Thump, thump
The sound of the four captains' departing steps rolled across the bridge.
Samuel Young's gaze then skimmed over the mech-arms extending from Ferrus's pauldrons. Those precise servo joints quivered faintly to the primarch's breathing, like coiled serpents ready to strike.
When the Human Emperor's eyes lingered on a disintegrator mounted to one mech-arm, the weapon auto-completed its charge calibration, and then—
"Handling the Earth Federation's surrender will be entrusted entirely to you and your legion."
The Emperor's voice set up a resonance through the bridge; the dragon-eyes atop the coiling columns turned iron gray. "Remember, while the UED's tech tree is crude compared to ours, all of its branches are still worth preserving intact."
"Yes, Father."
As Ferrus inclined his head, a trace of liquid metal bled through the collar seam—self-repairing nanobots at work.
Thump! Thump!
The primarch's departing tread bore a distinct metallic weight, heavier by far than the four captains'.
When the hiss of the sealing hatch faded, Athena's golden war-boots traced an arc across the tiles. She tilted her chin, and the Spear of Victory's tip cast a thin shadow onto the dome, like a sundial's gnomon sweeping across the inscriptions of the Codex of Humanity.
"Your Majesty's sudden personal campaign must be for more than divvying up star domains."
The War Goddess's voice held its hallmark purity, though the light in her pupils betrayed deeper doubts.
She deliberately used the word "campaign," sounding out the Emperor's reaction.
Samuel Young had already turned back to the great viewport. He tapped it once with a fingertip—
Ting\~
At once, the latticework flared, refracting the outer starlight into the Galaxy of Universe 18—the StarCraft galactic map itself.
The surrendering fleet's formation became a scattering of light points within, and the silver markers for the Iron Hands visibly devoured the UED's red icons throughout the Universe 18 solar system.
"This universe requires balance." The Emperor's answer was spare. "The Iron Hands and the Imperial Fists each have their strengths."
His gaze swept past the flickering remnants of Zerg swarms on the holomap. "As for Sui Meng…"
The name put the slightest tremor through Athena.
To the War Goddess, Sui Meng was, apart from devotion to the Empire and the Emperor, the most important "thing" in existence. Her expression hardened accordingly.
"His legion needs your tactical mind. Dorn will teach him how to build walls—but you must teach him when to break them."
Samuel Young went on, and the bronze tripod console abruptly unfolded three sub-holos—
Live feeds of Universe 18 Earth, Universe 18 Mars, and Universe 18 Homeworld—the UED's key strongholds in the solar system.
"I will."
Athena nodded in assent, then added, "I suppose Your Majesty's personal commendations for the four children—the captains—had their concerns behind them as well."
"The Salamanders' 3rd want more than colonies," Samuel Young said, laying truth bare. "Agria is the homeworld of the people they protected, and it hides rich veins as well.
"The other companies have their own quiet designs too."
The absolute linchpins of the expedition to unify the Koprulu Sector were the four Astartes companies: Salamanders 3rd, the Lamenters, the Carcharodons, and the Black Templars.
His personal appearance would also steel the resolve of all Astartes, not only those four.
Excellence enough earns the Emperor's personal reward.
"As for the Lamenters…" The Emperor recalled the tears in Phoros's eyes. "What they truly yearn for is how many human kin they can save on the next battlefield."
Athena understood at once.
In the Koprulu Sector's many grinds, whenever they failed to save more civilians, the Lamenters would harshly reproach—even punish—themselves. It had become a kind of "pathological" compensatory mechanism.
But the Lamenters kept it within "appropriate" bounds.
"The Carcharodons have always had a fine appetite."
Samuel Young's tone wavered slightly when he spoke of Tyberos.
A holo projection threw up a scan of an ocean world, home to a shark-like leviathan over a hundred meters long. "Forerunner weapons and tech, quite fit to aid their hunts."
When he came to Sigismund, the energy tracery along the Emperor's armor shifted.
The star-dots that had followed the Hetu now reformed into the array of the Luoshu, while ten greatswords hovered in projection.
"They need no spoils," Athena murmured, insight dawning. "What they need is…"
"Recognition."
Starlight glittered in Samuel Young's pupils.
"Indeed." The War Goddess's voice was like a dark current under ice—calm, with a chill to the bone.
She tapped a finger and brought up the Salamanders 3rd's battle logs from the Koprulu Sector—
In the footage, moss-green Terminators used their bodies as a wall for evacuating civilians. "They devoted ninety-two percent of their armor's power to field generators, yet reported it as 'routine defensive consumption.'"
The holo snapped to a lava field on another world.
Tyberos's shark-tooth plate carved a bloody path through the swarm, every sweep of the power claw deliberately triggering violent blasts.
"The Carcharodons' casualty rate runs a touch above standard," Athena said, a tremor entering her line. "They always make themselves the sharpest bait."
When Sigismund's record came up, the bridge lighting turned suddenly keener.
The frame froze on the Black Templars captain standing alone before a tide of Zerg, his planted greatsword's shield encompassing the entire company.
"An absolutist rationalist," Athena judged. "His control of tempo is perfect every time."
"Mm." Samuel Young agreed, then asked, "How is Sui Meng faring?"
At the Emperor's mention of her child, Athena replied at once. "Monitors at the New City Temple show him dismantling Dorn's seventh-generation wall model."
She flicked one of the holos over to Mar Sara.
In the feed, the young primarch used controllable armor mock-ups to spear the core node of the simulated fortification. "Time to breach absolute defense: four minutes thirty-seven seconds, fully two and a half faster than last time."
Samuel Young drew a fingertip over the viewport; the lattice reassembled into a relief of Mar Sara's terrain.
He noted how Sui Meng, in dismantling the wall, had deliberately avoided the load-bearing structure. That precise judgment and restraint proved the child had grasped the relation between "destruction and protection" in the first instance.
"The tendrils of Chaos are extending."
The Emperor shifted the subject without warning.
The bronze tripod spewed a projection of the Warp; its roiling foul colors were plainly edging toward the Koprulu Sector. "Chaos may at any time launch a mass incursion to foul the material universe."
The Spear of Victory suddenly floated upright; ripples from its tip sketched a 3D order in the air. "I have deployed Seeds of the Flower of Purity at thirty-seven critical nodes. So long as we hold them—"
"Not enough."
Samuel Young shook his head. "When required, you must know how to strike first—to preemptively purge sapient beings already tainted by Chaos. My psykic aegis has not yet fully covered the Galaxy of Universe 18."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
There was no rebuttal in Athena's acceptance, only readiness.
Much later.
Morning fog over the UED capital was gilt by the sun. A silver torrent of nano-scale cleaning robots had just retreated into the underground ducts.
They had used molecular decomposition to process last night's blood, gravity-field collectors to recover every speck of metal scrap, and even sprayed neutralizing reagents through the air.
Sunlight spilled through re-coated curtain walls, throwing geometric dapple over the surrender monument in front of the presidential palace. Thrown up overnight, its sculpture showed Custodes and Astartes helping a fallen civilian to his feet, the plinth engraved—
"Order is born of growing pains,"
"The wounds of yesterday are the shield of tomorrow."
Holo billboards along the streets all switched to educational films.
On one screen, the Iron Hands' engineering units repaired a school, Ferrus's mech-arms' precision became a teaching demonstration; on another, apothecaries from the Lamenters gave children vaccinations, a close-up looped of Phoros smiling as he removed his mask.
In the central square, early risers found new notices on all devices; their personal terminals auto-downloaded the Fundamental Law of the Human Empire and the Inter-Universal Welfare Guarantee Act.
On a mid-floor of an apartment block;
Pale-cyan dawn, like liquid crystal, slipped through the warp of beige curtains and sliced long lattices of light across the living room floor.
A small boy curled on the sofa fluttered his lashes, nose full of the scent that belonged to a family scrunched together: the father's uniform's stale smoke, the mother's cheap shampoo in her hair, the sharp medicated tang of the antiseptic salve his brother had snuck on before bed.
When he propped himself up, the old couch's springs groaned under the strain.
Five bodies splayed crossways made a tableau of survival in wartime dimness—
Father dozed sitting against the coffee table, a civilian rifle clenched in his hand; mother and little sister shared the floor mat, fingers still tightly knit in sleep; big brother lay across the foyer like a guard dog, the baseball bat glinting cold in the morning light.
His bare feet hit the floor and the chill shocked him awake.
He padded on tiptoe like a wary cub, stepping around the scattered emergency supplies—
emptied tins, bundled first-aid packs, and the old radio still blinking its red warning lamp.
He paused three seconds with his fingertips on the curtain edge, his father's warning echoing from last night: "Don't pull it back! Those monsters in power armor will—"
But a thread of gold stabbed his pupils.
He flinched, then opened his eyes—and his view was filled with what lay beyond the window—
Sleek warships hung a thousand meters up, spindle hulls catching the dawn like crystal ornaments suspended by unseen threads.
Iron Hands cruisers were running morning patrols. Their belly bays cycled open, releasing swarms of scout drones. Farther off, three black-and-gold escorts unfurled energy wings, morning light casting auroral ripples over their shields.
His gaze dropped—and his breath stopped.
Above the city's central square, a three-hundred-meter monument to the Flower of Purity was blooming.
Petals of living crystal unfurled layer by layer, converting stored solar power into a gentle golden aura. In that halo drifted a holo of the Empire's dragon-crest, and each beat of its wings spilled countless light-grains over the rebuilding city.
For a moment he thought he saw a human face glimmer in the gold motes—the giant from last night's news, the one they called the "Human Emperor."
"Is that… an angel?" his little sister's voice piped behind him.
He swung around. The whole family stood awake at his back.
Dried blood crusted on father's chin; his jaw hung slack. Mother wrung her apron into deep pleats. Big brother's bat had slipped from his fingers and thudded to the floor.
"Bzzt"
The radio crackled, then carried a new bulletin:
"…All citizens, please note: beginning today, implementation of Chapter 3 of the Wartime Special Rationing Act—"
The family tensed by reflex—survival instinct honed by five days of lockdown.
But the next lines loosened father's fists. "…Daily baseline rations increased to 3,000 calories per person. Medical posts' hours extended to—"
Mother clapped a hand to her mouth; a damp sob seeped through her fingers. Big brother stooped to pick up the bat, but the motion slowed; in his grip, the weapon suddenly seemed ridiculous, unnecessary.
The boy turned back to the window and this time dared to pull the whole curtain wide.
Morning surged into the room like a tide and lit the digital calendar on the wall—
Frozen by the riots for three days, the display now auto-updated to the Human Empire's calendar.
More surprising was the glass. The tape grid they'd stuck on as a blast screen had, at some point, been cleaned away by nano-scale bots. Now the pane threw back a clear reflection of the family's faces—tired, afraid—and carrying a kind of hope they hardly dared to admit.
A metallic thunder rolled from afar.
All heads swung to the sound. Two giants in silver-gray power armor were repairing a substation down the street. The sigil of a metal arm was etched on their plates. One hefted a multi-ton transformer as if it were nothing; the other welded a break with a laser from his mech-arm.
"They don't look like monsters…" Little sister rose on tiptoe, nose nearly on the glass.
Father strode to the foyer. Under the family's startled eyes, he opened the door that had been sealed for days.
The morning wind brought in a strange scent—no smoke, no blood. Only a freshness like moss after rain.
At the end of the street, the first Human Empire logistics skimmers were handing out food parcels.
White containers marked with the dragon-crest unfolded into mobile serving counters; steam puffed into the sun, sketching brief "rainbows" in the light.
Farther off, in the central park the UED had once cordoned, a few braver children were running circles around a gold-armored giant. It was plainly the same executioner who had judged UED officials last night; now he was half-kneeling, using a power-armored fingertip to carefully retrieve a child's runaway ball.
The boy felt a tug at his hem.
His sister tipped up a face dusted with cookie crumbs and whispered, "Can we… go outside?"
The question hung in the morning light like a feather taking its time to fall. Father's hand tightened then loosened on the knob. When he finally turned back to the family, something rigid in his eyes was melting.
Outside, the halo of the Flower of Purity swelled, bathing the whole street in warm gold.
______
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