Julius will kill the governor, better arm the soldiers, and counter-attack with him and his men.
The elevator ride to the throne room was a journey from the external chaos to the deleterious silence of fear. The doors opened onto the opulent room. Governor Helsmire, seeing Colonel Strom and the unknown warriors in blue armor covered in xeno blood and soot, retreated behind his throne.
"Strom! Traitor! You dare bring these... these things here! Guards! Stop them!"
The few bodyguards present, men in ceremonial armor, raised their weapons hesitantly. They were not frontline soldiers.
Julius took a step forward. The mere clatter of his Umojan armor on the marble floor seemed to deafen the room. He had not relit his lightsaber. He didn't need to. His presence, amplified by his Astartes stature and the aura of Beta-level power surrounding him, was weapon enough.
"Governor Helsmire," his voice boomed, synthesized by his helmet's speaker. "Your world is dying. Your people are being slaughtered. And you hide here, in your palace, ordering your soldiers to die for your comfort."
"I am the legitimate power of Veridian!" screamed Helsmire, hysterical. "The Imperium..."
"The Imperium is not here!" Julius roared, cutting short his whining. "There is only us. And your cowardice is a crime worse than treason."
He raised his hand, not to draw on his psionic power, but on a far more fundamental authority. That of the strongest, the most determined.
"As commander of the forces currently saving what can be saved of your world, I depose you for incompetence and cowardice in the face of the enemy."
Helsmire opened his mouth to protest. He didn't have time.
In a movement too fast for the eye to follow, Julius drew his Gauss Pistol, inherited from his first days. There was no hum of disintegration, but a simple, dry crack. A headshot, clean and efficient. The governor's body collapsed behind his throne, a scarlet stain staining the silk and precious wood.
The silence that followed was absolute. The guards lowered their weapons, appalled.
Julius turned to Strom, ignoring the corpse.
"Colonel, you are now the supreme military authority on Veridian. Here are my orders. First, open all arsenals, all reserves. Distribute all weapons, all ammunition to anyone who can hold a rifle. Second, transmit to all units still able to fight to rally to my forces. We counter-attack. Now."
Strom, pale but his gaze now filled with a new resolve, saluted sharply.
"At your command, Commander."
The hours that followed were a whirlwind of fire and iron. Veridian's arsenals, filled with basic but robust autoguns and bolters, were opened. Surviving civilians, turned into last-minute militiamen, were equipped and integrated into Terran units. The Marines, with their Impalers set to explosives, formed the backbone of the counter-attack, while Veridian's soldiers, led by Strom, cleared pockets of resistance.
And at the heart of the storm was Julius. He no longer commanded from orbit. He was at the front, his lightsaber a blue flash scything down Orks, his free hand projecting bolts of psychic force that pulverized compact groups. The Spartans operated at his side, green and deadly shadows eliminating priority targets.
The counter-attack was brutal, bloody, but inexorable. The Waaagh!, deprived of its momentum and faced with organized, fierce resistance, began to shatter. The fire of Terran artillery and the iron of human determination reclaimed the city, street by street, building by building.
Julius Braveheart had not just saved a world. He had conquered it. And he had done so not by diplomacy, but by the purest demonstration of power: by eliminating weakness and forging a new will in the crucible of war. The governor was dead. The colonel was loyal to him. And Veridian now belonged, by heart and spilled blood, to Julius's nascent empire.