V3 Chapter 99: "Perfect" Terra
The Macragge's Honour sailed on for several more hours, finally coming to rest at the massive fleet anchorage on the Moon's outer edge. As engine output dropped stage by stage, transmissions arrived on the bridge one after another from Lunar Defence Command, the Solar Battle Fleet, and the Custodians, beginning to confirm the final list of personnel bound for Terra.
That list had already been revised six times. Guilliman could bring a limited number of Honour Guard, necessary attendants, and the two Lord Inquisitors, but Duvette and the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna had been singled out separately, marked in red beside a note that they were to remain on the Moon for review.
Duvette looked at those lines and couldn't help but let his mouth curl.
So that pack of High Lords still wasn't giving this up. Honestly, he was genuinely curious what exactly about him had earned him this much dislike; he didn't recall provoking that particular group at all.
And hadn't they awarded him a Star of Terra once, too? He figured they probably regretted that by now.
"Duvette is my personal representative. He travels with me." Guilliman stood before the comm array, calmly rejecting Terra's demand. "The Shadow Wolves of Luna are likewise under my recognition and protection. They will not be detained on the Moon, nor will they undergo any review outside my own oversight."
The official on the other end tried to explain the Palace's security regulations. Guilliman let him finish, then laid out his own bottom line.
His retinue could comply with whatever route and transit procedures the Custodians set, but until his audience with the Emperor was complete, Duvette and his subordinates were not to be separately detained, forcibly disarmed, or interrogated apart from the group. He did agree, however, to let the Shadow Wolves conceal their identities beneath black cloaks.
Terra's side fell silent for a long while. Custodian Tribune Italeo finally stated that the Custodians would monitor the group throughout, and would decide, according to the Palace's own security tiers, how far they'd be permitted to go. He offered no support for the demand to detain Duvette.
The High Lords had no choice but to yield, placing Duvette and the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna on the provisional clearance list, though the Shadow Wolves' weapons were to stay locked.
Once the personnel question was settled, Terra sent over an even thicker document.
The High Lords insisted on holding a formal ceremony, claiming hundreds of millions of Terra's citizens stood in eager anticipation, the relevant rites already approved by the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum, and the Terran Council.
Guilliman paged through the liturgy the Ecclesiarchy had drafted, which referred to him throughout as the Holy Son sent back to the mortal world by the Emperor, Lord of Ultramar, and the Primarch returned after ten thousand years of slumber.
"They've written this very carefully." Duvette said, standing beside him. "A full seventy-four pages, every one of them singing your praises and so on, and not a single word anywhere about whether you actually have the authority to command them. Seems the officials of Terra have quite a gift for how not to write about something."
Guilliman closed the liturgy, his expression far from pleased.
This ceremony would fold his return into the Ecclesiarchy's sacred narrative, and the official broadcasts would cast him as a Primarch content to be welcomed back into the existing order.
If he refused it publicly, the crowds already gathered could well descend into chaos. The High Lords had placed millions of ordinary people in front of the ceremony, which made it that much harder for him to simply overturn the whole thing.
"Tell them I'll attend." Guilliman handed the liturgy to a nearby clerk. "The ceremony will not delay my audience with my father. Every route is to be confirmed by the Custodians."
Duvette glanced at the liturgy and gave the High Lords a private round of applause in his own head.
Guilliman hadn't even met the Emperor yet, and they were already preparing to write him into the daily prayers.
Once the formalities were complete, the group boarded a heavy orbital shuttle arranged by the Custodians.
The Aquila of Honour was covered entirely in gold plating, the Emperor's aquila on her bow taking up nearly the whole prow, her interior spacious enough to hold Guilliman, Duvette, the two Lord Inquisitors, and their escort.
Standing inside the heavy shuttle named the Aquila of Honour, Guilliman and Duvette looked out through the viewport as the Moon slowly receded behind them.
Hundreds upon hundreds of ships lay anchored across the lunar dockyards, great numbers of forge facilities, weapon platforms, centrifugal habitation rings, and docking spurs spread around the pale grey sphere.
Military installations occupied an even wider stretch of space around it. Minefields spanning thousands of kilometres ringed the major transit lanes, every mine cast in the shape of a metal skull, while combat space stations and weapon platforms hung fixed in their designated orbits, macro-cannons and torpedo tubes always aimed outward into the void.
Farther out still, penitent arks and solar shrine-ships moved along fixed routes, the faithful aboard them praying day and night, their low hymns carried over the public channel into the Aquila of Honour.
Duvette listened for a few seconds, then shut off the receiver. The droning noise was giving him a headache.
A moment later, as a shadow at the midpoint of the local lunar route swam into view, every massive ship and station nearby suddenly looked small by comparison.
A mobile fortress, nearly the size of an asteroid, sat stationed in the void, maintenance platforms and servitor rigs clinging to its outer hull, banks of lights illuminating the vast emblem belonging to the Imperial Fists.
"The Phalanx." Duvette narrowed his eyes.
This mobile fortress didn't ordinarily sit at the midpoint of the lunar route; it was currently undergoing routine maintenance, and the Imperial Fists, on learning of Guilliman's approach, had shifted its position at Terra's defence authorities' request.
At that moment, the Phalanx sent a formal transmission: the Imperial Fists, in the name of Rogal Dorn's sons, extended their greeting to the Thirteenth Legion's master, and the ship's hull lit up in gold in response.
Seemed like Dorn's sons were the only ones genuinely here to welcome their uncle, Duvette muttered to himself.
As the shuttle pressed on, Terra swelled rapidly into view. That world's natural resources had long since been exhausted, and even the places once occupied by ancient oceans now lay buried beneath cities and industry; looking down from orbit, one could scarcely find a patch of bare earth anywhere in sight.
Dense lights pierced through the polluted cloud layer, massive buildings and statues reaching up into the sky, spaceport spires linking to orbital installations, great numbers of transport ships entering and leaving the atmosphere along designated levels.
The Aquila of Honour was granted the highest transit priority, the route ahead already cleared. Dozens of scans swept across her hull, and the shuttle passed through a dedicated corridor into the Palace's void shield zone, pale blue arcs of energy flickering briefly across her armour.
The shuttle began its descent, thick chemical haze obscuring part of the view. Buildings in lead-grey, dark gold, and brass emerged beneath the cloud layer, spreading outward in every direction, so densely packed that Duvette found it momentarily impossible to tell where one building ended and an entire district began.
Guilliman stood at the viewport the whole time, his brow drawing tighter by the moment.
"This is Terra?" he finally asked.
No one answered right away. Nearly ten thousand years before, humanity's homeworld had risen out of the ruins of the Age of Strife; the resources and knowledge the Great Crusade brought had given it purpose once more.
But now, billions of its people still spent their whole lives labouring between factories, archives, and temples. They kept the vast administrative machine running, yet had long since lost any real understanding of it, all their effort poured into endless ritual and tasks that could never truly be finished.
Gothic spires now covered the city Guilliman remembered, industrial installations crowded against one another through later expansion, massive religious heraldry fixed across building faces. What remained of the Great Crusade era lay buried beneath layer after layer of newer construction, only a handful of outlines left to remind him of the Terra that had once been.
Duvette had been about to say this was probably the most expensive, most populous, and most chaotic hive city in the entire galaxy.
But the words died in his throat when he saw Guilliman's tightly drawn face reflected in the viewport, and he swallowed the remark back down.
Duvette had only ever known the Throne World through records. Guilliman had watched it rise with his own eyes once before, and was now watching that same hope worn down beneath ten thousand years of crushing weight.
The Aquila of Honour continued its descent along the dedicated corridor, towering buildings gradually closing in on every side.
Servo-skulls, cherubs, and Adeptus Arbites patrol craft moved through the layered traffic lanes in the distance, while Administratum transport ships and Ecclesiarchy bell-barges were held outside the security perimeter, several Custodian gunships holding position on either side of the shuttle throughout.
The closer they came to the airspace over the Imperial Palace, sprawling across an entire continent, the thinner the traffic grew.
Towers crowned with carved gargoyles blotted out the sky, arcs of energy from the defence systems flashing now and then between the outer walls, and the Aquila of Honour adjusted her attitude through a chain of guidance signals as she descended slowly toward the Eternity Wall spaceport.
The spaceport stood already prepared. Its ancient marble landing pad had been completely cleared, statues of armoured warriors ringing its edges, incense braziers set along the approach route, purification systems steadily filtering the polluted air.
The shuttle hadn't even touched down yet when Duvette spotted hundreds of imaging devices already in position.
Servo-skulls hovered at the optimal angles, and even the timing of the choir raising their voices was being directed by an Ecclesiarchy master of ceremonies with hand signals.
Once the shuttle landed, dignitaries of the Administratum, powerful figures of the Council, Ecclesiarchy priests, and representatives of the nobility were already waiting beyond the security line.
Scribe-servitors, fixed within iron sarcophagi, worked their quills, recording every detail of Guilliman's arrival on Terra.
The instant Guilliman stepped through the hatch, everyone bowed at once.
Countless hands formed the aquila salute over their chests, oaths of loyalty drowning out the choir's hymn, and the recording servo-skulls adjusted their angles at once, framing the Primarch and the kneeling crowd together in the same shot.
Guilliman offered a composed smile, as protocol demanded, raising a hand in acknowledgment to those who'd gathered to greet him.
Duvette walked just behind and to his side, and could tell at a glance how carefully the officials' positions had been arranged. The Ecclesiarchy priests occupied the most prominent spot, while the Administratum's representative stood on the other side, placed to enter the frame alongside Guilliman at the same moment.
Several other gazes stayed fixed on Duvette the whole time, taking in the Blade of Glory and Entropy's Song at his waist, his rank, and the distance between him and Guilliman, clearly having already placed him on their list of problems requiring priority handling.
Duvette gave one of the Administratum officials a smile; the man looked away at once, pretending to be listening closely to the Ecclesiarchy priest's prayer.
Tch. Duvette pulled a face and let the smile drop.
Guided by the Custodians, Guilliman's party crossed the landing pad and boarded a large lift platform down into the spaceport's lower levels.
Juno and Heinz followed behind Duvette, the Ultramarines Honour Guard and the thirteen black-cloaked, identity-concealed Shadow Wolves of Luna forming up on either side.
Beneath the lift platform lay the Administratum's reception hall. Carefully screened workers, clerks, veterans, and pilgrims were held back along the sides of the route, permitted only to gaze up from a distance at the returned Primarch.
When Guilliman appeared, the cheering rose again. The crowds lining the route dropped to their knees weeping, chanting the Emperor's name over and over, and one elderly worker lifted his child up, hoping the boy might catch a clear glimpse of the legendary son of the Emperor.
Duvette had assumed all he'd see here was political theatre. But these weeping, ordinary people hadn't been rehearsed for this.
They genuinely believed Guilliman could change Terra, and genuinely believed their descendants might yet know a different fate.
That last hope, born out of endless darkness and despair, made Duvette's smile fade. Perhaps this, more than anything else in the whole arrangement, was the truest chain binding him of all.
The procession crossed the hall and boarded a ceremonial grav-vehicle, moving along the dedicated road between the spaceport and the outer palace.
More crowds gathered beyond the barrier shields, official broadcasts carrying Guilliman's image out across public screens to distant districts of the city.
After passing beneath a towering archway, a vast open plaza came into view ahead.
The road on either side was packed with people, painted glass walls rising on every side into the clouds, each one depicting the image of a loyal Primarch.
Guilliman saw Sanguinius first, the Archangel in the mural standing atop a heap of mutant corpses, wings spread wide, a golden halo circling his head.
Not far off, Jaghatai Khan rode a comet shaped like a human skull, the long blade in his hand pointed toward the depths of the stars.
On another glass wall, Vulkan gripped a war hammer of exaggerated size, the anvil beneath his feet rendered as an entire world.
Duvette looked up at these images, and it struck him that the Ecclesiarchy's artists' understanding of the Primarchs had probably come from myth, scattered records, and a fairly generous helping of personal invention.
At last, Guilliman saw himself.
In the mural, the Ultramarines' master stood wrapped in a halo of light, one hand holding the Codex Astartes, the other gripping the severed head of a horned daemon.
Many winged angels surrounded him, heads raised to receive his teaching, and beneath the image was carved a passage of scripture praising the holy Primarch.
"Is this me?" Guilliman asked, looking at the mural.
Duvette followed his gaze, and the comment already on the tip of his tongue got pushed back down once more.
The mural really was absurd, but there wasn't the faintest hint on Guilliman's face that he found it funny.
Nearly ten thousand years had turned a gene-Primarch into a legendary demigod.
The military doctrine he'd written with his own hand had become a sacred relic for the faithful to worship; past wars had been reworked into religious parable; and later generations had added a divine halo to his image that he had never actually possessed.
Guilliman had always known his strength went far beyond any mortal's, and knew his father had long since surpassed the limits of ordinary humanity as well.
But he had never once thought of himself as a god. In his memory, the Emperor had never once asked his sons to think of themselves that way either.
Now, though, the entire Imperium of Man ran on the strength of these idols and these prayers.
Guilliman stood in silence, staring at his own image on the glass wall, and even as the distant cheering rose again, he still didn't look away.
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