Chapter 498: The Black Templars and Armageddon
Time was a burden of a different magnitude for the Astartes.
For a Space Marine, whose genetic enhancement allowed for peak functionality on a mere two to four hours of Sus-an Membrane-induced micro-sleep—a transhuman repose akin to a cetacean's hemispheric rest—the perception of time was far more acute and agonizingly stretched than that of a short-lived mortal.
This sensation had only intensified as the divine silhouettes of the returned Primarchs began to fill the Imperial horizon.
High Marshal Helbrecht knew well that the Dawnbreakers did not recoil from the return of the Sires. They did not fear that these demigods of the Great Crusade—beings whose deeds had fermented into myth over ten thousand years—would usurp their authority.
On the contrary, they welcomed every tested and loyal Primarch with open arms. They were like new masters who had taken stewardship of a grand estate after the original lord's departure, keeping the halls pristine and the table laden with a feast, awaiting the wanderer's return with earnest expectation.
Yet it was this very openness that deepened the melancholy of the Sons of Dorn.
For the Dawnbreakers truly did not know where Rogal Dorn was.
There were threads to pull regarding the Wolf King—clues of his hunt for the World-Tree within the Warp. Even the traitor Magnus possessed a jagged understanding of Russ's coordinates within the Sea of Souls.
The Great Khan had vanished after leading the White Scars into the Labyrinthine Dimension, and now, with the "Sanctioned Aeldari" integrating into the Imperium and the Webway project commencing, hope for his recovery was blossoming.
As the Emperor's presence flared with renewed vigor in the Empyrean, even the legends who fell at Isstvan V were beginning to flicker on the edges of psychic perception.
Tu'Shan, Chapter Master of the Salamanders, still held the promise of the Nine Artifacts of Vulkan. To be blunt, the Dawnbreakers—ever sensitive to the cold logic of numbers—viewed that legend with a degree of skepticism, suspecting it might be a fabrication of some Warp-entity. Lord Ramesses intended to dissect the matter thoroughly once he reached Armageddon to meet with Tu'Shan.
The Salamanders were few in number and eccentric in doctrine, often bleeding themselves white to protect mortal populations. Their numbers hovered perpetually around seven companies. Aside from the occasional bureaucratic demand for their master-crafted wargear, the Imperial high command rarely spared a thought for the XVIII Legion's scions.
But by a stroke of fate, the Dawnbreakers favored such Chapters—those who refused to sever themselves from baseline Humanity and who were tempered by faith and an iron will.
Previously, their plight lacked a voice to broadcast it. Now, the Dawnbreakers stood ready to act as their blade. As their galactic strategic deployment spread, the recovery of Vulkan's relics had been prioritized in the plenary sessions of the Primarchs. Once the consensus was reached on Armageddon, the resources of the Imperium would be mobilized to scour the stars for the artifacts of the Promethean.
Behold: even for a withered lineage like the Salamanders, the Dawnbreakers offered their aid. The Black Templars, therefore, had no reason to fear that their own Sire's return was unwanted.
They had consulted with the Sons of Dorn long ago. Lord Ramesses had even petitioned the Emperor for information from those who stood at Dorn's final battle. The result, however, was a void.
Unknown.
Even the Master of Mankind could not see where Rogal Dorn had gone.
Conjectures were many. Perhaps he was hidden within the depths of the Imperial Palace. Perhaps he had returned to Inwit, the coordinates of which were a state secret known only to the highest tiers of the Imperial Fists. Perhaps he had simply laid down his shield and sought a life of secluded peace.
But the Primarchs and the scions of the VII rejected these fantasies.
The Raven King might break under his tragedies. The Khan might flee the stagnation of the state. The Wolf might abandon mundane duty to seek a more ethereal salvation.
But Dorn? Never.
No one believed the Unyielding Shield would ever retreat. Even Ramesses, who spent his days roasting the First Legion, never directed his sharp-tongued humor at the Praetorian. His jests regarding the Loyalists were always calculated; he would suggest Guilliman build a "Perfect City" on Calth to mock Lorgar, but he would never compare that city to the ruins of Dorn's works.
Such was the weight of Rogal Dorn's legacy.
To assume he had fled was the ultimate insult to the man who had led a fractious council of brothers, a suspicious Terran Senate, and an arrogant Custodian Guard during the Siege—the man who had held the line with only his Imperial Fists and his own iron soul.
The man who, after Guilliman fell, had shouldered the Regent's burdens and pushed through the Third Founding before his final "dance" in the darkness.
He might have died on the road, embracing the end of his duty with a stoic heart, but he would never have hidden like a coward.
Something held him fast.
There is no greater agony than hope being within reach, yet held at bay by an invisible chain.
"High Marshal."
Having bid his brothers farewell, the Lord of Knights approached Helbrecht. He sensed the turmoil in the Marshal's soul and knew it could not be left to fester.
"My Lord."
Looking at the Dark Angels surrounding Arthur—Azrael, Belial, Sammael, Kay, and Kamael—Helbrecht swallowed the bitter bile of envy and stowed his grief.
The Lion had withdrawn two-thirds of the Dark Angels' military strength. In the brief window where he had "wholesaled" Exterminatus orders to the traitors in Greater Ultramar, the First Hunter had adapted to the combat paradigms of the 41st Millennium. With his sons reunited under his direct will, he no longer required a proxy to lead the Legion.
The Black Templars, now a host approaching one hundred thousand strong after a century of aggressive expansion, would accompany the Lord of Knights to Armageddon. Their mission: the total annihilation of the Orks ravaging the sector.
"We will find him."
Arthur looked at the High Marshal, his heart heavy with the realization of Fate's cruelty. He turned his head, his gaze settling on the Eternal Crusader hanging in the starport—the gleaming flagship that, for ten millennia, had symbolized the coming of a Primarch to the desperate citizens of the Imperium.
"Together," the Knight said, his emerald eyes clear and resolute.
It was a vow.
The transmigrators knew their grasp of statecraft was often naive. They understood that grand strategy required sacrifice. But their simple, fundamental pursuit of a better life made them believe that effort must be rewarded.
If the "Old Man" wouldn't give the reward, the Dawnbreakers would take it.
If he was not in realspace, they would scour the Webway. If not there, they would storm the Warp.
They would find him.
"I understand, My Lord," Helbrecht replied, striking his breastplate in a crisp knightly salute. "The Black Templars are consolidated. We await Your command."
Armageddon, Hive Volcanus.
Hiss—
The oxygen tanks vented, delivering a rush of filtered, humid air. Standing beyond the defensive perimeter where the volcanic gasses from the planetary crust matted the air with soot, Commissar Yarrick inhaled greedily. He fought to purge the stagnant, toxic atmosphere from his lungs.
He was assessing the tactical disposition of the line with his naked eye. Over his left socket, a crimson bionic eye hummed. Its internal logic-engines analyzed the battlefield, highlighting troop movements and structural weaknesses for the commander.
For an officer of the Astra Militarum, this was a rare, stolen moment of respite.
Ten years had passed since the Orks began their ravaging of the Armageddon Sector.
To the Imperium's surprise, the Warboss known as Ghazghkull—who should have been bleeding the entire sector—had instead launched a concentrated, lightning strike on Armageddon itself. After leading his klans across the trans-sector void, he hadn't immediately engaged the orbital defense fleets. Instead, he had seized the Mandeville points.
This maneuver had caught the Naval Sector Admiral off-guard. The Admiral had intended to follow traditional doctrine: dispersing the fleet to trade blows with the greenskins at the sector's outer perimeter. He had ignored the counsel of Commissar Yarrick, who had correctly identified the center of the Ork tactical gravity after the first skirmish.
It was only the planetary defense grids and the local system monitors—upgraded under the Dawnstar protocols that had been mandated for every world since the Dawnbreakers' arrival—that had prevented the initial raid from becoming a slaughter. The ground forces had bought enough time to entrench.
Still, Armageddon was half-fallen. Aside from the wastes being stripped for resources by the Dark Mechanicum and the Mechanicus alike, the sub-continents that housed three of Armageddon's primary hab-zones were in Ork hands. In those regions, the very ground had become "active" under the greenskins' influence, as if being integrated into a massive, biomechanical structure to facilitate their Waaagh!
Fortunately, the vast oceans, the dense jungles, and the pockets of Khorne-worshippers had prevented Ghazghkull from launching a direct assault on the main continental masses. The orbital batteries held the greenskin fleet at bay.
Even the enemies' terrifying "Attack Moons" were visible enough for the planetary defense batteries to track and counter.
For a time, Hive Volcanus felt secure. They believed they could hold the line until reinforcements arrived from the wider Imperium.
Yarrick stared at the horizon, at the massive structure outlined against the roiling volcanic mists.
The "Smasher"—a Space Hulk the size of a sub-continent—sat embedded in the crust of the main continent. It was a factory of death, vomiting a ceaseless stream of greenskins, proving that the situation was far from the "stable defense" the High Command imagined.
The Space Hulk had appeared out of a Warp-jump as unpredictable as the Orks themselves. In 828.M41, it had crashed into the hive-world of Armageddon, bringing an invasion force of staggering proportions. Massive Ork mobs, clad in heavy "Mega-Armor" that mimicked the bulk of a Space Marine, wielding weapons of terrifying destructive potential, had nearly overran Hive Volcanus despite being a fraction of the total invasion force.
If the Salamanders had not returned to the world in time to fill the gaps in the line, the city would have fallen. They had driven the greenskin shock troops back into the bowels of the Space Hulk before the main host could make landfall.
Recalling the desperate struggle to breach the Hulk—a campaign that had stalled for months—Yarrick clenched his hands against his chest. He could feel his hearts thundering against his ribs, a rhythm of survival.
After their failed landfall, the Orks had begun to "terraform." Using reclaimed steel from the very crust of Armageddon—a planet rumored to have been modified by a planetary-scale civilization in the distant past—they were constructing massive sea-bastions. They intended to bridge the oceans and strike the heart of the Imperial resistance.
It was a small mercy; building sea-fortresses in a world of complex waterways and jagged mountains took time.
But it was a dark omen. It suggested the Orks possessed a technical understanding of the planet that surpassed the humans'. They weren't just invading; they were acting like they owned the place.
They were integrating Armageddon's resources into their own machine.
Stretched thin by an enemy that outnumbered them ten-to-one, the defenders of Armageddon were reaching their breaking point. Even knowing the danger, their capacity to act was marginal.
For a commander, such passivity was the ultimate trial.
Yarrick continuously analyzed the data, building defensive models in his mind. This level of mental exertion was beyond the capacity of most mortals, but Yarrick didn't focus on the numbers. He focused on the psychology of the Ork Warboss, looking for the counter-stroke.
The presence of the Astartes in the command bunker lightened his load, but only slightly.
BEEP—
An alarm blared over the vox-network. The front-line reports flooded in.
The Greenskin offensive was beginning anew.
Yarrick adjusted his rebreather and stepped into the primary strategium.
The Armageddon System.
While the Ork tide was being slowed on Armageddon itself, the other human colonies in the system were not as fortunate.
Greenskin mobs ravaged the settlements with impunity. Industrial colonies were turned into "Scrap-Hives" for the Boyz to hammer out parts. Agri-worlds became play-pens for Squigs and Gretchin.
Unlike the Orks dying in the trenches of Hive Volcanus, these greenskins were having a "Good Time." They roamed the system, seeking fights and reveling in the joy of victory.
The planetary defense fleets that had once orbited the moons had been torn apart. Stretched too thin, they had been divided and crushed by the massive Ork "Kruisers" that had emerged from the Mandeville points. Now, their remains were part of the greenskins' massive "Looted" fleet hanging over Armageddon, contesting air-supremacy with the Imperial Navy.
On a macro scale, the Ork threat was staggering. The unified power of the tribes across the sector could have challenged an entire Segmentum.
But at a micro level, the Orks were a mess. Clan-bosses bickered; different tribes with varying levels of technological development clashed over who got to "Krump" the next target. The greenskins' disastrous lack of discipline kept their effective strength far below their logistical potential.
But Ghazghkull, the Prophet of the Waaagh!, was patient.
Armageddon was in chaos. He held the Mandeville points. He had time to beat his Boyz into a unified host. Facing a worthy opponent only stoked the greenskins' nature—making them bigger, louder, and smarter.
But today, the Armageddon System received a "small group" of guests.
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