[First month.]
[You have made it plain to every mortal crew member aboard the Sword-class frigate: you are a Primarch who has no official presence in the Imperial record. An anomaly. Nothing more.]
[It makes no difference. The ship's captain and every naval officer beneath him received you with two hundred percent of the enthusiasm their faith and loyalty could generate. The Sons of Medusa, who regarded you with cold calculation a month ago, have begun treating you in their daily conduct the way Astartes treat the father of their gene-line. Quietly, without announcement, and completely.]
[You run the possibilities. Chaos influence: ruled out after careful consideration. The Hrud entropy field, while aging your body, may have stimulated something else alongside the physical effects. A secondary change you have not fully mapped yet.]
[You file it and return your attention to the problem in front of you. The Sacred World needs to be taken back.]
[You have the Astropaths aboard the frigate begin transmitting psychic requests outward across the sector: a call for Astartes support, broadcast open rather than directed at a specific recipient. Who answers, and when, you cannot know in advance.]
[Second month.]
[You and Captain Slyll are bent over an ancient cartographic record of the Sacred World, working through possible approach vectors, when a hurried-looking Astropath enters the conference cabin.]
[The Astropaths had been waiting for a reply. One has now arrived: brief, carefully decoded, clear. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Deathwatch from the Watch Fortress of this sector will provide support for the operation to purge the Hrud.]
[Your eyes go wide for a moment. A brief smile.]
[Deathwatch. A chamber militant drawn from every chapter, recruiting only veterans who have proven themselves against xenos threats, forged into something that exists for one purpose: the destruction of alien races that threaten humanity. Their arrival shifts the arithmetic of the coming battle considerably.]
[Third month.]
[In the cold void beyond the Sacred World's orbital approach, a pair of Warp portals open and collapse. Two strike cruisers emerge, Geller fields shutting down as they clear the boundary, their hull profiles resolving on the frigate's augur screens.]
[The frigate captain notifies you immediately. Astropaths and vox operators on both sides exchange identification. The two Deathwatch strike cruisers move into near-orbital space and dock alongside the Sword-class frigate.]
[You leave the conference room in Starfire Glory, freshly inspected and adjusted by the Techmarine. The Sons of Medusa fall in around you as you move toward the frigate's lower deck.]
[Half an hour later, you stand on the deck and watch a succession of Thunderhawk transports settle onto the landing plates.]
[You did not announce yourself to the Deathwatch in advance.]
[The two Watch Captains step off the first transport: one in the grey and black of a Space Wolf, one bearing the markings of the Raven Guard. They are experienced enough to show nothing on their faces under ordinary circumstances.]
[The gene-bond is not an ordinary circumstance.]
[Both of them stop moving at the same moment.]
[Then they are running, silver-black armor accelerating across the deck, and they drop to one knee in front of you without slowing down, helmets already off, the roar out of their throats before their knees have finished hitting the deck.]
["Former Space Wolf — former Raven Guard — Primarch! Greetings!"]
["I need to address this habit of kneeling every time someone meets me, when I have the opportunity." You shake your white-haired head slowly. "Rise, both of you. Watch Captains."]
[You give them a brief summary of your identity and the situation. They regain operational composure quickly — this is what Deathwatch does with surprises — and the discussion moves to the mission.]
[The full picture, as provided by the two Watch Captains:]
[Eight Kill Teams. Eighty elite veterans, each one a proven xenos killer drawn from a different chapter. The Watch Fortress that dispatched them knew the nature of the Hrud migration and planned accordingly: alongside the Kill Teams, eight ancient Deathwatch Dreadnoughts are currently undergoing awakening rites aboard the strike cruisers.]
[One Primarch. Eighty-nine Astartes veterans. Eight Dreadnoughts.]
[Against a Hrud nomadic tribe of uncounted numbers that has taken an entire Sacred World.]
[Even for warriors who have fought on a hundred worlds and survived, the numbers are what they are. This will be a brutal engagement with an uncertain end.]
[You watch the Deathwatch veterans filing off the transports.]
[None of them show fear. What they show instead is something colder and more specific: the readiness of warriors who have decided, before any battle begins, that they will spend whatever is required.]
[The faint wrinkles on your bronze face settle into stillness.]
[You draw a slow breath and raise one thick vibranium arm.]
["The purge of the Hrud begins now."]
[Several days later, the two strike cruisers move into position over the largest city on the Sacred World.]
[Lances fire.]
[The beams hit the ground like the anger of something much older than any weapon, relentless and exact, and they do not stop for twelve hours. When they stop, the city's structures are gone. The Sacred World has been scoured.]
[In truth, the orbital bombardment was a compromise. Before the Sons of Medusa and the Watch Captains talked you back from it, your initial order had been simpler: an exterminatus-level strike across the entire surface. No Hrud survivors. The Sacred World reduced to ash, the Hrud migration ended absolutely.]
[Minimizing Astartes casualties was the reason. It still is.]
[The compromise stands. The campaign will be fought from the ground.]
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