Chapter 25: The Eleventh Legion and the Nineteenth Primarch
Through their networks of spies embedded within the Limit Star Region and among the Ultramarines' ranks, Alpharius and Omega began their analysis of Robert Guilliman's administrative methods.
As their research deepened, they recognized the necessity of understanding not merely the Limit Star Region's political frameworks, but also the governance structures of numerous other worlds.
Only through such understanding could they adapt these systems to serve the Alpha Legion's expansion.
Omega found himself confronting a truth both humbling and daunting: they were embarking upon a monumental undertaking, nothing less than learning to govern entire planetary bodies and their populations.
Yet for the strength of their Legion, both Primarchs endured the intellectual rigor without complaint. Both Alpharius and Omega harbored ambitions that demanded thousands of void-vessels under their command.
Within ten days, fortune favored them. The Alpha Legion secured an additional hundred Human Battleships, a windfall that sparked celebrations throughout their fleet. Large-scale recruitment began immediately.
Simultaneously, over six hundred damaged warships translated from the void, requiring extensive repairs. After coordinated discussions with the Alpha Legion, they repositioned themselves in near-space.
A massive convoy passed through the vicinity moments later.
Upon the bridge of one such vessel, a senior company commander gazed upon the passing armada with curiosity. The insignia registered immediately.
"The Eleventh Legion," he observed aloud. "They bear the marks of severe engagement. I wonder, who commands their genetic lineage?"
Alpharius, absorbed in his study of administrative knowledge alongside Omega, answered without hesitation. "The Eleventh Legion's Primarch has not yet returned. We believe other Legions follow patterns similar to our own."
The Imperium's intelligence networks remained silent regarding the Twentieth Legion's Primarch.
However, according to the data Omega had acquired, the Eleventh Legion had once fielded one hundred thousand Astartes. Countless casualties in the war against the Rangdan had reduced them to their present depleted state.
Every Legion engaged in the campaigns against the xenos invaders had suffered grievously. Only those auxiliary forces held in reserve or deployed to secondary engagements retained their full strength.
Witnessing the Eleventh Legion's condition reinforced Alpharius and Omega's conviction. They must pursue every avenue to ensure their Legion's survival and growth. Their resolve hardened further.
...
A month later, the Alpha Legion, after restoring their strength to four hundred Human Battleships, departed Shana and translated once more toward the contested zones of the Rangdan conflict.
This time, rather than committing themselves to the vast meat-grinders of the primary battlefields, Alpharius and Omega employed their favored stratagem: methodical encirclement and territorial compression, gradually strangling the xenos' reach across their occupied worlds.
This approach maximized the preservation of their void vessels and personnel while granting sufficient time to expand their Legion's capabilities incrementally.
They translated from the immaterium above Malcolm, a world where a million-strong Rangdan army clashed with human defenders still armed with crude rifles and industrial-age weapons. Laser arms remained unknown to them.
The arrival of the Alpha Legion descended upon them like divine intervention. Within ten days, the alien horde was annihilated.
The survivors of Malcolm regarded their deliverers with profound gratitude. Thousands of warriors volunteered to join the Legion, willing to serve those they perceived as gods descended from the heavens.
Omega found himself somewhat amused by their reverence.
However, at this juncture, both Primarchs remained fascinated by the intricacies of governance and social structures.
They gathered knowledge methodically and established Malcolm as a test site for recruitment and economic development. Under their guidance, the planet's infrastructure was meticulously planned, and construction commenced.
A month later, they departed, leaving behind careful observers to monitor their experiment's long-term results.
Alpharius and Omega conceived an ambitious design: they would scatter recruitment and resource-gathering sites across numerous human worlds, methodically, like seeds distributed across fertile ground.
They also began negotiating contracts with Imperial nobles and wealthy merchants, offering priority development rights over conquered worlds.
These contracts worked like magnets, bringing enthusiastic investors; the prospect of claiming an unclaimed planet and developing it within the Imperium's expanding borders promised immense returns.
Within centuries, their investments would elevate them to the ranks of planetary nobility.
The years accumulated, and another decade passed.
...
The 921st year of the 30th Millennium.
Within a Rangdan star system, two forces collided.
On one side were over a thousand Space Marines of varying quality and caliber. On the other hand, four hundred Rangdan void-vessels.
The two armadas clashed with the fury of shattering worlds.
The thousand Human Battleships maneuvered through space with the precision and grace of enormous organisms, executing sophisticated stratagems to devour the xenos fleet methodically.
The tactics were flawless, every engagement calculated to maximize enemy losses while minimizing their own.
Planetside, carrier-based aircraft engaged alien forces at the primary spaceport. The atmosphere itself became a contested realm; gunships, fighter-bombers, and xenos interceptors wheeled through the sky in lethal dance. Beneath the clouds, ground war erupted in full fury.
Aboard the ten-kilometer flagship, Alpharius observed the three-dimensional tactical display with the effortless focus of a transhuman commander.
Data streams flowed across his consciousness like water through ancient aqueducts. Looking at the battle, he nodded with satisfaction.
"Conclude this engagement with haste. Direct all ground forces to eliminate the enemy with maximum efficiency."
"Is there difficulty on another front?" Omega asked, his tone touched with surprise.
Of their warships, over eight hundred were genuine combat vessels. The remaining two hundred represented a patchwork assemblage, damaged vessels restored and refitted, repurposed transport ships rebuilt as makeshift warships. Every measure had been taken to maximize their collective strength.
Across the past decade, they had conquered forty to fifty worlds. Many were technologically primitive, possessed minimal military capacity, or held few resources meriting advanced development.
Yet they had avoided committing themselves to the grinding attrition of the primary front lines, instead systematically compressing the xenos' peripheral territories.
According to Alpharius's assessment, the Emperor was aware of this strategy but forbade questioning it. Indeed, their meticulously crafted reports had earned them formal commendation and material reward.
The truth held weight: the planets the Alpha Legion liberated were primarily those subjugated by the xenos invaders.
From the Imperium's perspective, the rescue of countless human populations represented genuine service. Their contribution, by conventional measurement, was considerable.
Alpharius shook his head with measured calm. "No difficulties. The Nineteenth Primarch has returned to the Imperium. We are summoned to Terra for assembly."
"Other Primarchs will arrive sequentially. It is a rare convergence, a gathering to celebrate the return of our kindred. We cannot afford to absent ourselves from such an occasion."
Omega paused, then inclined his head in agreement. For two decades, he had prosecuted war across the cosmos, never once setting foot upon Terra.
He had adapted to this existence; however, the prospect of returning to the Throneworld stirred something unexpected within him. It was, he realized with faint surprise, disorienting.
Half a day later, in a ruined urban landscape, Omega stood before an alien army numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
Clad in his heavy Power Armor, twin-linked bolter in one gauntleted hand and a crackling Power Sword in the other, he charged into the xenos horde amidst deafening bombardment.
His weapons harvested enemies with the precision of a reaper. Each sweep of his Power Sword severed a dozen alien heads cleanly from their torsos. Around him, the ground became a charnel-house of dismembered xenos flesh.
Like an avatar of war incarnate, Omega unleashed devastation upon the alien lines. Laser fire occasionally struck his form but dissipated harmlessly against his force field.
In mere minutes, he drove a path through hundreds of thousands of enemy troops, penetrating to the core of their command structure.
Within half an hour, thousands lay dead in his wake. The aliens responded with desperation, unleashing enormous war-beasts and concentrated artillery bombardments.
As grotesque, fleshy creatures approached—four, five meters in length, bristling with natural weapons—Omega's blade met them with lethal grace. A single stroke bisected each beast as he passed.
Despite the crushing weight of his armor, his movements remained swift and economical, swiftly slaughtering each monstrosity.
Artillery fire descended like lethal rain.
Omega moved and fought as though possessed of prescient sight, evading each detonation with inhuman precision. As smoke billowed across the scarred landscape, the surrounding hundreds of thousands of aliens stared in shock at the still-living Space Marine, disbelief etched into their features.
This was the culmination of Omega's refined combat prescience, a faculty developed through rigorous study of the Rangdan Aliens' imitative capabilities and underlying knowledge, merged seamlessly with his own observational genius.
He could integrate and process sensory data in mere moments, extrapolate attack trajectories, and respond with instantaneous precision.
His consciousness operated on a level that transcended mere tactical awareness; he could foresee enemy movements before they fully occurred, reading the fractal patterns of muscle and nerve as easily as an ancient scholar might read an illuminated manuscript.
He moved forward with controlled fury.
Among the alien masses, he could see something akin to a vision in their movements, but their reactions remained sluggish and delayed.
Omega seemed to understand each enemy's intentions before they acted upon them, interpreting this primitive intelligence to predict their following movements with devastating accuracy.
This was not the Rangdan Aliens' true telepathic mimicry, but something altogether different, a form of empathic prediction merged with augmented reflexes.
It proved vastly inferior to the xenos' genuine abilities, yet paired with his inherent combat prescience, it made Omega a singularly lethal force.
He cut through the enemy lines, mercilessly, as each alien that stood before him fell to his blade.
[End of Chapter]