‘We wanted to make sure you’d caught every detail,’ says Empion of the 9th. Youngest of them. Newest of them. Gage covers a smile. The poor fool still hasn’t learned not to underestimate.
‘I believe I have, Empion,’ says Guilliman.
‘The Samothrace–’
‘Requires further engine certification,’ says Guilliman. ‘I have told Shipmaster Kulak to divert servitors from orbital slip 1123. Yes, Empion, I had seen that. I had seen that the Mlatus is eighty-two hundred tonnes overladen, and suggest the yard chiefs reassign the 41st Espandor to the High Ascent. The Erud Province muster is running six minutes behind schedule, so Ventanus needs to get Seneschal Arbute to increase handling rates at Numinus Port. Six minutes will expand over the next two days. Kolophraxis needs to get his ship in line. Caren Province is actually timing ahead of schedule, so compliments to Captain Taerone of the 135th, however I doubt he has accommodated the rainstorm predicted for later this afternoon, so he needs to be aware that surface conditions will deteriorate. Speaking of the 135th, there is a sergeant inbound. Thiel. He is marked for censure. Send him to me when he arrives.’
‘That’s a discipline matter that can be dealt with at master level, sir,’ says Antoli. The 13th is his, and the role falls to him.
‘Send him to me when he arrives,’ Guilliman repeats.
Antoli glances at Gage.
‘Of course, my primarch.’
Guilliman rises to his feet and looks at Antoli.
‘I just want to talk to him, Antoli. And, yes, Marius, I am micromanaging again. Indulge me. Loading an army is a precise but tedious occupation, and I would like a little diversion.’
The masters smile.
‘Any show of our principal guests?’ Guilliman asks.
‘Primarch Lorgar’s fleet has been translating into the system since midnight, Calth standard,’ says Gage. ‘The first retinues are assembling. We understand the primarch is crossing the system terminator, inbound at high realspace velocity.’
‘So… sixteen hours out?’
‘Sixteen and a half,’ says Gage.
‘I was rounding down, like the Army does,’ says Guilliman. The men laugh. The primarch looks through the crystalflex wall. Amongst the rows of starships that glint like polished sword blades there is already a scattering of darker vessels, like bloodied weapons that await cleaning.
The first of Lorgar’s warships, docking and manoeuvring, taking up their places in the line.
‘Hails have been received from the arriving captains and commanders,’ says Gage. ‘Erebus requests an audience at your convenience.’
‘He can wait a while,’ says Guilliman. ‘The man is quite deplorable. I’d rather we tolerated them all in one go.’
His masters laugh again.
‘Such indiscretions are for our circle only,’ Guilliman reminds them. ‘This operation is designed to demonstrate the efficiency of the new era. It is entirely designed to glorify my brother Horus and reinforce his authority.’
Guilliman looks at Atreus, who smiles, and Gage, who glances away.
‘Yes, I was listening, Marius. And here’s the thing. Atreus was right. This is show, and this is pomp, and this is, essentially, a waste of time. But – and here’s the thing – Horus is Warmaster. He deserves glorification, and his authority needs to be reinforced. Marius, meanwhile, was quite correct too, Atreus. You will refer to the Warmaster at all times with full respect.’
‘Yes, my primarch.’
‘One last matter,’ says Guilliman. ‘There was a vox signal interrupt six and half minutes ago. I have the details recorded. Probably solar flare distortion, but someone check, please. It sounded for all the world like singing.’
The interrupt is checked, and attributed to solar distortion. A vox artefact. The void forever creaks and whispers around the audible and electromagnetic ranges.
Half an hour later, a rating aboard the Castorex reports hearing voices singing on a vox-link. Twenty minutes later, chanting blocks out the main orbital datafeed for eleven seconds. Its source is unidentified.
An hour later, there are two more bursts, unsourced.
An hour after that, Communication Control reports ‘a series of malfunction events’ and warns that ‘further communication disruption may be expected during the day until the problem is identified’.
An hour after that, on the night side of Calth, the first of the bad dreams begins.
There are many clues. There are many portents. Given the extraordinary thoroughness with which the XIII Legion maintains its readiness, it might be considered tragic, or incompetent, that so few are heeded.
The simple truth is that, in this instance, the Ultramarines do not know what to look for.
Down on the surface of Calth, in the morning light, Tylos Rubio waits with his squad to board transports. They are all of the 21st Company, under Captain Gaius.
Rubio’s head aches. There is a pain behind his eyes. He ignores it. He considers, briefly, mentioning it to an Apothecary, but he does not. They have gone without rest periods for several days during the preparation phase. It has not been possible to shut down higher mental functions and sleep, or at least remedially meditate.
He puts the ache down to this, to background fatigue. It is just another frailty of human flesh that his transhuman biology will target and neutralise within an hour.
It isn’t fatigue. Later, Rubio will regret not mentioning his ailment. He will regret it more bitterly than anything else that happens on Calth. The remorse will hound him to his grave, many years later.
After the death and the slaughter, after the firing and the killing, when fate has taken an extraordinary step and removed him from the field of war, when there is finally a moment to think, Tylos Rubio will realise that in his determination to follow the edicts of the Emperor, he ignored a vital warning sign.
He is not alone. Amongst the two hundred thousand or so Ultramarines on or around Calth that day, there are hundreds of gifted individuals like him, all selflessly and obediently reduced to ordinary ranks. They all ignore the headaches.
Unlike Rubio, few survive the event long enough to regret it.
4
‘I asked to join the advance,’ says Sorot Tchure. For the first time since their reunion, Luciel notes a discomfort in his friend’s disposition.
And for the first time, he also reflects that they are not friends at all. What would be a better word? Comrades, perhaps?
They have met once before, eight years previously. Happenstance drew their companies together in the defence of Hantovania Sebros, the last of the tower cities of Caskian. Side-by-side, for four Terran months, they fought off an insect species whose name or language they never learned. Comrades of circumstance.
Circumstance makes decisions for us all.
The simple truth, unglossed, is that the Legion Astartes XIII Ultramarines and the Legion Astartes XVII Word Bearers are not close. Despite their superficial similarities, they are worlds apart in terms of their organisation and combat ideology. They are as unlike each other as the primarchs who lead them.
Any fool can see that the Emperor’s original purpose, in creating his Legions and his sons, was to generate a variety of fighting forces that would embellish and complement one another. Their various strengths and characters were supposed to shine in contrast. There is, in uniformity, weakness.
And as brothers are different, so they clash. There are rivalries and arguments, fallings-out and bickering, envy and competition. This, too, is supposed to be part of the healthy organic processes of the Legiones Astartes. This is the Emperor’s vision. Let his sons compete. Let his Legions challenge one another. That way, they will spur one another on. That way they will do better. The Emperor, and his oldest, wisest sons, are always there to stop things going too far.