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With the remnants of the Chaos fleet having slipped back into the Immaterium, the Cadian System was secure enough to begin repairing the damage.
Talon warships wasted no time, sweeping the wreckage for surviving Imperial transponders, unexploded ordnance, and enemy vessels whose crews still refused to surrender.
Rescue operations proceeded under armed escort. Salvage teams marked unstable reactors before approaching damaged hulls, while naval officers worked to restore a reliable picture of a system whose listening posts and orbital stations had been systematically destroyed.
Beyond those recovery zones, patrol vessels began making Dimensional jumps into neighboring systems. They contacted surviving Imperial authorities and searched for signs of further attacks. Heavier Talon formations waited nearby, ready to reinforce whichever patrol found trouble.
The Celestial Engine had taken station in orbit around the system's star. Its two weapon-moons held formation around the central sphere while repair crews restored damaged shield projectors and weapons. It remained the strongest defense in the system and the main navigation anchor for Talon's Dimensional jumps.
Supplies followed the warships.
Crates of lasguns, charge packs, replacement components, medicae stores, and field rations moved out of the stockpiles carried by Talon's transports and the Celestial Engine.
At fortress complexes with functioning beacons, cargo appeared inside cleared receiving yards, where Cadian quartermasters checked manifests before releasing it to waiting carriers. More distant positions received guided supply torpedoes, their identification codes circulated to local air-defense commands before descent. Braking systems slowed them above designated landing grounds, and cargo drones recovered the sealed containers once they touched down.
Power-armored Talon formations arrived through the same network, accompanied by their engineers, support vehicles, and maintenance personnel. Officers reported their strength and equipment to Cadian liaison staffs before accepting assignments. Creed had been given operational control of Talon's infantry on this front; now that promise was becoming a usable army.
Cadia had prepared for invasion. What it had lacked was the warning time the enemy's ritual had stolen. With the immediate threat driven off, its defenders could replace expended ammunition, repair damaged installations, and redistribute forces without an enemy fleet overhead, readying themselves for the greater war yet to come.
The work was urgent enough that few soldiers had time to celebrate.
At Kasr Myrak, Talon's regimental commanders gathered with their bodyguards and command staffs, leaving deputies responsible for their formations. Cadian officers directed them toward briefing chambers crowded with signal personnel and logistics clerks. Each commander brought the information Creed needed most: how many soldiers were ready, what equipment they had, and how soon they could move.
Above that bustle, in the Lord Castellan's office, Ursarkar E. Creed prepared to address his people.
"People of Cadia."
His voice passed through surviving municipal vox towers, fortress speakers, and public display screens. In receiving yards, soldiers continued unloading crates while they listened. In shelters, civilians raised their heads toward speakers they had spent the last three days expecting to announce an evacuation or a final prayer.
Since assuming the mantle of Lord Castellan, Creed had begun every broadcast with those same words. He saw no reason to change them now.
"Less than a day has passed since our allies arrived in-system. The enemy fleet has been driven from our skies. Our forces are recovering survivors, restoring the defenses, and bringing supplies to the positions that need them."
He glanced at the casualty returns without touching them.
"We have lost ships, stations, and soldiers whose names will be recorded and honored. Their sacrifice has bought us the opportunity to continue the fight. We will use it."
Beyond the office door, a runner spoke quietly to a waiting adjutant. Creed heard the exchange, noted that no one had interrupted him, and continued.
"Do not mistake this reprieve for the end of the war. The archenemy has withdrawn. He has not abandoned his purpose. Greater trials may lie ahead, and we will meet them as we have met every threat to this world: at our posts, beside our comrades, with our weapons ready."
He drew breath for the closing salute. In the armored window opposite his desk, a narrow blue line appeared among the reflections of the office lights.
"For the Emperor. For... for the Cadian Gate."
Creed finished the words, cut the transmission, and checked that the broadcast indicator had gone dark. Only then did he turn toward the widening seam of light.
A metallic figure emerged beside the desk, nearly five meters tall beneath the office's vaulted ceiling. The dimensional aperture closed behind it. Its silver surface shifted subtly as its outline settled, though its face remained smooth and still.
Creed recognized that face from his earlier communication with Qin Mo. He had also invited the Lord of Talon to Kasr Myrak. Neither fact made the visitor's appearance less startling, but both gave him reason to keep his hand away from the alarm.
He set down the vox-unit.
"When I saw you on the holofeed, I assumed that was a mask." His gaze traveled over the living-metal frame. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing happened to me," Qin Mo replied. "This is one of my forms. My original body remains in the Talon System."
He moved toward the window, keeping his feet slightly above the floor. Creed's jaw tightened for a moment as that considerable mass drifted over his furniture.
"Flesh and blood?"
"Yes."
"And you prefer this?"
"For commanding a fleet from several thousand light-years away? Very much."
Creed considered that answer, then moved a document stand out of the visitor's path.
Below the window stretched the parade ground of Kasr Myrak. The Cadian 8th Regiment, eight thousand soldiers at full strength, was cycling its companies through drills while other elements replenished equipment and prepared for new assignments.
Near one of the supply lines, a Talon technician demonstrated a replacement weapon's controls to a Cadian sergeant. The sergeant made him repeat the procedure, then handed the weapon to a trooper and watched her perform it herself.
Qin Mo followed the exchange for a moment. At least Creed's people were checking what they had been given before relying upon it.
The filtered glass reflected the sky outside, hiding both commanders from the soldiers below.
Qin Mo's gaze shifted upward. The Eye of Terror remained visible beyond the fortress towers, its violet radiance staining the sky even after the contraction of the smaller ritual breach. The Celestial Engine's suppression field had reduced the immediate pressure upon the system.
Creed's window filters adjusted as the light changed. Qin Mo noticed the shutters, the warding strips fixed around the frame, and the darkened viewing panels through which the office staff monitored the sky. Cadia's inhabitants had built procedures around living beneath that glare. Familiarity had taught them caution.
For Qin Mo, looking toward it brought the same involuntary revulsion as ever. He gained no useful psychic impression from the sight. He simply wanted it farther away.
"It's like bathing in a sea of filth," he muttered.
Then he remembered whose window he was standing at.
"The Warp saturation," he clarified. "I mean that. Not Cadia."
"I understand," Creed said calmly. He reached for his belt, produced a cigar, and placed it in his mouth.
Qin Mo raised one finger. A small flame appeared above it, steady despite the ventilation current moving through the room.
Creed paused, then leaned forward until the tip of the cigar caught.
"Appreciated."
Qin Mo extinguished the flame. Creed took a measured drag and looked past him toward the sky.
"Do you think this withdrawal ends their campaign, or gives them time to reorganize it?"
"Didn't you just tell everyone they wouldn't stop?"
A trace of amusement entered Qin Mo's metallic voice.
"I told them what they need to prepare for." Creed removed the cigar from his mouth. "Now I want to know whether the man commanding the fleet agrees with me."
"I do."
"Good. I would rather have that settled before we start deciding which walls need more guns."
Qin Mo returned to the desk and raised his hand. Light spread above the blotter, forming a star map without disturbing the documents beneath it. Cadia occupied the center. Nearby systems appeared around it, joined by known routes and marked with the latest confirmed reports. Farther out, the display expanded into the war zones of Segmentum Obscurus.
The difference in detail was immediately apparent. Around Cadia, ship positions carried recent timestamps. Elsewhere, whole clusters relied on reports received hours or days earlier. Some worlds had sent contradictory messages. Others had stopped transmitting altogether.
Creed leaned over the projection.
Cadia stood at the mouth of the Gate, guarding the dependable passage through which fleets could move into and out of the Eye of Terror. Its survival mattered far beyond the soldiers defending its kasrs. Qin Mo knew better than to treat the crusade as nothing more than Abaddon's determination to destroy a single fortress world.
"If he continues the offensive, I don't expect him to come straight back here," Qin Mo said. "The Celestial Engine is still in-system, and we have a fleet ready to support it. He has just learned what that combination can do."
He widened the map.
"But this protection does not cover the segmentum. There are other worlds he can reach, and other ways to hurt us. Raids. Cult uprisings. Plagues. Daemonic incursions. Some of the fighting shown here never stopped while we were defending Cadia."
Creed studied a cluster of unanswered requests for assistance.
"And if he attacks somewhere we aren't watching?"
"We may learn about it when the planetary authorities report an invasion. Or when they stop reporting anything." Qin Mo indicated the gaps between confirmed observations. "Our ships can reach them quickly. The problem is knowing where to send them."
Creed rubbed one temple with the knuckle of his free hand.
"I've commanded armies whose flanks I could reach in a staff car. This is the first time I've had to consider a front spread across a segmentum." His eyes moved between the timestamps. "Half these reports describe a battle that may already be over. The other half ask for troops I cannot place without taking them from someone else."
"Which is why the Talon Navy isn't trying to put a battle fleet over every world."
Qin Mo reduced the display to the region assigned to Talon's immediate defensive operations. Small blue marks appeared beside selected systems.
"Each of those is a warship."
"One ship per system?" Creed raised an eyebrow. "That's not a defense. That's bait."
"Tripwires," Qin Mo said. "They are there to find the enemy and survive long enough to tell us where he is."
He highlighted a group of larger ships waiting in a nearby system. Lines connected their position to the surrounding patrols.
"The heavy ships stay together. Smaller vessels patrol the systems around them. Each battleship group waits in a Strategic Node close enough to reach several of those worlds with a Dimensional jump."
"One strong force protecting several positions," Creed said.
"As long as it receives warning in time."
Qin Mo placed a red marker beside one of the patrols. The word EXERCISE appeared above it.
"An enemy squadron arrives here. The patrol reports what it sees, then jumps back to the battleship group. It is not expected to fight an invading fleet alone."
The small blue marker withdrew. The heavier formation moved forward to replace it.
"The group jumps in, deals with the attack, and returns to its station."
Creed watched the movement, cigar resting between two fingers.
"So the patrol brings the strength of an entire battlegroup to a world that only had one ship."
"Exactly. Divide our battleships between all these systems, and the enemy can overwhelm them one at a time. Keep them together, and we can meet a raid with far more firepower than its commander expected."
Creed pointed at the position the battleship group had left.
"Unless that raid is meant to draw them away."
"Which is why they do not chase every survivor. Their job is to protect these systems. If they stay away too long, they give the next attacker an opening."
"And if two systems need help at once?"
"The neighboring groups can support each other, and Adam keeps ships in reserve for attacks the local force cannot handle. He decides where we need to gather more strength."
Creed's eyes lingered on the reserve listings. He had seen enough commanders mistake a formation's strength on paper for the force actually available to fight.
Talon had already used the same approach during the plague outbreaks in its own sector. Patrols found the danger; heavier forces arrived to contain it. Here, the distances were greater, but the principle remained the same.
"There will still be worlds you reach too late."
"Yes."
Qin Mo answered without softening it.
"A fast fleet still needs warning. The local garrison has to survive long enough to call for help and hold until help arrives."
Creed looked toward the parade ground, where another company had begun its dispersal drill.
"A mobile reserve," Creed said, with approval. "Efficient. And smart."
He took another pull from the cigar, then returned his attention to the blue markers.
"Provided everyone remembers that the aim is to keep the enemy from completing his task. Killing whatever he leaves behind won't always be enough."
"Agreed."
Creed reached toward the edge of the projection and indicated several transport identifiers.
"Your freighters," he said. "They're fitted with Dimensional Engines too, aren't they?"
"Yes. The ones assigned here can use the same navigation network."
Creed pulled a stack of documents from beneath a brass weight and spread them beside the star map.
"Then I have another use for them."
Qin Mo scanned the pages. Departmento Munitorum reinforcement schedules lay among convoy reports and attached acknowledgments from forces answering Cadia's calls for aid. There were Guard formations, contingents of the Space Wolves, forces of the Adepta Sororitas, and notices concerning Inquisitorial personnel.
Heavy hitters. All were bound for Cadia.
Most had already begun their journeys. Their arrival dates depended upon Warp routes that might delay them for days or much longer.
Qin Mo understood what Creed wanted.
"You want our transports to collect them."
"Those we can contact and meet safely in realspace." Creed tapped one uncertain arrival estimate. "They have agreed to come. I would like them here before the next attack."
"You have Talon's field formations."
"And assignments for them."
Creed turned a deployment sheet toward him. Talon's regiments were already being assigned to damaged defenses, mobile reserves, and missions in the neighboring systems.
"Your regiments let me do work I could not attempt yesterday," Creed said. "They do not make the rest of these reinforcements unnecessary."
Qin Mo looked from the deployment sheet to the transport markers. Collecting more soldiers would mean fewer freighters carrying supplies to those already fighting. Both tasks mattered. He wanted to be certain this was the better use of the ships.
"The decisive fighting is in the void now," he said. "While our ships hold the orbital approaches, a mass landing would be extraordinarily expensive. With a clear firing solution, a lance can destroy even a Titan. We should be able to break most major assaults before they become ground campaigns."
"War is never predictable," Creed replied. "And Chaos never plays by the rules."
Qin Mo remained silent.
"A cult does not need a troopship. A summoning does not need a landing field. An infiltrator may spend years working beside the equipment he intends to destroy." Creed moved his fingers to the neighboring systems. "And those worlds may have fighting underway before your first patrol reaches them. I need soldiers who can search the tunnels beneath a fortress, retake its command rooms, and guard its engineers while they repair the defenses. For some of the things we may find, I will need specialists as well."
"The ships can support all of that."
"They should. But I cannot ask a gunner in orbit to settle every problem beneath a kasr. He might destroy the enemy. He might also destroy the installation we need to keep working."
Qin Mo looked down through the window again. The troops below were checking weapons, moving between positions, and rehearsing the work that would begin after a transport delivered them. None of those tasks appeared in a ship's fire-control solution.
Creed lowered his voice.
"Your doctrine depends upon local forces surviving long enough to report. You said so yourself. Give me enough strength on the ground to make that possible."
"Fair enough. You've got more experience with ground warfare than I do," Qin Mo conceded. He doubted the reinforcements would willingly board Talon freighters.
The Space Wolves would make their own judgment about abandoning familiar vessels for an unfamiliar transport**; they were fierce traditionalists, after all**. The Sororitas might demand assurances about the machinery they would be trusting with their lives, given the rumors surrounding the Talon Sector's unorthodox methods.
Inquisitorial personnel could insist upon inspections, restrictions, or answers the transport crews were ill-equipped to give.
"The transport is possible," Qin Mo said. "Convincing the passengers may be harder."
Creed drew the papers back toward himself.
"Then we give them a reason to trust the arrangement."
He took a clean sheet and began drafting an official writ of guarantee, offering his personal endorsement as Lord Castellan for the Talon transports. The request would come from Cadia, and embarkation would be agreed with each force's commander.
Qin Mo watched him write. Creed's name would not silence every objection, but it would make the purpose of the voyage difficult to misunderstand.
The star map remained above the desk. Patrol reports continued to update around Cadia, filling some of the gaps and exposing others. Creed set the remaining reinforcement papers beside it, ready for the commanders gathering below.
Qin Mo didn't know how this war would evolve, or whether Creed's emphasis on ground reinforcements was truly necessary, but he was sure of one thing:
If Abaddon dared to continue this campaign, he would soon learn just how punishing the Talon Navy's defensive tactics could be.
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