The Imperium needs to rebuild its Legions, enabling the Astartes to once again conduct large-scale frontal campaigns across vast fronts or in critical star systems, just as they did ten thousand years ago, becoming the pillar force capable of independently undertaking and winning victories in major war zones.
This requires restoring Legion-level command structures, logistical support, and coordinated operational capabilities to muster forces sufficient to match or overwhelm current major threats.
However, at the same time, the valuable experience and tactical advantages accumulated during the Chapter era should not be discarded.
For example, the elite combat capabilities developed under the Chapter model for efficient decapitation strikes against high-value targets—such as enemy command nodes, powerful xeno individuals, demonic entities, or critical facilities—still hold extremely high tactical value within the Legion framework.
This precise strike capability is a powerful supplement to Legion-level frontal assaults.
For Hathor, she has never been someone who sticks to old ways.
The Legion combat model of the Great Crusade Era needs to be continued to meet the Imperium's current large-scale war demands.
But this does not mean she will completely copy the 30K experience without any adjustments.
Similarly, it does not mean she will ignore or deny the success of the 40k era Chapter model in special operations and elite training.
The future Astartes force structure must be a fusion: possessing Legion-level scale, strategic mobility, and frontal decisive battle capability, while retaining and strengthening the tactical flexibility, independent operational discipline, and elite forces for executing difficult special missions, especially against enemy elite units, cultivated in the Chapter model.
This integration aims to create a composite military force capable of both grand strategic decisive battles and deadly precise strikes, to counter the Imperium's multi-dimensional threats in the future.
However, for now, Hathor still ordered the Gabbro, waiting in orbit, to begin recovering the wounded, while also sending another veteran company, which had been on standby, to cooperate with the Third and Fourth Companies in clearing and mopping up the remaining Orks on this planet.
The entire Quenching operation, in addition to clearing this Ork-infested planet, also involves purging another planet controlled by a Chaos cult.
As for that planet, the main force of the operation will be the other two veteran companies of the Ash Knights; these new recruits will at most serve in a supporting role.
——
With the assistance of two Chapter Servitors, Mikhail painstakingly settled himself into the cold seat of the Thunderhawk Transport.
Just as the hatch was about to close, through the still-open door, his gaze swept for the last time across the smoke-filled, scorch-marked surface of Tooth Fracture III.
On that scorched earth where they had just fought and retreated, several figures firmly captured his attention—it was the Chapter Apothecary and his spiraling Acolyte.
The Apothecary's Power Armor was not significantly different from that of a regular Ash Knight, save for the left shoulder pad painted a striking blood-red, and the right shoulder pad emblazoned with a red, spiral Rod of Hermes emblem.
At this moment, he was kneeling beside the remains of an Ash Knight, almost shattered by Ork heavy weapons, seemingly praying for his fallen battle-brother.
The slight tremor as the magnetic locks engaged was like the still-unsettled intense pain within Mikhail's body.
The Thunderhawk began to ascend, the rusty surface rapidly receding, replaced by the deep, cold void.
His Thunderhawk was not the only one in the returning formation.
Several Transporters, accompanied by escort gunships, traversed the orbital space filled with warship wreckage and burning debris, like steel giants returning to their nest.
In Mikhail's mind, that last image lingered: the Apothecary's movements were precise, efficient, yet carried a solemnity almost like a religious ritual.
At the end of the adamantium probe arm extending from the Power Armor's backpack, the humming, rotating medical chainsword gleamed with a cold light.
He carefully cut through the warrior's shattered breastplate and torn superhuman tissue, his target clear and singular: the precious Gene-Seed, encased in a reinforced biomembrane, deep within his fallen brother's chest cavity.
The air seemed to be filled with silent mourning.
The Apothecary murmured, a low and ancient hymn to the Emperor, comforting the soul of the departed.
Finally, he successfully extracted the sacred relic, which carried the Chapter's bloodline and a part of the deceased's essence, and gently placed it into a purified container at his waist, inscribed with holy runes and maintaining constant temperature and pressure internally.
This Gene-Seed would be purified and cultivated in the Apothecary's sanctuary, eventually implanted into new recruits, allowing the strength and will of the fallen to continue, becoming a part of the Chapter's immortal life.
After the recovery was complete, the Apothecary, with the utmost solemnity, covered the warrior's remains with a shroud bearing the Chapter's emblem.
Then, he stood up, his gaze sweeping to the next location where he needed to fulfill his sacred duty.
Several silent Chapter Servitors followed closely, responsible for carrying the remains and necessary tools.
This scene was deeply imprinted in Mikhail's mind.
The price of victory was so heavy; every Gene-Seed recovery represented the fall of a brother.
He instinctively clenched his fist, and the damaged servitor skull joints emitted a faint friction sound.
Back in the massive hangar of the Gabbro, filled with the strong smell of machine oil and promethium, they were met by a medical team already on standby.
A Hospitaller, dressed in a plain white nun's robe and with a solemn expression, led several silent medical servitors and Chapter Servitors in classifying the wounded brought back by the Thunderhawk Transports.
Mikhail and the other injured warriors from the operation were carefully lifted from the Thunderhawk by medical servitors and Servitors, and placed on anti-gravity hovering stretchers.
The gruesome, large dent on his breastplate, and the constant flashing crimson alert runes from the internal sensors, led the Hospitaller to mark him as "Emergency Treatment" level.
He was quickly transported to the Chapter medical bay located deep within the warship.
The air here was filled with a unique scent, a mixture of disinfectant, embalming grease, and rust-like blood.
Precise servitor skulls floated and traversed at low altitude like silent sentinels, their slender mechanical arms flashing with cold scanning beams or gripping gleaming surgical instruments.
Huge cogitator screens were embedded in the walls, cold blue data streams pouring down like waterfalls, monitoring the life force of every injured person.
The Hospitaller responsible for Mikhail was ready.
Over her originally pristine white nun's robe, she wore a sterile surgical gown stained with the blood of brothers, solemn yet tinged with a hint of sorrow.
Mikhail was secured to a cold adamantium operating table.
At the Hospitaller's concise command, a medical servitor emitted a piercing hum with a power cutter, precisely peeling away his severely deformed breastplate, exposing the swollen, purplish chest cavity and fractured, twisted ribs beneath.
Intense pain surged, but Mikhail only gritted his teeth, a silent endurance rolling in his throat.
The Hospitaller leaned over, personally inserting several thick needles connected to complex life-support lines into his tough major blood vessels.
Pale golden nutrient fluid, potent coagulants, and regenerative catalysts began to inject into his superhuman body, commencing his treatment.
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