As the battle finally drew to a close, the Titan-class ships deployed swarms of heavy drones, a number so vast they could be seen with the naked eye even against the backdrop of the cosmos.
These dense clouds of drones surged toward the wreckage of Sortiarius, which had been shattered into countless fragments. Amidst the chaotic sea of planetary debris, a staggering number of mechanical constructs began their work. When the Titan fleet had vaporized the planet, they had calculated the trajectory with surgical precision. The massive chunk of the Void Sword that had been cast onto the surface had held firm against the shockwave of the planetary detonation, effectively preserved as it was hurled into the void.
Simultaneously, Calgar received a supplementary communication.
Attached to that fragment of the hull, alongside the mechanical constructs, were seven remarkably fortunate Ultramarines. Among them was the gravely wounded Malum Caedo, though he now lived, and six battle-brothers from the second and third scouting companies.
When Perturabo had heeded Magnus's advice to gather his brood, the Helbrutes had only just been completed. Due to the emergency, every Iron Warrior had been teleported away by Magnus. When the Iron Men's machine-legions had finished purging the cultists and mortals, they conducted a sweep of a fortress and discovered dozens of Dreadnought sarcophagi, prepped and ready for internment. Sensing faint biological readings within, the machines breached the casings.
Due to the desperate, slapdash nature of the Iron Warriors' techniques, the flesh within those sarcophagi had been reduced to less than a third of a complete form; almost everything else had been replaced by mechanical interface. Identifying the remains by their ravaged features was impossible, but the Iron Men had their own methods.
Their remaining scraps of biology were scanned, and their genetic profiles analyzed instantly. Aside from seven individuals who possessed clear genetic signatures derived from Guilliman, the remains in the other sarcophagi were all progeny of Perturabo.
To ensure the survival of these seven lucky souls, several SMA (Sapient Machine Automata) synthesized a trace amount of Panacea on the hull fragment, administering a single injection to each of the seven Astartes, whose bodies had been reduced to little more than torsos and skulls. The potency of the Panacea was such that it not only reconstructed their bodies but further optimized them.
However, unlike the Salamanders, whose physical appearance gradually shifts toward that of their Primarch, these Ultramarines retained their original countenances, with the exception of Caedo, the veteran.
When they had been shoved into the sarcophagi, their gene-seed had been harvested by the Iron Warriors' apothecaries. Yet, Caedo's genome had already become so highly integrated with the Guilliman-derived geneseed that even without the seed itself, the fusion was a permanent part of his biology. Perhaps it was this high compatibility that had granted him such terrifying combat prowess.
As the seven lucky survivors regained consciousness, they were genuinely terrified. It was not just the unfamiliar, towering machines that unsettled them, but the overwhelming sensation surging through their bodies. Before their internment, they had been comatose, each one on the brink of death. The scouts had been the most severely wounded, while Calgar had been the lightest of them all. The scouts, being Primaris, had relied on their Belisarian Furnaces to endure wounds that would have killed a lesser man. As for Caedo, because he had not crossed the Rubicon Primaris, he had been forced into a state of suspended animation by an artificial meningeal clamp.
The outcome, however, was the same for all of them. The Iron Warriors had stripped away most of their limbs and placed them in sarcophagi, intending to wire them into Helbrutes later. It was only the extraordinary potency of the Panacea that had granted them a second life.
A Thunderhawk gunship detached from Macragge's Honour, following the Iron Men's drones into the meteor field created by the destruction of Sortiarius. It navigated through a dense thicket of rock to reach the massive hull fragment.
Inside a pressurized chamber, seven individuals, each possessing a physique to rival a fully armored Primaris Astartes, sat completely naked, awaiting the arrival of their brethren. As the airlock cycled open, several figures stepped inside. At their head was Chapter Master Calgar, followed by his Victrix Guard.
"Report. Veteran, explain the situation immediately."
Calgar's eyes darted across his battle-brothers, who seemed to have grown in stature, before he locked his gaze on Caedo, his face a mask of bewilderment.
Caedo stood up immediately, meeting his Chapter Master head-on. "The metal-men said our bodies were undergoing rapid regrowth and that clothing was unnecessary for the time being. As for our power armor, I am certain I was wearing it before I lost consciousness."
Calgar stared at the man's face, momentarily unable to find the words. Even the Victrix Guard behind him were stunned. Caedo, the veteran, clearly understood why this had happened, because the other six brothers had almost knelt before him the moment they woke up.
"Chapter Master Calgar, we do not know what occurred. I certainly do not know why I have... well, why my features have become so similar to Lord Guilliman's."
"Perhaps it is the Primarch's blessing? Or perhaps those Chaos curs did something incomprehensible to us?"
But Calgar was a Chapter Master, and he had access to information far beyond the reach of others. After the initial shock faded, he carefully stepped forward and patted the veteran's shoulder.
"You have been injected with Panacea. The sons of Lord Vulkan have experienced similar phenomena; when cousins are treated with Panacea, their appearance often drifts toward that of their genetic father."
"Still... you resemble him far too closely."
Since Guilliman's resurrection, the new recruits of the Ultramarines had lost a vital step in their formation. Once, those who passed the trials to become Astartes would travel to Macragge to the Temple of Correction, receiving the chapter's education while kneeling before the throne and receiving the honor of beholding their Primarch.
Now, those new recruits had lost that tradition forever. Since his awakening, Guilliman had been perpetually occupied across the Imperium, with Terra, the heart of his administration, becoming the place he had spent the most time over the last two centuries. The Ultramarines could never justify sending new recruits to Terra just to glimpse their Gene-father. Given the number of recruits inducted annually, if they truly attempted such a thing, the Inquisition would surely conclude that Guilliman was preparing for rebellion, though, in truth, the Inquisition had always harbored such suspicions.
Seeing these battle-brothers alive brought a measure of solace to Calgar. After all, it was he who had ordered them to land on Sortiarius. Even though he had been unaware of the presence of two Traitor Primarchs on the planet at the time, the guilt weighed heavily upon him. Having personally stood before his own Primarch, Calgar knew better than anyone that an ordinary Astartes was as fragile before a Primarch as a mortal man was before an Astartes.
It had been, for all intents and purposes, a suicide order.
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