---o---
In an opulent cabin that somehow managed to feel simultaneously lavish and deeply religious, Sokk Oliveira was addressing the assembled family council.
The wine had been opened. Its rich fragrance saturated the entire room. Every person present wore an expression of barely restrained intoxication. Warhammer's universe was one of profound and chronic deprivation in the areas of pleasure and leisure. A wine of this quality was sufficient to make people genuinely irrational, and what they cared about even more than the wine itself was everything it represented.
"It is evident that the young merchant was fortunate enough to encounter a unique Garden World. A homeworld that the Oliveira family has never before been able to call its own."
The patriarch, Danac Oliveira, breathed in the fragrance of the wine with the expression of a man contemplating a place he had never seen and already considered sacred.
"A world this magnificent should be providing its finest goods to the Imperium in greater quantity. Not to do so would constitute an offense against the Golden Throne itself. That world has clearly fallen under the control of a heretic. The Oliveira family has every reason to restore it to the God-Emperor's embrace."
A quiet, genuine smile appeared on Danac's aged face. By the grace of the God-Emperor, in their family's most difficult hour, a world of treasure beyond any reasonable expectation had simply appeared before them. This would be the beginning of their family's return to greatness. The wine alone, shipped to Holy Terra, would generate returns that defied ordinary accounting. And Sokk, who had found this prize, would inherit Danac's position as the new patriarch.
He was over three hundred years old. The time he had remaining, he intended to spend in quiet retirement on that homeworld he had not yet visited.
Sokk would lead the family back to its former heights.
"Yes. The family's entire fleet is deployed. Three hundred thousand private soldiers are standing by, every one of them former Astra Militarum veterans. Our target has a single merchant ship. This will be an honorable victory."
Sokk addressed his elder with appropriate deference. He knew the position he was about to inherit. The only requirement was to execute this operation without error.
Could this fail?
Obviously not.
What could a single small vessel do against three hundred thousand combat-ready soldiers? That kind of force was sufficient to shatter a planetary governor's entire military capacity and reduce everything he owned to rubble.
But then.
"This is not enough. You want more."
Sokk felt something reverberate through his mind. Images began to appear. He saw himself leading the family to victory after victory. Endless fruit and wine flowing back to him. Safe passage to Holy Terra with the entire supply. Enormous wealth. Vast fleets purchased with that wealth. More worlds under family control. Honor without limit, surging upward from somewhere inside him.
"Indeed, this is not enough. I want far more. Then let us begin with all of you."
He looked toward the distant, tiny vessel ahead of him. This was not the right moment. They were still too close to the Quintus Hive. Nobody cared about two merchants settling accounts in open space, but arranging a firefight directly above one of the Imperium's major population centers was a different situation entirely. There were things that remained weightless until put on a scale, at which point they became immovable.
They were all still Imperial subjects. The appearance of unity under the Emperor had to be maintained for the benefit of the population below.
The heat in his chest was intense, but Sokk had not lost his reason. Honor was beckoning. He needed a composed mind to take what honor was offering.
"He wants to put distance between himself and the Quintus Hive before entering the Warp. He is dreaming."
And then something had gone very conveniently right.
Their fleet had barely cleared the Quintus system when the Warp storm erupted. Now neither of them could enter the Warp even if they wanted to. The young man had nowhere to go.
He had certainly been wearing a frightened expression by now, Sokk thought. The way he had responded when things felt wrong, turning and moving immediately, was the behavior of someone young enough to be clever but not yet old enough to be wise. Clever, but only as far as cleverness went. He had seen the situation developing and tried to leave before Sokk could respond. He had failed to understand that from the very beginning there had been no intention of letting him escape.
Now he was trapped. If he tried to reverse course he would drive himself directly into the center of Sokk's waiting fire.
---o---
Elsewhere, aboard the Inquisitor's Black Ship.
A gathering of Space Marines in varied livery occupied the same compartment. Chris was a senior Inquisitor by any measure, and the matter at hand involved both Chaos and Genestealers. Every Chapter temporarily unable to depart had reasons to contribute.
The atmosphere, however, had become complicated almost immediately.
Mario and Gabriel Seth had taken one look at each other and produced an expression of mutual and instant dislike. Two groups of Sanguinius's descendants, and the history between them was extensive and difficult.
Worth noting: the Lamenters, because they considered themselves still under the terms of their Penitent Crusade, felt unworthy of any honors or recognition. They had accordingly asked the Space Wolves cubs not to mention their presence to anyone. The cubs, baffled but compliant, had agreed. Which was why the footage showed no Lamenters at all.
"You are not sons of Sanguinius."
The Flesh Tearers looked at the Lamenters' towering frames and brand-new equipment with an expression that contained hostility.
And also, beneath the hostility, envy.
By the God-Emperor's grace. Their Power Armor was pristine. Their Boltguns were reflecting light. Not a mark on any of it. This group of little yellow ones was the finest-looking formation present.
They were far too well funded. No son of Sanguinius had any business being this well supplied. Look at Baal. The poverty of that world was widely known. And these people had no Death Company. Not a single case of the Black Rage among them.
"You..."
Mario opened his mouth and found he had nothing to say.
He could not explain this in a way that would make sense. The Red Thirst was one of the sacred burdens of the Blood Angels lineage, rarely spoken of openly. The Black Rage was less secret. The truth was simply that among the Lamenters, no warrior tended to survive long enough to reach the point of manifesting the Black Rage. As for the Red Thirst, they had always interpreted it as Sanguinius testing them. The impulses had arisen, and they had been suppressed, and they had moved on.
And as for the final accusation, Mario genuinely could not defend himself at all.
That lord had supplemented their numbers. He had equipped them with the finest gear available. He had, apparently out of concern that they might be bullied, placed a ten-thousand-year-old Dreadnought Ancient directly into their formation.
The last person who had treated them with this kind of consideration had been Huron. But Huron had only ever been a sub-chapter commander within the Ultramarines lineage. This being was a Primarch. The actual article. If it had not been entirely certain that Zhou Ye was not Sanguinius himself, they would have prostrated themselves long ago.
The reality of being Lamenters was, in truth, quite grim. They were nominally Sanguinius's sons, but the parent Chapter had never fully acknowledged them. A Chapter without a parent Chapter's protection was a Chapter without anyone to stand up for it. Good equipment never came their way. The dangerous assignments always did. When there were grievances, there was no senior authority to speak on their behalf.
And the Blood Angels were genuinely poor, compared to the Imperial Fists who could recruit directly from Holy Terra while Baal was a wasteland by any standard. So encountering someone who actually looked after them with genuine care made the Lamenters extraordinarily loyal. They would die before revealing anything.
Mario pressed his lips together and said nothing in response. He had grown accustomed to absorbing this kind of treatment. The situation did not rise to the level of summoning the Ancient.
"This Chapter is unusual..."
Chris was already giving the Lamenters a sideways look. Metaurus beside him was staring at them as though they were a supernatural apparition.
When had the Lamenters gotten this wealthy? But given their catastrophic history, neither of them pressed the point. A Chapter that could earn the voluntary logistical support of an obsessive Inquisitor of any variety was not a Chapter doing anything wrong. And there were more important things to address.
"Enough of this. The Warp disturbance you have all observed is most likely a coordinated Chaos scheme of some kind."
The interruption ended the argument between the Flesh Tearers and the Lamenters. The Flesh Tearers made one or two more remarks and then fell silent as well.
They were not fools. They were perfectly aware that they attracted considerably more hostile attention in the current company than the Lamenters did. They sat at the edge of being designated Renegade. Their own Librarians had already foreseen it. The Flesh Tearers were walking toward annihilation, and the Black Rage and Red Thirst were manifesting far too frequently to conceal. The decision had already been made internally: they would end their Chapter in a battle worthy of record. Mephiston's divination had sent them this direction for a reason. They did not fear destruction. They wanted to die fighting Chaos daemons or formidable xenos, not be dissolved in the Imperium's internal politics, which would be an ignoble end and would produce no honor whatsoever.
So they chose silence. They looked around at the Black Templars, the Dark Angels, and the Victrix Guard representatives, and noted that most of the hostile attention in the room was currently aimed at them rather than the Lamenters. They were content to let that stand.
Chris now had enough people for a serious operation below. He proceeded.
"This is the report we have received. The Quintus Hive has been compromised by Chaos activity. Several days ago, a desecration ritual was very nearly completed here."
He had discussed the footage situation with Metaurus and decided not to show it.
The reason was the specific composition of who had arrived. If it had been Imperial Fists rather than Black Templars, showing the footage would have been fine. If it had been Azrael representing the Dark Angels rather than Asmodai, that would also have been manageable.
But these were two of the most dangerously single-minded individuals in the entire Imperium, and neither Chris nor Metaurus wanted to accidentally brush against whatever sensitive secrets the Dark Angels were concealing. Nobody knew what hidden trigger might produce an incident. Asmodai in particular had only narrowly avoided being given a bolt shell on several prior occasions, and that had been primarily because Azrael had the political skill to keep things from escalating and because the parent Chapter's authority provided certain institutional protections.
Keep it professional. Present the facts. Do not show the footage.
The response to the briefing was predictable from the Dark Angels side.
"Desecration. This is desecration. They must confess. Everyone who looked upon that ceremony must kneel before the Emperor's statue and confess their sins."
Asmodai struck the weapon in his hand against the table after reviewing the materials Chris provided.
His Librarian Ezekiel had issued a warning that a Fallen Angel might be present in the region. That was why he had departed at speed with his forces. He had not yet reached his destination when the Warp storm had ejected him at the nearest Mandeville Point, directly into this situation.
The Black Templars' situation was comparably straightforward. They had been conducting one of their perpetual crusades. Chaos and xenos were present. There was nothing further to discuss. Strike, and move on. They were single-minded in their own way, but they carried no sensitive secrets that could detonate unexpectedly.
A plan was assembled quickly.
The Slaaneshi cultists had been substantially eliminated already. What remained were the other three Chaos presences and the Genestealer Cult in the depths of the underhive. The assembled Chapters would conduct precision strikes throughout the Hive. Chris would accompany his Storm Troopers, one of the finest conventional military forces the Imperium fielded, in a comprehensive purge of the upper hive. Even without confirmed Chaos corruption, allowing a sacrificial ritual to reach this point represented enormous negligence on the part of every official within the administrative structure. There would be accountability.
The operation needed to begin quickly.
---o---
Aboard the Hyperion.
"They have probably reached the point where they cannot hold themselves back any longer. Something about this feels off to them. No matter. Irrelevant. Let us finish this quickly."
Zhou Ye watched the fleet behind him and said it with a pleasant smile.
To avoid attracting attention, he had modified the Hyperion's external appearance to resemble an ordinary Imperial merchant vessel. The exterior only. The interior was something else entirely.
"Quite a few of them. I may need to commit more resources than planned."
He assessed the following fleet and confirmed that his thirty-nine Terminator strike squads were at full readiness.
He also quietly activated a large-scale special barrier. The region would be communications-blackout once the engagement began. No effective information would leave the area. Everything could be resolved without leaving a visible trace.
No elaborate schemes required. Pure, direct application of force.
In his experience, the more elegant a plan was, the more opportunities it created for unexpected complications. Simple and overwhelming was consistently the most reliable approach.
---o---
Author's Note: 4K update done. One update for today. This month has been a sustained sprint so let me recover a little.