF awoke to the danger in which the Chapter Master had placed himself.  The buzz of lasrifles and chatter of slugthrowing autoguns and stubbers suddenly increased as the PDF exploited the distraction of the Glasian defenders.  Arden’s perpendicular view of the incoming fire let him see some of the PDF shots end up in Glasian bodies.  He sprang to his feet and charged the line’s end, hewing with his Power Bastard.

	The pain in Arden’s shoulder from the earlier battle was gone.  His doubts were gone.  His apprehension, his hesitation, his rancor, they were gone.  This was what he was made to do, he excelled, and he was doing it.  The fight didn’t last a minute.


	Astia Grand wasn’t silent, not with so many combatants running rampant over it, but it was quiet around the transport now.  After politely accepting the profuse thanks of the PDF and redirecting them to a more productive area, Arden waited until the only people looking were his battle brothers before letting his shoulders slump.

	“Well.  That went about as well as it could have,” Arden sighed.  He wasn’t tired, of course, after only one battle, but he knew not all of them would result in no Daggers casualties.

	One of the Honor Guard members finished loading his Stalker bolter and looked over his sensor feed.  “My Lord, the last three Glasian ships in orbit are disengaging and making a run for it.  The Navy has corralled them.”

	“Then the flow of savior pods and transports will end shortly,” Arden said with grim satisfaction.  “Excellent.”  He opened a vox line to the collection of Blue Dagger ships in orbit.  “Lord Eiger, come in.  This is Master Arden.”

	A moment passed.  “Arden, Eiger here.”

	“As soon as the enemy fleet is destroyed, begin tallying all costs and dispatch a copy to the Gargantuan for me to peruse, then release all Blue Dagger reserves,” Arden instructed.  He began idly reloading his pistol as he spoke.  No sense in waiting.  “The Glasians here are numerous enough to warrant additional aid.”

	“As ordered.  Be advised, Arden, the Deathwatch is leaving,” Eiger counseled.

	Arden slowly nodded.  “No surprise there, Eiger.  They need to check in with Domack as it stands, anyway.”

	“Of course.”

	“Are there any new signs of action in the Warp?” Arden asked.

	A moment’s silence.  “Negative, Arden.  It’s… bizarre.  The Warp Storm is massive, far larger than any other in all of known history.”

	“Naturally.”  Arden finished reloading his weapons and holstered the pistol.  “Very well.  You stand instructed, Lord Eiger.  Arden out.”

	“Acknowledged, Arden.  Eiger out.”  Lord Gwinnet Eiger cut the feed and returned his attention to the fleet battle.  The SDF battlecruiser Long Light landed a barrage of torpedoes on a Glasian cruiser maneuvering to escape proximity to the Cylinder and cracked the alien ship like an eggshell.  Eiger smiled cruelly.  The Seventh Glasian Migration was drawing to an end in space.


Chapter Nine


	Lord Commander Domack solemnly knelt at the foot of the embarkation ramp of the Konor’s Wisdom.  “By the grace of the Emperor, welcome to the Watch Fortress Dascomb, honored Custodian,” he intoned.

	The Custodian stepped from the ramp and looked around.  As Domack had expected, the towering warrior regarded everything he could see with a combination of inescapable focus and stone-faced placidness.  The Custodian beckoned Domack to rise.  “Watch Commander Domack, thank you for receiving us,” Colquan said.  His voice was strong but surprisingly quiet.  Domack would have had to strain to hear him without his genetic enhancements.  He gestured back into the Ultramarine blue gunship with one aurumite-armored hand.  “On behalf of our Emperor on Terra, the Lord Primarch Regent and Lord Commander of the Imperium, Roboute Guilliman.”

	Domack felt absurd.  His hearts were hammering like he was evading sniper fire.  He had to force his grip on his Guardian Spear to loosen.  He rose and forced himself to meet the eyes of the demigod striding down the ramp onto his station.  He took a long step back and tapped the pommel of his Spear on the deckplate, signaling the rest of the Marines and serfs behind him to present arms.

	Guilliman slowly walked down the ramp and stood at the base, resplendent in the Armor of Fate.  He inclined his head to Domack, who slammed his fist into his chestplate in further salute.

	“Lord Guilliman, sir!  It is an honor beyond words to host you here,” Domack said crisply.  “Command us.”

	Guilliman raised one hand.  “Stand at ease, Watch Commander,” he said simply.  His voice had the air of casual but natural authority that Domack was used to hearing from Chapter Masters, but something behind it lent it a strength that chilled him.  “Please, direct me to your strategarium, that I might distribute some intelligence.  Your Cloudburst Sector has been undergoing some unusual changes lately.”

	Domack fell in beside Guilliman at once.  “Of course, Lord Primarch.  Please, follow me.”  The scarred old Imperial Fist led the Primarch down the long, echoing halls of steel and ceramite towards the core of the Watch Fortress.  Guilliman silently observed everything.  That included Domacks’ apparent lack of desire to engage in conversation.  He noted Domack’s shoulders shifting under his armor and corrected his appraisal: he very much wished to engage in conversation, but did not feel free to do so.

	Guilliman’s mind clicked all possibilities into place before selecting one in an instant.  “Watch Commander, please describe to me the reason that the Ordo Xenos has seen fit to dispatch a Watch Fortress of this size and cost to a border region that is relatively static, and for which there are no ongoing Crusades.”

	The Primarch noted Domack hesitate for an instant longer than it should have taken him to simply begin reciting a rote speech.  “Because, my Lord Primarch, the Cloudburst Sector is threatened by more than the usual collection of border threats.  The Sector is bedevilied by the Glasians.”

	“These would be the menace of which the Novamarines spoke, then,” Guilliman said to prompt further dialogue, as if the Novamarines hadn’t provided him detailed files on the Glasians.

	“Correct, my Lord.”  Domack shifted his clavis to unlock a security door that blocked their path.  Two Scions on either side snapped into razor-sharp attention as they passed.  Guilliman noted one of them was holding back a beaming grin, and deigned to give him a tiny nod of greeting.  The Scion failed to further withhold a smile of jubilation, even at a subtle glare from his superior.  The party stepped onto a conveyor that carried them quickly into the heart of the station.  It would let them off near the Deep Holds.

	“The Glasians are a growing menace.  We do not know where Tzeentch is caching their ships between Migrations, my Lord,” Domack explained.  “Nor do we know from which galaxy they hail, how long it takes them to get here, the exact number of their Cylinders and Control Cylinders, nor who commands them.”

	“Indeed.”  Guilliman noted that Domack had not yet said anything the Novamarines would not have, and had.  Theoretical: Domack was deliberately refraining from explaining the situation in greater detail.

	“Speak freely, Watch Commander,” Guilliman said lightly.  The shine from the Iron Halo built into his armor, easily the most powerful Guilliman had ever seen not forged by Ferrus Manus or Fulgrim, gave the area around him the faintest blue-gold glow.  Sconces of green light spilled illumination over the floors and the armor of the passing party of Imperials.

	They were walking through the Deep Holds now, the collection of armored plate walls that could rearrange to form a wall at the behest of the machine spirit entrusted to protect the Chamber of the Vigil.  Guilliman noted the tiny scuff marks at the bottoms of the wall plates and deduced at once that they could move in two directions at once.

	Guilliman may have been taken aback by the profoundly terrible job that the Imperium had done at upholding his or the Emperor’s ideals – it had taken some effort to acknowledge that those were not the same at all times, on his part – but he had adjusted to it.  Domack seemed to be a competent fellow, at least.

	The Watch Commander nodded.  “Thank you, sir.  I shall do so, and I shall answer your question, but first, I feel that you must be made aware of the presence of one who has much to say on the subject, including some things to which I may not myself be privy.”

	“Be privy at the present time, or be made privy?” Guilliman asked.

	Domack hesitated again.  He did not answer Guilliman’s question, and Guilliman noted the tiny extra tension in Domack’s shoulder and trapezius muscles as he fell into silence.  He resented not being able to answer.  He was embarrassed at not yet being able to answer.

	“The Mechanicus and the Imperial Navy decided that the combined threat of the Glasians and the nearby pirates and aliens of the Cloudburst Circuit and the Oldlight Exo-zone together represent a risk to the continued survival of Imperial assets and citizens in the region,” Domack said instead.  His stomach coiled up as he realized that there was no real way Guilliman didn’t know he was being cautious.  He pressed on.  “The Inquisition recommended that the region be granted the honor of a permanent and self-expanding branch of the Deathwatch Chamber Militant.”

	“Indeed.”

	“It was, of course, a great honor for the Sector Government,” Domack continued.  The small party of travelers were now moving beneath the small censers built into the vaulting rafters high above, which wafted clouds of incense over the statues of great heroes of the Deathwatch.  Few were from Cloudburst, of course, given its recent foundation, but great heroes they were, all the same.  There was Samnos of the Doom Eagles, who slew a Hive Tyrant with two chainblades and a handful of flashbangs.  There was Felix Cauplein of the Bone Knives, who stood alone before the gates of the Dark Genevaults for seventeen hours, killing Orks with traps, cleverness, and a pair of Volkite pistols.  There was Azun Yukitaki of the Wrathful Angels, who saved the Master of the Administratum Ultima from being tortured to death by the Dark Eldar for sport.

	Guilliman paused before one statue.  Domack broke off his speaking and looked back to see what had drawn the Primarch’s eye.

	The Ultramarine Lord had paused before a statue of Augustus Tomran, a Techmarine of the Ultramarines, who had served in Fort Pykman.  “Ah.  Tech-brother Tomran, Lord.  He infiltrated a vast Dark Age space station overtaken by Orks and turned into a hub of local greenskin activity.”  Domack respectfully walked up beside Guilliman and inclined his head to the statue.  Tomran had his helmet off in the stone statue, carved from a single block of asteroid stone by a bank of carving lasers in the Forge Master’s workshop.  He had a confident grin on his face, looking sightlessly out at his distant gene-sire.

	“And how did he fare in this attempt?” Guilliman asked.  He did not take his eyes off the statue.

	“He succeeded in planting fifteen melta charges in the station’s reactor core by hiding inside a false fusion capsule left adrift in the wreckage of an Imperial freighter that a Deathwatch Kill-frigate stumbled across on a routine nav check.”  Domack gestured to the date plate beside the statue.  M41.084.231.  “Once he saw signs of light greenskin looting on the wreck, he realized they would come back.  He had four hours before they did so, he calculated, and so in that time, he came up with his plan, fashioned his trap capsule, falsified its sensor readings so the Orks would think it real, cast himself into space in the trap device, and waited.  The Orks came, picked it up, took it to the space station, and tried to use it.  He snuck into the reactor core as they did so, planted the charges, and escaped on a commandeered ship just as the station detonated.  He returned to the Ultramarines a hero.”

	Guilliman actually managed a tiny grin of approval.  “Remarkable.”  He continued staring at the statue as he spoke.  “You know, Watch Commander, people think I lack improvisational skills.”

	Domack felt the awkwardness of that remark and the dead silence that followed like a cloak somebody had thrown over his head.  “I… do not, sir,” he finally said, for lack of any better alternative.

	“Hmm.  Well, then you’re one of the few.”  Guilliman chuckled softly and resumed walking.  “It seems not all traits are heritable.”

	Domack felt the vaguest bit of tension in his shoulders disappear.  Was it a truly unguarded moment?  Was it a calculated effort by Guilliman to ease the discomfort of the inherent disparity between them?  Who cared?

	Guilliman cleared his throat.  “But you were speaking of the Watch Fortress Dascomb.”

	“Yes.”  Domack moved beside Guilliman once more.  The Custodian, he noted, was not following closely.  In fact, the Tribune was several long paces back, and had put on a helm.  “Dascomb was named after a brilliant Imperial Navy Solar Admiral, who once commanded two Sector Fleets to victory over a vast fleet of Plagueships of Nurgle.  The station was originally an Imperial Navy starbase, in fact, the strategic importance of which did wane in the aftermath of a lengthy Crusade to reclaim the north border of the Drumnos Sector from many pirate groups that no longer exist.”

	“Hmm.  So it didn’t travel far, then,” Guilliman said.

	“Not far at all, my Lord, relatively speaking,” Domack said.  “It was reconditioned and upgraded extensively in the vast Orbital Trains of Fabique.”

	“Ah.  A marvel of Mechanicus void-engineering, that,” Guilliman said.  “A train line that spans a hundred thousand asteroids and satellites, modular and detachable, and building warships around the clock.”

	“It is magnificent.”  Domack raised a hand to signal a Keeper he spotted down the hall, as if it were necessary with the glowing brilliance of the Emperor’s own son walking beside him.  The Keeper nodded ceremonially and tapped the back of his Power Spear’s blade to his bird mask.

	“Eventually, the station was done, and relocated to this spot by the Nine Oh First Imperial Navy Tug Flotilla,” Domack said.  “Of course, the Glasians are not infinite in number.  Someday, the Inquisition would no doubt like to use this as a base to hunt down alien pirates that base beyond the light of the Astronomican to the galactic far north.”

	“Not a large area, all told,” Guilliman remarked.  “The space between the outer edge of the Cloudburst Sector and the Terminus void storm that girdles the galaxy is barely larger than the width of this Sector now, and it is a small Sector.”

	“No, my Lord, it is small.”  Domack came to a halt before an adamantine door with the sigil of the Inquisition embossed into it in beaten copper.  A Keeper in artificed Mark Eight Errant armor stood there, Guardian Spear in one hand and a Thunder Shield in the other.  “High Keeper Vanados Elkop, I present our guests: Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman and Tribune Primus Maldovar Colquan,” he said formally, as if there were a soul on the Fortress that didn’t know.

	Guilliman gave another of his hairline smiles.  “Ah, and there is heraldry I recognize,” he said.  There was a warmth in his voice that Domack had not expected.  “You are formerly of the Novamarines’ First Company, then, High Keeper?”

	Elkop bowed as low as his wargear would allow.  “My Gene-Liege, you are correct,” he said, in his quiet bass voice.  “And I am at your humble service.”  He rose and stepped aside, and the door swung slowly outward.  “Welcome to the Chamber of the Vigil of the Watch Fortress Dascomb.”


	Keeper Rengris slowly paced the command deck of the Imperium Avowed.  Cloudburst was not hard to navigate under normal circumstances, and of course the Deathwatch employed the very best Navigators outside the Sol Sector itself, but this damnable obstruction of Terra was slowing their ship.  They had been flying through intense Warp turbulence that rocked their hull and dimmed their lights as the Gellar Field tried to compensate.




	Guilliman’s first sight inside the Chamber was a little old lady.  He saw a woman sitting in profile in a delicately-painted wrought iron chair at the far side the room, one that had legs that seemed to very faintly coruscate.  She stood the instant she saw him.

	“Lord Commander Guilliman, I present the Lady High Inquisitrix Cloudburst and Inquisitor of the Chamber of Watch Fortress Dascomb,” Domack said, holding out one black-painted hand.  “Lady Lerica, I present Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman.”

	Lerica clasped her fingers over her belt buckle and bowed with a level of deferential politeness that vaguely surprised Guilliman.  He analyzed her in an instant.  Her clothing was a silver shawl over a white-grey outercoat, itself over a complex four-piece silver Imperial Navy Commodore’s dress uniform perfectly cut to her figure.  She was old, very old, and had silver wires implanted in her cheek with a greater level of subtlety than Guilliman was used to seeing in the brute-force augmetics of the new Imperium.  She had a platinum pin in the shape of the personal heraldry of Malcador the Sigilite pinned to her left breast pocket, and a symbol of the Inquisition’s Ordo Xenos pinned to the right.  She was not visibly armed, even to his eyes.  She also had a clearly artificial left eye, but no visible injury to necessitate it, and it was the same color as her natural right one.

	The practical came to his mind at once.  “Lady Inquisitrix Lerica,” he said diplomatically.  She was very obviously a potent psyker, an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and a noble, and probably the reason Domack had held his tongue.

	“My Lord Primarch Guilliman,” Lerica said.  She had a very soft voice, with a hint of steel under it that came unforced.  The word Primarch had not been among the words Domack had spoken.  From what he knew of the current Imperial nobility, it was gauche to speak a title of a person even if it was accurate, as long as it was not among those used to introduce them.  Gauche, but not an insult.  He observed her being not nervous or intimidated in the slightest, nor was there a hint of waver or resentment in her respectful gestures or her posture.  Theoretical: she was trying to gauge how much authority over her he actually had, or was willing to express having.  Practical: there was no time for such things.

	“Let us begin at once, then,” he said firmly, and strode right up to her.  Interestingly, she did not hesitate, nor hasten the pace at which she straightened from her bow, nor did she seem to be probing his mind with her power.  He gained a slight degree of respect for her, and did not display it.

	Elkop sealed the chamber once Colquan was inside.  Now, it was just Domack, Lerica, Colquan, Elkop, and of course Guilliman.  Domack waited to see what Lerica did before continuing.

	Lerica sat back down, to the manifest surprise of Elkop and Domack.  Colquan sneered behind his helmet.  Guilliman did not react.  “Please, Lord Commander, do tell us whatever has brought you so far from the Imperial heartland,” Lerica said.

	Guilliman remained standing.  Domack wondered if he actually could sit down in his strange armor.  “The Eye of Terror,” he said flatly.  “The Eye has ruptured.  The Warp has split, and realspace is torn.  A great Warp Storm now stretches from the Eye to the Hadex Anomaly in the Jericho warzone.  Over four hundred Imperial systems were instantly scoured of all life by the torrent of Warp-stuff that spewed from what we now call the Great Rift.”  He half-lidded his eyes and stared Lerica down as her jaw tightened.  “More accurately, it is the Cicatrix Maledictum.  It has… spurs, I suppose, that have extended it as far as the Maelstrom and the Agripinaa Forge World.  It has also had peculiar effects on the Sagittarius A* super black hole at the center of the galaxy.”

	Lerica nodded slowly.  Her mind whirred.  “I see.”

	“However, that is not what I have come here to inform you, as you could learn such from any of the ships that come here to pass off supplies,” Guilliman continued.  “High Inquisitrix, are you aware of the effect that the Warp can have on the passage of time?”

	“Of course, Lord Primarch.”  Lerica tapped her psybernetic wires in her cheek.  “The Warp can speed or slow the passage of time.  Even reverse it, Throne protect us.”

	“Yes.  As it has done here,” Guilliman said.  He heard Domack tilt his head back and Elkop make no movement at all.

	“Kindly explain, Lord Primarch,” Lerica said levelly.

	Guilliman gestured broadly around him.  “The opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum has had unpredictable effects on certain physical… laws.  The passage of time in this region was interrupted.  It has now resumed.”

	At last, a significant physical reaction from Lerica.  She slowly stood from her chair.  “And what was this interruption?” she asked carefully.

	Guilliman fixed her with his stare, despite the intrinsic risk of doing so with a psyker.  “Inquisitrix, the Cloudburst Sector did not have one second pass for a period my staff estimate to be approximately three years.  Your calendars in this Sector record the year as M42.000.  The year as best as we can tell is M42.003.”

	Lerica felt the floor drop out, but only looked slightly to the side.  It was not an effective means of hiding her shock.  “I see.”  She took a slow breath.  “And how many other regions of space had to endure this… chronological displacement?”

	The Tribune spoke up.  “Four Sectors have been identified so far.  It has also changed another nine Subsectors, and four hundred seventeen inhabited systems in Imperial space.”

	Domack’s strategic senses parsed through the implications of that.  “Then, my Lord Commander, what halted the interruption of time?”

	Guilliman turned to look at him.  “So far, we can but speculate.  The senior Mechanicus and Inquisitorial representatives in my Indomitus fleet suspect that the Cicatrix Maledictum is very slowly thinning in spots, allowing the light of the Astronomican to assert itself over the Warp.  There are precious few ways to test this, of course,” he added.  “Thus far, the only means we have found to bypass the Warp Storms are a single narrow passage in the Segmentum Obscurus and to fly all the way around either the Eye or the Hadex Anomaly.”

	“Which, of course, are at the polar opposite ends of the galaxy,” Domack said.

	“Of course.”  Guilliman took internal note of how the three Dascomb occupants were reacting.  Elkop seemed barely phased, intriguingly, while Domack had shifted entirely to the strategic considerations, and Lerica seemed quite disturbed but determined not to show it.

	Elkop spoke up.  “Lord Guilliman, sir, we are deeply honored with your presence, but if I may ask, why did you see fit to tell us this in person?  Why not send an Astropathic message?”

	“Because Astrotelepathy is still much slower and less safe than it has been of late,” Guilliman said.  “And because the Indomitus Crusade needs warriors.”  He raised one gauntleted hand, palm up, as if holding the galaxy in his hand.  “The Imperium is reeling and bloodied, and its northern half is effectively unguided.  There has never been a plan in place for the Imperium, you see, for continuity of governance and military readiness in the absence of Terra.”

	Lerica sighed.  “I suppose not, no.”

	“Thus, I have seen fit to re-enact the protocols put in place during the Great Scouring,” Guilliman continued.  “I have purged the Senate of the High Lords, and I have reinstated my own former rank.”

	Domack drew himself up in surprise.  “Purged?  Lord Guilliman, if you please, what do you mean by purged?  Surely they were not corrupted by Chaos.”

	Guilliman rolled his eyes.  “No, that would make the causes of the Imperium’s decay far easier to detect and rectify.  I simply demoted several Senators to positions more befitting their capabilities, and elevated others to fill their ranks.  There are now nineteen positions in the Senate, of which my own is a permanent member, and from which twelve reign in the Emperor’s name, as before.”

	“Ah.”  Domack considered this.  “And this Indomitus Crusade… it is not solely Terran in origin, is it?  I do not see my own Chapter’s Phalanx among its number.”

	Guilliman gave another enigmatic little smile.  “That is because you are seeing only about half of its total number, Watch Commander.  I am constantly cycling new units in and out of the Crusade, drawing in excess forces in places of surplus and leaving behind units in warzones that do not require my personal intervention.”

	Lerica’s analytical mind began tallying the amount of supplies that would consume.  “Lord, how in the name of the Throne do you keep that many people fed on the move?” she asked incredulously.

	“By collecting supplies from loyal worlds we find, for the most part,” Guilliman said.  “That isn’t relevant.  I have come to your Watch Fortress to gain an assessment of your progress in seeing off this Seventh Glasian Migration.”

	“It proceeds, but we have been unable to raise any of the worlds to which we have dispatched our forces to combat it,” Domack admitted.  “The Astropathic turmoil has been great enough to deny us all communication.”

	Guilliman hid a sigh.  Exactly the problem into which he had run so many other places on this side of the Rift.  “Then we shall simply have to find the spot at which the application of force that my Indomitus Crusade represents could free up the most Cloudburst assets,” he said.  “The Imperium is split asunder, and the myriad threats to Mankind shall not wait for the Astronomican to glow across the breadth of space once more before pressing their advantage.”

	“The Cloudburst Sector is presently besieged by two threats, my Lord,” Domack said.  “At least, two alien threats.  The first is the horde of Orks that has descended on the Mechanicus satrap world of Foraldshold, and on the Subector Capital of Oglith.  The Mechanicus can contain the first threat, although Oglith’s military forces were unable to defeat the Orks there in time for the Seventh Glasian Migration to conclude before a Cylinder arrived there as well.  The Cylinders are also en route to Hapster, Dawn-break, Septiim, Forender, and Gorum’s Folly.”

	Lerica spoke up.  “Of the seven worlds under alien threat, my Lord, Oglith and Gorum’s Folly shall be the hardest-pressed,” she said.  “Oglith was dealing with hundreds of thousands of Orks even before the Glasians arrived, and Gorum’s Folly was so lightly defended that there was a real chance we would not have been able to save it even before inter-system travel became nearly impossible.”

	Guilliman nodded.  “Let us speak of strategy, then, and how best to dispatch our forces.”


	Chaplain Gregorius sat silently in the metal grille chair beside the command throne of the Imperium Avowed.  He recited mantras of patience in his mind as the ship rattled and rumbled its way through the tumultuous Warp towards the Watch Fortress Dascomb.  According to Keeper Rengris in the throne, they were actually making good time, but the dimness of the Astronomican and the incredible waves of malevolent energy in the Immaterium were making things far more dangerous than they usually were.  On the other hand, the sheer currents of emotional energy that roiled the Sector were improving the speed of the Warp Current they were riding to Dascomb.

	The Chaplain leaned forward in his seat and watched intently as the helmsman slowly moved his hand to the Warp drive controls.  “We shall exit in fourteen seconds, Keeper,” he said.  They would have called ahead to Dascomb had their Astropath not nearly cracked his skull on his cabin bulkhead in seizure the moment they entered the Warp.

	“I wonder how many other Killteams have made it back safely,” Rengris remarked.

	“Who could say?”  Gregorius settled his hand over his emblem of the Lion and waited.  Only a few seconds of this nightmare left.

	The helmsman pulled the Warp drive levers, and a rip appeared in space before their vessel.  None aboard could see it, of course, since unshuttering a porthole in the Warp was simply a complex means of committing suicide, but the ship suddenly bucked even harder as the asymmetric stress of transition tugged at the seams and rivets.

	The mere instant the rift sealed behind them, the ship’s sensor station started glowing with so many contact icons that they increased the ambient light in the area around the sensorium controls.  The operator whipped his head around and stared.  “Keeper… we are reading in excess of eleven hundred contacts within range.  They are all registering as Imperial on the IFF.”

	Rengris stared.  “Eleven hundred?  Is it the Battlefleet Solar?”

	“Negative.  They have among their number a Gloriana battleship registered as the Macragge’s Honor,” the sensor operator said.

	“The Ultramarines have no such ship,” Rengris insisted.

	The comms operator suddenly spoke up.  “Keeper, sir, the Fortress is hailing us, and over forty small vessels from the flotilla ahead are accelerating towards us.”

	“Answer the hail,” Rengris said.

	A crackle of static over Rengris’ vox faded into a man’s voice.  “Imperium Avowed, this is Watch Fortress Dascomb.  We are playing host to a member of the Senate of the High Lords.  Power down your armaments and transmit your security codes immediately.”

	Rengris nodded to the vox operator, who began typing codes into his machine.  The squadron of ships approaching them slowed as the transmission passed them on the way to Dascomb.  Moments later, another hail came through.  “The Machine Spirits have accepted your code, Avowed.  Be advised, our guest is Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman.  He will want to debrief you on the state of the Septiim conflict,” the Dascomb vox op said.

	Rengris felt his heart pick up.  He and Gregorius shared a look of astonishment.  The bridge crew took in a breath of surprise.  Rengris opened a vox channel.  “Dascomb, Avowed.  Acknowledging the call.”