Chapter 301: What Does a Primarch Represent?
In a galaxy of despair, what does a Primarch truly represent?
After more than two decades of campaigning alongside them, Commissar Alexei Cain watched the assembling Guardsmen and felt he was beginning to understand.
Beneath the vaulted ceiling of the Vigilus orbital spire, Imperial troop transports disgorged a tide of Astra Militarum. Weary but bewildered sergeants hauled crates of wargear, their mouths agape at the advanced equipment and the accompanying notice that it was all to be theirs. Most of them had only ever seen such weaponry in faded Munitorum pict-slates.
Officers with data-slates barked orders, corralling soldiers who had become over-excited by the mere presence of Astartes into neat, disciplined ranks. Each formed-up company was meticulously logged in the data-archives, assigned a new, simplified regimental designation, and sent for arms provisioning. Aides bustled through the queues, stamping steel tags onto the collars of each soldier, each one bearing a new identification code and operational cipher.
Everything was a model of ordered efficiency.
"I swear upon the Throne, I have never seen such thorough regulations, nor such supply," an Astra Militarum officer muttered, staring at the orders issued by the Dawnbreakers' high command. Unlike the mainline battle-groups receiving carapace armour and heavy tanks, his reserve company had been precisely allocated a full complement of aerial assault craft.
"Nor have I," Commissar Cain replied. He stood right beside the man. "Greetings," he said, his tone clipped and unadorned, the directness of a career soldier.
"Sir," the officer answered, equally concise.
It was that simple. A weathered hand, much like his own, was offered, and they clasped them in a firm, soldier's grip. Their eyes met, reading the names on each other's ident-tags.
Barrie Bronson (CO, 143rd Drop-Troop Reserve, Dawnbreaker Fleet – Elysian 13th Infantry Regiment)
Alexei Cain (Military Advisor, 3rd Battle Group, Dawnbreaker Fleet – Cadian 43rd 'Broken Swords')
The smaller script on the tags held their past designations, but the most prominent space was now occupied by a standardized, fleet-wide identifier. It was the same for everyone. The Dawnbreaker Fleet was reorganizing the gathered regiments—a vital necessity to prevent the command structure from collapsing into chaos. These soldiers hailed from every corner of the galaxy, brought here by the will of the Primarchs. They were unfamiliar with the Dawnbreakers' command protocols and knew no one outside their own platoons.
Within the small print of the official designations, beneath the numbers, were the names of their homeworlds, their old regiments. A few short letters. All that remained of a comforting, familiar sense of belonging.
With a final nod, the two officers parted ways, each disappearing back into the bustling throng of the embarkation deck.
After their specific wargear allocation was complete, these Guardsmen would be given a ninety-standard-day training cycle to familiarize themselves with their new weapon systems. Afterwards, based on an assessment of their combat capabilities during this period, they would be precisely deployed to strategic nodes across the Veiled Region. The entire process demonstrated a breathtaking level of efficiency and precision. With administrative teams now headed by Astartes information-processing primus, the logistical capability of the assembled forces had grown exponentially. Regiments were being deployed with such exactitude that, while not theoretically perfect, the accuracy far surpassed any military dispatch record from the Imperium's past.
"War," Alexei murmured, his gaze piercing the reinforced plasteel of the observation window, looking out at the eternal sea of stars. It had been years since he had left the Dawnstar Sector. The journey home had been anything but peaceful.
The fleet had been blockaded at Vigilus by the threat of Chaos, causing a massive delay to a voyage that should have taken less than two years. After securing the sentinel world, the Primarchs had used their authority to consolidate forces, clearly preparing for a long and brutal war. Alexei, who had been enjoying a brief retirement within the Dawnbreaker fleet, had answered the call to arms, returning as a military advisor to the one thing he knew best.
A journey that should have been a quiet return to civilian life had become a new crusade.
Commissar Cain accepted this with his usual stoicism. He was, after all, just one commissar. The Imperium was not in the habit of granting special treatment. In the past, being reassigned mid-voyage to command a different, failing regiment was a common occurrence. For a commissar, a peaceful career was a fantasy; every sudden transfer order usually meant being thrown into a collapsing front. To return to the line through a formal muster, and even be granted a grace period to reacquaint himself with his troops—this was nothing short of a gift from the Emperor Himself.
Commissar Cain had returned to his own kind: a regiment of Cadians. The Cadian 43rd, the 'Broken Swords.' Cadians were the exemplars of the Astra Militarum, and even the Primarchs desperately needed their hard-won experience. Under the Primarchs' direction, new types of regiments were being formed, using the Cadian model as a template and integrating them with the elite of the Dawnstar Sector. This recognition from the sons of the Emperor made every Cadian veteran stand a little straighter, their backs stiff with pride.
A group of officers was gathered around an Astartes of Ultramarine lineage, eagerly analyzing battle plans. They were all seasoned commanders, and the Space Marine, with his superhuman speed of thought, supplemented their analysis with precise data and tactical augments. Compared to the clumsy cooperation of the Indomitus Crusade, their communication was now effortless, harmonious.
"Commissar!" The sentry outside the briefing room checked his ident-tag and snapped to a crisp salute, allowing him entry. The guards were equipped with state-of-the-art void-sealed armour and carried devastating melta-weaponry. But this was merely their basic loadout. As one of the most elite regiments in the Dawnbreaker Sector, their true strength lay in the super-heavy vehicles whose hulls were covered in campaign honors. They would fight alongside Astartes battle-groups on the bloodiest fronts, facing the most terrible enemies in the galaxy.
Returning the salute, the Commissar strode into the command center. The officers were all engaged in energetic preparations, a newfound passion in their every movement. Alexei let his gaze linger on them for a moment before looking away. He rarely needed to use his old speeches to motivate these soldiers anymore, especially not the ones from the Dawnstar Sector. Nowadays, he found himself more often acting as a counselor, using his long years of experience to offer guidance to the younger troopers, much like the psychological support cadres—providing counseling, crisis intervention, and leadership training—that were becoming standard in all regiments.
Because they now belonged to a powerful and efficient system of governance. Ample supplies. Advanced support. Reinforcements from the Imperial Navy, the Astartes, and other allied forces. And—
The command of a Primarch.
Even Alexei himself found it difficult to understand the sheer hope he placed in the Primarchs. He was a man of grim realism, yet a single order from a Primarch could make his blood sing, a vision of their grand design could make his heart swell. No rousing speeches were needed. They simply had to give the command, and the entire army would throw itself into battle with an unprecedented fervour.
His eyes swept over the soldiers' well-maintained armour, past the easy camaraderie between demigod and mortal officers, and landed on the varied field-ration menus, a direct result of efficient logistics.
In a galaxy of despair, what does a Primarch truly represent?
Alexei raised a hand, his fingers tracing the holographic star-charts. He shared the wisdom he had bought with blood, freely and without reservation, then quietly awaited the Primarchs' judgment on its worth. Images flashed in his mind's eye: cobalt armour standing firm upon a command throne; a golden-red spear tearing through enemy lines; a blood-red cape billowing in the smoke of battle.
Hope.
Because in this dark age, only a Primarch can save humanity.
"And we must fight for it."
Under Romulus's meticulous planning and Arthur's flawless execution, the Dawnbreakers' defensive strategy was proceeding apace. Foreseeing a massive invasion in the near future, they had decided to give Terra a preliminary warning, lest the High Lords react with their usual panicked paranoia and orchestrate some friendly fire catastrophe.
"Lord Ramesses, greetings. It is an honor to meet you. I am from the Adeptus Terra—" A junior minister from the Administratum began his introduction, but Ramesses cut him off with an impatient wave.
"Where is Iacton Qruze?"
The minister, taken aback, explained, "Lord Qruze was not unwilling to come himself, but matters on Terra are… overwhelming. He is the mind of the Officio Exteriores now and cannot leave his post. I will report our meeting, and Lord Qruze will make time to address these matters personally."
"Serving as the brain for a corpse that has already begun to rot. Yes, that does sound like a busy job," Ramesses scoffed.
So, the Administratum was still bogged down in Terra's internal quagmire. Still shoveling filth. These Terran officials were a joke. At this rate, they'd be too late even to get a fresh meal of... well, filth.
He exchanged a look with the Custodian Shield-Captain at his side, who had the good grace to look ashamed.
"Every directive issued fails to be passed down the chain of command, which necessitates issuing more directives to enforce the previous ones. The end result is a mountain of unresolved problems whose nature is no longer even understood. This 'busyness' is pure theatrics. It has no substance." The Primarch's assessment was brutally direct, a needle-sharp thrust.
The Shield-Captain's expression grew even more mortified.
The sharp words seemed to sting the young official. He could clearly read the subtext in Ramesses's tone, but he had no grounds to refute it. It was as if the Primarch's words were blessed with some unholy insight. The Custodes had found no mention of him in any surviving Terran archive, yet every word he spoke struck precisely at the heart of Terra's current decay, a truth so painful it was impossible to deny. After all, wasn't that the state of Terra now?
The nation-state of Terra had died during the Heresy. But its brain, the High Lords of Terra, refused to accept this fact. The body's surviving nerve clusters had stubbornly taken over, occupying the central command nexus long after the head was gone. It constantly issued orders, but received few replies. The wandering fleets of the Imperium and the scattered Rogue Traders were the last vestiges of the regime's functional motor skills. The rest of the body could only produce a slight twitch when gnawed upon by predators.
"Ah, just leave it," Ramesses sighed, handing the data-slate to the official. All they were doing was notifying Terra, not expecting a prompt response.
The minister, his mood soured by the Primarch's dressing-down, bowed and quickly departed. Frankly, this factual dismissal of their relevance was far more insulting than any direct slander.
"Too slow," Ramesses grumbled. No wonder Arthur couldn't be bothered to come.
He complained internally, then met the questioning gaze of the Shield-Captain. It was clear the Custodian was curious about the Primarchs' view of the Imperium's condition.
"For a situation like this," Ramesses said bluntly, "my recommendation is amputation."
"That is impossible!" the Shield-Captain exclaimed reflexively. You can't just cut off the head! He immediately realized his breach of protocol and straightened his posture. "My apologies, my lord. That was out of line."
"'That is impossible'—indeed. There is no precedent," Ramesses repeated the Custodian's words, which seemed to calm the warrior slightly.
"But," the Primarch added with a dangerous glint in his eye, "how will we know if we don't try?"
"?"
"The Veiled Region is a fine place, is it not?"
"???"
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