Chapter 520: Luring the Beast into the Trap
The assault carrier bucked and lunged through the soot-choked air, its hull rattling from the pilot's violent evasive maneuvers and the hammering of kinetic impacts.
Most of the shock came from small-arms fire. As they neared the xenos perimeter, las-bolts and crude Ork slugs lanced against the reinforced plating.
The majority missed, and those that struck failed to breach the blessed ceramite. The operator fought the controls, making the modern troop-carrier weave like a predatory fish through the churning smoke-clouds. They left behind a sequence of Ork gun-emplacements that had been reduced to slag by the preceding Aeronautica strikes.
Inside the bay, the Wolf Priest was locked in a tactical exchange with the secondary command of the Salamanders. He watched with a mixture of amusement and resignation as Ragnar Blackmane continued his relentless "ideological conditioning" of Tu'Shan.
"In the early stages of Legion-scale expansion, we can petition the Dawnstar directly," Ragnar barked over the internal vox. "Planetary warrants, resource allocation, the lifting of technical sanctions—and most importantly, gene-seed. The Dawnbreakers hold the keys to every lineage."
For reasons known only to the Sovereigns, the secret that they possessed the pure genetic templates of every original Legion had been revealed early in the Crusade. It was the singular point of absolute leverage they held over the Astartes Chapters.
If you want the blood of your Father, you go to the Dawnstar. It is pure. It is uncorrupted. It is guaranteed.
Tu'Shan nodded solemnly.
He sat alone in his crash-harness, his eyes fixed on the display, listening to Ragnar's lecture while calculating the minutes remaining until landfall.
"And if you don't want to wait for the vats, you can just ask for the personnel," Ragnar added. "The Dawnstar's 'stockpile' of ready-to-fight warriors is... staggering."
Fearing Tu'Shan lacked the "Theoreticals," Ragnar emphasized the hoard maintained by Belisarius Cawl—the Archmagos who had been effectively blacklisted by half the galaxy for his technological "ambitions."
The Primaris project had been finalized decades ago, but it had been "Optimized" on the world of Azure (Pythos) using AI-logic. The survival rate of the final three stages of the surgery had been tripled, and the combat efficacy of the resulting warriors was off the charts. Under Guilliman's directive, Cawl had been sequestered for millennia, seeding "Stasis-Hives" with hundreds of thousands of Primaris Marines across the galaxy.
The census estimates put the number of these "Unnumbered Sons" between three hundred and five hundred thousand.
Mars alone held eighty-four thousand in secret. They had to be extracted by the Dawnstar fleet before the High Lords could seize them as leverage. The Archmagos, whose memory-banks had been scrubbed so often he had literally forgotten where he parked his Legions, was a chaotic variable the Dawnbreakers were now methodically harvesting.
Tu'Shan nodded again.
He knew of the Primaris. The previous Chapter Master who had joined the Dawnstar led a contingent of them. The Chaplains of that era had whispered that they looked like Ultramarines born with the blood of the Fire-Drake.
It wasn't that the Salamanders were xenophobic toward their own kin, but the "cultural fit" was... awkward.
A host of Salamanders who worshipped the Imperial Truth and revered Guilliman's "Theoreticals"?
The sons of Nocturne struggled to process the concept.
But the Dawnbreakers were religiously indifferent. In the Dawnstar Sector, the Ecclesiarchy, the Angelic Creed, the Cult of the Dead, and the Imperial Truth all shared the same thoroughfare. Their regional offices were often housed in the same blocks, their banners flapping side-by-side.
The reason the Salamanders hadn't "recalled" their Primaris kin wasn't out of spite; it was out of poverty. They couldn't afford the logistics. They lacked the framework to support a host of that scale.
"The current bottleneck is the result of Guilliman's 'Loyal Ambition,'" Ragnar continued, echoing the Legion's traditional skepticism of the XIII. "His hubris demanded the Codex."
"But the Dawnstar considers the sentiment of the Chapters. They won't force a 'Re-Assignment' upon you. Currently, the Primaris are integrated into the Dawnbreaker command. You can requisition them based on your own resources. They prioritize the First Founding as the absolute core. As for the Traitor-lineage Primaris? Aside from the Legions whose Sires are confirmed dead, they remain in stasis, awaiting a permanent 'metaphysical quarantine' before they see the light of day."
Most of the Primaris Marines accepted this.
In the 41st Millennium, "instability" was a death sentence. Sanguinius's sons lived in fear of the Red Thirst until the end of the Siege of Terra. They didn't stop worrying because they found a cure; they stopped worrying because their Father was gone.
"The key is the infrastructure," Ragnar said, leaning in. "Anyone can put ten thousand Marines on a boat."
"The Ultramarines and their successors claim to number half a million. But can they fight? Their effective combat weight is barely two hundred thousand. They can't match the war-hardened Chapters of the Maelstrom or Ultramar. If the Ultramarines lose half their strength, they can re-forge the Legion in six months. Any other Chapter would be broken for thirty years."
"That is the power of a true Legion. That is what a Primarch actually wants to lead. Not a collection of independent warbands, but a self-sustaining machine of conquest!"
"So—"
Tu'Shan's eyes narrowed in thought. He looked at Ragnar.
"If we implement these reforms... we will achieve the level of 'Strategic Independence' the Sires expect?"
If your Creed is superior to the Imperial norm, and your character is more virtuous than the common governor, then expand. Radiate. Do not hide on an volcanic rock while the galaxy burns.
The Dawnbreakers held one absolute standard: A ruler must make his people better, and a warrior must become more lethal.
Under the four Primarchs, authority was absolute.
"Naturally," Ragnar grinned. He felt his time in the "Administrative Pits" of the VI had finally paid off.
He wanted to find Russ. He wanted to drag his Father back to a galaxy where the Wolves were finally big enough to hunt the Gods.
"We aren't just saving people," Ragnar whispered, slamming a fist into his palm. "We're building a cage big enough to hold a Sire."
"Lord Blackmane!" the pilot shouted over the roar of the engines.
"The Ork Prophet is less than five kilometers out. We have a visual lock on the daemon-skulls mounted on his trophy-rack. Combat initialization in T-minus sixty seconds."
As they crossed the final ridge, the ruined landscape of the sub-continent appeared eerily empty. The Imperial offensive had been so total, so crushing, that for a moment, the world felt composed of nothing but scorched stone and cooling slag.
Through the frost-rimmed viewports, Ragnar spotted scattered Ork warbands scurrying between pieces of cover. They were small, desperate groups.
The "Frost-Hell" crystals of Fenris were performing perfectly. Used as cooling agents for the heavy plasma repeaters, they ensured the Imperial war-machines could maintain a maximal rate of fire without melting their own conduits.
It was the premier industrial export of the VI, a technology that had become a hot commodity within the Imperium since the Lamenters had verified its reliability.
Ragnar went silent, his face a mask of predatory focus.
Tu'Shan set aside his questions, entering a state of Promethean calm. He would seek his answers in the blood of the enemy.
Ghazghkull was running. The Orks were retreating with a determination that was uncharacteristic of their race.
With the "Beast-Mech" acting as the ultimate rearguard, the Prophet was leading his Nobz and his personal guard toward the Webway-anchors in the rear.
The hunt is on.
The transport's brakes screeched. Ragnar rose from his seat.
He led his pack out of the carrier. The moment his boots hit the pulverized rock, the "Scent of the Kill" returned to him.
The smoke was thickest near the impact craters, swirling like a black blizzard. The stone walls of the ruins and the metal of the walkways had fused into a singular, scorched geometry. Every step kicked up a spray of ash and soot.
The Ork defenders here were dead. Sickly green corpses were slumped against the barricades.
To Ragnar, the survivors looked dazed. Perhaps they were drugged on combat-stims, or perhaps the sheer scale of the slaughter had broken their simplistic minds. Among the Imperial ranks, Astartes moved with Ork skulls dangling from their pauldrons—badges of their " compliance."
Through the shifting fog, he saw the heavy assets of the Guard moving through the ruins: Knights, walkers, and Scout-Titans. They weren't even fighting; they were racing to the blockade zones. The space was becoming crowded, a bottleneck of transhuman and mechanical weight.
In a heartbeat, the rear had become the front.
And the Imperial army was falling behind in the race to liquidate the Prophet.
"Do you see it, brother?" Tu'Shan asked, monitoring his secondary auspex.
The Salamanders were masters of the handheld sensor.
"Unbelievable," Ragnar noted.
"It's like they're lining up for the slaughter."
"Is there resistance left?"
"I see nothing but targets."
"Then let us secure the objective. Let us do what we were forged for."
Ragnar locked his HUD onto the signature of the retreating Ork host. The frost-aura of his weapon began to manifest, chilling the air around him.
A hundred Astartes could decide a battle.
A thousand Astartes, supported by the Guard, could force a Prophet of the Waaagh! into a rout.
A Legion could break a Daemon Primarch.
Eighteen Legions had conquered the galaxy.
Ragnar's vision for the Wolves was not an impossible dream.
"FOR RUSS! FOR THE ALLFATHER! FOR HUMANITY!"
The Young Wolf raised Frostmourne (Frost-axe) and charged. Behind him, his battle-brothers let out a howl that resonated through the vox-network.
"ASSAULT!"
If I can take down a Prophet, I'm ready for the Old Man.
"PURGE!"
The warriors of grey and green slammed into the retreating tide. The Space Wolves wove a storm of steel through the Ork ranks, the temperature in the corridor dropping as their frost-weapons bit home. The Salamanders followed, their volkite chargers lancing through the gaps in the Wolves' formation, carving ribbons of red fire through the xenos mobs.
CLANG!
Ragnar ducked beneath a Nob's power-claw. With a savage roar, he swung his greatsword, bisecting the beast at the waist. He drew his plasma pistol with his left hand and jammed it into the face of a second Ork.
BOOM!
The solar-flare of the discharge consumed the Nob's torso. The sheer lethality of the strike sent a wave of panic through the Ork rearguard.
Treading upon the dead, utilizing the bulk of a fallen Ork as a springboard, Ragnar vaulted into the air. He decapitated a xenos champion in mid-flight while staring toward the horizon.
With his naked eye, he spotted the silhouette of the Prophet driving toward the Webway-aperture, his plate marked with the icons of the Goff Klan.
"THE ONE WITH THE BLACK HORNS! THAT'S THE PROPHET!"
Ragnar drew a short-axe from his belt, engaged the disruption field, and hurled it.
The kinetic strength of a Primaris Marine surpassed most mechanical launchers. Ragnar was a master of the throw.
BOOM!
A massive Ork Nob threw himself into the path of the axe, intercepting the blow with his own life.
A clever Gretchin, eyes darting, leaped onto Ghazghkull's pauldron. He used his small body to obscure the Prophet's icons, trying to "preserve the Boss's face," while simultaneously securing a "hanging-ticket" for his own escape.
Hmph.
Ghazghkull noticed, but he was too cunning to care about a runt's survival instinct.
WHOOSH!!!
A precise volkite beam lanced through the air.
Ghazghkull twisted his body with prophetic foresight.
The beam clipped his pauldron, erasing the icon and the Gretchin who had been clinging to it a second ago.
"THE ONE CARRYING THE DAEMON SKULLS! THAT'S HIM!"
Ragnar shouted again, directing the pack.
Daemons left no physical remains. But the Orks' collective belief was so potent that if they believed they had kept a daemon's head as a trophy, the Warp would manifest a physical substitute to serve as the spoils of war.
It was a testament to the greenskins' reality-warping potential—and a warning that they could manifest miracles in their darkest hour.
"CURSED CANS!"
Ghazghkull, now in a full-tilt run, refused to drop his gear. His pride as the Prophet demanded he maintain his remaining authority, even at the cost of his life.
Leading the Ladz to a new scrap is one thing. Giving up being the Boss is another.
"I'LL BE BACK! WE'LL BE BACK!"
Ghazghkull bellowed a final threat and did not look back.
Under the stunned gazes of the Imperial host, the retreating Orks plunged into the Webway-aperture without resistance. There was no rejection. No ripple of feedback.
"!!!"
Ragnar skidded to a halt.
He smothered his killing intent instantly, turning back to help the Wolves mop up the remaining stragglers. He looked up at the Wolf Priest, who was currently calling down lightning from the sky.
"REPORT! THE PROPHET HAS ENTERED THE LABYRINTH!"
"Understood."
The Priest's eyes flared with a white light.
Tu'Shan felt another pang of envy at the seamless link between the Wolves and the Dawnstar Command.
"Copy that!"
Ramesses, lurking in the Warp-shadows, withdrew his focus from Arthur and broke into a wide grin.
In the void of the Empyrean, a war-machine composed of the Tuchulcha Engine, the Ouroboros, and the Plagueheart was primed and ready.
"Are the levels stable, Father? Do I need to buy more credits?"
He turned his head toward the Emperor—who was currently engaged in a massive internal struggle with His infinite personalities, attempting to "Refresh" the Legion of the Damned within the Webway while simultaneously preparing for a bout with Gork and Mork.
"..."
The Emperor said nothing. His eyes flared with a chaotic, golden brilliance. He managed to extend a single hand and offer Ramesses a thumbs-up.
He'd survived the "Mortal Hand" of the Dawnstar; now it was time for the "Warp-Hand."
One must take it from both sides to be truly whole.
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