As the Lord of Baal, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, and a living myth of the Imperium, Luis Dante rarely found himself at a loss for words.
But this time was an exception.
The report of the successful evacuation of the Bhikkhu system should have been a cause for celebration. However, accompanying the encrypted vox-burst was a physical missive sent via high-speed courier several days prior.
In the era of the vox and the astropath, information recorded on physical parchment was a rarity, reserved for matters so sensitive or crucial that they could not risk the distortions of the Warp or the prying ears of the Inquisition.
The moment Dante broke the wax seal—stamped with the signet of House Emrys—his heart tightened. He had feared some catastrophe had befallen the young Rogue Trader. But as he read the elegant script within, he realized it wasn't Emrys who had met a grim end. It was the nobility.
On the world of Bhikkhu, all 870,000 registered aristocrats had "voluntarily" stayed behind to uphold their honor against the Tyranid swarm. Not a single one had survived.
Dante read the passage three times. Each time, the numbers remained the same.
He had suspected that letting the boy handle the evacuation would be messy, but he had never imagined such cold-blooded ruthlessness. Emrys hadn't just managed the nobility; he had uprooted them entirely.
If news of this reached the Segmentum Solar, the political fallout would be catastrophic. The Adeptus Administratum would be in an uproar, and the High Lords of Terra would view this as a direct assault on the Imperial class structure.
"Emrys... you certainly have a talent for making my life difficult," Dante murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The Rogue Trader might not care for his reputation, but Dante was the one who had to navigate the political wake. The nobility was the backbone of the Imperium's administrative stability—corrupt as they often were. If the Great Houses believed that a Rogue Trader could slaughter nearly a million peers without consequence, they would unite in a frenzy of self-preservation that could paralyze the Sector.
Emrys hadn't just broken the rules; he had burned the rulebook.
It was an effective solution, certainly, but it tore off the mask of "civilized" governance. When you flip the table, you can no longer expect anyone else to play by the rules. Dante knew this couldn't be covered up. Too many vox-signals would have been sent to Terra before the final "voluntary" sacrifice.
After a long silence, Dante picked up a quill, dipped it in ink, and began to write.
"To the Lord Regent, Primarch of the XIII Legion, and Savior of the Imperium, Roboute Guilliman... I am Luis Dante, Warden of the Nihilus..."
If the problem was too big for a Chapter Master, it was a problem for a Son of the Emperor. Only the Primarch's authority could override the inevitable screams for vengeance from the High Lords.
While the political storm brewed on Baal, the physical evacuation reached its conclusion.
The industrial heart of Bhikkhu—its foundries, macro-machinery, and billions of laborers—had been successfully moved to a habitable world under the control of the Weyland-Emrys consortium. But for Emrys, the reprieve was short-lived. His next target was Aeros.
Aeros was a gas giant, classified as a critical Mining World. It was a chaotic web of orbital refineries and deep-atmosphere platforms supported by over a million specialized miners. More importantly, it was the primary source of Promethium for the Hades and Baal Sectors.
Promethium was the lifeblood of the Imperial war machine. Without it, the flamers went cold, the plasma reactors died, and the void-ships drifted as silent tombs.
The Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan was moving with predatory intent. With the outer defensive rings breached, the swarm was heading directly for the Tartarus and Aeros systems. Dozens of Blood Angels cruisers were currently fighting a desperate holding action at Tartarus, but the shadow was already falling on Aeros.
When Emrys' fleet transitioned out of the Warp, he realized the situation was far more dire than the initial reports suggested.
"Cadian 1433rd Air Wing, Colonel Henrig Genster, reporting for duty, Lord Emrys!"
A sharp, disciplined officer saluted as Emrys stepped onto the command deck of the orbital station. Genster stood like an unsheathed power blade, radiating the grim competence of a career soldier.
"Colonel, spare me the formalities," Emrys said, his gaze fixed on the tactical hololith. "Give me the status of Aeros. Now."
The intelligence had spoken of "harassment." What Emrys saw was a full-scale invasion.
A massive Tyranid Bio-ship—a Hive Ship of the capital class—hung in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant like a bloated tick. It was vomiting thousands of Mycetic Spores into the swirling clouds below. Around the behemoth, swarms of smaller bio-vessels engaged the station's defenses in a blinding display of bio-plasma and macro-cannon fire.
The Tartarus line hadn't just been harassed; it had been bypassed or broken.
"The shadow has reached us, my Lord," Genster said, his voice level despite the carnage on the screens. "They aren't just raiding. They're feeding."
Emrys felt a cold knot in his stomach. If Tartarus had fallen, there was no more buffer. They were facing the true face of Leviathan, and they were doing it under the shadow of its wings.
"We have to extract the Promethium reserves," Emrys ordered, his eyes hardening. "Every drop we leave behind fuels their journey. We take what we can, and we burn the rest."