Lingering Poison
A colossal holographic star map hovered at the center of the strategium, its ghostly blue light casting shifting shadows across the armored giants assembled within.
This was the heart of Ultramar—the nerve center of the Five Hundred Worlds.
Roboute Guilliman stood before the projection, clad in the Armor of Fate. The Primarch's presence alone made the air feel heavy, as if the chamber itself bowed to his will.
"Though Mortarion's fleet has withdrawn, and the Great Rift's turbulence has temporarily stabilized," Guilliman said, his deep voice resonating through the chamber as his gauntleted finger traced a sector of the map, "Ultramar is not healed."
Across the star chart, most systems glowed in steady blue. But in the northeastern quadrant, several worlds flickered with a sickly yellow-green corruption.
"The Espandor System. Iax," Guilliman continued. "Nurgle's contagion has taken deep root. The land festers into swamp and rot. The air itself carries spore-clouds thick with plague. Though the greater daemons have been banished, the worlds themselves are dying."
He paused.
"Or worse—transforming."
Seated to the left was Severus Agemman, First Captain of the Ultramarines, encased in his Tactical Dreadnought Armour. His scarred face was stern, his voice iron-hard.
"Primarch," Agemman said, "conventional purification is futile at this scale. We would spend centuries scouring every continent, forever guarding against resurgence."
His power fist clenched.
"Exterminatus. Immediate and absolute. Strip the biosphere. Crack the crust if necessary. The loss will be grievous—but Chaos will be severed at the root."
Silence fell.
Exterminatus—the Imperium's final sanction. Salvation through annihilation.
"That is our home, Agemman."
Uriel Ventris, Captain of the Fourth Company, spoke next. Once exiled for defying the Codex Astartes and later redeemed in glory, his perspective had always been… broader.
"Iax was the garden of Ultramar," Ventris continued. "Its agri-complexes fed entire sectors. If we destroy it, how do we sustain millions? What becomes of morale when we answer corruption with obliteration?"
His gaze shifted briefly toward Guilliman.
"And it would mean admitting we are powerless before Chaos' scars—that we can only amputate."
"If we do not amputate, the infection spreads," Agemman replied evenly. "Unless you possess a miracle."
"Perhaps we do."
Ventris turned toward Chief Librarian Tigurius.
Tigurius' eyes shimmered faintly with restrained psychic light.
"I felt it," the Librarian said softly. "The girl's light is not merely destructive."
"In Iax's orbit, she did not simply purge corruption. She reconstructed. Where Nurgle's blight took root, reality itself was restored."
Cato Sicarius, newly arrived, folded his arms.
"You would send a child to cleanse a plague world?" he demanded. "She has trained barely a month. Warp contamination at that magnitude is no minor trial. Can her body endure it?"
"We do not require her to wage war," Ventris replied. "Only to act as a medium. A living relic. A beacon around which purification can occur."
The debate carried on.
Guilliman listened in silence, eyes closed.
Logic favored Agemman. Exterminatus was clean, decisive, final.
But Guilliman was not merely a general. He was a builder. Ultramar was his life's work—the Five Hundred Worlds forged by his own hand. To consign them to ash felt like betrayal.
And Irene…
If she represented a return—something untouched, something human—would answering corruption with annihilation betray that purpose?
What he had witnessed at Iax had stirred something dangerous within him.
Hope.
The strategium doors slid open with a soft hiss.
A small figure stood there, half a piece of bread in her hand, cream smudged at the corner of her lips.
The giants fell silent.
"Um… you're too loud," Irene said after swallowing. "There's a voice in my head broadcasting. It's making it hard to eat."
She walked forward without hesitation.
The table was far too tall; she rose on tiptoe to peer at the corrupted worlds.
"These moldy planets?" she asked, pointing directly at Iax.
"Irene," Guilliman said gently, crouching slightly. "This is war."
"I know." She pushed his hand aside lightly, her expression suddenly serious. "You want to blow them up because you can't clean them?"
"If we do not," Agemman said calmly, "more will die."
He did not look down on her. He studied her—as one would study an unknown weapon.
"But what if they can be cleaned?"
Irene remembered the quiet servitor in the training chamber. Remembered the words: If it still works, don't throw it away.
"I can try," she said, looking at Guilliman. "Like wiping a table. If it's still dirty afterward… you can blow it up."
"It is dangerous," Guilliman warned softly. "This plague surpasses what you faced before. You could fall ill. Worse."
"I have this." She patted the short sword at her waist—his gift.
"And this." She tapped her eye. "Uncle Sicarius taught me."
She looked at Sicarius with a sly grin.
"And I have the greatest instructor in the galaxy, right? The legendary Captain of the Ultramarines?"
Sicarius straightened immediately, pride igniting in his posture.
"Of course. So long as I, Cato Sicarius, stand, none shall harm you."
Guilliman studied her.
Within that small frame burned refusal—the refusal to abandon even the smallest chance at salvation.
It reminded him of another figure, seated upon a golden throne in unending agony, who had refused to surrender humanity to the dark.
Without hardship, a sapling never grows into a mighty oak.
He rose.
The hesitation was gone.
"Very well."
His voice filled the chamber.
"We shall attempt something unprecedented. A new strategy."
He looked to Agemman and Ventris.
"The Honour Guard. The Fourth Company. We deploy to Iax."
"This is not an extermination. It is reclamation."
His eyes hardened with resolve.
"We will show them that this is humanity's realm—and it will not be surrendered."
"Yes, Lord Regent!" the captains answered in unison, armor ringing like thunder.
Irene quietly took another bite of bread, watching the towering warriors.
[Hehe, ready?]Old Huang's voice echoed in her mind, amused.
[This isn't just wiping tables. We're about to give those rot-loving swamp lords a proper Imperial shock.]