Food
Location: Core Medical Sanctum, Macragge's Honour — Gloriana-class Battleship
Time: Approximately twenty hours after the Battle of Iax
---
The afterlife is soft.
That was Eileen's first thought when she regained consciousness.
In Hive City 42, death meant one of three things: being crushed in a compactor, dissolving in industrial runoff, or disappearing into the recycler chutes to become protein paste. The Ministorum priests spoke of the Golden Throne and the God-Emperor's light — but Old Joe One-Eye always said the dead just fed the rats.
This didn't feel like any of that.
She wasn't lying on rusted scrap or damp ferrocrete.
She was sinking into something impossibly soft — like a cloud. Or like the mythical "cotton" she had once heard described by an upper-hive merchant.
Eileen cautiously flexed her fingers.
Fabric.
Smooth.
Silk.
Real silk.
Once, she had found a scrap of it in a noble's refuse heap in the mid-hive. She'd been beaten half-conscious trying to steal it, then traded it for moldy starch bricks.
Now she was wrapped entirely in the stuff.
"I must be dead," she thought miserably, keeping her eyes shut. "Either heaven… or a noble's collection vault. Did they stuff me?"
[Ahem. Stop dramatizing. You are alive. Barely. Open your eyes. You are currently in one of the most expensive medical facilities in the Imperium.]
The voice in her mind returned.
Eileen's eyes snapped open.
Above her arched an immense vaulted dome. Frescoes depicted winged warriors with flaming swords, skull-faced saints, burning worlds, and the double-headed aquila. Gold light filtered from hidden lumin-globes. The air carried incense, antiseptic sterilizers, and faint medicinal herbs.
She tried to sit up.
Pain answered.
Her body felt like it had been dismantled and poorly reassembled.
"Ugh…"
The moment she made a sound, the stillness shattered.
"Patient conscious! Vital signs stabilizing!"
"Psychic output negligible!"
"Praise the Master of Mankind!"
White-robed figures converged. Some bore reductor tools and narthecium arrays — Apothecaries of the Adeptus Astartes. Others wore the black-and-white habits and fleur-de-lys iconography of the Adepta Sororitas Hospitaller Orders.
Servo-skulls drifted above, trailing incense smoke. A small cherub-servitor — vat-grown infant torso grafted with anti-grav wings — hovered closer, censer swinging.
"Aaaaah! Ghost!"
Eileen flailed in panic.
The elderly Hospitaller beside her caught her wrists gently but firmly.
"Peace, child. That is a cherub-servitor — a sacred construct."
"This is the Macragge's Honour, flagship of Ultramar. You are safe."
"Macra… what?" Eileen stared at the towering machines and gilded walls in terror. It felt like being swallowed by a cathedral made of metal.
[Relax. That ship costs more than your entire hive. Congratulations. You're a galactic VVVVIP.]
The voice again.
She wondered if insanity had finally claimed her.
Then—
Heavy footsteps.
Measured.
Thunderous.
Every Apothecary and Hospitaller turned instantly toward the massive adamantium doors. Many knelt.
The doors parted with a hydraulic sigh.
Two giants entered.
Eileen's breath vanished.
The first wore auramite armor that shone like the sun. Guardian spear in hand. Every movement radiated lethal authority.
Shield-Captain Maldovar Colquan of the Adeptus Custodes.
The second was even larger.
Blue armor adorned with the sigil of Ultramar. Laurel wreaths. The stylized "U" of the XIII Legion. No helm. Golden hair cut short. A face sculpted like a statue worn by war and time.
Roboute Guilliman.
Primarch of the Ultramarines.
Lord Commander of the Imperium.
"Are they going to eat me?" flashed absurdly through her mind.
Guilliman's gaze locked onto the medical bed.
The girl who had burned with impossible golden radiance now looked painfully small beneath the silk.
Her brown eyes held only fear.
He felt something twist in his chest.
Hours ago, those same eyes had shone like twin suns and asked him if he was well.
Now they trembled.
"Step back," Guilliman ordered quietly.
The room cleared at once.
He approached slowly — astonishingly controlled for a Primarch in full warplate.
Colquan halted a few paces behind, watchful.
Guilliman did something that would have stunned any voidsman who witnessed it.
He knelt.
Not in submission — but to bring himself to her level.
"Hello, Eileen," he said gently. "You are safe. No one here will harm you."
---
"You… know my name?" she croaked.
"Yes," Guilliman replied. "I carried you from the surface of Iax."
"Iax…?" Her memory fractured — trenches, plague fog, something green descending—
"You lost consciousness," he said, carefully omitting divinity and daemon primarchs. "My name is Roboute. You may call me… Robert, if that is easier."
Colquan made a faint noise behind his helm.
Eileen studied him suspiciously.
"Are you a noble? From the upper hive?"
Guilliman paused.
"I command this vessel," he answered evenly. "And several others."
She processed that.
Then, quietly:
"I don't have parents. Old Joe found me in scrap. I collect salvage. Sometimes from bodies. I didn't steal anything from the trenches, sir. I just needed boots. Joe's foot is rotting."
Her voice trembled.
"Please don't turn me into a servitor."
Guilliman's gauntleted fist tightened slightly on his knee.
In her mind, I watched.
Yes. This is the Imperium you rule.
A child fears becoming a mind-wiped cyborg more than death.
Time to intervene.
[Ding. Beginner Quest Issued.]
[Quest: Fill Your Stomach]
[You have not eaten in three days. Organ failure imminent.]
[Objective: Consume food.]
[Reward: +1% bodily stabilization. +10 Primarch favorability.]
Right on cue—
Her stomach growled loudly.
In the sacred silence of the medical sanctum, it sounded like artillery.
Colquan's helm tilted.
Guilliman seized the opportunity.
"Bring nourishment," he ordered immediately.
---
Servitors wheeled in a gold-framed cart.
Under silver cloches sat simple but refined fare:
Thick oat porridge, enriched and drizzled with honey.
A cup of warm, fortified grox milk.
Sliced fruit from Ultramar's agri-domes.
Nothing extravagant.
But to a hive-scavenger, it may as well have been celestial.
Eileen stared.
"This… is for me?"
"Yes," Guilliman said. "It is suitable for your recovery."
"Do I have to pay?" she whispered. "How much scrap would that cost?"
Something inside Guilliman felt struck by a thunder hammer.
"No payment," he said, voice unusually soft. "You will not pay for food again. Nor boots."
He nudged the spoon closer.
"Eat. That is an order."
At the word "order," she obeyed.
She devoured the porridge.
Sweetness exploded across her tongue. Warmth spread through her hollow body.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"It's… sweet…" she sobbed. "It's so good…"
Guilliman watched in silence.
He had overseen planetary compliance actions. He had faced daemon primarchs.
Yet this — a child eating without fear — struck him deeper.
Behind him, Colquan remained immobile, though his grip on his guardian spear subtly relaxed.
So small, he thought.
And yet my Emperor chose her.
When the bowl was clean — and after she attempted to conceal the spoon in her sleeve before being gently stopped — Guilliman rose.
The air shifted.
Regency returned.
"Eileen."
"Yes, sir!" she squeaked, then burped.
"You are aboard my flagship. We are bound for Macragge. This chamber will be yours for now. You may move within this deck only with escort."
He turned to Colquan.
"Shield-Captain."
"Lord Commander."
"Her protection status is Ultima. No one approaches within ten meters without my authorization. Mortal, Astartes, or Inquisitor."
His eyes hardened.
"Lethal force without hesitation."
Colquan struck his chestplate in salute.
"As you command. The Ten Thousand will be her shield."
Eileen understood none of that.
She only knew the giants were not hurting her.
And the food was good.
Sleep tugged at her again.
[Good. Rest. Recovery first. Galactic destiny later.]
She curled into silk sheets, belly full for the first time in memory.
Within minutes, she slept.
Outside the sanctum, the engines of the Macragge's Honour hummed steadily as it translated through the void toward Ultramar.
Across the Imperium Nihilus and Sanctus alike, unseen forces began to shift.
A fragile girl slept.
And fate adjusted its course.