V3 Chapter 98: Verification Complete, Onward to Jupiter
Duvette and the officials from Terra didn't have to wait long. With his permission, several Mechanicus priests and an Ultramarines Apothecary led the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna off to another area for a simple, basic scan.
Those veterans of the Sixteenth Legion offered no resistance at all. Markus glanced at Duvette, gave a nod, and led the others in complying with the arrangement.
A dozen or so minutes later, heavy footsteps sounded again outside the reception hall. Guilliman returned, accompanied by several Custodians, the record-keepers responsible for the identity verification following behind.
The lead Custodian walked up to the group and came to a full stop, gold power armour visible beneath his black robe. He bowed his head to Guilliman first, and only then gave his true name and rank to everyone present. "Custodian Tribune, Italeo."
Italeo turned to face the Terran officials present, his voice calm and clear.
"Genetic samples, historical records, armour data, and psychic screening have all been cross-checked and confirmed. The Custodians confirm: the one standing before us is indeed a son of the Emperor, once master of the Thirteenth Legion, Lord of Ultramar. Roboute Guilliman."
The reception hall fell quiet for a moment. Several Administratum officials exchanged glances; whatever last thread of doubt the review process had still been holding together vanished along with the Custodians' formal conclusion.
Italeo continued. "Lord Guilliman has been granted clearance to proceed to Terra and the Palace. The Solar Fleet will handle escort; arrangements beyond the Eternity Gate will be decided by the Captain-General of the Custodian Guard and the Palace Guard."
The senior Administratum official was first to react, bowing at the waist, his tone far more deferential than before. "I'll send this confirmation back to Terra immediately, and report to Master of the Administratum, Lord Ilthor Cimotrion, personally."
Guilliman looked at him, and the Primarch's voice carried through the entire reception hall. "My personal guard and necessary retinue will accompany me to Terra. They will observe the Palace's security regulations, and remain within whatever areas they're cleared to enter. Identity verification is now complete; the transit plan already approved should proceed. The fleet leaves the Gate of Elysium, bound for Jupiter."
The official raised no further objection, bowing once more. The Solar Battle Fleet's naval representative relayed the order to Uranus entry defence command at once.
The large delegation made its way back along the route it had come, toward the shuttle bay. The senior officials and their escorts departed one after another, a small number of technicians responsible for ship records and contamination checks staying behind in other areas. Only Italeo's Custodian squad remained at Guilliman's side.
Duvette studied the black-robed Tribune thoughtfully. If he remembered right, Italeo would be mortally wounded during the Second Battle of Terra, the Lion's Gate war.
Afterward, Maldovar Colquan would inherit his position, and be sent to Guilliman's side, becoming the liaison between the Custodians and the Imperial Regent.
Now that Guilliman had woken more than two hundred years early, the Lion's Gate war presumably wouldn't happen at all. So long as Italeo lived, whatever task would have fallen to Colquan might well land on this Tribune instead.
Not that it mattered much. Once Guilliman returned from before the Golden Throne and formally became Imperial Regent, the Edict of Restraint would sooner or later be revisited. When that day came, the Custodians would march out from Terra again, in far greater numbers, to fight across the length of the Imperium.
Not long after the delegation left, a transmission from the Uranus defence line reached the Macragge's Honour. Guilliman's identity confirmation had already been filed, and the Gate of Elysium's defence zone formally cleared the expeditionary fleet to continue on toward Jupiter.
The fleet, guided by the Solar Battle Fleet, would head to one of the Sol System's most important shipbuilding and repair bases, Jupiter, and undergo a second split there.
The Conqueror, her purification still incomplete, would remain outside the Uranus defence zone, garrisoned by Admiral Villent and the direct-subordinate force Duvette had left behind. Any outside personnel wanting to board would first need Guilliman's permission.
Guilliman and the others returned to the command bridge. The main engines began increasing output, and the fleet left Uranus along the safe route the Sol System had provided, heading in toward regions closer to the sun.
Duvette stayed at Guilliman's side. Italeo and two Custodians remained toward the rear of the bridge, already granted permission by the Primarch to view the fleet's navigation and defence data.
During the transit, Italeo's gaze turned toward Duvette more than once. This mortal, wearing a commissar's coat with a Marshal's rank on his shoulder, clearly didn't belong among the ordinary retinue, and on top of that, the High Lords had specifically demanded a separate review of him earlier.
Duvette noticed the look, gave Italeo a faint smile, then turned his head away.
[Eye of Judgement] had just flashed a brief warning. Based on what Duvette understood of the Custodians, Italeo was probably weighing his threat level, and, should it ever come to a fight, exactly what angle he'd need to strike from to kill Duvette within a handful of microseconds.
Ha. Pure instinct, that.
Duvette didn't keep watching the Custodians' reactions. Guilliman was right there beside him, after all, and so long as Italeo didn't develop any genuine hostile intent, [Eye of Judgement] wouldn't escalate the marking any further.
After several hours of travel, the fleet finally entered Jupiter's outer defence zone.
Jupiter, which had at first taken up only a small corner of the viewport, grew steadily larger, until it filled most of their view.
Bands of yellow-brown cloud moved slowly across the planet's surface, storms within the atmosphere twisting into vortices thousands of kilometres long, lightning flashing now and then from deep within the cloud layers.
Great numbers of orbital installations were spread around Jupiter and its moons: dockyards, factories, and armed space stations arrayed along dozens of orbital paths, transport ships and cargo barges moving between them, tugs hauling unfinished hulls on toward their next stage of construction.
This place hadn't formed the kind of continuous structure Mars's Ring of Iron had. The dockyard clusters stood apart from one another, held together instead by comm beams, transit lanes, and dense shuttle traffic, some of the larger installations even attached directly to Jupiter's moons.
The outermost layer was the military watch zone, cruisers and frigates of the Solar Battle Fleet patrolling fixed routes, prow identification lights flashing without pause, while the star forts further out had their surfaces covered in macro-cannon arrays, torpedo silos, and sensor masts.
As the expeditionary fleet led by the Macragge's Honour arrived, great numbers of scanning waves swept across the hulls once more, from every direction.
This time, the fleet met no interception. The Jupiter defence zone simply verified each warship's identity and travel authorisation according to standard procedure.
Over the following days, most of the expeditionary fleet would remain at Jupiter, undergoing resupply, repair, and further inspection.
Once the Macragge's Honour had finished the necessary preparations, she would take only a small escort onward to the Moon.
As for the Conqueror, left behind at Uranus, Villent would see to everything there.
Duvette watched the Jupiter anchorage steadily lighting up across the tactical projection, aware they were drawing ever closer to Terra.
Several days later, the fleet's resupply, inspection, and splitting were all complete.
Most of the expeditionary warships remained at the Jupiter anchorage, while the Macragge's Honour, leading a small escort, fired her engines once more, setting out along the newly assigned route toward the Moon.
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